The Siege

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  From among the mastic trees comes the crack of gunfire, bullets whistle above the marching column. People start to scream. Some men fall out of step, throw themselves to the ground or hunker down, aiming their rifles at the hilltop.

  “Guerrilleros! Guerrilleros!”

  Word goes round that it is not the Spanish but the British planning to cut them off at the little wooden bridge that spans the next canal. Madness begins to set in, men pushing and jostling on the narrow path and those who can begin to run. A crackle of gunfire yet still no enemy has been spotted, and no one has been injured.

  “Run for your lives! They’re trying to cut off the road to Chiclana!”

  Some soldiers try to hack a path through the mastic trees, but the muddy creeks and salt marshes make it impossible. A lieutenant—who Desfosseux identifies from the insignia on his shako as belonging to the 94th Regiment—tries to marshal a team to secure the hill and protect the flank of the fleeing column, but no one is prepared to listen. Some threaten him with their rifles when he grabs their arm, trying to persuade them to join him, but finally the lieutenant abandons his attempt and allows himself to be swept along by the sea of bodies.

  “Soldiers—up there among the trees,” someone says.

  Desfosseux looks up and feels his skin crawl. On the brow of the hill, a dozen riders appear out of the burning pine forest. A wave of terror passes through the retreating column, who assume them to be an enemy scouting party. There is scattered gunfire and Desfosseux, panic-stricken, imagines himself fleeing beneath a rain of saber blows. But the guns quickly fall silent when the riders on the hill are recognized as belonging to Desagne’s cavalrymen, escorting a convoy of light artillery retreating to the fort at Santa Ana.

  If this is not a rout, thinks Simon Desfosseux, it looks very much like one. Few would dare use the word “rout” when speaking of the Imperial Army; but this would not be the first. The memory of Bailén still smarts, and there have been other, minor incidents in the war against Spain. Napoleonic France is not invincible. But for Desfosseux, this is his first experience of the dark side of military glory: soldiers running amok, mass panic; a world that only yesterday was impeccably regulated, disciplined and orderly has degenerated into every man for himself. And yet, in spite of the panic, the desperate flight to find safety in Chiclana or beyond, the captain has the curious sensation of being two different people; as though Simon Desfosseux has a twin who can dispassionately, methodically survey what is happening around him. The scientific part of his brain is fascinated by the spectacle—new to him and enormously instructive—of how human beings behave when left to themselves, when military and social hierarchies crumble, when the ominous murmur of dishonor or death is all around. Even in these dire circumstances, his natural instinct, his unique way of seeing the world does not desert him. As Lieutenant Bertoldi might say if he were here—fortunately he is watching the scene from the safe distance of the Trocadero—like a leopard, Desfosseux never changes his spots. It is a matter of reflex. Every gunshot he hears, every shudder that runs through these terrified men scrabbling to shelter behind one another, makes Desfosseux think about impacts, probabilities and aleatory systems, of straight lines of fire and the curves described by projectiles, of ounces of lead acted on by thrust at the limit of their range. New ideas, and unfamiliar ways of considering the subject. There are, he feels, two men heading for Chiclana: one, stumbling, running, panting, consumed with dread, a member of a panicked throng; the other, serene and impassive, a shrewd observer of a fascinating world governed by complex universal laws.

  “They’re behind us,” yell the soldiers.

  Terror ripples through the crowd once more. Men push and jostle. Reports are circulating that General Ruffin has been killed or captured. Desfosseux is growing weary of the rumors and outbreaks of panic. In the name of God, he thinks, slowing his pace and resisting the temptation to step off the path and sit down. The sheer misery of the retreat is compounded by a terrible sense of absurdity, of personal humiliation. Here he is, a professor of physics from the University of Metz, hatless and in shirtsleeves, being swept along by hundreds of men as fearful as himself.

  “Don’t lag behind, Captain,” advises a mustachioed corporal.

  “Leave me in peace.”

