Victus

by Albert Sanchez Pinol

  When there is time to anticipate a siege in advance, the garrison will surround the fortified enclosure with a screen of sharpened stakes pointing out toward the besieger, immediately outside the moat, the first line of defense of the walls and bastions.

  There is another interruption from that bag of lard by the name of Waltraud. She tells me that from what she’s learned so far, a palisade would seem to be a useless measure. Artillery fire would certainly destroy a few simple wood contraptions sticking out in front of the walls. So why waste time sticking in more and more and more rows of stakes?

  A palisade makes it harder for an infantry to advance, and it intimidates the enemy. A forest of thousands and thousands of pointed stakes constitutes a quite considerable obstacle. At least if you look at it from the point of view of someone who has to cross it while being shot at from all sides. Officers need a lot of authority if they are to drive their men against a sharpened barrier.

  All right, so the artillery bombardments will smash most of the stakes into splinters. But even that is not as decisive as it might appear. The stakes are two or three meters long. They are sunk very deep into the ground, at an acute angle, and with a buttress at their base. So that only a meter or a meter and a half is sticking out. The grapeshot and the bombs will indeed destroy them, but even if only a few inches are left, that is enough to injure feet and calves. The same explosions help to break and sharpen the points. A thick forest of solid spikes is no small matter to contend with. When the attackers advance en masse, it breaks up their formation, injures hundreds, and slows down the assault. And then they have the moat awaiting them, and the walls. Sometimes the simplest defenses are the most effective.

  What I will not deny is the great transformation to the landscape that a palisade implies. The city, our ancient, frivolous Barcelona, suddenly seems to be surrounded by a halo of prickles, hostile and grim. The perimeter of a fortress can be vast, and I have seen enclosures circled by eighty thousand stakes. This static wood, worked by hands that wish to cause somebody else pain, is an announcement of death. When it is soaked by the rain, it is even more dismal than when it is covered in snow. When it is somewhere as sunny as Barcelona, its intention to cause harm is laid bare.

  In our stores, we had sixteen thousand stakes. According to my calculations, we needed a minimum of forty thousand. We didn’t have them. Well, what was I to do? Go sit in a corner and cry? Débrouillez-vous! I focused on covering the most exposed areas.

  At least we were not short of enthusiastic help. The government could not pay for all the work that needed to be done, but thanks to the prevailing civic fervor, we were joined by six thousand volunteers. I spent long hours with them, out on-site, where the work was being undertaken. I showed people how they ought to be digging in more deeply, anchoring the foot of the stake well for when the sticking-out part is blasted into the air by the effect of the artillery fire; I made sure they were leaning out at an angle of forty-five degrees; that the end was well sharpened, all of that. We were short of the stakes, tools, workers, and above all, time we needed to transform Barcelona into a hedgehog-city.

  I was spending that July 25 supervising the works on the palisade when Ballester and his men came past. They were leading their horses behind them, and they were happy and flushed with wine. A lot of the whorehouses that were best supplied with the strongest liquor were outside the walls, waiting for travelers before they entered or left the city. They were doubtless returning from just such a brothel. It wasn’t hard to understand. There was an end-of-the-world mood in those establishments. When the Bourbons showed up, the party would stop.

  It was four days since they’d arrived, and they had become famous for how profligate they were in taverns and brothels. And for their fistfights with the guards. Each time I heard news of them, I shook my head, disappointed. Perhaps recruiting them hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

  When I saw them, I addressed their leader. “Ah, Captain Ballester,” I said, not thinking, prompted by the urgency of the situation. “Leave off what you’re doing and help us with these stakes. We need all the hands we can get.”

  I should have seen his answer coming. They all burst out laughing, saying they had come to fight, not to work. This was bad, as their refusal to comply forced me into a confrontation.

