Victus

by Albert Sanchez Pinol

  Don Antonio’s maneuver consisted of sending out some ships, well stocked and carrying a little more than a thousand men and companion cavalry, and disembarking behind the enemy’s rearguard. Their mission would then be to raise recruits throughout the land and, when the numbers were sufficient, to come in and attack the far side of the Bourbon cordon. This, coordinated with a charge by the Coronela, would pincer Pópuli.

  Bazoches had taught me about all the possible ways out for a garrison under siege, and this must have been among the most audacious, imaginative, and well planned I’d come across. Or it would have been, if there did not exist on this earth a race of pernicious, gluttonous dilettantes known as the Red Pelts!

  Waltraud beseeches me to calm down, to carry on, but I don’t want to calm down, I don’t have the slightest interest in calming down. For the French and Spanish—they had to be killed mercilessly—they were the enemy. But the Red Pelts, those lordlings with their powdered cheeks, turned everything we were fighting for into an empty husk. Deep down, they didn’t believe in Catalan liberties, or in our constitutions. In the end, they were faced with an enemy who sought to exterminate their people, something so unprecedented and ferocious that they did carry on fighting, but only because there was no choice. Out of earshot, their motto was: “Chaos before slavery.” I’ll describe everything that happened! How they hindered General Villarroel, how they managed to make defeat out of our victories. For until now, only the victor’s version has been told, or that of the complicit Catalan upper class: empty lies, the lot. And as everyone knows, an empty cup makes more noise than a full one.

  Schnapps, bring me more schnapps. May the harshness of it strip our throats but never quench our hearts! Chin up, Martí!

  Back to the story. Where were we? Ah, yes. The expedition.

  The government wanted it led by the deputy of the military estate, the very noble, and also profoundly Pelt-y, Antoni Berenguer. Not the ideal man for such a complex and risky venture: In spite of his title, he was a politician, not a soldier, and he was also very old. He was confined to a wheelchair, complete with a chamber pot attached underneath. His lower eyelids hung down like wet bloody tongues. Yes, credit where it’s due, his white eyebrows and beard, cut by one of the city’s finest barbers, did confer upon him an air of venerability.

  Deputy Berenguer had a retinue of upstanding citizens to underline the solemnity of his post. They were nothing more than a crew of bootlickers, and very quickly, our name for them—“Berenguer’s oafs”—stuck. There was no point to them unless they were with the deputy; away from him, they were nothing but a herd dressed in silk.

  I wasn’t sure about Berenguer from the start. True, as deputy of the military estate, he was the institutional incarnation of the spirit of the struggle. He, and only he, had the sacred right to bear the silver mace symbolizing the Catalans’ right to oppose any invader. This was a large silver truncheon with baroque inlay, affectionately referred to by the people as “The Club.” Any neighborhood the deputy passed through with this in hand, all the local inhabitants over the age of sixteen were obliged to drop what they were doing, to leave their lives behind, and to give everything in defense of their country. But, so my thinking went, was it really necessary to put this sanctimonious old fart aboard a ship? And that isn’t a metaphor, by the way; his guts really were in poor order.

  As for Colonel Sebastià Dalmau, who was also part of the expedition, words cannot describe the talents of that giant of a man. Of all the anonymous heroes of this century, Dalmau was one of the greatest.

  He descended from one of Barcelona’s grandest families. When the Allies withdrew from Catalonia, he immediately came in on the Generalitat’s side. In fact, he was one of the few in the upper classes who responded to the Crida. His whole fortune went to underwriting the Catalan War, every last peso. The Sebastià Regiment was financed entirely by his family; the soldiers’ wages, weapons, provisions, and uniforms all came out of his pocket. The infantry on the expedition was to be formed of this regiment, which consisted of non-nobles and non-guild members. Tavern and brothel dwellers, scum—the government trusted them less than they would a converted Jew. From my point of view as an engineer, I didn’t judge them on where they came from or their prestige but on their military effectiveness, and in that respect, they struck me as an altogether magnificent unit. The Red Pelts worked by a different logic and were relieved to see the back of Dalmau’s troop. (Why risk decent young men when the dregs were offering themselves up?)