  There is a small building up ahead. One of the many flour mills whose wheel is turned by the ebb and flow of the tides. Next to it is a small house. As he approaches, the captain sees that it has been looted. The door is completely smashed, the floor littered with broken tools and rubble. As he comes closer, he can make out four bodies sprawled on the floor next to a chained dog that is barking furiously at the passing soldiers.

  “Guerrilleros,” says the corporal, indifferently.

  This is not Desfosseux’s opinion. The corpses—three men and a woman—are clearly the miller and his family to judge from their appearance. The bodies have been run through with bayonets, the earthen floor is stained with pools of dark, congealing blood. Obviously some retreating French soldiers have vented their anger and frustration. Another act of vengeance, Desfosseux thinks uneasily as he turns away. Just one of many.

  The dog goes on barking at the soldiers, jerking wildly on the chain attaching it to the wall. Without pausing, the corporal marching next to Desfosseux draws his pistol, aims and, with a single shot, kills the animal.

  GREGORIO FUMAGAL IS dyeing his hair and sideburns with the dye he bought in Frasquito Sanlúcar’s soap emporium. The preparation, which the taxidermist applies with a small brush, produces a dark, somewhat auburn color, covering the gray hairs. He works slowly to ensure everything is evenly coated. When he is finished, he dries his face and examines the results in a looking glass. Satisfactory. Then he goes up to the terrace and looks out at the cityscape and the bay beyond. For some time he stands in the sunshine, listening to the rumble of distant cannonfire from the reef between Sancti Petri and the hills of Chiclana. From what he heard while out buying bread at the bakery near Empedradores, Generals Lapeña and Graham broke through the French lines yesterday and are waging a bloody battle between the Cerro de Puerco and the beach at La Barrosa; but misunderstandings between the generals, rivalries and matters of coordination and competency have meant that now the state of affairs is as it was before. The front line, stable once more, is a question of a duel between artillery forces, leaving Cádiz on the margins.

  Once his hair is dry, Gregorio Fumagal goes back downstairs and looks at himself in the mirror. His is a peculiar vanity which has little to do with his nonexistent social life. In truth everything is born and dies in him, discreetly: in his daily routine, including the pigeon loft, in the bodies of the dead animals that the taxidermist eviscerates and reconstructs. Unlike a fop or a dandy, Gregorio Fumagal’s dyed hair and fastidious personal hygiene are not born of some desire to look youthful or attractive. They are merely a matter of routine. Of healthy discipline. The taxidermist is a man who takes great care over his personal appearance; his exacting regimen ranges from shaving daily to cleaning his fingernails, to the clothes he irons himself or has laundered in a washroom on the Calle del Campillo. He cannot imagine life any other way. For a man of his class, who has neither family nor friends, who is beyond the censure of those who might sit in judgment over his virtues or his weaknesses, this personal, private, inflexible routine has, over time, become a means of survival. Having no faith in the present, nor allegiance to any flag—his loyalty to the flag that flies on the far side of the bay is merely a convenient alliance—his routine, his personal habits, these strict codes that have nothing to do with the vain and venal laws of ordinary men, provide a foxhole in which Gregorio Fumagal shelters in order to survive in hostile territory. For there is no reprieve here, where the prospects for the future are scant and his only comfort lies in re-creating Nature using stuffing and straw, a saddler’s needle and eyes fashioned from glass paste.

  THEY ARE HIS footsteps and not another’s that I stalk; for he hath wrought on us tonight a deed
past thought—if he it was, for everything is doubtful and uncertain. Here and there have I found traces I can identify, but there are others that perplex me and I know not whose they be.

  This paragraph mesmerizes Rogelio Tizón. It is as though some twenty centuries ago, Sophocles wrote these words thinking of him. Thinking about what he is feeling now. Carefully, the policeman leafs again through the manuscript pages covered in the large, neat hand—almost like that of a scribe—of Professor Barrull. After a moment he pauses at another of the passages he has marked, like the previous one, with a penciled cross in the margin.

  And now, his hunger unsated, thirst unslaked, he sits transfixed among the oxen slaughtered by his sword. Clearly plotting some baleful deed.

