When she felt that Kilian was fully awake, José’s daughter gently brushed aside the copper locks from his sweating forehead. “If you haven’t honored your dead properly, the spirits will torment you. You don’t have to offer goat and chicken sacrifices. Honor them well, in your own way, and Antón’s spirit will leave you in peace. Let it go. After all, God made everything, even the spirits. Let him go. That will be enough.”
Kilian pressed his lips together tightly, and his chin began to tremble. He felt tired and weak, but he appreciated the kind words. He wondered how many hours or days she had been a silent witness to his suffering. She continued to stroke him. He did not want her to stop. Her hands were slim, and her fresh breath was but a few centimeters from his parched lips. He opened his mouth to ask her name, but the door suddenly opened and Jacobo entered like a hurricane. The girl sat up, but Kilian did not allow her to let go of his hand. Jacobo reached the head of the bed in three bounds and, seeing that Kilian was conscious, exclaimed, “My God, Kilian! How are you feeling? What a fright you have given us!”
He frowned in the direction of the nurse, who, though she had pulled back her hand, did not leave Kilian’s side. For a few seconds, the girl sent shivers down him.
Wow, Jacobo thought, where did this pretty one come from? He quickly pulled himself together.
“How long has he been awake? You didn’t think to alert me?” Not waiting for an answer, he turned to Kilian. “Bloody hell! A bit more and you’d be off with Dad . . .”
Kilian rolled his eyes, and Jacobo sat on the bed.
“Seriously, Kilian. I’ve been very worried. You’ve been here for five days with a raging fever. Manuel assured me that it would break, but it took its time . . .” He shook his head. “It will take time to get your strength back. I have spoken to Garuz, and we think that you could recover your strength on the ship home . . .”
Jacobo caught his breath as Kilian spoke. “I’m happy to see you too, Jacobo. But I’m not going home.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to. Not yet.”
“Kilian, I have never met anyone as pigheaded as you. Look, a letter from Mom arrived a couple of days ago.” He put his hand in his shirt pocket and took out the letter. “Fresh news! I was dying to tell you. Catalina is getting married! What do you think of that? To Carlos, from the House of Guari, do you remember him?”
Kilian nodded.
“It’s not bad. He’s not from one of the big houses, but he’s a hard worker and honorable. Mom has written about the dowry, to see what we think . . . The wedding won’t be until after the mourning, of course—that’s why they haven’t made it official—but . . .” He stopped when he realized that his brother was not showing any sign of happiness. “Lad, you’ve gone from one extreme to the other. You used to be interested in everything, and now you are interested in nothing. Life goes on, Kilian, with or without us . . .”
Kilian turned his head toward the window, and his eyes met those of the young nurse, who had not left his side as Jacobo was talking. She pretended to get the thermometer and his medication ready. With a slight nod that only Kilian noticed, she agreed with Jacobo’s last words. Life goes on, he repeated to himself, absorbed in those heavenly eyes.
They heard a rap at the door.
“Perfect timing!” Jacobo stood.
Kilian turned his head and recognized Sade’s statuesque figure covered by a simple knee-length white cotton dress with a printed trim of blue lobelias, like small pointed palms, held at the waist by a narrow belt. He had never seen her dressed like that, without jewelry or makeup. In fact, he had never seen her in the full light of day. She looked even more beautiful than in the club.
“I sent her a message yesterday,” explained Jacobo, triumphant.
For weeks, he had been unable to convince Kilian that the troubles of the soul could be sated by desire. Now his brother had no excuses.
“I didn’t want you to spend so many hours here on your own. She offered to keep you company. I have to get back to the dryers. Sade will look after you until you’re yourself again, Kilian.” He looked at his watch, got up, and gave him a few pats on the shoulder. “I am leaving you in good hands!”
As Jacobo left, Sade sat on the edge of the bed. She kissed the tips of her index and middle fingers and caressed Kilian’s lips with them, until he turned his head away.
“This can’t be right, my massa,” she reproached him in a melodious voice. “You haven’t been to see me for weeks.” She clicked her tongue. “I’m not going to let you forget me.”
She winked at the nurse and added, “You can go. I’ll watch his temperature.”
Kilian noticed the nurse tense. She met his gaze and gave him a tired and grateful smile. As if reading his mind, she put the palm of her hand on his cheek. Sade raised her eyebrows and whispered to him soothingly in Bubi. Kilian did not understand their immediate meaning, but he closed his eyelids, and a comforting sleep took hold of him.
Time passed on the plantation, and the wet season arrived, alternating between pouring rain, fleeting showers, and crisp breezes that succumbed to the sticky daytime heat. Even when a small tornado let loose its fury on the cocoa trees, covering them in erythrina leaves, the work did not stop for a second. The fruit of the cocoa—whose scientific name Kilian had learned was Theobroma, or food of the gods—kept growing and ripening on the trunks. When they turned to a reddish color, they were ready for harvesting.
From August to January, week after week, thousands of cocoa pods passed through the hands of the seasoned workers. Watched over by Jacobo, Gregorio, Mateo, and the foremen, the laborers collected the ripe and healthy berries with a small hook shaped like a scythe fixed onto a long stick. With great care and dexterity they picked the cocoa, letting it fall without touching the others. The chosen pods, which they piled up beside the cocoa trees so that other men could come and break them open with their machetes and extract the grain, which they filled into sacks and stacked along the track.
The main yard overflowed with activity for many days and nights. Those in charge of the trucks transported the sacks from the cocoa trees and tipped their contents into large wooden tanks, where they fermented for seventy-two hours, allowing a thick, viscous liquid to leak out. After fermentation, other men spread the beans over slate sheets in the dryers, under which flowed a current of hot air that heated them up to 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
Kilian, José, Marcial, and Santiago took turns supervising the drying process, which lasted between forty-eight and seventy hours, to make sure the workers did not stop turning the beans until the supervisors were happy. Then, they transferred the beans into large wheelbarrows with holes in their bottoms to allow the beans to cool and later put them through the cleaning machine before packing them in sacks meant for various destinations.