Soldiers of Salamis

by Javier Cercas; Anne McLean

  We were left in silence. I suppose Bolaiño was waiting for some sort of comment from me; I couldn't say anything, because I was crying.

  'Anyway,' said Bolaiño. 'What do you think you'll do now?'

  'Fan-fucking-tastic!' shouted Conchi when I told her the news. 'I knew Bolaiño would convince you! When do we leave?'

  'We're not both going,' I said, thinking Conchi's presence might make the interview with Miralles easier to get. 'I'm going on my own.'

  'Don't be silly! Tomorrow morning we'll get in the car and we'll be in Dijon in a jiffy.'

  'I've already made up my mind,' I insisted emphatically, thinking that a trip to Dijon in Conchi's Volkswagen was riskier than Leclerc's column's march from the Maghreb to Chad. 'I'm going by train.'

  So on Saturday evening I said goodbye to Conchi at the station ('Give Señor Miralles my regards', she said. 'He's called Miralles, Conchi,' I corrected her. 'Just Miralles'), and boarded a train to Dijon like someone boarding a train to Stockton. It was a sleeper, a night train, and I remember being in the restaurant car, with its springy leather seats and windows licked by the speed of the night, until very late, drinking and smoking and thinking about Miralles; at five in the morning, dishevelled, thirsty and sleepy, I stepped down into Dijon's underground and after walking along the deserted platforms illuminated by globes of weak light, I took a taxi that dropped me off at the Victor Hugo, a little family-run hotel on the rue des Fleurs, not far from the city centre. I went up to my room, took a long drink of water from the tap, had a shower and lay down on the bed. In vain I tried to sleep. I thought about Miralles, whom I'd soon see, and about Sánchez Mazas, whom I'd never see; I thought about their one hypothetical encounter, sixty years earlier, almost a thousand kilometres from there, in the rain one violent morning in the forest; I thought I'd soon know if Miralles were the soldier of Líster's who spared Sánchez Mazas, and also what he'd thought as he looked him in the eye, and why he spared him, and that then perhaps I'd finally understand an essential secret. I thought all this and, while I thought, I started to hear the first sounds of the morning (footsteps in the hallway, the trill of a bird, a car's revving motor) and sense the dawn pushing against the window's shutters.

  I got up, opened the window and the shutters: the uncertain light of the morning sun shone on a garden with orange trees and a quiet street lined by houses with sloping tiled roofs; only the birds' chirping broke the village-like silence. I got dressed and had breakfast in the hotel dining room; then, since I thought it was too early to go to the Nimpheas Residential Home, I decided to go for a walk. I'd never been to Dijon before, and not four hours earlier, as the taxi had crossed the streets which were lined with buildings like corpses of prehistoric animals, I had looked sleepily at its stately façades and bright blinking advertisements, and it had struck me as one of those imposing medieval cities that become ghostly at night and only then show their true face, the rotted skeleton of their former might; now, on the other hand, as soon as I got out onto the rue des Fleurs and, turning down rue des Roses and rue Desvoges, arrived at Place D'Arcy which at that hour teemed with cars circling the Arc de Triomphe — it struck me as one of those sad provincial French cities where Simenon's sad husbands commit their sad crimes, a cheerless city with no future, just like Stockton. Although it was cool and the sun barely shone, I sat on the terrace of a bar, in Place Grangier, and had a Coca-Cola. To the right of the terrace, in a cobbled street, a little market was set up on the pavement, beyond which rose Notre Dame church. I paid for my Coke, and wandered through the market stalls looking at this and that, crossed the street and went into the church. At first I thought it was empty, but as I heard my footsteps echoing from the domed Gothic ceiling, I caught sight of a woman who'd just lit a candle at one of the side altars; now she was writing something in a bound notebook that was lying open on a lectern. When I approached the altar she stopped writing and turned to leave; our paths crossed in the middle of the nave, and I saw she was tall, young, pale, distinguished. Arriving at the altar, I couldn't help reading the last sentence written in the notebook: 'Please God, help me and my family in this time of darkness.'

  I left the church, stopped a taxi and gave him the address of the Nimpheas Residential Home in Fontaine-Les-Dijon. Twenty minutes later, we stopped on the corner of route des Daix and rue des Combottes, in front of a rectangular building with a pale green façade, which bristled with tiny balconies overlooking a garden with a pond and gravel paths. At the reception desk I asked for Miralles, and a girl with the unmistakable air and attire of a nun looked at me with a touch of curiosity or surprise and asked me if I were a relative. I told her I wasn't.

  'A friend, then?'

  'More or less,' I said.

  'Room twenty-two,' and pointing down a corridor she added: 'but I saw him go that way a little while ago; he's probably in the television room, or in the garden.'