  Unsettled, Tizón sets down the manuscript on the table. The image of the slaughtered oxen corresponds with the images he remembers: the flayed backs of the murdered girls, the bones poking through the flesh. Some time has passed since the last killing, but still Tizón can think of nothing else. A surgeon from the Royal Armada, an old acquaintance whose discretion he values and whom he trusts more than those who usually work with the police, confirmed his suspicion that the whip used is no ordinary riding crop made of rope or leather, nor even a vicious bull’s pizzle. It has been specially made, probably using braided wire. An evil contrivance. An instrument designed to inflict damage. To flay the victim to death, ripping away the flesh with every stroke. This means that these crimes were not committed in hot blood, they are not the result of some sudden excess of fury. Whoever he may be, the murderer does not act on impulse. Having meticulously prepared, he deliberately sets out in search of his prey. He revels in the deed. He goes armed to inflict as much pain as he can while he kills.

  It is an impossible task, thinks Tizón. At least with the material at his disposal. Like looking for a needle in a haystack, in a city where the war and the French siege have almost doubled the population to more than 100,000 people. To whittle down such a number would be impossible even using the vast network of informants he has patiently built up: harlots, beggars and every manner of agent and spy. Among them, he even counts a man of the cloth, a popular parish priest at the church of San Antonio who is happy to feed him information in exchange for Tizón turning a blind eye to his rather particular manner of ministering to fallen women. Some betray in return for money, impunity or privileges, others to settle a score with peers, politics, or with a world they envy or despise. Given his age and his profession, Rogelio Tizón believes he knows everything there is to know about the dark corners of the human heart; the precise point at which a man will break, crumble, collaborate or be lost forever, the boundless wickedness anyone is capable of when they find, or are offered, the right opportunity.

  The comisario abruptly gets to his feet and paces the room, absentmindedly glancing at the spines of the books on the shelves above his desk. He knows he may find some of the answers he seeks in these volumes, but he will not find all of them. Nor will he find them in the manuscript lying on his desk, the ink slightly faded, small penciled crosses in the margins marking out passages that trouble more than they illuminate. Questions that give rise to other questions, to doubt, to helplessness. This last word rings in his head as Tizón runs his fingers over the closed lid of the piano that no one has played in years. The depth and breadth of Tizón’s knowledge is extremely useful in his job as a policeman, but it does not cover all that is required now that Cádiz is filled with immigrants, soldiers and civilians. In theory, all new arrivals must go before the Audiencia Territorial for their case to be assessed and, if approved, be issued with a residence permit. For those in possession of sufficient funds—the requisite bribe is not within everyone’s means, and no authority is prepared to certify false papers for less than 150 duros—the difficulties are enormous. This has meant that the traffic in people, with all the bureaucracy that it entails, has become a thriving industry involving ships’ captains, civil servants, soldiers and smugglers. Even Tizón himself, as Commissioner for Districts, Vagrants and Transients, is not immune. For a family with children, the official fine for attempted illegal entry amounts to a thousand reales, plus a further two hundred if they are traveling with a servant—something Tizón is prepared to take care of for a quarter of that sum. Sometimes half. Sometimes he can charge the whole amount if it means turning a blind eye to an expulsion order signed by the Regency. After all, business is business. And life is life.

  He walks to the door leading to the rest of the house and listens. Silence is absolute, although he knows his wife is in her bedroom, lips pursed, eyes cast down, sewing or perhaps gazing out at the street through the shutters. Like a statue, as always; expressionless as a sphinx, silent as a reproachful specter. The rosary, which once upon a time never left her hands, now lies forgotten in a drawer of her sewing basket. Nor does she light votives anymore on the shrine of the Nazarene in the hallway. It has been years since anyone in the house prayed.

