The Siege

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  “Culture and science do not always go hand in hand,” he argues, staring at the blank chessboard. “In fact history has shown that they can move in opposite directions … But you’re right. It is possible that our murderer has some understanding of technology. And who knows? Perhaps he even plays chess.” He throws his arms wide to encompass the whole café. “Perhaps he is here, right now. Close at hand. Paying tribute to his methods.”

  SWELTERING HEAT. A blaze of light. A riot of people, barefoot or in sandals, people who have known each other all their lives, for whom privacy does not exist. Dark, almost Arabian eyes; skin tanned by sea and sun; youthful, merry voices with the clipped tones particular to the lowliest of classes in Cádiz. Squat tenement houses, women shouting from balcony to balcony, laundry set out to dry, cages with canaries, filthy urchins playing in the dirt of the narrow, unpaved streets. Crucifixes, Christs, Virgins and saints on glazed tiles or in alcoves on every street corner. The smell of the sea, the reek of oil and of every conceivable variety of fish—raw, fried, grilled, dried, salted, putrid—piles of fish heads and bones fought over by cats with greasy whiskers, their fur full of scabs and bald from mange. This is La Viña.

  Turning left on the Calle de la Palma, Gregorio Fumagal takes the Calle San Félix and heads into the area of sailors and fishermen. He dodges and weaves, guided by sight, by smell, by hearing, through the empty spaces left in this motley and teeming world. He looks like an alert insect, twitching its antennae. Beyond the houses, looking like an open door or a bottle without a cork, the taxidermist can see part of the Explanada de Capuchinos and a fragment of the city walls near Vendaval, the embrasures with their cannons pointed toward the Atlantic. Fumagal pauses for a minute to remove his hat and mop the sweat from his brow, then walks on past the white, the blue, the ocher houses in search of shade. The fact that he is sweating is particularly unfortunate, since the new English dye he bought yesterday at Frasquito Sanlúcar’s shop has begun to run, causing an unpleasant dark staining. His frockcoat is cumbersome, too, and weighs heavily on him; the silk kerchief knotted about his throat pinches more than usual. The sun is high now and the heat oppressive; in this part of the city there is hardly any breeze—the summer is mercilessly announcing its imminent arrival. In a place surrounded by water like Cádiz, where many streets are built perpendicular to each other to create a windbreak, the sweltering, airless heat can be overwhelming.

  The Mulatto is at the appointed place, arriving just as Fumagal gets there. He does not seem to walk, but rather to dance, with graceful, measured steps to the rhythm of some primitive melody only he can hear. He is wearing sandals with no socks, no hat, short loose-fitting breeches, and his unbuttoned shirt is tied at the waist with a red band beneath a short, rather shabby waistcoat. His clothing is typical of fishermen and smugglers around here; the Mulatto is more of a smuggler. The grandson of slaves, he was born free and has a little boat that plies the waters, visiting the shores of both enemy and ally. His African blood—more evident in his features than his skin tone, which is a healthy, copper color—is what gives his movements their languid rhythm. Tall, athletic, pug-nosed with thick lips and frizzy hair and sideburns that are beginning to turn gray.

  “A monkey,” says the Mulatto. “Two feet tall. A fine specimen.”

  “Alive?”

  “For the moment.”

  “I’m interested,” says Fumagal. The two men have stopped in front of a little tavern typical of La Viña: a tiny bar behind a dark, narrow doorway, two large black barrels at the back, sawdust on the floor, a counter and two low tables. It smells strongly of coarse wine and of the olives in an earthenware pot that sits on a nearby cask. They carry on their conversation while the Mulatto orders two glasses of red wine and settles himself by the short counter—a sticky plank with a marble fountain and an engraving of the guerrillero known as Empecinado (“Bull-headed”) hanging on the wall behind. The monkey, explains the Mulatto loud enough for everyone in the bar to hear, arrived on an American ship four days ago. It has a long tail and is as ugly as sin. A rare specimen, said the sailor who sold it to him—a macaque monkey from the East Indies. And fairly depressed, too: perhaps it got used to being in the ship, being at sea. It eats fruit, drinks a little water and spends its days in a cage, legs spread, rubbing its penis.

  “I want it to be dead by the time I get it,” says Fumagal. “No complications.”

  “No problem, señor. I’ll handle it.”

