Victus

by Albert Sanchez Pinol

  I was so absorbed in the two of them that it took me a while to comprehend the nature of their task. There were brigades attaching heavy chains to the support beams of buildings, and when the order was given, lines of men and women heaved on these. The houses came crashing down, a great peal of dislodged stone and clouds of masonry. And I saw one of the wrecked houses was ours! I finally went over to them. The recompense was Amelis’s face when she saw me—I’d never seen her so happy.

  Certain embraces mark out stages in our lives. I’d returned, I was with them again, and as we clasped each other, it was like sealing a bond that even two kings had not been able to break asunder. I could also feel how thin she’d become, her ribs jutting into my fingers.

  “For the love of God,” I said, “you’re pulling out the rubble of our own home.”

  “Well, there wasn’t much left of it anyway,” said Peret, who was with them. “We were hit by two cannonballs not long after you were captured.”

  They were working, as it turned out, on building a “cutting.” A draconian measure, I learned, that had been imposed by the government.

  When the walls of a sieged city suffer irreparable breaches, there’s one emergency course of action: the cutting. Its name comes from what it’s intended to do—cut the advance of the besieging army after they’ve taken control of the ramparts. The idea being to create a zigzag parapet just inside and running parallel with the ramparts. It wants to be as tall as possible, with a ditch dug along it to effectively increase that height. Just as the invaders think they’re through, there’s one more obstacle for them to get over.

  At Bazoches, cuttings were given short shrift. Why? Because they’re useless. In all my many days, I’ve yet to see one fend off any large-scale assault. If Herculean bastions hadn’t done the job, why on earth would a puny barricade like that? Before my capture, I’d argued vehemently against the project. And my reasons were many.

  First: the adverse effect of a cutting on morale. Knowing there’s one more place where they might shelter, the troops manning the rampart have a tendency to submit rather than fight to the death. Second: This second line of defense is less effective, and the invaders, emboldened by having vaulted the first hurdle, will overrun it easily. Third: The way Barcelona was set out meant that our cutting was situated on a plain directly beneath the bastions. The victorious Bourbons would be firing down on us from above, with all the advantages that signifies. Fourth and most important: This terrain also had lots of buildings in it, when what was needed was a clear shot; Barcelona was such a dense urban agglomeration that the buildings virtually hugged the inside of the rampart walls. Whole streets would have to be flattened. And the inhabitants would hardly be thrilled at the government demolishing their homes.

  Though as it turned out, at least regarding the last point, I was mistaken. The people living in the houses weren’t opposed to the demolitions; they supported them, in the name of saving the city. They were all there, half-starved men and women helping to pull down the roofs beneath which they’d always lived. I couldn’t make sense of it. In order to defend their homes, the people of Barcelona were prepared to destroy them.

  My Bazoches eyes detected something half buried in the ruins of our building. I went over. It was Amelis’s carillon à musique. I cradled it like a baby, cleaning off the dirt and muck. It was broken, unsurprisingly—I opened it, but no music came out. I later learned that Peret, who feared thieves more than going hungry, had taken it back to the house when Amelis wasn’t looking, thinking that the bolts on our door would be a better protection than the canvas walls at the beach. He seemed to have missed the fact that cannonballs can do slightly more harm than any robber. I took the music box back to Amelis. “It’s all right,” I said. “We’ll find someone to fix it.”

  I felt somewhat guilty. I’d been taught how to build or repair monumental walls but was helpless in the face of a small box that played music when opened. You could never tell if Amelis was being serious when it came to the box, because what she said was: “No matter.”

  What is a home, a hearth? Often it’s a melody or the memory of a melody. As long as she still had that box, she’d have a home. All that had broken was the outer casing, nothing more.

  “No matter,” she insisted. “As long as we have the box, the melody will be easier to remember.”

  I went to see Don Antonio that same afternoon. I had to tell him about Little Philip’s letters in support of a wholesale extermination, and about Queen Anne dying. And, of course, the details of the Attack Trench. Thanks to the discipline of the Spherical Room, each and every detail was stored in Zuvi’s little head.

