“Well, and we were introduced by a man who knew him, as he had worked on the plantation. His name was . . . His name is Iniko.” His name came out almost in a whisper. He had become a character in her story. He was not flesh and bones.
Jacobo and Kilian exchanged a quick and meaningful look.
“Iniko . . . What a very strange name!” Daniela commented. “Very nice, I like it, but strange.”
“The name is Nigerian,” Clarence explained. “His father worked in Sampaka during the period you were there. His name was Mosi.”
Kilian rested his elbow on the table and supported his head in one of his enormous hands. Jacobo crossed both hands over his face to hide the sign of surprise that was forming on his mouth. Both of them were very tense.
“Doesn’t it ring a bell?” Clarence asked.
“On the plantation there were more than five hundred workers!” bellowed her father. “You don’t expect us to remember all of them!”
She fell silent, but quickly recovered.
“I know there were a lot of you,” she defended herself in a loud voice. “But Gregorio, Marcial, Mateo, Santiago . . . ? I suppose you remember them!”
“Mind your tone, Daughter!” Jacobo wagged his finger in the air. “Of course we remember them. They were employees like us.” He paused and gave her an odd look. “How did you get their names?”
“I got to see the plantation files. I found both your files and Granddad’s. They’re still there, with the medical histories. And, Dad . . . I didn’t know you were hospitalized for several weeks. It must have been serious, but it didn’t say what.”
Carmen turned to her husband. “I didn’t know that, Jacobo. Why did you never tell me?”
“Please! I didn’t even remember it!” He took the bottle of wine to pour himself a glass, and his hand trembled. He looked at Kilian for help.
“It would be that time when you had a serious dose of malaria. The fever wouldn’t come down, and you had us all worried.” Kilian smiled at Clarence. “Every other week someone came down with it. I’m surprised they had made a note of something so common.”
Clarence looked at the other women. Was she the only one who thought they were lying? It seemed so. Carmen got up to serve dessert as Daniela changed the subject.
“Where are the presents you brought us?” she asked in a tinkling voice. “You did bring us presents, didn’t you?”
“Eh, of course I did!” Clarence had not finished her initial attack, and she was still left with the most difficult part.
“One more thing before I go look for them . . .” She hesitated. “Simón wasn’t the only one to recognize me.”
Kilian raised an eyebrow.
“In a restaurant, a woman with her mulatto son came over to me . . .” She had hesitated over the word mulatto. “She was convinced that I reminded her of someone from her youth. Everyone there called her Mamá Sade . . .”
“Sade . . . ,” Daniela repeated. “Are all the names in Guinea that pretty? It sounds like the name of a beautiful princess.”
“Well, there’s nothing left of that.” Clarence made a face. “She was, well, is an old toothless woman who looks like a witch.”
The men looked at her impassively. Several seconds went by. Nothing. They did not even twitch. Would not a quizzical look have been more logical?
“I imagined she mistook me for someone else, but she insisted on knowing my father’s name.”
Kilian cleared his throat.
“And what did you say?”
“I told her he was dead.”
“Thanks a lot,” Jacobo commented in a forced cheerfulness that made Carmen and Daniela laugh. “And why did you do that?”
“Because I didn’t like that woman at all. They told me she had been a prostitute in the colonial period before becoming a successful businesswoman in that profession. And that”—she coughed—“she had fallen in love with a white man who she became pregnant by and”—she coughed again—“he abandoned her. That was the reason she didn’t want any more children.”
“What a scoundrel!” Carmen pursed her lips. “Though, if you say she was a prostitute . . . I can only imagine the type of men she would have hung around with.”
Clarence finished off her glass of wine. “Mom, I imagine many of her customers were the white employees from the plantations.” She paused on seeing the warning look from her father.
“Right, Clarence. That’s enough.”
Clarence nodded.
“And those presents, dear?”
On the way to her room, she cursed her bad luck under her breath. There was no way of her getting any further in that, not even the slightest bit. She could have sworn that neither Jacobo nor Kilian was telling the whole truth. Carmen and Daniela had not seemed to have found anything odd, but Clarence was sure the brothers were hiding something. How was she to discover anything if nobody gave her answers?
Okay, the name Sade seemingly meant nothing to them. Let’s see what happens with Bisila’s name. Clarence was certain they would not remember Bisila, just like she could not remember them. What bad memories everyone seemed to have all of a sudden! She picked up several bags from her bedroom and returned resolutely to the dining room.
After everyone had opened the packages and commented on the carved wooden animals, the mahogany walking sticks, the ebony figurines, the ivory amulets, the necklaces of shells and gemstones, the leather bracelets, and the beautiful and colorful party dress she had chosen for Daniela, Clarence opened the bag that Iniko had given her from Bisila and took out the pith helmet.
“A final gift!” she announced, putting the cloth-and-cork helmet on her head. “Iniko’s mother gave me this. One day she invited me to dinner at her house. There was Iniko, his brother, Laha, well, Fernando Laha, and her. Her name is Bisila, a charming woman. She worked in Sampaka as a nurse during your time.”
She paused. Nothing. Not even a comment.
“Ah! And she asked me to send her best wishes to the person I gave the helmet to. It could belong to either of you! It’s almost an antique.”
She took off the helmet and gave it to Daniela, who put it on, took it off, looked at it curiously, and passed it to Carmen, who did the same.
Kilian did not take his eyes off the helmet. He had his lips tightly closed, and his breathing seemed forced. Carmen passed it on to Jacobo. It looked to Clarence as if her father’s hands were trembling as he quickly passed it on to his brother. Was it her imagination, or did Kilian close his eyes as if in pain? Unlike Jacobo, he spent time stroking the helmet with extreme delicacy. His fingers went over the tear in the rigid hoop time and time again. All of a sudden, he got up and whispered, “Sorry. It’s very late and I’m very tired. I’m going to bed.” He looked at his niece for several seconds with a sad expression. “Thank you, Clarence.”
He left the dining room with a slow, ponderous step. Clarence felt he had aged in a matter of seconds. She never thought of the men of the house as people who were entering their twilight years. Kilian’s shoulders and legs were heavy. His strength had disappeared.