by Jordi Puntí
In the early seventies, I think it was, when Bundó had just moved to the apartment in Via Favència and three of you already existed—only Cristòfol was still to arrive in Barcelona, if I’m not mistaken—I took Gabriel aside more than once and insisted that he should leave the boarding house and go and live with someone. I asked him to do me a favor and change his way of life and maybe even—and why not?—his country.
“I wouldn’t know how,” he answered. “In the orphanage they taught me how to survive like this: alone, yet surrounded by people. Anyway, if I decided to change one day and settle down for good, which family would I choose?”
His question gave me goose pimples.
Number 104. Barcelona-Manchester.
September 10, 1967.
One old wooden box, still with a lid. Once it held French wine. We know that from the half-torn label (Château whatever it’s called) and the smell when we opened it. There were three the same and we picked this one. It’s got some bathroom things in it but it all seems to be for a summer vacation place. Petroli will keep the brushes and combs, still with tangles of wavy blond hair from the lady of the house, an almost-used lipstick, and some vampish mascara. Maybe in his spare time he has strange fancies about being a transvestite in the Barri Xino [the last few words are crossed out with red lipstick, probably by Petroli]. We’ll also let him have a bottle of English aftershave that smells very masculine. There are two bottles of French lady’s perfume, very expensive we suppose. They’ll go to Carolina, via Bundó. By the way, no one believes that Bundó hasn’t planned this [there’s a note in the margin, in red and Bundó’s handwriting, that says “Lie!”]. The hairnet and brilliantine that must have belonged to the future consular attaché in Manchester are Bundó’s. The talcum powder is for him too. He often complains of chafing on his thighs because he sweats so much. We’ll keep the bottle of peroxide, the lotion for mosquito bites, and the flask of Mercurochrome inside the cab, just in case. The portable first-aid kit goes to Gabriel. It contains a plastic syringe, a rubber tourniquet, gauze squares, and adhesive tape. Aspirins. One unopened stick of Termosan local analgesic. Cough lozenges, past sell-by date. A packet of Band-Aids with a smudge of dry blood. Gabriel will also take a real stethoscope: Some village doctor must have forgotten it, and now a little boy can play with it [Christopher confirms that he got it a couple of years later]. There’s a calendar from last year, which is for Gabriel: It’s got pictures of racing cars on Montjuïc, and, on the page for July, there are ten days marked with a cross and, underneath, the name of some kind of medicine. No one wants the enema bulb.
PETROLI SPEAKS AGAIN
The trips abroad marked the beginning of the meteoric rise of the La Ibérica moving company. From one day to the next, without having to fork out too much or take on too many new workers, Senyor Casellas’s business started crossing borders, and this made him even richer. The plan—or conspiracy, as we used to say—was hatched in an alliance of offices and churches. Carnations and cigars. One of Senyor Casellas’s daughters, the young one, married a boy from an upper-class family that ran the Banco de Madrid, I think it was. (We La Ibérica workers, of course, had to scratch around in our pockets to buy them a gift.) Among the many other stuffed shirts that attended the wedding, there was a certain Ramiro Cuscó Romagosa, a very well-known Franco man in those days and a relative of the new son-in-law. After that, it was like a game of snakes and ladders, but it was ladders all the way. With a good throw of the dice, Senyor Casellas shot up to land in the office of José María de Porcioles, the Lord Mayor of Barcelona. Two plus two equals four. A year later, when they baptized Casellas’s first grandchild at the Sant Gregori Taumaturg church, Porcioles was at the party, carrying on like the chummy old uncle you found in all the pro-Franco families. Juan Antonio Samaranch—who people know about nowadays because of the Barcelona Olympics—was also there among the guests. He was shyer and more reserved then and had some job concerning sports at the Town Hall, but he was obviously aiming higher and they had a very good opinion of him in Madrid, right at the very top, in the El Pardo Palace. Casellas knew how to soft soap him. Four plus two equals six. Of all the wheeling and dealing among the Falangists in those golden years, it’s quite likely that La Ibérica only got the dregs. It’s also a good bet that Casellas, with his piggy voice and pachyderm waddle, often played the part of buffoon, amusing them with his stories of domesticated communists and immigrants from Murcia—after all he had the dubious privilege of dealing with them on a daily basis.