  I had told Ballester quite clearly that if he was joining an organized defense, he consequently had a duty toward discipline. If I allowed him to ignore me once, and in front of everybody, I would never have his respect again. I was in my shirtsleeves because of the heat. It was not the ideal attire for intimidating a gang of killers. Yes, this was bad. To make matters worse, when they recognized Ballester, the workers who were closest put down their tools and waited expectantly, holding in a gasp of fear. All the same, Longlegs Zuvi walked up to the Miquelets and said: “That’s an order. Here everyone works.” And pointed a finger all the way down their line. “Everyone.”

  “Really?” Ballester answered. “Because I don’t see any Red Pelts here sticking in stakes.”

  “We’re not out in the field now. Here we fight differently.” I took a few steps back and took one of the workers by the arm, a very young girl. I tugged her over and showed her open palms to Ballester. “Look at the blood flowing on her hands. These scratches are decorations every bit as worthy as any you can earn from some heroic deed in war.”

  Ballester moved his face close to mine and, with barely contained hatred, whispered: “If what you wanted was manual laborers, why the hell did you ask us to come?”

  “When are you going to understand,” I replied in the same tone, “that all of this is not for me but for the common good?”

  “What I am beginning to understand,” said Ballester, “is that war is a good excuse for the Red Pelts to subjugate us even more than they used to.”

  I was going to answer when we heard a terrific noise: All the bells in Barcelona were ringing the warning bell. Dozens of wild belfries, announcing the bad news. We looked up. The sentries on the walls had been warning us for some time. So absorbed were we in our squabble that we hadn’t even heard them. From the top of the bastion, they were shouting: “They’re coming! They’re coming!”

  When news that is so long awaited is finally confirmed, it becomes somehow unreal. They were here. Although for weeks we had thought of nothing else, the fact stunned me. Ballester, the palisade, everything was suddenly meaningless faced with the danger that was so imminent.

  “What are you waiting for?” shouted the sentries. “Get to the nearest entrance. Get inside or they’ll close the gates!”

  They were a couple of very young lads, poorly armed, one of them wearing a pince-nez. On that day, this particular sector was being guarded by the philosophy students. They looked more fragile than the paper in their books. The one in the spectacles pointed toward the horizon.

  “Run! There’s a whole army heading this way!”

  Victus

  1

  You! Yes, you! How dare you set foot in my home? I’ve just been reading what we’ve been writing until now.

  What do you call this? What do you call it? You’ve transcribed everything I’ve been saying! Word for word!

  That’s what I asked you to do? Well, yes, it was, but even you can surely understand that some things aren’t to be taken literally. When you tell a visitor to “make themselves at home,” do you really mean that? No! Naturally you do not!

  When I began my tale, I assumed you’d sprinkle a little sugar about; I wanted a nice, straightforward book, like the ones Voltaire wrote, silly Candide, that whole thing. Well, not as puerile as that, perhaps, but properly laid out on the page, so people can read it, right up to the señoritas in their salons. And look at this! Do you not know what you’ve done? You, yes, you! You are to literature what Attila the Hun was to grass!

  Així et surtin cucs pel nas, filla de . . . !

  What I’m about to say isn’t to do with my tale, but it’s important you all know: Waltraud h
as left me.

  That’s right. Odd, wouldn’t you say? That deceitful, big-assed ninny of a cockroach, she mutinied two weeks ago, altogether unexpectedly. I’ve seen neither hide nor hair since. Well, not nothing: She put a note under the door the other day, containing some ridiculous allegations to justify deserting. That she was very sorry, all that rot. She was shameless enough to accuse me of acting improperly!

  And you, reader, haven’t gotten the full picture of our relationship.

  Don’t for a moment think she was working on this book out of the goodness of her heart—not at all! That was her excuse! Deep down, she thinks she’s the author. Like the sheepdog that grows so accustomed to biting the sheep, it begins to think it’s the shepherd. Although . . . I don’t mind admitting there have been times when she altered the course of the story as it was getting a little out of hand. Now she thinks I won’t be able to carry on without her, that there’s no way for me to recount the bitter end of the siege of 1714. Well she’s wrong, very wrong! She wants me to get down on my knees and beg her to come back! Vanity! Women! Which idiot invented the second word when we already had the first? I’ll never ask that letter-sucking magpie back!