  Some men are born to be happy, just as others might be born lame or with blue eyes. Dalmau had one of those smiling “all will be well” countenances, and coming from him, it seemed like certainty rather than wishful thinking. He had a very Barcelonan way of looking at things. War, to him, was at root a transaction, with one’s homeland as a business and one’s family as shareholders. Properly considered, in a civilian army, he was the ideal kind of commander.

  As for the other officials who boarded ships on that expedition, we need mention only one other, a German colonel. And the less said about him, the better. In siege situations, dark things happen.

  This colonel was one of the few, the very few, who chose to come over and serve the Generalitat when the Allies withdrew. But he wasn’t motivated by any noble cause. Various common crimes—including looting from dead bodies—meant his reputation preceded him. Word had it, he’d led a troop who had stripped dead soldiers of their possessions before burying them en masse.

  His position in the Allied army had therefore become untenable, and when the Crida went out, he defected, claiming that the Catalan cause was close to his heart. For the Generalitat’s part, it was short of officers and admitted him without asking questions. Even so, he was such a scoundrel that the German volunteers in Barcelona refused to serve under him. Don Antonio set out for him, in no uncertain terms, his choices: Either he could restore his reputation when the bloodiest fighting came, or pack his bags for Vienna, where the hangman would be waiting. He had no choice but to join the expedition.

  His favorite word was Scheisse. He said it so often, the men ended up calling him Scheissez. Just so you know, my dear vile Waltraud, in Spanish surnames, the ending -ez means “son of.” Perez, son of Pere; Fernandez, son of Fernando, et cetera. What the Barcelonans didn’t know was that Scheisse means “shit” in German. So every time they addressed him, they were calling their superior officer “Shitson.” Shitson himself wasn’t amused, but since Don Antonio had made it clear he wouldn’t tolerate the man abusing his authority, he had to grin and bear it. He was always looking at you out of the corner of his eye. During the voyage, we were constantly glancing at each other. He was like any of the other rats on board, the one difference being that rats are the first to abandon a sinking ship, whereas Shitson was looking for a way off as soon as possible, whether the vessel was seaworthy or not.

  For my part, I couldn’t seem to shake that look Don Antonio had given me just before the order to join the expedition. Now the outcome of the war depended on the thousand men sailing with me. Perhaps I was on my way to learning the definitive lesson. That of The Word.

  Ballester and his crew of ten were also with us. They’d be sure to come in handy as scouts. As for the French flotilla blocking our exit, that was the least of our worries. Our ships were dodgers, built to hug the shore; theirs had deep hulls and could never get anywhere near the coast. The journey to Arenys wouldn’t take long, not over six hours if the winds were favorable, and we wanted to be swift so we could travel under cover of dark. As for the embarkation, I’ll save the details: forty-seven ships of all different sizes, a thousand infantry, and several cavalry squadrons boarding them. The voyage I’ll skip as well—owing to my rank, I spent the duration alongside Berenguer, his farts, and his oafs.

  As with the voyage, disembarking was a tedious affair. There weren’t many barges to transfer the troop to dry land, and since the bay at Arenys was shallow, the majority of the men jumped over the sides and waded
to shore, powder and rifles above their heads. The horses were simply thrown into the water; instinct sent them inland. I was one of the first to get down after Ballester and his men. It wasn’t bravery but, rather, that I couldn’t stand being on the ship a second longer. When I set foot on dry land, I felt like someone had replaced my head with a whirligig. The sea! Here’s a question: What’s big and useless like the sea? Only one thing: my dear vile Waltraud! Ha! Oh! Not laughing?

