by Noah Gordon
They followed the plodding horses down to another turn, onto the Calle de Turso, where Josep struck a second match.
This was a narrower street and darker except for a single pool of light beneath a lamp.
Beyond the lamplight two shapes loomed, a pair of coaches moving slowly down the dark, street side by side. Then they stopped, blocking the way.
“Now,” Peña said, just as the carriage moved into the light.
Guillem and Esteve leaped into the road and seized the bridles of the horses while the hunting group surrounded the coach. From two coaches and the darkness on the other side of the street other figures emerged, and several came around to where Josep stood staring into the startled face of the man within the carriage. The driver of the blocked coach was standing, and he had begun flailing at Esteve with his whip.
Agents of the militia, Josep thought as he saw the newcomers, three of them with drawn handguns, and he took a step back so they had a clear course to the coach door.
But instead they held out their guns.
A series of flat, coughing reports.
The man in the coach had turned to look out the window and presented a wide target; he jerked as he was struck in the left shoulder, touching the place with his left hand. His right hand came up as though in protest and Josep saw part of his ring finger fly away. Then another bullet hit him in the breast, leaving a small dark bite in his cloak like the hundreds of holes the hunting group had shot into their target trees.
It shocked Josep to recognize the bitter realization in the man’s face.
Someone shouted “Jesucrist!” and screamed, a long, feminine sound. At first Josep thought it came from a woman, then he realized that the voice was Enric’s. And suddenly everyone was running into the darkness, and Josep ran too, over the snowy ground away from the shying horses and the pitching carriages.
PART THREE
Out in the World
Madrid
December 28, 1870
19
Walking in Snow
He fell once in the cold wet and got up and ran again until his breath was labored, and finally he stopped and leaned against a building.
In a while he resumed flight, walking now instead of running, but still in terror. He had no idea where his feet were carrying him, and he was startled, as he passed under a street lamp, when a voice came from the darkness.
“Josep. Wait.”
Guillem.
“What happened, Guillem? Why did they shoot the poor bastard? Why didn’t they just arrest him as we were told they would?”
“I don’t know. Well…it didn’t happen just the way Peña predicted, did it? Perhaps Peña can explain. He said to go the railway station if anything happened.”
“Yes, the station…Do you know how to find it? I haven’t the slightest idea where we are.”
“I think it’s somewhere in this direction.…” Guillem said helplessly.
They plodded for a long time before Guillem admitted he was as lost as Josep. Soon they came to a hack stand, and when Josep asked one of the carriage drivers how to get to the railway station, they learned they had been walking north instead of south.
The man gave them long, complicated directions, and they turned and began to retrace their steps.
Above all they did not want to go back to the vicinity of the attack, and this required a detour, during which both Josep and Guillem forgot some of the details of the directions they had been given. Cold and weary, Josep pointed to a nearby sign that announced a small café called the Metropolitano. “Let’s ask in there.”
Inside, even the low prices on the chalkboard intimidated them; they had little money. But each ordered a coffee.
Their arrival interrupted an argument between the large and burly proprietor and his elderly waiter.
“Gerardo, Gerardo! The goddam lunch dishes! They were never washed! You expect to serve food in dirty dishes?”
The waiter shrugged. “Not my fault, is it? Gabino did not show up.”
“Why did you not get somebody else, you stupid shit? The fiesta, without a dishwasher! What do you expect me to do now?”
“Perhaps the dishes, señor?” The waiter shrugged again, bored.
When he served their coffee, Guillem asked him how to find the railroad station.
“You are west of the railroad. You must walk down this street and take the second right. Six or seven blocks down you will see the railroad yards. The shortest way from here is to go right through the yards to the rear of the station.”
As they drank the coffee eagerly for its heat, he added a cautionary note. “It is safe to cross the railroad property so long as you are not idiots who would walk on the tracks.”
It had stopped snowing by the time they reached the railroad yards, but there were no stars. They walked among the coal bins and woodpiles. The white-coated boxcars seemed like sleeping monsters. Soon they saw the gas lamps of the depot area, and they followed a path to it, along a deserted train. When they peered around the end of the locomotive, Josep said, “There’s Peña. And, look, there’s Jordi.”
Peña was standing next to a waiting carriage with two men and Jordi Arnau. Peña spoke briefly to Jordi and opened the door of the coach. At first Jordi seemed ready to enter, but he saw something inside that made him draw back, and one of the men began to push him.
“What the hell?” Josep said.
Three more men approached the carriage and stood watching as Jordi turned and raised his fist.
The man nearest him pulled a knife and moved it in a way Josep couldn’t believe, into Jordi’s throat, and across.
It could not be happening, Josep thought, but Jordi was on the ground, in the yellow lamplight his blood black against the snow.
Josep felt faint.
“Guillem, we have to do something.”
Guillem gripped his arms. “There are too many of them, and more coming. Shut up, Josep,” he whispered. “Shut up.”
Two of the men picked Jordi up and threw him into the carriage. Far to the left, Josep saw that another group of men had surrounded Manel Calderon.
“They have Manel.”
