The Siege

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  Ma mama doan’ wan’

  Me a-go to the beach

  ’cuz de soldiers there

  doan’ treat a girl right

  A boy in a purple burnoose and slippers armed with a bladder on a stick makes a rush at Tizón, ready to hit him, but the comisario blocks him with his cane.

  “Get out of here,” he says, “or I’ll rip off your head.” The boy scurries away, terrified by the glare and the harsh tone of the policeman, who continues to make his way through the crowd, studying the masked faces all around. Now and then, when he spots a girl he trails her a little way, watching for anyone who attempts to approach or follow her. Sometimes he keeps up the surveillance through several streets, staring at every masked face, waiting for the slightest suspicious movement to hurl himself at some stranger, rip off the mask and reveal the face—the face he has seen so often in his nightmares—of the man he is seeking. Other times, it is not a young girl but a strange costume, a curious look that catches his eye, and he follows the man, watching his every move, his every step.

  On the Calle del Sol, next to the chapel, Tizón spots a man in a long hooded black robe and a white mask who stands, motionless, watching the crowd. Something about the man’s demeanor arouses the comisario’s suspicions. Perhaps, thinks Tizón, taking cover behind a group of revelers, it is the way he seems to set himself apart: solitary, aloof from the festivities. The man’s eyes seem cold, distant—too distant for someone who has taken the trouble to put on a Carnaval costume and come out into the street to have fun. This man is not having fun, he is not interacting with anyone. The cowled head moves slowly from side to side, watching people as they pass. He does not seem to bat an eyelid when three giggling girls, dressed in colored ponchos and straw hats, their faces painted black, rush up to him, spray him with water and then scamper down the street. He merely watches them go.

  Cautiously stepping from behind the revelers, Rogelio Tizón moves toward the stranger. For an instant, he seems to stare at the comisario, then he turns and quickly walks away. It might be mere coincidence, thinks Tizón. But it might not be. Quickening his step so as not to lose sight of the man, the comisario follows him as far as the Calle del Sacramento; just as he is about to rush over and grab him, eager to rip off the mask, the stranger goes over to join a group of men and women in costumes who greet him by name, clearly delighted to see him. There is a burst of laughter, someone produces a wineskin and the latecomer pushes back his hood, takes off his mask and, holding the wineskin high, aims a long draft squarely at his gullet, just as Rogelio Tizón walks past him, feeling utterly foolish.

  THE SMELL OF fried fish, of fritters and burnt sugar. Small paper lanterns flicker in the meager hovels of the fishermen’s district in La Viña. On the long, straight Calle de la Palma, these points of light look like fireflies lined up in the darkness. The faint glow reveals groups of locals; there is a hum of conversation, clinking glasses, laughter and singing. On the corner of the Calle de la Consolación, next to a lantern on the ground that barely illuminates their legs, two men and a woman dressed up in sheets that look like shrouds are drunkenly singing about Good old King Pepino*1 who, they rhyme, was very fond of vino.

  “I don’t usually frequent this neighborhood,” says Lolita Palma, fascinated by everything.

  Pépé Lobo steps between her and a group of boys running past with lighted torches, bladders and syringes of water. He turns to look at her. “We can head back, if you prefer.”

  “No.”

  The black taffeta mask she is wearing completely hides her face beneath the domino hood. When she says nothing for long periods, Lobo feels as though he is walking beside a shadow.

  “It’s pleasant … Besides, the night is glorious for the time of year.”

  From time to time, as it has done just now, the conversation drifts back to the weather, to the trivial details of their surroundings. It happens when the silences drag on too long and they find themselves in a blind alley of words that neither of them cares—dares is perhaps the right word—to utter. Lobo knows Lolita Palma feels the same way. And yet, how pleasurable it is to be lulled by these silences, by the languid indolence of this aimless stroll—by the unspoken amnesty of Carnaval which abolishes all responsibilities. And so, for more than half an hour the corsair and the lady have idly roamed the streets of Cádiz. From time to time, a slight stumble, the sudden appearance of a group of revelers, or the shock of a masked figure blowing a whistle or a trumpet nearby, causes them accidentally to brush against each other in the darkness.

  “Did you know, Captain, that dancers from Cádiz were all the rage in ancient Rome?”

  They are standing on the corner of the Calle de las Carretas, in the light of an oil lamp. Outside the half-open door of a tavern, a group of costumed women are dancing—ready to vanish should a nightwatchman appear—surrounded by a circle of dandies, sailors and gypsies, whose rhythmic clapping makes any music unnecessary.

  “I didn’t know,” Pépé Lobo admits.

  “Well, it’s true: the Romans used to fight over them.” Lolita’s tone is easy and self-confident, the voice of a hostess showing off her city to a foreigner. And yet it is I who am escorting her, thinks Lobo. I wonder how she comes by such poise.