  I, Martí Zuviría, Engineer, by the Grace of le Mystère, Bearer of Nine Points, Lieutenant Colonel under His Majesty Carlos III, engineer in the Army of America’s Rebel States, and in the Austrian Imperial Army, and in Prussia, the Turkish Empire, for the Tsar of Russia, the Creek, Oglala, and Ashanti Nations, Aide-de-Camp to the Maori King Aroaroataru, Comanche, Mystériste, expert in siege warfare, ducker and diver, frightened of swimming, et cetera, now, always, and in summary, human scum:

  HEREBY CONFIRM, before God and such men as wish to heed my words, the following capitulations:

  One: that my behavior toward Waltraud Spöring, since she entered my service and up until this day, has not always been entirely appropriate, especially in handling her efforts to tend to my poor health.

  Two: that I beg her forgiveness, publicly and privately, humbly beseeching that she come and work (not too hard) for me again.

  Three: that she has never asked to share in my literary glory, nor earthly vainglory, and that all her efforts with regard to this work are for the benefit of historical commemoration, for what it might be worth. (Less than nothing, by the way—but you are to leave this bit out.)

  Four, a further and freely ceded capitulation: that Waltraud Spöring is not ugly but has an especial beauty. She is beautiful inside, and that’s what counts (in the eyes of God). (Very nice, though not even you would believe it.)

  Happy now? Now that you’ve got your quill back, I imagine it makes no difference what I say, you’ll write whatever you feel like writing. This book is going to end up more disfigured than my face because of you! If you were honest, you’d include the fact that this has all been a horrible kind of extortion, a humiliation beyond compare.

  No, I never insulted you! What did you expect? To be treated like a forest nymph? You’re more like a German forest bear, the only difference being that there’s no such thing as a bear with blond hair . . .

  Don’t leave! Wait, please, my best beloved vile Waltraud. Who am I going to talk to if you leave?

  Sit. Pick up the quill, I beg of you.

  Better, much better. Help yourself to a coffee with honey, if you like. Don’t forget I’ll be taking it out of your fee, though.

  So then, July 25, 1713, finally, and the Bourbon army under the duke of Pópuli arrived outside Barcelona. The palisade soldiers, led by Zuvi Longlegs, went down into the bunkers. The good thing about captaining a retreat is the distance you can put between yourself and the enemy.

  Predictably enough, Pópuli’s army was welcomed with a barrage from our cannons. In fact, when we palisade soldiers dropped back into the city, three cavalry squadrons galloped out past us. A skirmish with the Bourbon advance party took place, and the Catalan cavalry came away with a number of prisoners.

  Pópuli took this defeat as badly as if he’d lost a regiment. In war, morale is everything, and when the cavalry rode back into the city, they received a hero’s welcome. The prisoners looked bewildered, as befits anyone who has just suffered a sudden defeat. They couldn’t believe they’d gone from conquerors to captives in such a short space of time.

  “Planning to enter Barcelona, were you?” crowed the people lining the streets. “Well, here you are now!”

  Pópuli’s full name was the not at all pompous Restaino Cantelmo Stuart, prince of Pettorano, gentleman at the court of Camara, and goodness knows how many other surnames and fluffy titles. Little Philip’s choice of general to defeat the “rebels” was very deliberate: Pópuli was even more pro-Philip than Philip himself, and he hated old Barcelona with a vengeance. Should the Allies choose to pull out, Pópuli would be only too happy to take charge of the occupation of Catalonia. And he quickly had a chance to show his affection for heinous acts of war.

  Before reaching Barcelona, as his army had been advancing through Catalonia, upon taking control of a certain locality, Pópuli had two alleged pro-Austrians brought before him. “You two are going to play dice,” he said to them. “The winner gets to keep his life.”

