They began speaking as if Clarence were not there.
“As if you don’t know your own daughter!” exclaimed Jacobo. “In the end, she’ll do what she wants herself.”
“She’s old enough to know what she’s doing, don’t you think, Carmen?” said Kilian. “We were even younger when we went—”
“Yes,” Carmen interrupted him, “but it was safe then. Now, a young white girl traveling alone . . .”
“From what I’ve read, people still do business there, and they come and go without any problem,” added Kilian. “And aid organization volunteers . . .”
“And how do you know this?” Jacobo wanted to know.
“The Internet,” Kilian responded, shrugging. “I’m old, but I like to be informed. Daniela showed me. This computer thing is a lot simpler than I thought.” He gave his daughter a smile. “I had a good teacher.”
Daniela returned his smile.
“And is there no work colleague who could go with you?” insisted Carmen to her daughter.
“The truth is that none of them thought much of a trip to such an uncivilized country . . . But I have a personal interest”—she emphasized the word—“which they don’t share. I will get to see the places from your stories!”
“You won’t recognize anything!” Jacobo interjected. “You will only realize the pitiful state of the country. Misery and more misery.”
“The exact opposite of what you have told us, isn’t it?” intoned Clarence. “It tends to happen. Fact is always stranger than fiction.”
Kilian frowned. He sensed a rare impertinence in his niece’s voice. “Clarence,” he said in a kind but firm manner, “don’t talk about what you don’t know. If you are that interested in going, go and make up your own mind, but don’t judge us.”
Clarence did not know what to say. It was as if her uncle had read her mind! To ease the slight tension, she turned to her cousin.
“Well, wouldn’t you like to come with me?”
Daniela shook her head. “It’s a pity you didn’t tell me sooner!” she answered regretfully. “I can’t take three weeks off just like that. But,” she added, “if you end up falling in love with Fernando Po, I’ll go with you the next time. That’s a promise.”
Clarence imagined that Daniela thought a few weeks would be enough for the same kind of romance that had bewitched their fathers. But the men had spent years on the island. Clarence would be traveling under different circumstances and in a different age.
“Oh, I don’t know if a few weeks will be enough for me to fall in love . . . But who knows?”
The question hung in the ensuing silence. Still, it could barely hide the deafening voices repeating over and over again in the heads of the two brothers: You knew that this day could come. You knew. It was just a question of time. The spirits have decided it. There is nothing you could have done. You knew.
You have to know the mountains to understand that April is the cruelest month.
In the lowlands, Holy Week brings the resurrection of life in spring after winter’s desolation. Mother Earth wakes up and emerges from the depths of hell, coming to the land’s surface. In the mountains, she doesn’t. In the mountains, she remains asleep for at least another month until she allows the pastures to sprout.
So in April, nothing grows; the land is barren and the landscape still. Nothing moves. There is a soft and shapeless calm that takes over, a calm very different from the stillness before a tornado or snowstorm. In April, you have to look up, up toward the peaks and the sky, and not down on the barren land, to find signs of life.
In the sky, there is movement; the mists grip the mountains’ slopes, and it rains for days. The fog stretches down, covering the valley in a faint twilight that lasts until, one day, without any warning, a gap opens in the sky and the sun emerges to heat the earth and win the battle against winter. Victory is certain; the wait, devastating.
This month of April was especially wet, week after week of a steady and constant drizzle that did not help the already gray mood. Yet the night Clarence announced her trip, the leaves began to tremble, rocked by the emergent north wind that threatened to displace the rain. It began as a whisper that increased in volume until turning into strong currents of air that crashed against the shutters and sneaked under the doors and around the very feet of the householders.
That night, Kilian and Jacobo recalled scenes that, although not lost, had remained dormant through the murmurs of time. Yet only a few words had been necessary for the scenes of their youth to come alive again, burning with the same intensity as decades past.
Neither of them could imagine that due to innocent curiosity, Clarence would set off events in very unexpected ways. She would become the instrument of chance—that capricious rival of cause and effect—so that her every move made much fall into place.
That night, after Clarence announced her trip, when the leaves of the trees beat against their branches, the villagers closed their eyes, lying down in the solitude of their beds as, in a flash, the north wind became the harmattan.
2
Pantap Salt Water
On the Sea, 1953
“Come on, Kilian. We’ll miss the coach!”
Using an old board to shift the snow that had stuck shut the front door, Jacobo tried to raise his voice above the howls of the January winds. When he finished, he pulled up the lapels of his raincoat, tugged his hat onto his head, picked up his suitcase, and placed the wooden skis on his shoulder, stamping on the ground to mark the path that they would take down to the village—and to warm up from the intense cold that had his feet frozen.
He was about to shout out his brother’s name again when he heard voices in the Pasolobinese dialect coming from the stone steps that led to the patio. Just then, Kilian came out onto the street with their mother, Mariana, and their sister, Catalina. Both were wrapped up in heavy, coarse black woolen coats; their heads were covered with thick-knitted shawls, and they steadied themselves with wooden poles to stop from slipping in their old stiff leather boots, which were only a fragile barrier against the cold.
Jacobo smiled at seeing his mother carrying two parcels wrapped in newspaper. There was a hunk of bread with bacon in each of them for the journey.
“I’ll go ahead with you, Jacobo,” said Catalina, grabbing on to his arm.
“Fine,” her brother agreed before affectionately telling her off. “But you should have stayed in the house, Miss Stubborn. This cold is no good for your cough. You’re pale, and your lips are blue.”
“It’s because I don’t know when I’ll see you again!” she whined, trying to put a rebellious lock of black hair back under the shawl. “I want to make the most of the time I have with you.”
“As you wish.”