  Making my way to see him, in that brief journey, I observed the oppressive, filthy atmosphere of the city now. Pyramids of refuse piled up on the beach. The people of Barcelona, always so jovial, all now withdrawn, and the usual merry air replaced by a collective despondency. I saw many more men in the family-run shops than at the start, injured in the fighting, arms and legs missing, convalescing among their loved ones. Women cooking watered-down soups. I saw an argument break out between a couple of them, scratching and pulling each other’s hair. As far as I could make out, it was over half a stolen turnip. Entering the streets, I found the very color of the city to have altered, with a gray layer of dust and ash covering everything. And the only battalions not to have deserted, and still in one piece, were those of the Coronela.

  Don Antonio was so gaunt, with his clothes hanging off him, that had it not been for his general’s uniform, I’d barely have recognized him. He’d hardly slept or eaten since the trench had begun, someone later told me. We sat opposite each other, and he listened at length to what I had to say. A map was spread out, and on it I sketched the features of the trench’s progress. The heart can be a stealthy thing sometimes, for the more technical the discussion became, the more I found myself shaken by heinous and disproportionate sentiments.

  I’d learned at Bazoches how to focus my mind and put aside my feelings, which cloud clear thinking. But in the Barcelona of 1714, those two opposed poles converged; a deeply rational part of me awoke deep emotions. Who but I, after all, could possibly know the full significance of those ink lines and shapes on the map, apparently so innocuous?

  I had set out the line along which the Bourbon trench was advancing, branch by branch. First parallel—there outside the window, growing longer by the hour, while we talked—second parallel, third parallel.

  I found myself choking, and as I said the words “ . . . and finally, they’ll meet the moat, . . . ” my voice cracked. I excused myself: “Forgive me, General.”

  “I want you to go and oversee the cuttings works,” he said. “And for the love of God, no blubbing!”

  I tried to evince a firmness I utterly did not feel, and before going out, I came up with something in relation to the great question Vauban had one day asked me.

  “Who knows,” I said, “if we persevere, perhaps we can devise a defense so perfect that the enemy will desist.”

  But Don Antonio only shook his head. “Son, to come anywhere near perfection, it would be a question of going beyond merely mortal dimensions. And if it’s a crime to force professional soldiers into it, what authority could we call on to force an entire city?”

  It was a hopeless cause, a fact that no one knew better than Don Antonio. He’d argued a thousand times for the government to negotiate peace. I don’t believe any man can ever have suffered a moral quandary such as his then. Persevering with a harebrained defense went against his conscience, when to give up would be an abrogation of his sense of honor. He made several gestures toward throwing in the towel. But he never meant it—he was only using it as a threat in negotiating with the Red Pelts. He was caught in a paradoxical whirlpool: the soldiers blindly obeying him, him obeying the Red Pelts, and the Red Pelts doing as the people wanted. And what was the Coronela, anyway, if not the citizens themselves, armed? Long before the trench had begun, Don Antonio had his eye on a single objectiv
e: to avoid a senseless slaughter. A noble ideal, but it was becoming less and less possible with every passing day, particularly as those who sought to save the day were the ones who preferred the idea of self-immolation to surrender.

  And me? I’d become an observer of—and at the same time a participator in—that madness of ours. On my first night back, as I lay with Amelis in my arms under the canvas of our tent, we spoke very few words. The broken music box rested on the floor by our bed mat. I preferred not to say too much about what had gone on when I was in the Bourbon encampment. That morning, when the two of us had found each other again, the sight of her hands, bloody from hefting sharp rocks, had made my questions about Verboom feel somewhat less pressing. And now, together, with our naked skin touching, it seemed best just to say nothing.

  “A favor” was the one thing I did say. “That Sunday dress of yours, the violet one. Burn it, would you.”