  The corridor led into a big living room with enormous windows that opened onto a garden with a fountain and lawn chairs, where several old men were lying in the midday sun, tartan blankets covering their legs. In the living room were two old people — a woman and a man — sitting in imitation leather armchairs and watching TV; neither of them turned when I entered the room. I couldn't help but look at the man: a scar began at his temple, crossed his cheek, his jaw, went down his neck and disappeared under the fleece of his grey flannel shirt. I knew he was Miralles straightaway. Paralyzed, I hastily sought the words with which to approach him; but I didn't find them. As if sleepwalking, with my heart pounding in my throat, I sat down in the armchair next to his; Miralles did not turn, but an imperceptible movement of his shoulders revealed he'd noticed my presence. I decided to wait, I made myself comfortable in the chair, looked at the TV: on the screen the sun shone brilliantly, and a presenter with perfect hair and a hospitable air belied by the condescending rictus on his lips, gave instructions to the contestants.

  'I expected you sooner,' murmured Miralles after a while, almost sighing, not taking his eyes off the screen. 'You're a bit late.'

  I looked at his stony profile, his sparse grey hair, his beard growing like a minuscule forest of whitish bushes around the wild firebreak of the scar, the stubborn chin, the autumnal prominence of his belly tugging at the buttons of his shirt, and the strong hands speckled with spots, resting on a white cane.

  'Late?'

  'It's almost lunch time.'

  I didn't say anything. I looked at the screen, now crammed with an array of domestic appliances; except for the prerecorded and insistent voice of the presenter and the sounds of domestic chores coming from the corridor, the room was completely silent. Three or four armchairs away from Miralles, the woman was still sitting, motionless, with her cheek resting on a brittle hand, which was furrowed with blue veins; for a moment I thought she was asleep.

  'Tell me, Javier,' Miralles spoke, as if we'd been talking for a long while and had stopped for a rest, 'do you like TV?'

  'Yes,' I answered, and, transfixed by the cluster of whitish hairs sticking out of his nostrils, answered, 'But I don't watch it much.'

  'I don't like it at all. But I watch it a lot: game shows, reports, films, spectaculars, news, everything. You know? I've lived here for five years, and it's like being shut out of the world. The newspapers bore me and I stopped listening to the radio a long time ago, so it's thanks to TV that I find out what's going on out there. This programme, for example,' scarcely lifting the tip of his stick to point at the television. apos;I've never seen anything so stupid in my life: the people have to guess how much each of these things cost, and if they get it right, they keep it. But look how happy they are, look how they laugh.' Miralles went quiet, undoubtedly for me to appreciate for myself the pertinence of his observation. apos;People today are much happier than they were in my day, anyone who's lived long enough knows that. That's why, every time I hear some old man fuming about the future, I know he's doing it to console himself because he's not going to be able to live thro
ugh it, and every time I hear one of those intellectuals fume against TV I know I'm dealing with a cretin.'

  Sitting up a little he turned his big, age-shrunken gladiator's body towards me and examined me with a pair of green eyes, which were strangely unmatched: the right, inexpressive and half-closed by the scar; the left wide open and inquisitive, almost ironic. I then realized that my initial impression of Miralles' face as petrified was only true for the side devastated by the scar; the other was vital, vehemently so. For a moment I thought it was like two people living together in the same body. Slightly intimidated by how close he was, I wondered whether the veterans of Salamis would also have had this derelict look of run-over old truck drivers.

  'Do you smoke?' Miralles asked

  I went to get my cigarettes out of my jacket pocket, but Miralles didn't let me finish.

  'Not here.' Leaning on the arms of the chair and the walking stick, and unceremoniously rejecting my help ('Let go, let go, I'll ask you to lend me a hand when I need it'), he stood up laboriously and ordered: 'Come on, we're going for a walk.'

  We were about to go out into the garden when a nun appeared from the corridor; she was about forty, dark-haired, smiling, tall and thin, wearing a white blouse and grey skirt.

  'Sister Dominique told me you had a visitor, Miralles,' she said, holding out a pale, big-boned hand to me. 'I'm Sister Fran£oise.'

  I shook her hand. Visibly uncomfortable, as if caught red-handed, holding the door half open Miralles introduced us: he said to me that Sister Françoise was the director of the home; he told her my name.

  'He works for a newspaper,' he added. 'He's come to interview me.'

  'Really?' The nun widened her smile. 'What about?'

  'Nothing important,' said Miralles, beckonong me out into the garden with his expression. I obeyed. 'A murder. One that happened sixty years ago.'

  'Oh good,' Sister Franchise laughed. 'It's about time you started confessing your crimes.'

  'Go to hell, Sister,' Miralles said in farewell. 'You see,' he grumbled later on, as we walked beside a pond carpeted with water lilies and past a group of old men lying in hammocks, 'a whole lifetime spent railing against priests and nuns and here I am, surrounded by nuns who won't even let me smoke. Are you a believer?'

