The Surrender Tree (5 page)

At least I know the names of the flowers—

that much, my grandma taught me.

Rosa

I climb a palm tree

and watch the madness

from my hidden perch.

Soldiers herd peasants

into a camp, fenced and guarded,

surrounded by trenches and forts.

I see no houses or tents, no hospital….

All I can do is watch with silent tears

as wounded men, pregnant women,

and helpless children are herded

into the camp—

just another name

for prison.

Silvia

My mother is weak,

so I have to be strong.

Obediently, I shuffle into the Spanish Army's

strange camp, this reconcentration camp

where I do not know what to expect.

I clutch my little brothers tightly

in my arms,

secretly wondering if the armed guards can tell

that I am thinking of Rosa's miraculous flowers

in caves of crystal,

deep caverns

of hidden peace.

Rosa

When night falls,

I climb down from the palm tree

and slip away, back to the forest,

wishing I could take them all with me,

all the refugees flocking like birds

lost in a storm, flying to the mountains

to find trees that look like sturdy guardians

with leafy branches that whisper

soft lullabies of comfort.

A few refugees find us.

Some are the children

of women who helped me

nurse the wounded

long ago….

I teach the granddaughters

of women whose lives I saved

and men whose lives were lost.

José

We try to help the refugees

who find us.

Rosa entertains frightened children,

pretending to be a magical dentist,

as she reaches into the mouth of a man

whose throbbing tooth must come out

if he is going to survive.

She seems to be pulling the tooth

with her bare fingers.

I am the only one who knows

that she hides a tiny key

in her hand, a simple tool

to ease the man's suffering.

When the tooth is out,

he whispers thanks,

and he tries to laugh a little bit,

making his pain seem to vanish,

a comfort to the startled,

giggling children.

I am the only one

who sees Rosa's sorrow,

the only one who knows

how hard it is to start again,

another war of fever and wounds,

the exhaustion created

by endless hope…

Silvia

Hunger, fever,

my mother's moans,

my brothers'shrieks,

the madness, cruelty, or kindness

from each new neighbor,

all these weeping strangers

huddled into makeshift houses

of leaf and twig, palm frond and mud.

Patience, impatience, hopelessness, hope…

I stare at the forts

with holes in the wood

that look like eyes—

holes for the guns

of soldiers

who watch us

day and night.

Rosa

The numbers are impossible.

I cannot heal so many.

Women come as volunteers.

I teach them simple cures.

Garlic for parasites, indigo for lice,

wild ginger to soothe a cough,

jasmine for calming jittery nerves,

guava to settle the stomach,

aloe for burns.

Is there at least one wild,

fragrant remedy

for healing sorrow

and curing fear?

Silvia

Beyond the fence there is a special tree

for hanging those who try

to escape.

Corridors of shacks built from mud and sticks,

babies too weak to eat or cry,

yellow fever, cholera, smallpox, tetanus,

malaria, dysentery, starvation,

my mother's feverish, distant eyes…

this camp is the ash and soot

of human shame.

José

Rage, fury, no time for fear,

no room for sadness.

We like to joke

about Spanish soldiers owning

only the small, foot-shaped parts of Cuba

beneath their own feet.

We like to say that we have learned

how to appear to obey the Spanish Empire's laws

without actually obeying.

Our lives are caves

filled with secrets.

Silvia

Today I am twelve.

My mother is in heaven.

I feel twelve thousand.

An oxcart took her.

The driver is dark, with a kind smile.

I ask him why he does this work,

and he explains that he is a volunteer

from the Brothers of Charity and Faith,

a church group of black men who tend the sick

and bury the dead, even executed criminals

abandoned by their own families.

I ask him if he knows

how I can find Rosa
la Bayamesa,

the Cave Nurse of Cuba.

He looks surprised, but he answers quietly:

First you will have to cross the fence—

first you will have to escape.

Silvia

The oxcart comes every afternoon,

People call it the death-cart.

But I think of it as a chariot

driven by my friend, an angel,

a Brother of Charity and Faith.

The angel-man brings me

tiny bits of smuggled food,

but there is never enough,

and my brothers are turning

into shadows.

I feed them

imaginary meals

of air.

Rosa

The wind

is an evil wind.

I make rope from strips of hibiscus wood,

and splints of palm bark,

my only hope for mending bones.

My greatest fear is of being useless,

so I pierce and drain infected wounds

with the thorns of bitter orange trees,

and I treat the sores of smallpox

with the juice of boiled yams.

I use the perfumed leaves

of bay rum trees

to mask the scent

of death.

José

General Máximo Gómez, the Fox,

asks Rosa to choose twelve trustworthy men

who can help us build a bigger hospital,

so sturdy and so well-hidden

that it will never be found

or attacked.

My wife says two trustworthy men

will be enough.

She tells the Fox that she is strong.

She wants to help chop the wood

for building our new home.

Silvia

Concentrate. Reconcentrate.

Mass, cluster, bunch, and heap.

Weyler's camp makes my arms and legs

so skinny that even my mind feels hungry.

Concentrate. Reconcentrate.

Plan, pay attention, focus, think.

I am alone now. My brothers

are with my mother.

The oxcart comes and goes.