In less than two months Casellas’s good connections began to kick in. La Ibérica got the monopoly on all the diplomatic moves to France, Germany, Switzerland, and Great Britain. Six plus two equals eight. The ambassadors, consuls, vice-consuls, and people in other cushy jobs schemed. Franco nominated. The machines of power did the wheeling and dealing. The game of musical chairs got going. At the end of the chain, three flunkies loaded up a truck for the trans-Pyrenean route, and the big boss pocketed wads of cash. It might have been peanuts for some of them but eight plus two equal ten. In those years, the sums always came out right.
In the summer of 1960, when word got around that La Ibérica was going to do international moves, all the workers started to dream, each one of us imagining he’d be chosen. Nobody had ever been out of the country, and it was about that time when the first Swedish tourist charter plane landed in Málaga airport. A picture emerged of a modern, idyllic Europe. We saw the Nordic and Central European countries as having a more advanced civilization. Soon we were all going to be some kind of Alfredo Landa—you know who I mean, don’t you?—that film actor drooling over the striped bikini of some uninhibited blond foreigner. We were so green that we thought working with a truck outside Spain meant unloading furniture at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, with three sexed-up Brigitte Bardots waiting for us to finish so they could give us a massage, and the reality—I’m sorry to say, Christophe—is that, in ten years of moves to Paris, we never went up the tower. We could always see it there on the horizon, but that’s as far as it went. In the end, Senyor Casellas chose us three for practical reasons, which he dressed up as a matter of family conscience when his workers were informed. For better or worse, Bundó, Gabriel, and I were footloose bachelors. We didn’t have a family to feed or kids to educate. No one was going to miss us on weekends.
From the very start you could see that the European moves were a godsend for La Ibérica. In no time at all Senyor Casellas did up the offices, took on a qualified secretary—Rebeca, with the legs and waist of Cyd Charisse and the patience of a saint with that army of blowflies she had to put up with every day—bought the premises next door to expand the garage in Carrer Almogàvers, and had a map of Europe painted on the façade. The painter obeyed the boss’s orders and produced a grossly inflated Spain. It looked as if it had elephantiasis and it was shooting out red arrows that disappeared into different parts of the continent. Those arrows were supposed to represent the trail of speed and good service delivered by our trucks. Supposed to, I say. The reality is that the first vehicle lasted a year and half, and it wasn’t fast and it wasn’t safe. But we had a soft spot for it. It was a second-hand Pegaso Barajas, really uncomfortable when you had to fit three people in the cab and, when it rained, the water came in from ceiling and floor (a rust hole near the brake pedal left the right leg of your trousers good and muddy). Then we wore out a few other models, always second-hand, and, after we’d been driving around for a few years, Senyor Casellas got fed up with our complaints and paying repair bills so he dipped into his pocket and got a brand-new flying horse, the Pegaso Europa 1065. That one, yes, that one went well. It seemed to be tailor-made for us. A two-axle chassis, a 9100 engine, 170 hp, a very wide windshield like cinemascope, and, at the back of the cab, a narrow bunk if you needed to rest. The trailer could handle a maximum cargo of twenty tons, and, sometimes, when we loaded it up chockablock, the engine rumbled away, happy and purring like a cat that had got the cream. “The beast’s got a full
belly,” we used to say.
