Victus

by Albert Sanchez Pinol

  We could see the Allies on a bit of headland setting up a battery of six cannons. They began to fire at once, clearly meaning to support the charge of the cavalry. Stanhope had split his forces into two lines. When the order was given, the front line would charge, sabers in the air and howling hoarsely like wolves.

  Believe me when I tell you there are few things in life more terrifying than a cavalry charge at twilight. Thousands and thousands of hooves, rumbling heavily against the ground in a multitudinous animal rush; the shaking was so great that, even where we were standing, stones and clods of earth were dislodged and went tumbling down the hillside.

  By that time the Bourbon army had been severely diminished. At the start of the year, the French troops had returned to their country as reinforcements for the front at the Rhine, and the Spanish recruits left a great deal to be desired. In any case, you didn’t have to be a general or know the weaknesses of the Army of the Two Crowns; you only had to look at that mass of red coats on horseback headed toward the fragile line of little white soldiers, and it was obvious how the affair was going to end.

  The Spanish lines quivered like strings of sausages, however much the officers ranted and raved, demanding order. They hesitated. Poor lads. Recruited not four days earlier, they were about to experience a charge from the elite of the English army. I did a quick calculation: four thousand horses, about three hundred kilos per head, plus an average of sixty for each rider, came to a total of over a million four hundred thousand kilos, racing forward at twenty miles per hour against some poor petrified boys. A moment before the impact, I looked away.

  In some places, surprisingly, the upthrust bayonets did offer resistance. In others, the formation toppled like an old fence. Even the noise made you think of thousands of timbers splitting. And yes, despite the decisive violence of that clash, I learned one lesson on the field of Almenar, one I often repeated: that most retreats, curious though this may be, begin in the rearguard.

  From that moment, the battle was reduced to no more than a human hunt. To a cavalry soldier, there is something magnetic about a back turned to flee. Instinct urges him to go in pursuit and split open the skull with a saber. As for the man being pursued, there are no words to describe the torment of his flight. If the saber doesn’t get him, the horses’ hooves will.

  I have already described the battlefield as a rectangular valley, mountains to the left and a river to the right. To reach the river, it was necessary to climb down a rift in the land, which appeared all of a sudden and went down a considerable way. In their flight, hundreds were pushed into it by their own companions. They bounced down the rocks of the slopes, while the survivors tried to swim across the river. The others scattered eastward.

  In the rush, the Bourbons abandoned their artillery and their whole baggage convoy. I called out to Zúñiga, pointing toward the farthest horizon: “Look! Way over there, in that raised copse, don’t you see it? It’s Little Philip himself, running away with his escort of palatine mercenaries!”

  Stanhope’s piss-beers were busy riding down the Bourbons. And these had abandoned all their baggage, including the opulent wagons with all the riches that Little Philip had brought with him. I have told you this before: The early bird catches the worm, and in the midst of so much confusion, it wouldn’t be hard to get hold of a generous slice. A wagon transporting the royal crockery, fifty pairs of fine shoes, whatever we could lay our hands on. Besides, it was getting dark, which would help to hide us. The groans of the dying began to rise into the air like the croaking of frogs by a pond at dusk. Dozens of looters were there already, hopping between the fallen bodies. I could see that the men were rummaging through the corpses for jewels or coins, while the women tended to take possession of boots and clothing.

  “We’re better splitting up,” I said to Zúñiga. “If one of us finds something, we’ll let the other know by whistling three times.”

  We each went our own way, but before long, I gave up. It was almost completely dark. I stopped at the steep bank that went down toward the river. Perhaps, I thought, some important carriage might have toppled over the edge. If I were a Bourbon bearing the royal crucifixes, or the king’s gold chamber pot, I would choose to hurl it all in the water sooner than let the enemy take it.

  The slope was very steep, and I climbed down gingerly. I found nothing of any interest, just a few dead bodies scattered across the riverbank. On both banks, there were vegetable patches, destroyed by the passage of the armies. The moon was there to light the way back to our wagon now, and when I happened to see Zúñiga, he was coming out of a little stone hut, a small workers’ store.