The Brother of Charity and Faith

sees my hopelessness.

He lets me ride with him,

hiding in the oxcart.

I am leaving.

Where will I go?

Silvia

The wagon creaks,

wheels sing…

the night is moonless,

my body feels ancient,

my mind feels new.

The driver turns and smiles.

He hands me his cigar, a blinking light.

He shows me how to pretend

that I am a firefly.

He points to a hole in the fence,

puts his finger to his lips,

then draws a map in the sky—

a picture of the way

to find Rosa.

Silvia

I dance through the hole in my fenced life,

moving the make-believe firefly with my hand,

not my mouth, because I am afraid I would not

be able to stop coughing.

The tiny light rises, dips, flits,

just a foul-scented cigar

pretending to fly,

but it carries a memory

of the oxcart driver's hand,

showing me how to find the woman

who once saved my grandma's life.

Rosa's cave is the only place I long to be

now that my family is in heaven.

Silvia

Tree frogs, screech owls, the dancing leaves

of feathery ferns, the fragrant petals

of wild orchids.

Night wings, crickets,

imagining secrets,

wondering which flowers

might save a life,

and which could be dangerous,

if I don't learn quickly, if I feed a patient

just a little too much…

Will Rosa teach me?

Is Rosa real, or just one more

of those comforting tales

the old folks tell

at bedtime?

Silvia

Moonless thunder, silent lightning, the tracks

of mountain ponies.

Mambí
birdcalls, a stream, tall reeds, the song

of a waterfall, my own tumbling, exhausted,

singing wild hopes.

A trail, more hoofprints, a woman in blue

with long, loose black hair just like my own.

The whistle of a Canary Islander,

speaking the secret language of Silbo.

My bare, bony feet running, following,

racing toward Rosa….

José

All night I stand guard, singing silently

inside my mind, to keep myself awake.

In daylight I sleep, while others watch.

A whistle reaches into my dream…

the face of a pale, skeletal child,

two eyes, deep green pools

of fear….

Silvia

Does the old man in the forest

know that he sings in his sleep?

I stare, he stares,

then we both smile.

Rosa, I hear myself chant the name

over and over,

begging for a flower-woman

who will teach me how to save lives.

I tell the old man that I already know

the names of the blossoms, all I need is a chance

to learn their magic.

With a sigh, he says,

Yes of course, one more child

is always welcome,

follow me….

Rosa

The new girl is so thin and pale

that I cannot let her help me

until she has learned

how to heal herself.

I make her eat, sleep, rest.

She resists.

I see a story in her eyes.

She thinks she has no right to eat

while so many others starve.

Silvia

Rosa is a bully.

I thought she would be sweet and kind,

but she forces me to sip my soup,

and she stitches a cut on my forehead,

just a scratch from a thorn in the forest,

but she studies it the way I studied the forts

at the camp, with the holes for guns

that look like eyes.

The needle hurts, the thread itches.

Maybe I don't want to be a nurse after all.

Speed, Rosa tells me, is the best painkiller,

so she stitches my skin quickly, calmly,

her expression as mysterious as a book

written in some foreign alphabet

from a faraway land.

She looks at my tongue,

puts her finger on my wrist,

explains that she is counting my pulse.

She tells me I do not have leprosy or plague,

measles, tetanus, scarlet fever,

jaundice, or diptheria.

By now, she adds, you must be immune

to yellow fever,

and malaria, well, that is an illness most Cubans

will carry around

all our lives.

I picture myself lugging a suitcase loaded

with heavy diseases….

I daydream a ship, an escape route, the ocean….

Rosa

The girl is well enough to learn.

I show her one cure at a time.

A poultice of okra for swelling.

Arrowroot to draw poison out of a wound.

Cactus fruit for soothing a cough.

Hibiscus juice for thirst.

Honey for healing.

I show her the workshop where saddles are made

with leather tanned by pomegranate juice,

and I show her the workshop

where hats are woven

from the dry, supple fiber of palm fronds,

and the place where candles

of beeswax are shaped

to light the rare books

from which cave children learn

how to read comforting Psalms,

and the
Simple Verses
of José Martí,

our poet of memory,

our memory of hope….

Rosa

Young people are like the wood of a balsa tree,

light and airy—they can float, like rafts,

like boats….

José and I are the rock-hard wood

of a
guayacán
tree,

the one shipbuilders call Tree of Life

because it is so dense

and heavy with resin

that it sinks,

making the best propeller shafts—

the wood will never rot,

but it cannot float….

Young people drift on airy daydreams.

Old folks help hold them in place.

Silvia

Rosa helps me see the caves

in her own way.

I gaze around at the forest,

where she has been free,

so alive in this wonder,

where trees grow like castle towers,

with windows opening

onto rooms of sunlight.

I can no longer imagine

living anywhere else,

without this garden of orchids

and bright macaws.

I think of all I know

about tales of castles.

There is always a dungeon,

and a chapel,

bells of hope….

Rosa

Silvia tells me that she used to visit

her grandparents in town.

They kept caged birds,

and in the evenings they walked,

carrying the cages up a hill

to watch the sunset.

Inside each cage, the captive birds

sang and fluttered, wings dancing.

Silvia admits that she always wondered