  To make things that bit more complicated, the people of Arenys welcomed us as though we were liberating them. Lovely, but if you want to create a huge amount of confusion, mix together a soaking-wet regiment, barges with men and equipment being off-loaded, horses running up and down the shore, officers raw-voiced from shouting, and then add in hundreds of old people, women, and children running and hugging a thousand dizzy soldiers. Great care was required with Deputy Berenguer; carrying his wheelchair to dry ground provided quite a spectacle. Since no adequate barge could be found for the grand so-and-so, someone came up with the brilliant idea of carrying him instead, the porters wading waist-deep with him on their shoulders. First the wheelchair was handed down to them, then the deputy. What they hadn’t accounted for was how heavy the flatulent general was. He settled into the chair and the poor porters sank up to their necks. A little more and they’d have gone under. Berenguer, though, was very happy, going along the surface of the water like Jesus of Nazareth in a wheelchair.

  Almost recovered from the seasickness, I walked up to the top of a dune from which the whole beach could be seen. I caught sight of Ballester, his men around him on the rocks having breakfast, him standing looking pensively out at the sea, his horse’s reins in one hand. For mountain folk, the sea will always be a mystery that stirs them. It was going to be a good while longer until everyone had disembarked, and I went over for a chat.

  “Tedious. Shall we head out? A race?” I said, challenging him. “Bet you anything you like I can get to Mataró before you.”

  Mataró was under enemy occupation. It was as though I were daring him to a harebrained race to a cliff edge—whoever stops, loses. He snorted contemptuously. “The army up to its neck in water,” he said, still looking out, “and you talking about horse racing.”

  It was precisely his gruffness that made him so much fun to needle.

  “You’re just afraid to lose!” I said. “I bet a peso.”

  He abruptly turned to face me, the blue vein on his forehead standing out.

  “You have to obey my orders, remember?” I added. “Well then—mount up!”

  And up we got. In no time at all, we were galloping at breakneck speed. I know, it was sheer stupidity, as well as an affront to all common sense. But know something, my dear vile Waltraud? We were only young.

  We entered a pine forest on a narrow path. His horse was black, mine a dun white. They were neck and neck for a good long while. Every so often I turned my head and stuck out my tongue. This enraged Ballester—sense of humor not being his strongest suit—and he spurred his horse to go faster. I don’t know what happened with mine—perhaps it saw a snake, perhaps a hoof struck a pine root—but it pulled up suddenly, and I went sailing forward over its back. Luckily, it had rained recently, and the muddy ground cushioned my landing.

  I got up, assessing the surrounding greenery with all my sharpened senses. It struck me how foolhardy we’d been. We’d gone a good way south, and it couldn’t have been over two or three miles from Arenys to Mataró. There was no way the Bourbons wouldn’t have garrisoned a place like Mataró, so near to Barcelona.

  “Strange,” I said. “Nobody about. No checkpoints on the road, no horseback patrols. Not a soul.”

  “We’ve stolen a march on them,” said Ballester, whose ears had pricked up as well now. “They weren’t expecting us to disembark behind their rearguard.”

  I mounted up again and rode a little farther on. Not a trace of human life. Only the thick and deathly silent forest on either side of the path. We came to a steeply rising bend. “Look!” I cried.

  Startled, Ballester put his hand to the hilt of his sword. But I meant only the butterflies—hundreds of orange butterflies were swarming around in a clearing to the left of the bend in the path. Dismounting, I walked forward into that cloud of orange wings.

  Thoughts of Bazoches came into my head, memories of the Ducroix brothers’ rational magic. No, I felt no desire to harm those butterflies. Quite the opposite. The world was at war, it was a time when everything was close to tumbling into the abyss, and submerging myself in those fluttering wings felt cleansing to the spirit. They understood; they came and landed on me. Dozens and dozens alighting on my outstretched arm, covering the sleeve of my uniform like a resplendent wreath.

  “Thinking of eating them?” said a laughing Ballester from up on his horse.

  “Don’t be barbaric! They’re resting on my hand precisely because they know I won’t do them any harm. Listen: When a person observes a scene with all his attention, he becomes a part of that scene. Plus, insects love new things.”

  “Mother of God,” groaned Ballester, his hands on his saddle pommel. “We’re the expedition scouts, and here you are, wasting time trying to tame winged maggots.”

  “Come on, dismount,” I said. “Come on, man, get over here. I’ll show you a trick.”

  He rode on a little way to check that there was nobody beyond the bend. Then he came back and dismounted.