  She let out a tired laugh. “Martí,” she said, “you perfect fool. It’s been a long while since I sold that dress, for money to buy food with. ”

  Jimmy now aimed his artillery—all of it—on the bastions of Portal Nou and Saint Clara and on the stretch of rampart between. Pópuli’s murderous but erratic approach was over, replaced with one that was methodical and persistent, as well as adjusted to the way the trench was proceeding. And who had designed it? I found the thought growing and beginning to consume me. The furrow grew closer and closer, day and night, while the cannons sought to create a breach for the final assault.

  Naturally, Costa and his Mallorcans did what they could to make life difficult for the enemy gunners. They aimed at the Bourbon cannons and the top of the trench, raining down death on as many sappers and soldiers as possible. The enemy also tried to pick out our cannons, and it was mayhem for all. Cannons from either side seeking each other out, and some of ours belching out grapeshot across their parallels, and some of theirs knocking down our walls and killing our men. Costa was always around, chewing on his parsley sprig, barking orders. Cannons fired, cannons dragged to a new position. And between them, the Coronela rifleman, making sure the soldiers in the trenches kept their heads down.

  Those tailors, carpenters, and gardeners knew that until their shift was over, they’d be coming under cannon fire day and night, immured in the pentagonal tomblike bastions. They glanced nervously at the skies, in hope of clouds, as any rain would dampen the gunpowder and thereby slow the Bourbon artillery in their tasks. Alas, this was the peak of summer. The Mediterranean always makes Barcelona’s heat humid, and in August, the air turns to a horrible soup. Ah, yes, that blue cloudless sky, no promise of rain, blue, constantly blue: Never has the color blue seemed so uncompromising. And the heat—that of summer, combined with the heat of battle.

  The bombardment was so intense that whenever you were up on one of the bastions, you’d constantly be breathing rock dust. Large motes floated on the air: Lifting your hand up was like stirring a dense pollen. A brief stint on Saint Clara or Portal Nou and the gaps between your teeth would fill up with earth; no, something worse, because you knew it was also formed of human remains, ground to stone and dust by the shelling. Some men grew snide, others lost their minds; not a man exists who can resist the effects of an endless bombardment, not a single one. Sometimes they’d crack suddenly, crawl off into a corner, and curl up, not let anyone come near. Their eyes would flutter faster than hummingbird wings, their hands make wringing motions. Madness is always a form of fleeing inside oneself.

  The second parallel was reached. This enabled the Bourbons to install artillery that could then attack the ramparts side-on and from far closer. Costa could do little against so many. At this point, they began employing the “Ricochet,” a technique invented by none other than Marquis de Vauban himself.

  Essentially, the Ricochet meant charging a cannon with only two thirds of the necessary gunpowder. Then the missiles wouldn’t punch into or embed in the walls but, rather, skim along like stones over the surface of a stream. It’s useful for clearing out cannons installed on ramparts. The missile would run the length of the bastion deck, flattening everything in its path. You’d see the cannonballs, the size of very large watermelons, almost seeming to gambol along and against the stoneworks. Each impact produced a horrifying noise, indifferent to human life. The Ricochet technique converted men into ants and bastions into trodden-on anthills. Hefty stone orbs bouncing, crunching, along the ground.

  Left, right, and center they came—and from in front—and at times from all directions at once—and there were constant cries of: “A terra!”

  If you did get down in time, it was unlikely that the weight of the cannonball would strike you dead—possibly landing on a soft part of your body, break a few ribs, at most. But they were deceptively quick, and their flight was mutilating. If you didn’t see one coming, it could tear off a limb and carry on past, impassively bouncing along the cobblestones. The sight of men chopped to pieces is a primordially terrifying one.

  The battalions with orders to take their turn up on Portal Nou or Saint Clara would pause before ascending, and kneel down and pray. But they would go up. I’d do anything not to have to order men to occupy the entrances to the bastions. It would have been like supervising an execution of honorable men.

  I believed that writing this book would unburden my memory. To let my treachery drain onto the pages, to liberate myself by speaking truth. I thought—oh, vanity—that deploying ink to honor the men and women who fought against all odds, for their liberty, would make me less miserable. But I now see it’s an impossible task. Why? Because of our concept of the heroic, which is so elusive, and so degenerate.