Guillem drew Josep back. “We have to get away from here. Now. But don’t run.”
They turned and walked wordlessly, back through the train yards. A high, cold sliver of moon had appeared, but the night was still black. Josep was trembling. He strained his ears, dreading to hear the sound of shouts and running feet, but none came. When they were almost out of the yards, he dared to speak.
“Guillem, I don’t understand what is going on.…What is happening?”
“I don’t understand what’s happening either, Josep.”
“Where shall we go?”
But Guillem shook his head.
They walked past the Metropolitano Café, but then Guillem put his hand on Josep’s arm and turned back. Josep followed him inside, where the elderly waiter was wiping one of the tables with a wet rag.
“Senyor…” Guillem said. “May we speak with the owner?”
“Señor Ruiz.” The waiter pointed with his chin. In the back room, they found the proprietor standing over a battered copper tub, his arms buried in water.
“Senyor Ruiz,” Guillem said. “Would you like to hire us as your dishwashers?”
The man’s red face was oily with sweat, but he tried to hide the sudden eagerness in his eyes. “How much?”
The bargain was quickly struck. Meals, a few coins, and permission to sleep on the floor after the last patron had left. The proprietor wiped his arms, rolled down his sleeves, and fled into the kitchen. A few seconds later, Guillem and Josep had taken his place at the sink.
They settled into the routine willingly, Guillem washing the dishes in hot water and dropping them into a cold-water rinse, Josep wiping down the clean dishes and stacking them.
The water didn’t stay hot very long, and they had to continually add boiling water from three big pots over the grill in the fireplace and then rep
lenish the supply in the pots with water from the small pump in the sink. The café did a good business. They kept exchanging clean dishes for more stacks of dirty ones. From time to time, when the tub could hold no more water and the mixture had become cold and terrible with grease, they would empty the dishwater into the alley behind the café and start afresh. The small back room was hot, and each of them removed several layers of clothing.
Josep kept seeing Jordi, reliving the terrible moment. In a little while he spoke. “They were getting rid of witnesses.”
He could not disguise the fear in his own voice.
Guillem stopped working. “You really think so?” He sounded ill.
“Yes.”
Guillem looked at him palely. “I do too,” he said, and then he reached into the water for another dish.
Several hours after midnight, Gerardo, the old waiter, brought them bowls of goat stew and half a loaf of bread, only slightly stale, and watched them wolf it down.
“I know why you went to the railroad,” he said.
They regarded him silently.
“You want to jump a train, get a free ride. Isn’t that right? Listen to me, you cannot hop a train in Madrid. My cousin Eugenio works for the railroad, and he has told me they have guards with clubs, and they check each car before leaving the yard. You would be beaten and thrown into jail. What you need to do is climb into a freight car when the train has stopped somewhere outside of the city. That is the way to do it.”
“Thank you, senyor,” Josep managed.
Gerardo nodded loftily. “A small word to the wise,” he said.
They slept next to the comfort of the dying fire. It was cool in the café when the fire died, but they had full stomachs, and it was far better to sleep on the filthy floor than it would have been to be outside in the rawness of winter,
The next day, they swept the floor clean and emptied the fireplaces of ashes, before Gerardo came to the café in midmorning, and he rewarded them with a good breakfast. “The boss wants you to stay a few more days and help us out,” he said. “Ruiz says if you stay until after the eve of the new year, he will show his appreciation.”
Josep and Guillem looked at one another. “Why not?” Josep said.
They gratefully spent the next two days and nights as the dishwashers of the café, aware that the back room was the perfect place to hide. Despite the fact that the noise of the patrons reached them during peak hours, only Gerardo entered into their domain, and they left it only to visit the outhouse or to discard the used dishwater in the alley.
On New Year’s Eve, Gerardo brought them each a block of turrón, the hard kind made with whole toasted almonds. As the cathedral bells began their sonorous pealing, they paused in their work and gnawed the confection.
Then, with the taste of sugar, egg white, and honey still in their mouths—as the people in the café joined in the general tumult—they resumed washing the dishes.
That night when Gerardo and Ruiz had followed the patrons from the little café, Guillem found a copy of a newspaper abandoned under one of the tables. He couldn’t read or write, and he carried the newspaper to Josep at once. By the light of two candles, Josep examined it.
La Gaceta, published the day before.
“Well?... Well?” Guillem demanded.
Josep was trembling. “God, Guillem! Oh. My God, my God…Do you know who he is?”
Guillem stared at him speechlessly.
“He is Juan Prim.”
“Juan Prim…No. Juan Prim, the president?”
“The president. General Juan Prim.”
“Is he dead?” Guillem asked faintly.
“He is alive. He is wounded, but they did not succeed in killing him.”
“Ah, thanks to God. Josep, we are blest!”
“The head of the government council of Spain, Guillem! And they shot him. And he is a good man, General Prim, always for Spain, always for the people. No, Jesús! Does it mention the Carlists?”
“No. Madre, they have his whole life. Prominent in the movement that led Queen Isabella to abdicate and flee to France…former captain-general of Puerto Rico, hero of the war with Morocco…Born in Reus, twice a grandee, a marquis, and a count.
