The Surrender Tree (2 page)

who eats cornmeal and yams,

never the scent of a rich man on horseback,

after his huge meal of meat, fowl, fruit,

coffee, chocolate, and cream.

Lieutenant Death

We bring wanted posters from the cities,

with pictures drawn by artists,

pictures of men with filed teeth

and women with tribal scars,

new slaves

who somehow managed to run away

soon after escaping from ships

that landed secretly, at night,

on hidden beaches.

I look at the pictures

and wonder

how all these slaves

from faraway places

find their way

to this wilderness

of caves and cliffs,

wild mountains, green forest, little witches.

Rosa

After Christmas, on January 6,

the Festival of Three Kings Day,

we line up and walk, one by one,

to the thrones where our owner and his wife

are seated, like a king and queen

from a story.

They give us small gifts of food.

We bow down, and bless them,

our gift of words freely given

on this day of hope,

when we feel like we have

nothing to lose.

Rosa

The nicknames of runaways

keep us busy at night,

in the barracoons, where we whisper.

All the other young girls agree with me

that
Domingo
is a fine nickname,

because it means Sunday, our only half day of rest,

and
Dios Da
is even better,

because it means God Gives,

and
El Médico
is wonderful—

who would not be proud

to be known as The Doctor?

La Madre
is the nickname

that fascinates us most—

The Mother—a woman, and not just a runaway,

but the leader of her own secret village,

free, independent, uncaptured—

for thirty-seven

magical years!

Lieutenant Death

My father captures some who pretend

they don't know their owners' names,

or the names of the plantations

where they belong.

They must want to be sold

to someone new.

They must hope that if they are sold here,

near the steamy, jungled wilderness,

they will be close to the caves,

and the waterfalls,

and witches.

My father brings the same runaways back,

over and over.

I don't understand why they never give up!

Why don't they lose hope?

Rosa

People imagine that all slaves are dark,

but the indentured Chinese slaves run away too,

into the mangrove swamps,

where they can fish, and spear frogs,

and hunt crocodiles by placing a hat on a stick

to make it look like a man.

The crocodile jumps straight up,

out of the gloomy water,

and snatches the hat,

while a noose of rope made from vines

tightens around the beast's green, leathery neck.

I would be afraid to live in the swamps.

People say there are
güijes,

small, wrinkled, green mermaids

with long, red hair and golden combs…

mermaids who would lure me

down into the swamp depths…

mermaids who would drag me into watery caves,

where they would turn me into a mermaid too…

frog-green, and tricky.

Rosa

The slavehunter comes

with an offer.

He wants to buy me

so I can travel

with his horsemen

and his huge dogs

and his strange son

into the wild places

where wounded captives

can be healed

so they won't die.

The price

of a healed man

is much higher

than the price

of an ear.

Rosa

My owner refuses.

He needs me to cure

sick slaves

in the barracoons.

After each hurricane season

there are fevers, cholera, smallpox, plague.

Some of the sick can be saved.

Some are lost.

I picture their spirits

flying away.

I sigh, so relieved that I will not

have to travel with slavehunters

and the spies they keep to help them,

the captives who reveal the secret locations

of villages where runaways sneak back and forth,

trading wild guavas for wild yams,

or bananas for boar meat,

spears for vine rope,

or mangos for palm hearts, flower medicines,

herbs….

Lieutenant Death

The weapons of runaways are homemade,

just sharpened branches, not real spears,

and carved wooden guns, which, I have to admit,

from a distance look real!

We catch
cimarrones
with stolen cane knives too,

all three kinds,

the tapered, silver-handled ones used by free men,

with engraved scallop-shell designs,

and the bone-handled, short, leaflike ones,

given to children,

and the fan-shaped, blunt ones,

used by slaves

for cutting sugarcane

to sweeten the chocolate and coffee

of rich men.

Rosa

Secretly, I hide and weep

when I learn that my owner

has agreed to loan me

to the slavehunter,

who brings his hunter-in-training,

his son, the boy with dangerous eyes,

Teniente Muerte,

Lieutenant Death.

Rosa

Spears and stones rain down on us

from high above

as we climb rough stairs

chopped into the wall of a cliff

somewhere out in the wilderness,

in a place I have never seen.

Sharp rocks slice my face and hands.

I will be useless—without healthy fingers,

how can I heal wounds

and fevers?

When the raid is over, many
cimarrones
are dead.

I try to escape, but Lieutenant Death forces me

to watch as he helps his father

collect the ears

of runaways.

Some of the ears come from people

whose names and faces

I know.

Lieutenant Death

I hate to think

what my father would say

if he knew that I am scared

of dogs, both wild and tame,

and ghost stories,

real and imaginary,

and witches,

even the little ones,

and the ears of captives,

still warm….