  “Hold out your arm,” I said, showing him. He looked at me, unconvinced. “Come on! What’s the problem? Ballester the Brave, happy to take on an army of Bourbons but afraid of a few butterflies?”

  “It’s me who frightens insects. My men will tell you the same. We were sleeping out one warm night, and they all woke up crucified with bites, whereas I hadn’t been touched.”

  Eventually, I got him to hold out an arm, palm up. For all the butterflies swirling around me, dozens and dozens of them, as Ballester had predicted, they gave him a wide berth.

  “See?” he said, somewhat triumphantly lowering his arm again.

  “It isn’t just a case of holding your arm out,” I said. “You need to offer them all of yourself. The hand has to be both messenger and message.”

  He let out an annoyed snort. But instead of answering, he lifted his hand again, though in the manner of someone accepting a tiresome bet. To his obvious surprise, a butterfly flew toward him. Fluttering around a little, it came to rest on his rough and calloused hand.

  Ballester’s face softened. He looked childlike for a few moments, regarding the butterfly that had landed on him; an unthinkable transformation. For once, here was a creature, albeit a maggot with wings, that didn’t fear him. We glanced at each other. And began laughing. I’m not sure why, but we laughed.

  The spell was broken when we heard a faint noise, measured, like brass on brass. Ballester turned and looked toward the bend in the path. Half a dozen soldiers came into sight; the sound was that of their canteens clanking against buckles and straps. Their uniforms were white. The vein on Ballester’s forehead dilated once more.

  They came to a halt—though they had been advancing with rifles at the ready, this was a surprise they hadn’t been ready for: two men standing in the forest, playing with butterflies. A long moment passed, Ballester standing there with his arm still outstretched. Then his butterfly flew away.

  That was his signal: He launched himself at them with his sword drawn. The six of them had advanced two abreast, and Ballester aimed for the middle. He slashed at their necks, left and right, and all I remember is the animal cries—Ballester’s and those of the men as they fell. In the blink of an eye, six Frenchmen were down, either dead or wounded.

  Gasping after that remarkable burst of energy, Ballester braced his arms against his knees. The look he gave me—was he begging forgiveness or arraigning me for frolicking with the butterflies? I was gasping, too, though in my case, it was from the shock.

  Four more soldiers appeared on the path. They came at a pac
e and with their rifles up. They shouted something in French. They surely couldn’t believe what they were seeing: six of their colleagues dead and two men standing there.

  “Drop your sword!” I said to Ballester.

  He did so, but I already knew what was he was thinking: about freeing up both hands to draw his pistols. Better to be taken prisoner than die, I thought.

  “Ballester!” I cried. “Don’t draw! Much as you want to, don’t do it!”

  Everyone started shouting and screaming, everyone except Ballester. The French just about to pull their triggers, me saying we’d surrender. Ballester kept his arms across his torso, a hand on each of his pistol hilts. Ne tirez pas, nous nous rendons! A silly thing to point out, but one thing I remember is that all the butterflies were gone.

  When I heard the shots, I threw myself to the ground and curled up in a ball, shielding my head. Three reports—crack crack crack—followed by three more, then another three.

  But when I raised my head, I found that Ballester wasn’t dead, nor indeed was I; it was the four Frenchmen who had been shot down. From a bluff to our right, a dozen Miquelets were advancing, emerging from the thick woodland with the barrels of their rifles smoking.

  And they were suspicious of us. “Who do you serve?” one asked.

  “Emperor Charles,” I answered, on my knees and trembling. “And you?”

  “Busquets. Hands up,” said the man who seemed to be their leader, pointing his rifle at me, “and keep them up. Elbows to ears.”

  I did as he said, but I protested. “We’re with the army of the Generalitat!”

  He only became more suspicious. A number of the others swung their rifles around in my direction. “You lie! And if you speak Catalan, that must make you a botiflero.”

  As they waited to see what I’d do next, Ballester took the opportunity to finish off one of the dying Frenchmen next to him. A bullet through the nape of the neck—I remember it exiting through his mouth, as though he’d spat it.