The Surrender Tree (4 page)

of secrets,

surrounded by jungle,

walls of tree trunks,

fences of thorns—

now I know,

and I can sell

this information

for many smooth

round coins

of gold!

Rosa

The parakeet-bright Spanish soldiers

come marching

with torches, and Mausers, and trumpets.

We are forced to escape, move our patients, hide,

find a new home, new hope, a new cave…

although clearly, this one too is ancient—

every wall and spire of crystal

bears the marks of other fugitives,

people who hid here

long ago—

people who left

their handprints on stone.

Will I ever feel safe?

Can I continue?

When will I rest,

if my sleep

always turns

into whirlwinds,

this spiral

of nightmares?…

José

One more escape.

We are safe.

We whisper.

We hide.

We hope.

We explore

our new home,

this vast, glittering cavern

of crystals, darkness, silence….

Rosa

The caves, this stench, the bat dung, urine,

frogs, fish, lizards,
majá
snakes,

all so pale and ghostly, some eyeless, all blind…

and the crystals, these archways and statues,

these flowers of stone…

shadows, pottery, bones…

the skeletons of those who hid here

so long ago, when I was a child,

when I was a slave…

Rosa

We send messages to the Fox and the Lion.

No one else knows where we are.

We learn to live in darkness,

without so many lanterns and torches,

fireflies, and candles

made from the wax

of wild bees.

We drink wild honey

instead of sugarcane syrup.

We are far from any farms or towns.

We eat the blind lizards and ghost-fish.

We know how to live

with the stench of black vomit,

yellow fever in its final stage….

Rosa

The fevers and wounds of war are deadly,

yet somehow

many of our patients survive to go back out,

and fight again.

Our former owners have been healed here.

They treat us like brothers and sisters, not slaves.

The Fox and the Lion keep our location secret.

We are not found on their maps,

or in their diaries.

Everyone here knows the truth—

I am a nurse, not a sorceress.

I am just a woman of weary, wild hopes—

not a magician, not a witch.

José

Rosa remembers the names

of all who pass through her hands,

the patients who survive, and those who rise,

breath vanishing into the sky….

It's all she can offer,

just forest medicines,

and her memory, reciting the names of people

along with the names of the flowers.

Rosa

Ten years of war are over.

A treaty. Peace.

So many lives were lost.

Was anything gained?

The Spanish Empire still owns

this suffering island,

and most of the planters

still own slaves.

Only a few of us were set free

by rebels who have been defeated.

Spanish law still calls me a slave.

Lieutenant Death has not lost

his power.

 

 

        The Little War
        1878–80

Rosa

Too soon,

the battles

begin again.

Mercifully,

this new war

is brief.

Tragically,

this new war

is futile.

Sometimes, war feels

like just one more

form of slavery.

José

We heal the wounded

just like before.

We hide in the jungle

just like before.

We are older.

Are we wiser?

Sometimes war feels

like a lonely child's game,

one that explodes

out of control.

Rosa

Between wars,

José and I were just

a man and his wife.

We were free

to stay together.

José never had to leave me

to scout, or hunt,

or fight.

Between wars,

life was heavenly,

except when the slavehunters

were near,

with our names

on a list.

José

Mothers come to us

with tales of children

lost in the chaos.

They must imagine

that we know how to find

little ones who hide in barns,

and teenagers armed with anger.

If we knew how to find

the lost, we would know

how to rediscover

the parts of our minds

left behind

in battle.

Rosa

This is how you heal a wound:

Clean the flesh.

Sew the skin.

Pray for the soul.

Wait.

A wounded child tells me

he has never seen a grown man

who was proud to be a nurse.

Women's work, he mocks,

but I smile—what could be

more manly than knowing

the strange names and magical uses

of sturdy medicinal trees

with powerful,

hidden roots?

Lieutenant Death

I feel old,

but I am young enough

and strong enough

to know that one battle

leads to another.

As this Little War ends,

I ask myself

how many years will pass

before I finally have my chance

to kill Rosa the Witch,

and her husband, José,

and the rebels they heal,

year after year,

like legends kept alive

with nothing more magical

than words?

Rosa

The Little War?