  “Oh, Diego, there you are,” I greeted him.

  He looked very startled to see me. He’d gone into the house to snoop around a little, he told me; no joy. If it hadn’t been for my sense of smell, I would have turned back, and that would have been it. But in Bazoches, they had trained my eyes, my ears, and also my nose: every one of my senses. The moment Zúñiga pulled that rickety old door closed, something happened. That same door, when it moved, pushed a blanket of air from the inside toward my nose. A smell. A very distinctive smell—mixed with other more common smells, like dry grain or old esparto grass. But in the middle of it all, that smell. My nose recalled it, but my memory could not.

  “I’ll just have a quick look,” I said.

  “I’m telling you, there’s nothing there,” said Zúñiga, barring my way. “Let’s go.”

  I brushed him off and went ahead, entering the house. That smell, that smell, unpleasant and yet, at the same time, irresistible. What was it to me, what did it remind me of? It was very dark; the only light was that of the moon, spooling down like threads of silver. The tools were covered in rust, forgotten; rotting ears of corn were piled up. At the back, a shapeless mass covered by a bit of old sackcloth. There. Each of us has a particular smell. And our fear intensifies that smell. I felt a sudden spark: At last I knew to whom it belonged, that smell of greasy pores, of some thick, oleaginous matter.

  I pulled back the cloth. And there he was, hidden like a scorpion under a rock: Joris Prosperus van Verboom. And just as one ought to do with a scorpion, before it reacted, I gave its head a good stamp. “Caught you,” I said. I turned his heavy body over and began laying in to him with short punches.

  “Martí! Leave him, you’re going to kill him!”

  “Oh, he and I are old acquaintances,” I said, catching my breath.

  And I gave him a little more. Verboom was shouting out things in French, in Spanish, and in one of those Dutch languages, too.

  Zúñiga grabbed me in his arms. “You’ve told me a thousand times that normal people don’t have anything to do with this dynastic war. And now there’s this poor wretch, and you’re about to kill him!”

  “Poor wretch?” I interrupted my beating and looked at Zúñiga, panting. “Did you say poor wretch? This is Prosperus van Verboom!”

  Zúñiga saved Verboom’s life. When he learned that this was a big fish we’d caught, he begged me not to kill him, saying we ought to take him prisoner and claim a reward. And I was stupid enough to agree.

  Verboom had been unseated from his horse by a cannon shot. Slightly wounded, during the defeat, he had dragged himself over to that happenstance refuge. The truth was, they did congratulate us and reward us handsomely for his capture. So much that even In-a-Trice Stanhope wanted to meet us.

  My heart gave such a leap that I felt it halfway up my throat. Could this be a sign of le Mystère? Before becoming cavalry, maybe Stanhope had served as an engineer. Was he perhaps to be my new teacher? Let me give you the most synthetic answer I can: no. I found him the least likely creature one might ask for moral shelter. All great horsemen look small when they are not in the saddle. Stanhope looked it and he was, short in stature as he was short of brains, as well as conceited and silver-tongued. We had been dragged over to his campaign tent for one reason and one reason only: extolling his own person by appearing to praise us. By the ti
me we left, it had been made quite clear to everybody present that if the Allies had been victorious in battle, if they had captured such distinguished characters as Verboom, it was not down to the combined forces, nor to that little king, Charles, but entirely and exclusively to the presence in Spain of a genius by the name of James Stanhope.

  Following our audience, Zúñiga asked me about Verboom: “What has he done to make you hate him so much?”

  I was not sure how to answer. Such a long time had passed since our argument in Bazoches. I thought about Jeanne and felt a stab in my breast. But I wanted to believe that my ill will toward the Dutch sausage-maker was led by something more than personal revenge.

  Verboom was a bad man. Read those words again, and you will agree they are the worst that can be proclaimed about a human being. It is as if to say: “The world would be much better off without you.” In a just world, there would have been no place for Verboom, and finding him in an imperfect world, one should drive him out of it for fear he might make it worse. I did not do that, and soon repented bitterly, as always happens when we choose profit over justice.