  The comisario goes over to the window that overlooks the Alameda and the bay beyond. Far out, some two miles from Cádiz, facing the Puerto de Santa María, two English warships escorted by Spanish gunboats are firing on the enemy fort at Santa Catalina. He can see the plumes of smoke carried on the breeze, the tiny white triangles of the fluttering sails of ships and boats as they tack and come about. There are sails off the cape at Rota too. If he listens carefully, Tizón can hear the boom of the cannons and the counter fire from the French artillery on the far shore. From this window, he cannot see the southeast of the city. He does not know how matters stand there, aside from having heard that some days ago a bloody battle was fought on the Cerro del Puerco. Rumor has it that there is still fighting all along the front line, and that Spanish guerrillas have landed at various points along the coast, intent on destroying enemy positions. This morning, coming back from escorting prisoners to the Royal Jail, the comisario was able to scale the fort at Los Mártires and see that, beyond the Isla de Léon, the pine forests of Chiclana were still burning.

  But this battle does not concern him. At least he does not feel it should. Rogelio Tizón has never deluded himself. He is keenly aware that if the circumstances were different, he would cheerfully have served the usurper king in Madrid—as have many of his colleagues in the French-occupied zones. Not for ideological reasons but simply because that is the way of the world. He is a government official: his only ideology is support for the established order. A policeman is first and foremost a policeman and every constitutional power needs his services and his experience. No government could survive without the police. It is his job to do his job, regardless of the ideology or the flag he serves. Tizón loves his job. And he is good at it. He knows he possesses the precise combination of ruthlessness, mercenary indifference and apparent loyalty required by the role. He was born a policeman and has climbed the greasy pole, from lowly henchman to the heights of comisario where he has power over life, property and liberty. It was not easy, and his success came at a price. But he is satisfied. His battlefield is the city that extends all about him, ancient and cunning, thronging with human beings. They are the materials of his work. The field of his experimentation and progress. The source of his power.

  Moving away from the window, he returns to the desk. Anxious. Prowling like an animal in a cage, he realizes. And this does not please him. This is not his way. Within him he feels a fury, slender and exact, sharp as a dagger. Professor Barrull’s manuscript still lies on the desk, as though mocking him: “here and there have I found traces I can identify, but there are others that perplex me,” he reads again. The phrase buries itself in Tizón’s pride like a jagged splinter. In his professional peace of mind. Three girls murdered in the same way within six months. Fortunately for him, as Governor Villavicencio cuttingly pointed out some weeks ago, the war and the French siege have meant that such crimes have been relegated to the background. But this does little to assuage the comisario’s unease; the curious shame that eats away at him each time he thinks abou
t the case. Each time he sees the mute piano and realizes that the murdered girls are almost the same age as the girl who once touched the keys would have been today.

  He feels a dull throb of anger. Helplessness, that is the word. A bitterness unlike anything he has ever known, a private hatred that grows with each passing day, belying his dispassionate, impersonal approach to his job. Meanwhile somewhere close at hand, among the crowd—he sits transfixed among the oxen slaughtered—is the faceless man, or the man of a thousand faces, who tortured these three unfortunate wretches to death. Every time he steps out into the street, the comisario glances left and right, his eyes following random figures as they move through the crowd, and each time he is forced to conclude that it could be anyone. He has visited the sites where every French bomb fell, studied every detail, questioned the neighbors in a futile attempt to force this vague feeling, this absurd hunch he cannot get out of his mind, to coalesce into some clue, some theory that might make it possible to correlate his intuition with real facts, real people; a face in which he can see some hint of the crime. But from long experience Tizón knows that there are no outward signs to mark out the criminal, that atrocities such as those perpetrated on the girls could be committed by anyone. The truth is that the world is not filled with innocents; quite the reverse, it is filled with people who, without exception, are capable of the vilest crimes. The essential problem for any good policeman is to attribute to each fellow citizen the exact degree of wickedness or blame that corresponds to them for any crimes committed. This is what justice means, what Rogelio Tizón understands it to mean. Assigning to each human being his share of blame and, if possible, bringing him to account. Ruthlessly.

  “LET’S GO … Move back, slowly … Come on, move your asses.”