As you’ll understand, it’s impossible for me to recall all the words and silences that filled the cab when we were on the road. I’m talking about ten years, and, in ten years, the stories mount up. Your mind goes back, as if it’s leafing through old tabloids and, from time to time, it stops at a page that grabs its attention. MURIEL STEALS BUNDÓ’S HEART IN A ROADSIDE BAR, one headline screams. The story titled TWO TRUCK DRIVERS STAKE THE WHOLE LOAD THEY’RE CARRYING IN A GAME OF CARDS AND LUCKILY THEY WIN takes up five columns. SPANISH TRANSPORT ENTREPRENEUR USES DRIVERS TO STASH FUNDS IN SWITZERLAND is news too. Read like that, any old how, these statements take on an air of prophecy that you shouldn’t underestimate. In any case, I suppose you’ll follow them up yourselves. But there are other kinds of things, too, little anecdotal things that refuse to die. They keep coming back to me, cheekily popping up out of nowhere. Bundó’s brusque movement when he was changing gears, as if he was throwing every muscle of his body into it. My habit, which those two hated, of eating sunflower seeds and throwing the husks out the window: If it was windy they stuck to the glass outside, and they thought that was disgusting. The interminable arguments about which were the best service stations, the French or the German ones. The even more interminable sessions when we started telling jokes we already knew, for the simple pleasure of laughing together all over again when we repeated them. Then there were times when we all got hooked on repeating some expression or other over and over again: “Well, fuck me,” “What’s with you, bugaboo,” “Veteranoooooo brandy, a splash would be dandy.” Our different musical tastes, as varied, contradictory, and vulgar as those shelves of cassettes you find in service stations. Gabriel’s flair for finding the international service of Spanish National Radio on the days when there was soccer, which was only comparable with Bundó’s talent for detecting engine problems by putting his ear against the hood. Or the different ways of driving, for example. Bundó, with his fantastic sense of direction and maneuvring skills, was the one who took us in and out of cities. When we were coming up to a border post, Gabriel took the wheel since he got on best with the police: He made good use of his peculiar mastery of languages to deal with them without misunderstandings and thus avoid wasting more time than necessary with the inspection of the load. I asked them to let me do the night shift because the darkness and the monotonous lines on the road relaxed me and let me think. Gabriel, by the way, was the safest driver. Bundó and I were quick-tempered, but he never swore out loud—well, he moved his lips like he did when he was reading, but that’s all—and he never tried to get back at reckless drivers by leaning on the horn. His way of driving was calm and contemplative, and, sometimes, trying to wind him up, Bundó used to get cynical and he’d say, “If we have a real accident one day and if we’re going to die I want you to be driving, Gabriel. You’re so on the ball you’ll give us plenty of time to see our lives flash before our eyes before they close for good. Isn’t that what they say, that in your last seconds you see it all running before you in images, like in a film? Well, I want those seconds to be very long so there’s time for everything.”
Then Gabriel looked at him without looking at him, without taking his eyes off the road, and took him to task in his laconic way. “You’re such jerk. What a bullshitter.”
7
* * *
Carolina, or Muriel
Number 131. Barcelona-Geneva road-Frankfurt.
July 3, 1968.
With a lot of difficulty, because an employee from the Spanish consulate in Frankfurt had been told to monitor our movements—and this German spook certainly took the job seriously—we commandeer a dented box that looked half empty. Such a long trip, being forced to stop near Geneva to see Senyor Casellas’s friends, and such a lousy reward. Inside the box are only a few dusty toys covered with cobwebs. The two spoiled brats, the boy and girl of about thirteen who were bored to death while we were organizing the move (we had to ask them to get off the sofa so we could take it down to the truck), must have played with them a long time ago. Petroli keeps the set of wooden skittles, for his nephew, he says. He also takes a bag full of cowboys and Indians and a wooden fort. Bundó’s kept a tin frog after promising not to make it croak in the cab. He also took a Nancy doll dressed up as a Spanish soldier (heaven knows why he wants that). There’s an album of stickers—complete—from the film The Ten Commandments. Bundó and Gabriel will give it to Senyora Rifà because she loves Charlton Heston, who plays Moses. Gabriel will take a sheriff costume that looks new and a ventriloquist’s doll that’s supposed to resemble some variety-hall artist, but, with the wide-brimmed hat it’s wearing, it’s more like a Chicago gangster. The dummy’s got a hole in its back and a stick inside it to make it move its mouth when it’s speaking. He’ll give both toys to C.
This enigmatic C, this attack of embarrassment on the part of our father—as if he was trying to shield us from his murky affairs—concealed the name of Christof. Thanks to geographical proximity and age, he was the lucky one who got the sheriff costume and the ventriloquist’s dummy. While the posh brother and sister were discovering (if they ever did) in one neighborhood of Frankfurt that their neglected toys had vanished, a small Christof, in very different circumstances less than ten kilometers from where the theft occurred, was busy impressing his friends with a sheriff’s star that shone so brightly you could see it a mile away, a Stetson hat that made his head look small, and a Bakelite Colt 49. The dummy, however, with its haughty air and big dark eyes, gave him nightmares and was banished to a corner cupboard. Some years went by before Christof remembered it and, having liberated it from exile, stuck his hand into its entrails.