  An abuse, of course, but perfidious, outrageous, and arbitrary to boot. Also, he went on to pardon the loser: Acquaintances of the man claimed he was actually a Bourbon and had only feigned loyalty to Little Philip. (There’s something that now might seem laughable in this. For seasoned gamblers like the Barcelonans, honesty in the game was sacred. What really infuriated them wasn’t Pópuli’s tyrannical cruelty but that he hadn’t hanged the loser.) But this was only a small, if macabre, side story. His truly atrocious act was to hang every single prisoner taken after a skirmish near Torredembarra. Two hundred prisoners, that is.

  In this, he followed Madrid’s logic. The ministers there, after the Allied withdrawal from Spain, said that anyone opposing Bourbon forces was to be considered a rebel and treated accordingly. The view from Barcelona was obviously quite different. With the foreign troops gone, the Generalitat had hurriedly formed an army, paid for out of its own coffers. So they had regulars at their disposal, uniformed and on the Catalan government’s payroll. The spiral of reprisal and counter-reprisal between Bourbon and Miquelet—we’ve covered that. But for Pópuli to do that to two hundred men at a stroke was beyond atrocious. Two hundred regulars hanged! Don Antonio sent a missive to Pópuli asking if he’d drunk away his senses. Pópuli answered by saying the same treatment would be meted out to any prisoners taken from that day hence. Don Antonio was especially offended that Pópuli addressed him as the “Rebel Chief.” Don Antonio, a career soldier, and the most respectful gentleman when it came to the courtesies and conventions in war! This time Don Antonio replied, very well, he was then obliged to accord the same treatment to any prisoner taken by his side.

  The men hanged from the city walls, in sight of the enemy encampment, comprised his answer. A dismal sight if ever there was one: below, the sharpened stakes of the palisade; above, the hanged men.

  This opening exchange was more than enough to warn Pópuli’s army to take precautions. The regiments installed themselves two thousand yards from the city walls, just out of range of the artillery. They immediately began building a cordon, an enormous circuit of parapets to surround the entire city, blocking it off between the River Llobregat to the south and the River Besòs to the north—the idea being to isolate the city until the engineers had planned their line of attack.

  A military cordon, in and of itself, is no great secret. A hastily dug ditch, basically, along which barricades are thrown up with compacted earth, planks of wood, stones, sticks, and anything else the besiegers can lay their hands on. They put any unevenness in the land to their advantage, making extra obstacles out of hummocks or natural ditches. As far as possible, they create scaled-down versions of the five-sided bastions. Needless to say, the besiegers will flatten any buildings in the vicinity, no matter how small, for matériel.

  The building of the
cordon was under way when three messengers arrived bearing Pópuli’s surrender ultimatum. The mood in the city was such that these were more likely to be strung up than welcomed—a double guard, bayonets drawn, had to form to protect the men from the baying crowd.

  That night Don Antonio called me in to see him. As soon as I came into his study, he addressed me: “I want you to go with the emissaries bearing the reply.”

  “Me, Don Antonio?”

  “You’re my aide-de-camp, if memory serves. And this is precisely the kind of occasion when aides-de-camp come into play. It isn’t only the city’s honor that’s at stake here but, since I am commander of the garrison, mine, too.”

  “Certainly, Don Antonio.”

  “I already know you’re not a soldier, just an engineer in uniform, and the most basic rudiments of militariness are quite beyond you. But do you think you could be so kind as to address me as ‘General’?”

  “Yes, General.”

  “I need to know you won’t be discourteous in any way with the enemy. Their army has just pitched, and in war, appearances are as important as in matters of the heart.”

  “You’re right, Don Antonio.”

  “They’re constantly labeling us seditious, countryless, kingless, and dishonorable. What better way of refuting such charges than to be courteous with them, with their troops looking on? You mustn’t let anyone spoil this. Graciousness, good deeds, gentlemanliness, gallantry, neatness. This is your task.”

  “As you wish, Don Antonio.”

  Honestly, it seemed like a waste of time to me. The Bourbons were in place, they were here for our blood; no amount of talking was going to change that. But that was the way with military honor in my time: a bloodbath with spotless manners.