by Noah Gordon
He whistled. “Big country, no?” he said, and Guillem nodded.
Bored, he slept again for three or four hours. It was afternoon when Guillem shook his shoulder and woke him.
“I just saw a sign, five leagues to Barcelona.”
Gerardo had warned them that most likely in Barcelona there would be guards checking all the freight cars.
They waited until the train was in a slow, labored climb up a long incline and jumped from the open door with little difficulty. They stood and watched the train move away, and then they began to walk along the tracks in the direction the train had gone. Half an hour later they came to a sandy road that began to run parallel to the rails, easier walking.
The sign on a neglected olive tree said La Cruilla, 1 league.
A hot sun made the weather mild, and soon they unbuttoned their heavy jackets and then took them off and carried them. La Cruilla turned out to be a village, a cluster of whitewashed houses and a few shops that had sprung up where another dirt lane crossed the tracks and the road they had been following. There was a café, and they were very hungry. When they sat at a table, Josep ordered three eggs, tomato bread, and coffee.
The woman who served them asked if they would like ham, and he and Guillem both grinned but didn’t order any.
Josep spotted a newspaper at a nearby table and went to it at once. It was El Cascabel. He began to read it on the way back to their table, walking very slowly, stopping in his tracks twice. “Ah…Ah…”
“What is it?” Guillem said.
The story was on the first page of the paper. It had a black border around it.
“He died,” Josep said.
21
Sharing
Josep read every word of the news story aloud to Guillem in a low voice hoarse with tension.
The newspaper said that President Prim had been one of the men responsible for the overthrow of Queen Isabella, the reinstatement of a monarchy, and the election by the Cortes of a member of the Italian royalty—Amadeus, Prince of Savoy and Duke of Aosta—as the new king of Spain.
Amadeus I had arrived in Madrid to assume his throne only hours after the death of General Prim, his principal supporter. On the new monarch’s orders, General Prim’s body was to lie in state for four days of public mourning, and in the presence of the corpse Amadeus had taken an oath to obey the constitution of Spain.
“The Guardia Civil is said to be close to making arrests of several persons thought to have been participants in the assassination,” Josep read.
Guillem groaned.
They ate their food without tasting it and then wandered off without destination, two people in a shared bad dream.
“I think we should go to the Guardia, Guillem.”
Guillem shook his head grimly. “They will not believe that we were merely dupes. If they have not captured Peña or the others, they will be happy to blame the murder on us.”
They walked in silence.
“Perhaps they were Carlists. Who knows? We were chosen because they wanted stupid country boys to fashion into killers,” Josep said. “Desperate, unemployed peons who could be trained to do whatever they ordered.”
Guillem nodded. “Peña selected us to be his marksmen, you and I. But then they decided we weren’t to be trusted. So other persons were found to fire at that poor bastard and kill him, while we were deemed just smart enough to hold a horse and light a match,” he said bitterly.
“We can’t return to the village,” he said. “Peña’s people—the Carlists or whatever they are—may be looking for us. The police may be searching for us! The army, the militia!”
“Then what shall we do? Where can we go?” Josep said.
“I don’t know. We had best think,” Guillem told him.
By the time dusk approached, they were still trudging aimlessly along the road next to the train tracks, in the general direction of Barcelona. “We must find a place to spend the night,” Josep said.
Fortunately the weather was mild, but it was winter in northern Spain, which meant that the air could become raw and chill without notice. “The important thing is to be protected in case the wind starts to blow,” Guillem said. Presently they came upon a large stone-lined culvert that ran under the road, and they agreed it was a suitable site.
“We’ll be fine unless there is a downpour, in which case we’ll drown,” Josep said, for the conduit was designed to funnel the waters of a stream beneath the road and the tracks, but years of drought had caused the stream to vanish. Inside the big pipe, the air was still and warm and there was an accumulation of soft, clean sand.
It took only a few minutes to collect a pile of driftwood from the riverbed. In Josep’s pocket he still had several matches from the handful Peña had given him, and very quickly they had a small, brisk fire making satisfactory snapping noises and shedding warmth and light.
“I am going to go south, I think. Perhaps Valencia or Gibralter. Maybe even, Africa,” Guillem said.
“All right. We’ll go south.”
“…No, I’d best go south alone, Josep. Peña is aware we are close friends. He, and the police, will be looking for two men traveling together. One man can blend into any background more easily, therefore it will be safer for each of us to travel alone. And they’ll be searching for us close to home, so we must go far away from Catalonia. If I go south, you should go north.”
It sounded like good sense. “But I don’t believe we should split up,” Josep said doggedly. “When two friends travel together, if one of them runs into trouble, the other is there to help.”
They regarded one another.
Guillem yawned. “Well, let’s sleep on it. We can talk some more in the morning,” he said.