  “In another age,” she adds after a moment, “that is something else I would have had to do, I fear … Palma e Hijos, shipper of fine dancers.”

  She breaks off and laughs quietly; the captain is unsure whether she is joking.

  “Dancers,” Lobo says.

  “Just so: dancers and tuna in escabeche: these are the things that have brought Cádiz her fame and fortune … Though the dancers were less fortunate than the tuna: the Emperor Theodosius banned their dancing for being too lascivious. According to Saint John Chrysostom, they were dancing with Satan himself.”

  They continue on their way, leaving the dancers behind. Above the broad street, the ample expanse of the heavens is thronged with stars. At every turnoff to their left, Pépé Lobo notes the soft, slightly damp westerly breeze coming from the city walls and the Atlantic, which lies a mere three hundred paces beyond the Capuchinos esplanade.

  “Do you like the people of Cádiz, Captain?”

  “Some.”

  They walk a few paces in silence. Sometimes Lobo can hear the soft rustle of the domino silk. Close up, he can smell Lolita’s distinctive perfume, unlike that usually worn by women of her age. But it is delicate and pleasant. Fresh, not too intense. Bergamot, he thinks absurdly, though he has never smelled bergamot.

  “There are some I like and some I do not care for,” he adds. “As in any city.”

  “I know so little about you.”

  The words sound like a lament. Almost a reproach. He takes her hand to help her step around an unhitched carriage, its shafts resting on the ground. The sailor shakes his head.

  “Mine is a commonplace story: the sea as a means of escape.”

  “You were very young when you arrived from Havana, were you not?”

  “To say I arrived is to overstate the matter. Rather I left … To arrive would be to return with thousands of reales, a Negro manservant, a parrot and several crates of cigars.”

  “And a shawl of Chinese silk for a woman?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Lolita Palma walks a few steps in silence.

  “Have you ever bought a shawl?”

  “Sometimes.”

  They pass the Calle de la Palma, with its twin rows of fireflies. There are fewer people now; before them is the shadowy esplanade of San Pedro and, on the right, the dark hulking mass of El Hospicio. Lobo stops, ready to retrace his steps, but Lolita Palma walks on toward the rampart a short distance away, and the blue-black expanse of the sea beyond. The water shimmers yellow at regular intervals, in the beam of the San Sebastián lighthouse.

  “I seem to remember”—Lolita is thoughtful—“that I once heard you say only a fool would go to sea by choice. Can it be true that you do not love the sea?”

&
nbsp; “Is this some jest? It is the most terrible place in the world.”

  “Why then do you still ship out?”

  “Because I have nowhere else to go.”

  They come to the bastion above La Caleta. Close by, they can distinguish a watchtower and the dark figure of a guard. Lanterns at regular intervals illuminate the sweeping curve of white sand below; from the ramshackle bars and taverns built of timber and sailcloth that cluster against the city wall comes the sound of music, laughter and merriment. In the half light, against the black background of the sea, it is possible to make out the pale outlines of boats grounded on the muddy bank and, closer in, the gunboats at anchor. In Cádiz, thinks Pépé Lobo, all roads lead to the sea.

  “I would love to go down there,” Lolita Palma says.

  The corsair almost flinches. Even during Carnaval and wearing a mask, the dive bars of La Caleta with their sailors, whores and music are no place for a lady.

  “That would not be a good idea,” he says, embarrassed. “Perhaps we should—”

  “Calm yourself,” she cuts in, laughing. “I was expressing a desire, not an intention.”

  They fall silent again, leaning against the stone parapet. Standing within a hand’s-breadth of each other, breathing the damp air with its tang of sand and salt, Lobo is keenly aware of the woman’s physical presence. He can almost smell the warmth of her body next to his shoulder—or imagines he can.

  “Are you waiting for some stroke of fortune?” asks Lolita Palma, returning to their earlier conversation.

  That is one way of putting it, thinks Lobo. A stroke of fortune.

  At length, he nods. “That is what I’m looking for, and if I should find it, I would turn my back on the sea forever.”

  “I thought … I don’t know,” she says, seeming genuinely surprised, “I thought you liked this life. The adventure.”

  “You thought wrong.”

  Another silence. Suddenly, Lobo feels a pressing need to speak; to explain something he has never cared to tell anyone before now.

  “I live as I do because I cannot live by any other means. As for what you call ‘adventure’… well, I would trade all the adventure in the world for a few sacks of gold coins … If one day I should retire, I will buy a plot of land as far as possible from the ocean, in some place with no view of the sea … I will have a house and a trained vine that I can sit under of an evening, watching the sun set without having to worry about whether the ship is dragging its anchor, or whether I need to reef the sails before I can get a good night’s sleep.”