Every time we choose an entry from the inventory and copy it down, all four brothers wish we could have taken part in one of those sessions of divvying up the spoils! We now know about it thanks to Petroli, who told us that, on the way home, with the truck emptied of furniture, the three friends would stop at the first roadside bar they found on the city outskirts and, out of the way of indiscreet eyes, they’d open up the booty and examine it. The ceremony filled them with excitement mingled with stabs of fear, as if it was always the first time, and, if the treasure was worthwhile, they felt very pleased with themselves, almost like real bandits or highwaymen. Afterward, with bloated egos, they’d go into the bar to celebrate it with a whisky or two and a cigar. At that point, Petroli used to feel obliged to pronounce a few words of contrition, after which a chortling Bundó followed suit, while Gabriel calculated an equitable distribution of their trophies. Before getting back on the road, Petroli would call the office in Barcelona to tell them that the move had been accomplished without any problems and they were homeward bound.
The three friends presided over this ceremony with little remorse. If any of them was ever in danger of feeling guilty, the other two talked him out of it by reminding him that the goodies were a miserable tip in comparison with the hush-hush (and, they suspected, dangerous) favors they were doing for Senyor Casellas. Now, he was the real robber. It quite often happened that, taking advantage of some trip to Germany or eastern France, their boss would order them to depart from their route and head for the Swiss border. Once they’d reached a certain clearly specified point along the way, always close to a forest, they had to stop, turn off the engine, get out of the truck, and open the trailer doors. A couple of minutes later, some fellow dressed up like an alpine hiker would emerge from the trees and greet them with a nod of his head, after which he’d climb into the trailer. Then, with all the expertise of a professional burglar and clearly knowing where he had to look, he’d poke around in the neatly piled objects and furniture and, from some hiding place or other, would extract a very well-wrapped packet. It didn’t weigh much and was about the size of an encyclopedia. Any idiot could see it contained bundles of banknotes. The man would then stow it in his backpack, acknowledge them once more with the ceremonious nod of a Swiss banker, and disappear into the trees again. Casellas’s instructions stipulat
ed that “once the small detour is complete and the item handed over,” the three friends had to get back into the cab and resume the journey as if nothing had happened.
“Another big shot with his back well covered,” Bundó used to say when they were back on the road again.
Petroli would then calculate. “With one of those packets the three of us would have enough to live off for a year, and I’d bet this truck on that if it was mine.”
“Or two years. Don’t worry, one of these days we’ll get to keep the loot,” Gabriel tended to add, sending shivers down three spines.
We can’t claim that they frequently carried out this operation near the Swiss border but, thanks to its success—when the boss established that he wasn’t running any risks—they certainly did it with increasing regularity. We should also explain that when they were carrying “the Czar’s mail,” as Bundó liked to call it, in honor of a book he’d read, Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar, the Spanish border was wide open for them and they breezed through without their cargo being checked. The ad for La Ibérica emblazoned on the door of the Pegaso seemed to eliminate barriers, even when manned by the Guardia Civil. Somebody must have greased the palms of those uniformed Dobermans.
Compared with the funds that Senyor Casellas and company managed to deposit on Swiss soil over the ten years of European moves, the trinkets lifted by the three friends were very meager pickings indeed. Too meager. If they were exhibited together one day, more or less as Petroli had done in his home but multiplied by three, the whole collection would look like the contents of a flea market. Nonetheless, even in its entirety, that hoard of junk wouldn’t be sufficient to account for the level of hysteria it induced among the victims of these thefts. Since it usually took them a while to notice the losses, the complaints would come in a few days after the move, when the family concerned was already installed in the new home and the three friends were loading up the Pegaso once again in Barcelona. The secretary, Rebeca, would take the call, coping with the first blast, after which she dutifully put it through to Senyor Casellas. The second blast must have been even more irate because, once it was over, the boss of La Ibérica would rush out of his office in a rage, his voice resounding around the garage.