  Having discussed the reason for the meeting within earshot of the barkeeper, the two men drain their glasses and leave, heading back to the esplanade overlooking the ramparts and the ocean, far from prying ears. As they walk, the Mulatto picks olives out of a hand callused from hauling oars and cables; every ten or twelve steps, he tilts his head back and, with a loud rasp of his lips, spits the pit as far as he can. As they reach the esplanade, he softly croons a little ditty that has been doing the rounds in Cádiz since March:

  Three thousand damned gabachos

  We killed in the battle of the Hog

  And in revenge they bombed us

  But the bomb only killed a dog.

  His tone is as scornful as the words. And though he looks toward the ramparts and the ocean as he sings, the Mulatto seems distracted, as though he is thinking about something else. Gregorio Fumagal is irritated.

  “Spare me that drivel,” he says.

  The other man looks at him, eyebrows raised in mock surprise, barely masking his insolence.

  “It’s not your fault,” he says coolly.

  “And spare me that, too. My faults are my own business.”

  “In that case, let’s get down to brass tacks, if that suits you.”

  “If you don’t mind. We’re already running too many risks to stand around wasting time.”

  The bootlegger glances around with studied care. There is no one about. The nearest people to them are fifty paces away, a chain gang repairing the rampart, which is being eroded by the sea.

  “Your friends asked me to tell you …”

  “They are your friends too,” Fumagal corrects him curtly.

  “Fine.” The Mulatto makes a vague gesture. “They’re paying me, señor, if that’s what you mean. Greasing my palm. My real friends are elsewhere.”

  “Spit it out. Say what you’ve got to say.”

  The other man half-turns and gestures toward the street and the city beyond. “They’re trying to increase the range of the bombs fired from the Cabezuela. At least as far as the Plaza de San Francisco.”

  “They haven’t managed to reach it yet.”

  This, the smuggler points out, is not his problem. It is their intention. Then he explains the plan: the cannonades will begin again in a week and the French artillery need a map of the exact locations where the bombs fall, with daily accounts of times and distances, detailing which of the bombs exploded and which did not—although most of them will contain no powder charge. They want Fumagal to calculate distances using the church steeple as a reference.

  “I’ll need more pigeons.”

  “I brought some back with me. Belgian, one year old. You’ll find the baskets in the usual place.”

  The two men walk along the Plaza de Capuchinos. Behind the rampart, on the far side of the embrasures and the cannons, they can see the ocean, the coastline and the city walls curving gently toward the Puerta de Tierra and the unfinished dome of the new cathedral; beyond, shimmering in the heat haze, is the white sandy ribbon of the reef.

  “When are you going over to the other side again?” asks Fumagal.

  “I don’t know. Truth is, things are getting pretty tangled. Most weeks, the sea patrols pick up someone crossing the bay without a valid permit. Immigration and espionage have got the authorities on the alert … You can’t even bribe your way out of things anymore.”

  They walk a little further in silence, past the work detail of convicts, bare-chested men with kerchiefs tied around their heads, a slick of sweat glazing their scars and ta
ttoos. Bayonets fixed, a group of soldiers in the short jackets and round hats of the Volunteer Corps are idly standing guard.

  “A couple of days ago they garroted another spy,” the Mulatto says out of the blue. “Fellow called Pizarro.”

  The taxidermist nods. He is aware of the fact, though not the details.

  “Did you know him?”

  “No, fortunately.” He flashes a cynical smile. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be taking this little stroll.”

  “Did he talk?”

  “Now there’s a question, señor. Everybody talks in the end.”

  “I suppose that if it came down to it, you would turn me in.”

  There is a brief, pregnant silence. Out of the corner of his eye, Fumagal notices a mocking smile on his companion’s lips.

  “What about you?”

  The taxidermist takes off his hat to dab away the perspiration soaking through the sweatband. Confounded dye, he thinks, looking at his fingertips.

  “It is less likely that I would be caught,” he answers. “My life is unobtrusive. You are taking risks, out there with your boat.”

  “I’m a notorious smuggler: that’s nothing special in Cádiz, everyone’s involved in something shady. They don’t garrote a man for smuggling round here … From that to suspecting me of spying is a big leap. That’s why I never carry any papers”—the Mulatto taps his forehead—“it’s all in here.”

  And of course, he continues, there is more to it than that. Their friends on the far shore want information about a floating platform that is being built, from which the Spanish plan to fire on the Trocadero. And about the work being carried out by the English at the redoubts at Sancti Petri, Gallineras Altas and Torregorda.

  “That’s a little beyond my scope.”

  “As you say, señor. I’m simply telling you what I was told. They’re also very interested in any news about cases of malignant fevers in Cádiz … I think they hope the yellow fever will come back and people will start dropping like flies.”