They lay on either side of the fire. Guillem soon was asleep and snoring loudly, while Josep lay awake, from time to time placing another piece of wood on the fire. Their pile of branches had almost disappeared by the time he finally drifted into sleep, and soon the blaze had become a small circle of ashes with a glowing heart.
The fire was cold and grey when he awoke, and so was the air.
“Guillem?” he said.
He was alone.
Guillem was off somewhere taking a piss, he thought, and allowed himself to drift back into sleep.
When he awoke again, the air was warmer. Sunshine streamed into the end of the culvert.
He was still alone.
“Hey,” he called. He clambered to his feet.
“Guillem?” he called.
“GUILLEM?”
He went outside the culvert and clambered up onto the road, but he could see no living creature in either direction.
He called out to Guillem several more times, feeling dismay growing within him.
Spurred by a sudden thought, he reached into his jacket pocket and experienced relief when he felt the roll of bank notes that had been given to him by his father and Nivaldo.
But…it felt different.
When he took it from his jacket and counted the bills, he saw that seven pesetas—half his money—was gone. Stolen from his pocket!
By his friend.
Nearly faint with rage, he lifted his fist and shook it at the heavens.
“SHAME! BASTARD! ROTTEN BASTARD!”
“FU-UCK YOU, GUILLEM!” he screamed.
22
Alone
He returned to the culvert for no reason, like an animal crawling back into its den, and sat in the sand next to the ashes of the dead fire.
He had depended heavily on Guillem. Guillem hadn’t known how to read or write, but after Nivaldo, Guillem Parera was the smartest person Josep knew. Josep remembered how Guillem had stopped him from stupidly wandering back to Sergeant Peña at the Madrid railroad yard, and how Guillem had known immediately that the scullery sink at the Metropolitano Café would be a safe haven for them. Josep didn’t feel smart, and he didn’t know if he could survive alone.
As he transferred the thin roll of pesetas from his pocket to
his sock, he thought about the fact that Guillem could easily have stolen all his money instead of half, and it dawned on him that Guillem had made a contest of their troubles.
It was as if Guillem spoke to him.
We start off from here equal in money. See which of us can do better.
It made him angry again and overrode his fear, so that he was able to abandon the temporary safety of the culvert. Blinking against the warm sunlight, he scrambled back up to the road and began to walk.
In less than a league he came to a place where the train tracks heading east into Barcelona were crossed by tracks going north and south. Though it bothered him to admit it even to himself, Guillem had been right about several things in their disagreement of the previous evening. He could not go back to Santa Eulália. It would be dangerous for him to go to Barcelona, dangerous even to remain in Catalonia.
He turned left and followed the new tracks north.
He felt justified in taking Guillem’s advice now; after all, he told himself, he had paid for it.
He didn’t know where trains would stop or where they could safely be boarded, but when he came to a long, steep hill, he climbed the incline until he was near the top, then he lay down beneath a tree and waited.
Less than an hour later he heard the faint rumbling and clacking, the distant animal howl of the whistle, and he waited with rising hope and expectation. The train’s motion became ever slower as it climbed the hill, just as he had hoped. By the time it reached him he could have boarded easily, but the train was made up entirely of passenger cars and thus was of no use to him.
From the windows of car after car, people in crowded third-class coaches looked at him as they passed on the way to lives far more secure than his.
Less than an hour later he heard train sounds again, and this time it was what he had been waiting for, a long line of freight cars. As they went past, he saw a car with the door partially open, and he ran alongside and easily lifted himself onto the bed.
When he rolled into the dark interior and got to his feet, he would have settled for the scent of onions, for this car was stale with the old odor of urine. Probably that was one of the reasons guards wielded their clubs when they caught riders, he thought. Then somebody quietly said “Hola.”
“Hola.”
As Josep’s eyes adjusted to the interior dimness, he saw the speaker lying in the gloom, slight and slim, with a small dark beard.
“I am Ponc.”
“Josep. “
“I go only as far as Figueres.”
“I am staying on the train. I’m going to France to seek work. Do you know a likely town?”
“What kind of work have you done?”
“Everything in a vineyard.”
“Well, there are so many vineyards.” The man shook his head. “But hard times everywhere, also.” He paused thoughtfully. “Do you know the Orb valley?”
“No, senyor.”
“I have heard times are better there, a valley with its own climate, warmer than Catalonia in the winter, perfect for grapes. Many vineyards there. Perhaps with employment, eh?”
“How far away is this valley?”
The other shrugged. “Maybe a five-hour ride from the border. The train goes directly to it.”
“This train?”
The man snorted. “No, these tracks end well before the border. Those who think of such things in Madrid built our Spanish train rails wider than the rails of France, so that if the Frenchies should decide to invade, they can’t simply move in troops and guns on the railroad. You must walk to Portbou, cross the border there, and jump another train in France.”
Josep nodded, tucking the information away.
“You should know that they search every car at the border. You must be careful to leave this train about one-quarter of an hour—no more!—after it passes through the town of Rosas. After you see a big white water tower, the train slows on an upgrade. That’s when you leave.”
