It was not easy to refer to the city by its current name. And much more difficult to talk about the island of Bioko instead of the Fernando Po from her father’s and uncle’s stories.
Clarence opened her eyes and followed the ceiling-fan blades with her eyes for a few seconds. The heat was suffocating and sticky. She had not stopped sweating while unpacking her luggage, and the refreshing effects of the shower had not lasted long.
And now what? she thought.
She got out of bed and went onto the balcony, breathing in the same viscous humidity that had met her after the flight. She still felt in a daze from the rapid change of scenery. She tried to imagine her father’s impressions when he first stepped ashore here, but the circumstances were completely different. He certainly did not have the feeling of arriving in a country run by a military. She huffed as she remembered the customs line at the modern airport; several times she had had to show her passport, her good-conduct certificate, her vaccine chart, and the invitation from the National University of Equatorial Guinea before going through various checkpoints where they opened her bags and nosed around everything she had with her. They had made her fill in an immigration form explaining the reasons for her trip, and they had asked her for the name of the hotel where she would be staying. And to top it all, she had to take that wad of papers with her at all hours to avoid problems in any of the many police checkpoints they had warned her would be found everywhere.
She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, contemplating the sun’s reflection on the palms between the flaking houses, listening to the chirps of the birds mixed with the children playing soccer in the alley opposite, and trying to decipher the voices of the men and women in colorful clothes, on the street with cars of all makes and in all conditions. What a special place! On this small island, the size of her valley, people of different countries had lived and spoken at least ten languages: Portuguese, English, Bubi, African English, Fang, Ndowé, Bissau, Annobonese, French, Spanish . . . She might have left some out, but one thing had been made crystal clear in just a few hours: the Spanish influence remained strong.
The Spanish colonizers, including her own family, had definitely left a deep imprint on the country.
She thought of her strange relationship with Fernando Po–Bioko. A small piece of paper and some words from Julia had given Clarence the definitive push to fulfill one of her life dreams: to travel to the island whose stories had been rattling around her head since childhood. She had finally gotten the chance to stroll along the paths that her forebearers had walked for so many years. Breathe the same air. Enjoy the same local color. Feel happy with their music. And touch the soil where her grandfather Antón lay.
This trip was the most daring thing she had ever done in a life completely given over to study. She had had enough courage to answer a faint call that echoed in her heart.
Someone older than she born in Sampaka . . .
From the very moment that Julia had talked to her about Fernando Po, a suspicion had grown inside her that her blood could still be on the island. And if she had a brother? What other thing could Julia have been referring to? Clarence could barely think it! Much less say it out loud! She had often felt tempted to confide her anxieties to her cousin Daniela, but in the end, she decided to wait until she had definitive proof, if there was any.
But if it was true?
How could her father have lived with it? And her uncle . . . He should know! It would be impossible for him not to . . . unless she was wrong and had to look for a cousin instead. She shook her head. The letter was with her father’s mail. Besides, she could not believe that Kilian could have done something like that. He was the most upright and responsible person she knew. Her uncle was a man of his word, capable of ignoring all else when the truth was at stake, be they troublesome subjects on land borders or on the relationships between neighbors or family.
For a moment Clarence was shocked at the ease in which she had excused her uncle and blamed her father, but she was not a child anymore. She did not find it at all unlikely to imagine her father escaping from an unwelcome situation, to put it mildly, and more so if it had to do with a black child. In more than one conversation, her father had made racist comments. When she grew indignant, he closed the subject with “I’ve lived with them, and I know what I’m talking about,” to which Kilian responded “So did I, and I don’t agree.” Daniela celebrated her father’s reason with a smile. As if he would ever recognize a black child! And more so in the Spain of forty years ago!
Clarence slowed her thoughts; she had only a piece of paper, Julia’s words, and four separate bits of information that she went over again and again.
Of the first letters written by her uncle Kilian, she had not been able to extract any information that would shed light on Julia’s hints. One of the letters described how well looked after her grandfather Antón had been, especially by the native nurse, and all the people who had attended the funeral and later burial. Apart from Manuel and Julia, she had heard some of the names before. After Antón’s death, her uncle wrote less frequently, and the letters were more repetitive, focusing above all on the finances of the House of Rabaltué.
Only one of the letters was a little more personal. In a short paragraph, Kilian tried to console Aunt Catalina over the death of her baby and, straight after, announced his trip to Spain, about which he would add details—on what ship he would travel, what city he would arrive in, how long it would take—in later letters. He stayed in Spain until 1960 and returned to the island, intending to work for two more campaigns, each two years in length. His plans were to return to Pasolobino for good in 1964 at the age of thirty-five. It was probable that her uncle was planning, the same as Jacobo and many others, to retire from the cocoa campaigns to start his own family at home.
However, something did not fit.
There were very few letters written after 1964, but their existence showed that his stay in Guinea had been extended longer than expected.
Something had happened in 1965, after Aunt Catalina’s death.
And it coincided with a short reference to a confrontation between Kilian and Jacobo that she had found in another letter. Could that be the reason her father left his job on the plantation? An argument with his brother?