  And what do you think? Is this a note too moralistic on which to end the chapter? Right—you like it. Well, in that case, there’s no doubt about it at all: Strike it out. I’m sure it’s better without.

  5

  Almenar was a decisive victory. Nobody doubted that the Two Crowns would seek to join further battles. But the number of casualties, which was not too great, did not reflect the turmoil in their ranks.

  Without the French contingent, Little Philip could count on only the Spanish recruits, who, as you have seen, had proved themselves greener than grass. The next encounter took place in Zaragoza, a city on the banks of the River Ebro. And this one went even worse for Little Philip than Almenar. By the time the day ended, eighty flags had been captured, six hundred Bourbons taken prisoner, and the infantry suffered twelve thousand casualties.

  After the victory at Zaragoza, the Allies paused to decide what to do next. They were in a place called Calatayud, and the council of war that met there was made up of nine generals from a variety of nationalities. The Portuguese, naturally, were keen to keep going and join up with Portugal; Lisbon and Barcelona would be united through the two armies physically joining. Other generals wanted to take control of the north. If they could take Navarre, they argued, they could seal the border with France, and Philip would be cut off from reinforcements from his grandfather. Charles was having doubts. But now In-a-Trice Stanhope intervened. Navarre, to the north? Portugal, to the west? What the devil were they talking about? He had arrived with the express mandate to place Charles on the throne as Carlos III of Spain and return home. And that was precisely what he intended to do. Apparently, he thumped the table at this point: Either the army marches to Madrid, or he and his piss-beers go straight back home. So, Madrid it was!

  The pro-Austrian army was never such a precise military machine as in the lead-up to Zaragoza. As for the troops, nobody had seen such a ragtag army since the days of Hannibal. After spending whole months with them on marches and roads, I can tell you I came to know them very well.

  The English officers were true gentlemen, while to a man, the rank and file were louts, the worst in Europe. In the Portuguese forces, it was the other way around: The soldiers were a delight, always shy and obedient, but under orders from officers who acted like slave traders. Among the Dutch, there were two categories of soldier: the drinkers, and then the bad drinkers.

  The attitudes of the different national groups toward one another could be defined as “let them have a drink, but don’t let go of the bottle.” The English looked down on the Portuguese with infinite contempt. They took them for worse than the Spanish, which is saying something. As for the Portuguese, as you can imagine, they had different ideas. If the English were so rich and such know-it-alls, they asked themselves, why did the final victory never follow?

  Well, it looked like it was finally coming now, because that autumn, in 1710, the Allied army was making its juggernaut advance on the heart of Castile. Now, you might be wondering how the capital defended itself against the Allied army. The answer is very simple: It didn’t.

  On September 19, two English dragoons reached the outskirts of Madrid. They were astonished to learn that between them and the city, there was no opposition in place, not so much as a single scraggy battalion of conscripts. I was just as astonished as that pair of dragoons. So there wasn’t going to be a fight? No, there would be no such thing. Not a single shot fired! Had we ridden across half the peninsula for this? When the city was in sight, Zúñiga explained to me that Madrid was not a fortified city. It was just surrounded by a ring of masonry whose only purpose was to drive traffic toward the customs posts that charged a levy on products entering the city. Good work, Zuvi!

  While Charles was preparing his triumphal entrance into Madrid, Zúñiga and I got in ahead of the troops. My first impression of Madrid was that it was a bare, charmless city, all its streets empty. I was wrong. We did not know yet that Little Philip, when he had withdrawn from the capital, had been followed by up to thirty thousand courtiers and supporters. He hadn’t left them much choice: Any nobleman or adviser who didn’t follow him in his flight would have been considered a traitor to the blessed Bourbon cause.

  The best lodgings we were able to find were in the attic above a tavern. The ceiling sloped down so steeply that to move about where it was lowest, we needed to crawl on our hands and knees. And the furniture was no more than a couple of straw mattresses, two washbasins, and a window. Well, we couldn’t complain. We had entered Madrid before the mass of the army. To celebrate his return to his home city, Zúñiga took me to one of the most popular taverns, and as we were putting away a few jars, the innkeeper heard us talking.