  “That doesn’t seem likely.”

  The smuggler gives another mocking smile. “Hope is always the last thing to go. Besides, the summer heat might help it along … And if there were an epidemic, supply ships would refuse to dock and things would turn ugly.”

  “I still think it’s doubtful. The outbreak last year immunized most people. I don’t think that will be the solution.”

  Seagulls wheel and shriek above the square, drawn ashore by the fishermen. People from the nearby houses lean out through the embrasures and fish, while the bored sentries who patrol the ramparts do nothing to stop them. Sea bream, snapper and sunfish dangle in the air, caught on hooks, or flounder and splash in wicker baskets or wooden crates. Rifles slung over their shoulders, the soldiers come over to see whether anything is biting, sharing a plug of tobacco or maybe a match with the fishermen. In spite of the war, Cádiz continues to live and let live.

  “Our friends are asking about the townsfolk,” says the Mulatto. “How they are, what they are saying. Whether the people of Cádiz are unhappy about the situation … I imagine they still believe the people will rise up, but it seems unlikely. It’s not as though people are starving here. And on the Isla de Léon, where things are much worse and they’re closer to the front lines, the Army has everything under control.”

  Gregorio Fumagal makes no comment. Sometimes he wonders exactly what cloud they are living on across the bay. Anyone who expects a popular uprising to further the imperial cause doesn’t know Cádiz. The poor here are fanatically patriotic, passionately in favor of the war, and they support the liberal faction in the Cortes. Everyone in the city, from a captain general to a lowly shopkeeper, fears and flatters the townsfolk. No one lifted a finger when they dragged Governor Solano through the streets to the scaffold. And a few days ago, when a Royalist member of the Cortes expressed opposition to the seizure of assets belonging to the nobility, various mutineers and strumpets wanted to settle the score with him personally—to save his skin, the man had to take shelter aboard a ship belonging to the Royal Armada. One of the reasons it is forbidden to wear cloaks or capes when attending the debates at San Felipe Neri is to make sure the public cannot bring concealed weapons.

  “I’m thinking about that poor fellow,” remarks the Mulatto, “the one who was executed.”

  These words hang in the air as they walk another twenty paces in lugubrious silence. The smuggler sways on his long legs in the gentle dance that is his method of walking. Close to him, yet maintaining a certain distance, Gregorio Fumagal takes short, wary steps. His movements never seem automatic; each one is a conscious and deliberate act.

  “I don’t like to think about it,” the Mulatto adds. “The garrotte around his neck, three twists to tighten it round his throat, his tongue sticking out … What about you?”

  “Stop talking rubbish.”

  As they reach the Convento de los Descalzos, they encounter a group of women striding gaily across the square carrying pitchers of water. One of them is very young. Embarrassed, Fumagal reaches up and touches his hair to see whether the dye is still running. Looking at his fingertips, he sees that it is. This makes him feel even more filthy. And grotesque.

  “I don’t think I’ll be doing this much longer,” the Mulatto says suddenly. “Better to jump out of the net before it’s hauled on board with me inside … If you play with fire …”

  He falls silent again, studying Fumagal.

  “Are you really taking these risks for the fun of it? For free?”

  The taxidermist says nothing and keeps walking. When he removes his hat again to mop the sweat, he notices that his kerchief is wet and dirty. This is going to be a difficult summer, he thinks. In every possible sense.

  “Don’t forget the monkey.”

  “What?”

  “My macaque monkey from the East Indies.”

  “Oh, yes …” the smuggler peers at him, slightly unsettled, “the monkey.”

  “I’ll send someone to fetch it this afternoon. Dead, as agreed … How were you planning to do it?”

  The Mulatto shrugs. “Uh, I don’t know … Poison, I suppose. Or maybe I’ll strangle it.”

  “I’d prefer the latter,” the taxidermist says coldly. “Certain substances compromise the preservation of the body. Whatever you do, make sure the skin is unblemished.”

  “Sure,” the Mulatto says, staring at the black bead of sweat trickling down Gregorio Fumagal’s forehead.