“Does it say he was shot by the militia?”
“No. Guillem…It says he was shot by unknown assassins who were assisted by a group of accomplices.”
Guillem stared.
“Do you think they were members of the militia, Guillem? The attackers?”
“I don’t know. A man like that. The president! He would have big enemies, don’t you think? But who knows if they were from the militia or…whatever? Probably Peña is not truly a sergeant. Perhaps he is not truly a Carlist.”
“Probably he is is not truly named Peña,” Josep said quietly.
20
News
On the following day, the second day of 1871, “Perhaps,” Guillem said, “we should stay here a while longer.”
Josep was amenable. He was still in shock, and he liked the safety of the place and the certainty of food and warmth. But it wasn’t to be.
“Ruiz is going to pay you off,” Gerardo said. “He has hired the daughter of his brother to work here with us. Paulina.” He shrugged. “She is a slut but also a very good worker, and Ruiz has such a large family. He was determined to employ a relative.”
Gerardo had a proposition for them, however.
“Two nice young men, obviously Catalans. And interested in returning east, perhaps?” When they nodded, he beamed.
“A man named Dario Rodríguez is a long-time patron of this café. He makes hams. Such hams!” He kissed his fingertips. “For years we have bought and served them. Tomorrow he goes to Guadalajara, delivering his hams to restaurants and groceries along the way. I have spoken to him. In exchange for some labor on your part, he will take you with him and deliver you at La Fuente. La Fuente is a way station of the railroad, a place where the trains stop briefly to take on fresh water and coal. A freight train is due there tomorrow evening at ten minutes past the hour of nine. My cousin Eugenio says it is an excellent place to board a freight car, since there are no disagreeable guards with clubs at La Fuente.”
It seemed a very welcome opportunity to Josep and Guillem.
Early the next morning, modestly enriched by Ruiz and blessed with a gift from Gerardo—a sack containing pork sausages, bread, and two large slices of somewhat old potato and egg tortilla—they clambered onto Dario Rodríguez’s meat wagon. Rodríguez, as burly as Ruiz but more affable, laid out the rules:
“You’ll ride in back with the hams. At each stop, I’ll call out the number of hams to be delivered. If the order is for a single ham, you’ll take turns. If more than one, both of you shall carry them.”
So they departed from Madrid, seated in a cleared spot on the wagon bed, wedged between heavy pig haunches, and blanketed by their thick, rich smell.
It was almost dusk when Rodríguez dropped them off at the La Fuente train yard, a smaller version of the railroad yard in Madrid.
Josep nervously noted several men standing in the shadows of some of the detached cars, but nobody came forward to challenge them as they moved behind one of the cars themselves.
Waiting was difficult. Finally, just as darkness was settling over the yard, there was the monster-sound of the approaching train. Unsure of themselves, they hesitated when it groaned to a stop, until they saw other men running to the train, pulling open doors.
“Come on!” Guillem said; he grunted with effort as he ran, and Josep followed. Each freight car seemed to have a padlock on the door as they ran past.
“Here’s one,” Josep said at last. The door protested when they pulled it open. In a moment they were inside, and the door screeched again as they shoved it closed.
“Everyone must have heard that,” Guillem muttered. They stood in silent desperation in the perfect dark, waiting for guards with clubs.
Nobody came.
In a moment there was a ha
rd jerk as the car moved and stopped. Then it moved again, and this time it kept on moving.
The freight car strongly disclosed the nature of its last cargo.
“Onions,” Josep said, and Guillem laughed.
Josep moved cautiously around the car’s perimeter, holding onto the swaying walls, making certain they shared the darkness with nobody else. But the car was empty of other people as well as of onions, and he felt a great sense of relief when he was back at Guillem’s side.
At midday they had eaten free bowls of lentil soup in a restaurant kitchen where they had left hams, so Josep still clutched the sack of food Gerardo had given them. In a little while they sat and ate, beginning with the sausages and the hardened bread. The tortillas had broken apart, but they savored every crumb; then they lay back on the vibrating floor.
Josep farted.
“…Well…not as bad as Xavier Miró’s,” Guillem said judiciously.
“Nothing is as bad as Xavier’s.”
Guillem’s laughter was strained.
“I wonder where he is.”
“I wonder where all the others are,” Josep said.
They were worried that guards might inspect the train in Guadalajara, but when they reached there just before midnight, no one bothered the car door during the few long minutes the train sat at the station. Eventually the train jolted forward again and moved on, rattling and swaying, the noise and motion making a strange rhythmic music that at first kept Josep awake and finally lulled him into sleep.
He awoke to the squealing of the door being moved back by Guillem, daylight diluting the dark. The train was clacking along at good speed, through open farm country. Guillem pissed through the door, no people or animals in sight except for a large bird hanging in the sky.
Josep felt rested but very thirsty, and hungry again; he regretted not saving some of Gerardo’s food. He and Guillem sat and watched farms, fields, forests, villages appear and disappear. A long nervous stop in Zaragoza, then Caspe…smaller pueblos, open fields, crops, sandy wastes…