  “But really, gentlemen,” he said, “it is possible you don’t know? The Allies are about to enter Madrid.” He glanced left and right as though afraid we were being overheard. “Ten days ago, all French subjects received the order to leave the city. Where were you? How could you not have known? There’s not much love lost between the Allies and the French!”

  Zúñiga and I exchanged a glance. The innkeeper, it seemed, had mistaken my Catalan accent, taking me for a Frenchman. Diego shrugged as if to say, Well, why disabuse him?

  “Oh, damn,” I replied, “I was sure my accent would go unnoticed.”

  “Oh no, not at all!” said the innkeeper. “And you might find yourself in a real pickle.”

  “The real pickle,” I interrupted him, “is that I cannot leave Madrid. Actually, I’ve only just been sent here. You do understand, don’t you?”

  I let him come to his own conclusions. People like you to think them cleverer than they actually are. Finally his eyes lit up: What I have here, he must have thought, is a spy for King Philip.

  It was only then that I added: “Hush! The city will be filled with Austrians in a flash. And our arrival was so hurried that we have not resolved the matter of our lodgings.”

  And so, thanks to the patriotism of this innkeeper, we got ourselves a free bed and a roof over our heads in the attic. Once we had settled in, we caught up with the latest news on the situation. According to what we were told, Little Philip had decided to add to his arsenal a weapon unknown in modern warfare: the cunt.

  The innkeeper explained it to us in the most confidential of tones: “When it became clear that Madrid was sure to fall, the government brought in all the sickly whores from Castile, Andalucia, even Extremadura. Bodies in thrall to the most invisible and contagious of ailments. Thus, they hope to inflict thousands of casualties upon the Allies. However much you may want to, be sure not to come anywhere near the tarts!”

  Madrid is not the most beautiful capital one might hope to visit. Its streets spread out in an arbitrary fashion, a horror for any engineer. The uneven ground robs buildings of their perspectives, and their facades are of an ugliness that frankly defies belief. Public decoration is at a minimum. Ma
drid has no ancient relics, though this is a failing that one can excuse given that it is a new city. It was not until the court was established here (which happened only a century before the arrival of Longlegs Zuvi) that this little one-horse town began to assume the grand position of capital. What one cannot excuse, however, is that, being a new city, it was extended with no advance planning, streets improvised on sloping ground, narrow, dark, and winding. I’m telling you, when it was being built, Madrid’s engineers must have been off erecting fortresses in the Caribbean. The streets are absolutely filthy, and the road paving, where there is any, is poorly kept, broken up, and sticking out. According to the Madrileños themselves, the worst torture the Inquisition could conceive of would be to put the offender in a carriage and send him rolling over this city’s cobblestones.

  But I am giving a one-sidedly glum impression of Madrid. My senses, sharpened in Bazoches, got even more excited when confronted with something new, and given that this novelty was an entire city, my eyes and ears were experiencing a feast. Yes, my studies in Bazoches had made my visit to Madrid an exploration. To a good student of le Mystère, everything shines, and everything is lit by close observation. Natives and foreigners united to praise the Madrid skies. The air was always fresh; its light in winter was sweet and beautiful, while in summer, unlike in the Mediterranean Barcelona, its sun never hurt your eyes. Your typical Madrileño was a lover of all chilled drinks, which obliged him to load up a thousand beasts of burden stocked with snow. In Barcelona, the trade in ice was a lucrative one; in Madrid, it made millionaires. There is no more pleasant way to waste one’s time than strolling along the banks of the city’s river, the Manzanares, with a little sweetened ice in your hand, admiring the beauties. On the whole, the marriageable young women will sit there like flowers, chaperoned by relatives, under a parasol, showing off the latest fashionable attire. The young gallants who walk past slow their pace and offer compliments, which are met with a little wave, or a snub, or a wave that is also a sort of snub.