  FRIDAY AFTERNOON. SAILCLOTH suspended from the floor above puts the patio in shade; large planters of ferns and geraniums, rocking chairs and wicker seats are set around the edge of the pond, creating a cool and pleasant ambiance. Lolita Palma takes a sip of maraschino liqueur and sets the glass down on a doily on the table, next to the silver service and the bottles of liqueurs. She bends over her mother to plump the cushions on her armchair. Haughty, garbed in black, with her hair gathered into a lace cap and a rosary lying on the shawl covering her lap, Manuela Ugarte—Tomás Palma’s widow—presides over the little family get-together, as she does every afternoon when she feels able to get out of bed. It is visiting time here in the house on the Calle del Baluarte. In attendance is Cari Palma, Lolita’s sister, with her husband, Alfonso Solé. Also present are Amparo Pimentel, an elderly widower who is almost one of the family, Curra Vilches and cousin Toño, a regular visitor at this hour and any other.

  “You are not going to believe this,” he says. “Have you heard the latest?”

  “If it’s about Cádiz, I’ll believe anything,” says Curra Vilches.

  With his customary easy manner, cousin Toño tells his story. The recent military recruitment drive, expected to swell the Army’s numbers with hundreds of men from the first category of recruits—bachelors, and those married men and widowers without children—has been abandoned: barely five out of ten have been called up. They stayed holed up in their houses, searching for documents or exemptions, or enlisted in the local militias in order to evade their respons
ibilities. The recent battle at La Albuera in Extremadura, where defeating the French came with terrible losses—1,500 Spanish and 3,500 English soldiers dead or wounded—has done little to encourage new recruits. The problem is so great that the Cortes has had to come up with a solution: they have widened conscription to include men in the second and third categories, so that these men, in order to avoid being called up, will turn in the first-category malingerers.

  “Does this concern you, Cousin?” teases Cari Palma as she fans herself.

  “Absolutely not. Far be it from me to contest anyone for laurels and glory. I am excused by virtue of being the son of a widow, and because I paid the fifteen thousand reales required to exempt me from having to gloriously take up arms.”

  “The fact that you paid is fair enough, but your other excuse … Aunt Carmela has been dead for eight years now!”

  “That doesn’t change the fact she died a widow.” Cousin Toño cradles a wineglass in one hand and, with the other, holds a bottle of manzanilla to the light and peers at its diminishing contents. “Besides, there’s only one war in which I would be prepared to fight: to reconquer Jerez and Sánlucar for the fatherland.”

  “Now, there’s a war in which I’m sure you would fight like a tiger,” remarks Lolita, amused.

  “Absolutely, niña. With a bayonet or any weapon you care to mention. Hand to hand, wine cellar to wine cellar … Absolutely. You know the story about King Pepe Botella visiting the area and falling into a vat of wine? The French ran around shouting, ‘Throw him a rope! Throw him a rope!’ but King Joseph Bonaparte pops his head out and shouts back, ‘Noooo! Throw me some ham and cheese!’ ”

  Lolita and the others laugh, though her brother-in-law Alfonso’s laugh seems forced. Only her mother remains stiff and aloof. Her expression, distant and disdainful, is evidence of the five drops of laudanum taken three times daily in a glass of orange-flower water to alleviate the pain of the scirrhous tumor slowly eating away at her. Manuela Ugarte is seventy-two years old and does not know her illness is terminal; her eldest daughter is the only person who knows, having sworn the doctor who made the diagnosis to silence. To have done otherwise, she knows, would not have helped matters. The illness seems to be progressing slowly, and the end is unlikely to be quick. Her mother is gradually becoming aware of it, but the pain so far has been tolerable. A hypochondriac by nature, Manuela Ugarte had not left the house for years, even before she developed the cancer that she does not know she has. She spends her days in bed, in her room. Only in the afternoons does she come downstairs for a short while, leaning on her daughter’s arm, so that she can sit on the patio in summer—or, in winter, in the drawing room—and receive visitors. Her life is lived within narrow confines, between her domestic whims, which no one questions, her tincture of opium and her obliviousness to her true condition. The ravages of this secret illness are easily attributed to the infirmities of old age, to tiredness, to endless days of dull routine in a life without purpose. Manuela Ugarte ceased to be a wife a long time ago and, as a mother, she did the bare minimum, leaving everything to wet nurses, nannies and governesses. Lolita cannot ever remember her mother giving her a kiss unprompted. Only Lolita’s elder brother—Manuela’s dead son—could make those expressionless eyes light up. A confident, handsome lad, Francisco de Paula Palma, who traveled the world and learned his trade in Buenos Aires, Havana, Liverpool and Bordeaux, was destined to run the family business and shore it up with a suitable marriage to the daughter of another local merchant named Carlos Power. The French invasion forced him to defer the wedding. Immediately called up to serve in the Cádiz Fusiliers, Francisco de Paula died on July 16, 1808, fighting in the olive groves of Andújar at the Battle of Bailén.