“I am greatly obliged.”
“For nothing. However, just now I wish to sleep, so no more talk.”
Josep settled himself against the wall of the car, close to the open door. Under different circumstances he could have slept himself, but he was nervous. With the toe of his right shoe he nudged the seven pesetas in his left sock, making certain the money was still there. He kept his eyes fixed on the recumbent lump in the darkness that was his fellow traveler, as the train slid over the crest and, rocking and clacking, began to pick up speed on the descent of the hill.
23
Wandering
Three hours later, he left the train without incident and walked down a winding road that eventually brought him to the sight of the Mediterranean, shining and dazzling in the warm sunlight. He went past a dozen beached fishing boats and soon was in the central placa of Portbou, where he found that Friday was market day. His empty stomach was growling as he strolled past braziers on which chicken, fish, and pork sizzled and filled the air with the most delicious of aromas.
Finally he bought a large bowl of spicy chickpea stew, which he ate slowly and with great enjoyment, sitting with his back against a stone wall.
Near him an old woman offered a pile of blankets for sale, and when Josep finished the stew, he returned the wooden bowl and went to her stand. He touched a blanket and then hefted it, feeling its soft thickness almost with reverence. When he shook it open, he saw it was quite large, wide enough to cover two people. A warm blanket like this would make all the difference to someone forced to sleep outside.
The old woman studied him with the experienced eyes of a trader. “The finest wool, and from the loom of the best weaver, my daughter. A genuine bargain. For you…one peseta.”
Josep sighed and shook his head. “Fifty centimos?” he said, but she shook her head scornfully and held up her hand to stay any negotiation.
He turned away, then stopped. “Perhaps sixty?”
The wise eyes reproached him as she shook her head again.
“Do you know someone, then, who needs a good worker?”
She shook her head. “There is no employment here.”
So he walked away. When he was out of her sight he took the coins from his pocket and assembled 75 centimos. Presently he approached the old woman again and held out the money.
“It is all I have to spend. Absolutely.”
She sensed a final offer and her talon-like hand grasped the cash. She counted it and sighed, but she took it, and when he asked for a piece of rope that he glimpsed behind the blankets, she gave it up. Making a roll of the blanket and tying the rope to each end, he fashioned a sling and settled it over his shoulders.
“Grandmother, where is the border station?”
“Follow the road through the town, and it will take you to the station. Half a league.”
He looked at her and decided to take the plunge. “I don’t wish to cross the border at the station.”
She smiled. “Of course you do not, my handsome young man. Few sensible people do. My grandson will show you the way. Twenty centimos.”
Josep walked a distance behind the small skinny boy, whose name was Feliu. It was part of the agreement that he would pay the coins at once and that they would not walk together. They went through the town and into the countryside beyond, always within sight of the sea on the right. Presently Josep saw the border station, a wooden gate across the road, manned by uniformed guards interrogating travelers. He wondered if they had been given his name and description. Even if they had not, he couldn’t go through the station, for they would demand papers and proof of identification.
Feliu continued to walk toward the station, and with growing alarm, Josep followed. Perhaps the old woman and the child were leading him straight into arrest, in return for the money from him, and more from the guards whenever they delivered a smuggler.
But at the last moment Feliu turned left into a small dusty lane that ran inland from the road, and when Josep came to the lane, he turned into it as well
.
They walked only a few hundred meters down the lane before Feliu stopped, picked up a stone, and threw it off to his right. It was the arranged signal, and the boy went away at a swift walk without looking back. When Josep reached the place where Feliu had thrown the stone, he saw a narrower lane that ran along the edge of a winter-fallow onion field, and he turned into it. Unharvested onions poked green fingers through the earth, and he salvaged several of the bulbs. They were strong and bitter when he ate them as he walked.
The onion field was the last cropland he saw, the small valley turning into thickly forested hills. He walked for almost an hour before he came to a place where the trail became a fork, splitting into two paths.
There was no directional sign, and no Feliu or any other person from whom he could seek advice. He took the path on the right, and at first he saw no difference in the trail that threaded between the hills. Then it became gradually apparent to him that the trail was growing narrower. Sometimes it seemed to disappear, but each time he would see ahead of him marks worn by travel between trees, and he would hurry to pick up the way again.
And then the path disappeared for good.
Josep moved on through the forest, believing that he would discover the route in a few paces, as he had done previously. When finally he conceded there was no sign of any path through the woods, he tried to retrace his steps to go back over the trail he had followed from the fork, but though he searched hard, he couldn’t find the way he had come.
“Shit,” he said aloud.
For a while he moved aimlessly through the woods, but he saw no footpath. Worse, he had lost all sense of direction. Finally, coming upon a trickling brook, he decided to follow it. Houses were often built near a water source, he reasoned; perhaps he would come to a house.