How can there be

a little war?

Are some deaths

smaller than others,

leaving mothers

who weep

a little less?

José is hopeful that soon

there will be another chance

to gain independence from Spain,

and freedom for slaves,

but all I see is death, always the same,

always enormous, never little,

no matter how many women come to help me,

asking to be trained in the art of learning

the names of forest flowers

and the names of brave people.

 

 

        The War of Independence
        1895–98

Rosa

This new war begins with rhymes,

the
Simple Verses
of Martí,

Cuba's most beloved poet.

José Martí,

who leads with words

not just swords.

He is the one who inspires

the Fox and the Lion to fight again,

even though Martí was just a child-poet

during the other wars,

a teenager arrested

for writing about Cuba's longing

for independence from Spain

and freedom from slavery.

Martí is the son of a Spaniard.

He writes of love for his Spanish father,

and he writes of the need for peace—

yet he fights.

He tells me the forest comforts him

more deeply than the musical waves

of the most beautiful beach.

Martí soon loses his life

in battle.

I cannot save the poet

from bullets.

José

Once again, the Fox and the Lion gallop

across our green mountains and farms,

burning the sugar fields and coffee groves,

the tobacco plantations, scented smoke rising

like a wild storm

of hope….

Once again, I guard Rosa's hospitals

while she nurses the sick and wounded

in secret places, thatched huts,

and glittering caves….

Once again, we travel invisibly,

slipping through lines of Spanish forts and troops

on moonless nights,

puffing cigars to make our movements

look like the blinking dance

of fireflies….

Lieutenant Death

Once again, light men and dark

fight side by side,

as if there had never been slavery….

I shake my head, still unable to believe

that slavery ended in 1886—

all the skills of my long life,

all the arts of slavehunting

will be lost….

At least I do not feel useless—

there are still indentured Canary Islanders,

white slaves, citizens of Spain.

When they run, I chase them, just like before—

just like the old days,

when there were Africans of every tribe,

and the indentured Chinese, and the Irish,

and Mayan Indians from Yucatán….

Nothing makes sense now.

I long to retire, on a farm with a view

of the sunset,

and a porch with a rocking chair…

just as soon as I kill

the old witch….

Captain-General Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau,
Marquis of Tenerife, Empire of Spain

This new rebellion must end swiftly—

I have promised victory

within thirty days.

I will send out a proclamation

ordering all peasants to report immediately

to cities where they cannot grow crops

for feeding rebels,

their cousins,

their brothers….

I will give the peasants eight days

to reach them,

these
campamentos de reconcentración,

a name of my own invention—

reconcentration camps,

a brilliant new concept,

the only strategy that can ensure

absolute control of all the land

while being portrayed

as a way of keeping peasants guarded

for their own safety.

When eight days have passed,

any man, woman, or child

found in the countryside

will be shot.

Rosa

Eight days?

Eight days.

Weyler is a madman.

How can he expect

so many to travel so far

so quickly?

Eight days.

Impossible.

Thousands of families

will not even hear

about the order

to reconcentrate

in camps

within eight days.

Silvia

I am eleven years old, and my life is this farm.

My father is dead,

and my mother is sick.

My life is planting, harvesting,

and caring for my twin brothers.

Only eight days…

impossible to believe.

I do not pack our things right away.

First I wait to see if this strange rumor

is true.

Then, brightly uniformed troops

burn our house,

swooping across our farm like hungry birds,

stealing the wagon and oxen, horses, mules,

even the chickens,

and the cow we need

for milk to feed the twins,

my baby brothers—

will they starve?

Nothing is left to pack, not even clothes,

so I walk away from the farm,

leading my mother,

and carrying the babies,

while my eyes watch the mountains,

and my thoughts turn

toward tales of healers

the legend of Rosa….

Silvia

Long ago, my grandma

was one of Rosa's patients

in a hospital cave—

all my life, I've heard wonderful

tales of healing.

When this new war started,

my grandma told me

how to flee to the caves.

Finding Rosa now seems as likely

as convincing her that I am old enough

to help treat the wounded

by learning the art of mending bones,

using nothing more magical

than the flowers

of jungle trees.