Rosa

After the raid,

I tend the wounds

of slavehunters

and captives.

Some look at me with fear,

others with hope.

I tend the wounds of a wild dog,

and the slavehunters' huge dogs.

All of them treat me like a nurse,

not a witch.

The grateful dogs make me smile,

even the mean ones, trained to follow the tracks

of barefoot men.

They don't seem to hate

barefoot girls.

Hatred must be

a hard thing to learn.

 

 

        The Ten Years' War
        1868–78

Rosa

Gathering the green, heart-shaped leaves

of sheltering herbs in a giant forest,

I forget that I am grown now,

with daydreams of my own,

in this place where time

does not seem to exist

in the ordinary way,

and every leaf is a heart-shaped

moment of peace.

Rosa

In the month of October,

when hurricanes loom,

a few plantation owners

burn their fields, and free their slaves,

declaring independence

from Spanish rule.

Slavery all day,

and then, suddenly, by nightfall—freedom!

Can it be true,

as my former owner explains,

with apologies for all the bad years—

Can it be true that freedom only exists

when it is a treasure,

shared by all?

Rosa

Farms and mansions

are burning!

Flames turn to smoke—

the smoke leaps, then fades

and vanishes…

making the world

seem invisible.

I am one of the few

free women blessed

with healing skills.

Should I fight with weapons,

or flowers and leaves?

Each choice leads to another—

I stand at a crossroads in my mind,

deciding to serve as a nurse,

armed with fragrant herbs,

fighting a wilderness battle, my own private war

against death.

Rosa

Side by side, former owners and freed slaves

torch the elegant old city of Bayamo.

A song is written by a horseman,

a love song about fighting for freedom

from Spain.

The song is called
“La Bayamesa,”

for a woman from the burning city of Bayamo,

a place so close to my birthplace, my home….

Soon I am called
La Bayamesa
too,

as if I have somehow been transformed

into music, a melody, the rhythm of words….

I watch the flames, feel the heat,

inhale the scent of torched sugar

and scorched coffee….

I listen to voices,

burning a song in the smoky sky.

The old life is gone, my days are new,

but time is still a mystery

of wishes, and this sad, confusing fragrance.

Rosa

The Spanish Empire refuses to honor

liberty for any slave who was freed by a rebel,

so even though the planters

who used to own us

no longer want to own humans,

slavehunters still roam

the forest, searching, capturing, punishing…

so we flee

to the villages

where runaways hide…

just like before.

Rosa

In October,

people walk in long chains of strength,

arm in arm, to keep from blowing away.

The wildness of wind, forest, sea

brings storms that move

like serpents,

sweeping trees and cattle

up into the sky.

During hurricanes, even the wealthy

wander like beggars,

seeking shelter,

arm in arm with the poor.

Rosa

War and storms make me feel old,

even though I am still young enough

to fall in love.

I meet a man, José Francisco Varona,

a freed slave,

in the runaway slave village we call Manteca,

because we have plenty of lard to use as cooking oil,

the lard we get

by hunting wild pigs.

We travel through the forest together,

trading lard for the fruit, corn, and yams

grown by freed slaves and runaways,

who live together in other hidden towns

deep in the forest, and in dark caves.

José and I agree to marry.

Together, we will serve as nurses,

healing the wounds of slavery,

and the wounds of war.

Rosa

The forest is a land of natural music—

tree frogs, nightingales, wind,

and the winglets of hummingbirds

no bigger than my thumbnail—

hummingbirds the size of bees

in a forest the size of Eden.

José and I travel together,

walking through mud, thorns,

clouds of wasps, mosquitoes, gnats,

and the mist that hides

graceful palm trees,

and the smoke that hides burning huts,

flaming fields, orchards, villages, forts—

anything left standing by Spain

is soon torched by the rebels.

José carries weapons,

his horn-handled machete,

and an old gun of wood and metal,

moldy and rusted,

our only protection against an ambush.

The Spanish soldiers dress in bright uniforms,

like parakeets.

They march in columns, announcing

their movements

with trumpets and drums.

We move silently, secretly.

We are invisible.

Rosa

A Spanish guard calls,
^¡
Alto!
Halt!

^¿
Quién vive?
Who lives?

He wants us to stop, but we slip away.

He shouts:
mambí
savages,

and even though
mambí
is not a real word,

we imagine he chooses it

because he thinks it sounds Cuban, Taíno Indian,

or African, or mixed—a word from the language

of an enslaved tribe—

Congo, Arará,Carabalí,Bibí, or Gangá.

Mambí,

we catch the rhythmic word,

and make it our own,

a name for our newly invented warrior tribe

made up of freed slaves fighting side by side