The Africans believed that the soul followed the body until it was buried. And even once buried, the soul lingered around the places where the dead person had lived. The bells were meant to frighten and disorient the soul so it would not return to the village. Kilian listened to José’s explanations while the royal palms of the entrance to Sampaka covered them in dappled light. He let his imagination fly to the summits of Pasolobino, wondering what the burial would have been like in the village. When someone died, the body stayed for a time in the house for the wake when the rosary was said. The murmur of the prayers and litanies in Latin served to soothe the pain of those present. While the prayers were repeated, nobody cried or lamented; in repeating the same thing over and over, their breathing became regular.
In times past, the men prepared the coffin, the grave in the cemetery, the chairs in the church, and the house to receive visitors, and the women cooked large pots of beans for the relations and neighbors of other villages who came to pay their respects. Sometimes they cried or asked if the meal needed more salt. For the children, a funeral was like a party where they got to meet distant relations, only unlike in other parties, some people cried. The following day, the strongest males in the family carried out the simple wooden coffin on their shoulders through the main door of the house, onto the street, where mourners could follow it to mass. Afterward, the priest led the procession to the cemetery. All journeys made with the body were accompanied by the slow and steady toll of the church bell.
Kilian had never asked why the bell tolled like that at funerals.
Perhaps, like the Bubis’ bells, it served to disorient the soul.
Pasolobino was very far away.
Would his father’s soul be able to find its way back home?
At the cemetery, they had chosen a corner under the shade of two enormous ceibas for Antón’s remains to rest. Several men, hired by Garuz, placed a simple stone cross that the brothers had engraved with their father’s name, that of his house, and the places and dates of his birth and death. It seemed very strange to Kilian to memorialize Pasolobino in Africa.
All the plantation’s employees, including the manager and Manuel, along with Generosa, Emilio, Julia, and acquaintances from Santa Isabel, attended the burial. Of all of them, Santiago was most affected by the loss. He had come to the island at the same time as Antón, decades ago. From time to time, Marcial patted him on his shoulder, but that only made him shed more tears down his gaunt face.
When the coffin descended into the earth, the feet in the direction of the sea and the head toward the mountain, as directed by José, Jacobo gratefully clung to Julia’s hand. He felt her free hand stroking his arm. When the earth had covered the hole and Manuel came over to tell his fiancée that everyone else was leaving, Jacobo resisted letting go of that soft hand. Finally, Julia went on tiptoes, gave him a kiss on the cheek, stroked his face with slight loving touches, looked at him with eyes overcome with grief, and left.
Kilian and Jacobo remained there as José went to collect some objects that he had hidden before the burial. With a spade, he dug a hole at the head of the grave and planted a small sacred tree. He then surrounded the mound with some stones and stakes.
“This will banish the souls of other dead people,” he explained.
Jacobo withdrew a few paces but did not say anything.
Kilian’s eyes remained on the words engraved on the stone cross.
Who will visit your grave when we are no longer here?
He knew that it would be difficult even for José to tend the grave. Yeremías had explained to him that once the dead were buried, Bubis were afraid of visiting cemeteries. They believed that doing so could cause many deaths in the village. If it were in Pasolobino, his mother would initially go every day to keep Antón company in his eternal rest, and later, every week. There would always be someone talking at his feet.
Why did you come back from Spain? he thought.
He would have to relive the last days when writing the letter to his mother. She would want to know all the details: his last words, the moment of extreme unction, the priest’s sermon praising her husband and remembering the most important moments in his life, and the number of mourners and condolences received. Kilian would have to put it in writing and pretend that he was well and that she did not have to worry. Life went on, and he had a lot of work, and they wouldn’t be short of money.
“What are you thinking about?” José asked.
“I wonder,” Kilian answered, gesturing to Antón’s grave, “where he is now.”
José came closer. “He is with our ancestors. I’m sure he is happy with them.”
Kilian nodded and said a simple prayer wishing his father a good journey, wherever he might be.
Jacobo walked to the gate of the cemetery so that they would not see him cry.
Antón died at the end of June 1955, the same day the celebrations began in his valley, honoring the patron saints of summer. In July, the fields began to be cut in Pasolobino; in August, the cocoa harvest in Fernando Po, which continued until January of the following year. They were the hard months of work in the dryers.
Kilian worked day and night. His whole life revolved around work. And when he rested, all he did was smoke and drink more than he should. He became withdrawn, taciturn, and short-tempered. Jacobo and José began to worry. Nobody could withstand such physical toil. At first, they thought that it was the result of Antón’s death, but he did not improve as the weeks passed.
He was continuously restless, imagining problems in the dryers. He shouted at the workers, something he had never done before, and he worried about everything.
“Kilian!” his brother pleaded. “You have to rest!”
“I’ll rest when I die!” Kilian answered from the roof of one of the barracks. “Somebody has to do it!”
José frowned. Sooner or later, he would collapse.
A little after Christmas, Kilian fell ill. It started with a temperature slightly above normal that in a week went up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. It was only then he agreed to go to the hospital.
For days he was delirious. And in his delirium, the same scene repeated itself over and over again: He and his father were in a house, and it was pouring outside. One could hear the gulley in danger of overflowing and flooding everything in its path. This gulley had burst its banks before and dragged away the strongest houses. They had to leave, or they would die. Kilian insisted, but his father refused; he told him he was very tired and to go on without him. Outside, the wind and rain roared. Kilian shouted in desperation at his father, but he kept sleeping in his rocking chair. Kilian cried and shouted as he said good-bye and escaped.
A hand squeezed his to comfort him. He opened his eyes, blinking away his nightmares, and frowned at the fan moving above his head. A pair of big light-colored eyes looked down.