  Our prototypical hero is proud Achilles. We see him standing victorious over Hector, sword raised. But how can we possibly extol the epic qualities of a filthy group of men when everything they do, their daily functions, is perfectly common? A single act doesn’t make a hero; constancy does. It isn’t a single bright point but a fine line, indestructibly modest: this ascent up onto inundated ramparts day after day after day. Leaving home and walking into the inferno, then returning home, and in the morning, joining in with death again. And given that so many heroic deeds were constantly being carried out, no one was seen as a hero. But this itself was what made them truly great. Heroes, like traitors, grow old. Those who sacrifice themselves remain; to them goes the glory. It’s impossible to live on in glory; only death has the power to confer the stamp of immortality.

  Soon the third parallel was under way. I wept to see it, crouching down in a rubble-filled corner of one of the bastions, my hands covering my face, Ballester and his men standing around me. They didn’t understand my desolation, and at the same time, they intuited, knew, that my tears pertained to a superior knowledge, something beyond them. The Miquelets hid their feelings, always, and perhaps for that reason admired any open show of emotion.

  The third parallel meant the beginning of the end. Goethe once asked me about Vauban’s philosophy. I summarized as best I could the basic principle of encircling a place with a trench comprising three large parallels. Goethe thought about it, then said: “It’s just as Aristotle said: All dramas consist of three acts.” I’d never thought of it like that before.

  And on they came. The end of the third parallel would be the end itself. All they had left to do was create the cut that would come through the moat. Then put in place parapets (known as “the gentlemen,” in engineering parlance) and, next, to unleash the final assault, using fifty thousand well-drilled assassins.

  The Attack Trench was a labyrinth by now, many thousands of feet long, zigzagging, turning corners, contorting in countless directions. Far to our left, we could see Montjuic, shrouded in smoke so that its peak resembled a flying mountain. All my Bazoches faculties were required, just to have a sense of what was going on a few feet in front of my nose. During one of the bombardments, I came to a particularly painful realization.

  I was squatting down on the Portal Nou bastion at the time. I felt
desperate seeing the breaches widening by the day, as the enemy cannons continued their work, and knowing there was nothing to be done now to plug them. Next to me was a soldier whose name I didn’t know. Like me, he was sheltering, just about, from the artillery, one hand gripping his rifle, the other clamping his hat down over his head. He was a nobody. A man dressed in poor, tattered clothes, covered in the dust of the battle. At one point, sneaking a look out through one of the many gaps in the battered wall, he said: “What utter whoreson could have come up with something so twisted?”

  Perhaps it was this that dragged me to the edge of true torment: feeling myself to be playing a part in our downfall. Then one day I saw a sign for which I’d been hoping for a long while: buckets being passed over the top of a parapet. They were bailing water from the trench.

  I’d designed the trench lines to go near the sea, hoping they’d flood. Jimmy’s sappers, trying to dig, suddenly found themselves inundated with salt water. Seeing the buckets, I exploded with glee. I stood up above the rampart and shouted: “Have that! Drown, you rats!”

  Ballester yanked me back down. “Lieutenant colonel!” he said, railing at me once I had taken cover again.

  I remember that being an extraordinary moment. Why? Because of what I saw in Ballester’s eyes: myself.

  Until that moment he’d viewed me as someone reliable but lacking in spirit, skittish, and overly cautious. That day saw the culmination of an insane transmutation in each of us. Ballester, a responsible person, in pay of the government, and Lieutenant Colonel Zuviría, a machine, immersed in our murderous task. Yes, the look we shared then lasted a good few moments.

  But if the days were hellish, words cannot describe the nights. Once the third parallel had been established, we were sent out on night sorties more often, and they were bloodier than ever. How could I possibly not take part? I knew every nook and cranny of my trench. My presence was crucial in guiding my fellow soldiers. Combat in the pitch black is always a muddled thing, nothing more so, with grenades, knives, and bayonets in a maze of a thousand ditches and branches.