  Now we were going down a gravel path bordered by boxwood hedges. I thought about the pale, distinguished-looking woman I'd seen that morning in the church of Notre Dame, lighting a candle and writing a supplication, but before I had time to answer the question, he answered it himself:

  'What nonsense! There's nobody who believes any more, except for nuns. I'm not a believer either, you know. I lack imagination. When I die, what I'd like is for someone to dance on my grave, it'd be more cheerful, don't you think? Of course, Sister Françoise wouldn't be too pleased, so I suppose they'll say a mass and that'll be that. But that doesn't bother me, either. Did you like Sister Françoise?'

  Since I didn't know whether or not Miralles liked her, I answered that I hadn't yet formed an opinion of her.

  'I didn't ask you for your opinion,' answered Miralles. 'I asked if you liked her or not. If you can keep a secret, I'll tell you the truth: I like her a lot. She's good-looking, smart and nice. And young. What else can you ask for in a woman? If she wasn't a nun I'd have pinched her bum years ago. But, being a nun . . . to hell with it!'

  We passed the front of the entrance to an underground parking lot, left the path and clambered down a small embankment — Miralles with surprising agility, clinging to his stick; me behind him, fearing he would fall at any moment — on the other side of which stretched a patch of lawn with a wooden bench overlooking the intermittent traffic of the rue des Combottes and facing a row of semi-detached houses lined up on the other side. We sat down on the bench.

  'Okay,' said Miralles, leaning his stick on the edge of the bench, 'let's have that cigarette.'

  I gave it to him, I lit it for him, then I lit one for myself. Miralles smoked with obvious enjoyment, inhaling the smoke deeply.

  'Is smoking forbidden in the home?' I asked.

  'Nah, it's just that hardly anybody smokes. The doctor made me give it up when I had the embolism. As if one thing had anything to do with the other. But sometimes I sneak into the kitchen, nick a cigarette off the cook and smoke it in my room, or out here. How do you like the view?'

  I didn't want to subject him to an interrogation right away, and besides, I felt like listening to him talk about things, so we chatted away about his life in the home, Estrella de Mar, Bolaiño. I could see that his mind was sharp and his memory intact and, as I vaguely listened to him, it occurred to me that Miralles was the same age my father would have been if he were still alive; this struck me as strange, stranger still that I'd thought of my father precisely at that moment and in that place. In a sense, I thought, although it had been more than six years since he'd died, my father still wasn't dead, because there was still someone remembering him. Or maybe it wasn't me remembering my father, but he who clung to my memory, so as not to die completely.

  'But you haven't come here to talk about these things,' Miralles interrupted himself, at some point, a while after we'd thrown away our cigarette butts. 'You've come to talk about Collell'

  I didn't know where to start, so I just said:

  'Then it's true you were at Collell?'

  'Of course I was at Collell. Don't play the fool; if I hadn't been there, you wouldn't be here. Of course I was there — a week, maybe two, no more. It was at the end of January '39,1 remember because the 31st of that month I crossed the border, I'll never forget that date. What I don't know is why we were there for so long. We were the remains of the V Corps of the Army of the Ebro, the majority of us veterans of the whole war, and we'd been firing away without a break since the summer until the front disintegrated and we had to make for the border like bats out of hell, with the Moors and the fascists hot on our heels. And all of a sudden, a few steps from France, they made us stop. Sure, we were grateful, because we'd taken a hell of a beating; but we didn't understand what those days of truce were in aid of. There were rumours; there were some who said Líster was preparing the defence of Gerona, or a counterattack who knows where. Bullshit! We didn't have any weapons or ammunition or supplies or anything, really, we weren't even an army, just a bunch of wrecks who'd been hungry for months, scattered through the woods. But yeah, as I said, at least we got a rest. You know Collell?'

  'A little.'

  'It's not far from Gerona, near Banyoles. Some of them stayed there, others in the nearby villages; others were sent to Collell.'

  'What for?'

  'I don't know. Really, I don't think anyone knew. Don't you see? It was unimaginable pandemonium, every man for himself. Everybody gave orders, but nobody obeyed them. People deserted as soon as they got the chance.'

  'And why didn't you desert?'

  'Desert?' Miralles looked at me as if his brain weren't prepared to process the question. 'Well, I don't know. It didn't occur to me, I guess. At times like that it's not so easy to think, you know? Besides, where was I going to go? My parents had died and my brother was at the front too . . . Look,' he lifted his stick, as if something unexpected had come along to get him out of a fix, 'here they are.'

  In front of us, on the other side of the grille that separated the garden of the residential home from the rue des Combottes, a group of small children were walking past, shepherded by two teachers. I regretted having interrupted Miralles, because the question (or his inability to answer it; or perhaps it was just the children passing by) seemed to have disconnected him from his memories.