  “And a wife?”

  “Yes … I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe even a wife.”

  He breaks off, disconcerted. She asked the question dispassionately, coldly. As though it were merely one more item on the list Lobo had begun. And it is precisely this detachment—artless or deliberate?—that unsettles the corsair.

  “It seems to me you are close to achieving all that,” Lolita Palma says. “I mean, amassing enough money. So you can retire inland.”

  “It’s possible. But it is impossible to know until it happens.”

  At intervals a beam sweeps across them from the castle lighthouse, at the far end of San Sebastián reef. The dark figure of the guard paces slowly along the sea wall. Lolita Palma still wears her checkered hood, but she has taken off her mask. Lobo gazes at her profile, sporadically illuminated by the distant flare.

  “Do you know what I like about seafaring men, Captain? I like the fact that they have traveled much and say little. What they know they have seen with their own eyes; they have learned without reading it in books. Sailors feel no real need for company, since they have always been alone. And there is something naive, something innocent about them—they set foot on land as though stepping into some dangerous, unfamiliar place.”

  Lobo listens in astonishment. So this is how others see him. This is how she sees him.

  “You have a pretty notion of my job, but an inaccurate one,” he says. “Some of the vilest scum I’ve ever encountered, I met aboard ship, and not just on the fo’c’sle. And forgive me for saying so, but I would never for a minute leave you alone with my crew …”

  Lolita almost flinches, then reverts to her former tone: “I know how to take care of myself, señor.”

  The pride of the Palmas. The corsair smiles in the darkness. “It is not a question of what you know.”

  “I have been handling sailors ever since I was a child. My house …”

  Stubborn. Self-assured. She stares out to sea, her profile silhouetted against the distant light.

  “You know us by sight, señora. And from what you have read in books.”

  “I have eyes, Captain.”

  “Do you? And what do you see when you look at me?”

  She says nothing, her lips parted slightly. The delicate balance of their conversation has been shattered. She seems at a loss; Lobo is seized by a strange feeling, something like remorse. Besides, the question was rhetorical.

  “Listen …” says the corsair, “I am forty-three years old and incapable of sleeping for two hours straight without waking up to wonder where I am, whether the wind has turned. My stomach is ruined from the swill I eat on board ship, and I get headaches that last for days … When I spend too long in the same position, my joints creak like those of an old man. When the weather changes, every bone I’ve broken—or had broken for me—aches. And all it would take is one storm, one mistake by the pilot or the helmsman and I could suddenly lose everything I possess. To say nothing of the possibility that …”

  He leaves the sentence unfinished. He is thinking of disfigurement and death, but he does not want to go there. He does not want to talk about that, about his true fears. In fact, he is wondering why he told her what he did; what he is trying to prove to this woman—or what he is trying to ruin, or sabotage, at any cost. Perhaps it is the urge to turn to her, to throw caution to the devil and take her in his arms.

  The sentry is now back in his watchtower; there is a brief flicker of flame as he lights up a cigar. The star fort of Santa Catalina appears and disappears in the beam from the distant lighthouse, which also picks out the rocky headland and the patrol boat guarding the gunboats. Lolita Palma stares out to sea.

  “Why did you do what you did to Lorenzo Virués?” The mention of broken bones seems to have reminded her of the incident.

  Pépé Lobo looks at her harshly. “I did nothing to him he did not bring upon himself.”

  “I was told you did not conduct yourself …”

  “… like a gentleman?” The corsair laughs as he says the words.

  Lolita Palma stands for a moment in silence.

  “You knew he was a friend of mine,” she says eventually. “A friend of the family.”

  “And he knew that I am captain of one of your ships. The two cancel each other out.”

  “What happened in Gibraltar?”

  “To hell with Gibraltar! You know nothing about that. You have no right …”

  A brief pause. When Lolita speaks again her voice is low, almost a whisper. “You are right. God knows you are right.”

  The remark surprises Pépé Lobo. The woman is standing motionless, obdurately staring out at the sea, at the darkness. The guard, who can surely see them from his watchtower, begins to sing. His voice is low, neither happy nor sad—a dark, guttural moan that seems to come from far away, from down the years. Lobo can barely make out the words.

  “I think perhaps we should go,” says the corsair.

  She shakes her head. Her mood seems almost gentle again.

  “Carnaval comes but once a year, Captain Lobo.”

  She suddenly seems young, fragile—were it not for her eyes, which never waver, never stray for a moment from the corsair’s as he leans down and kisses her mouth, slowly, gently, as though giving her the opportunity to pull away. But she does not pull away. Pépé Lobo feels the sweet softness of her half-open lips, feels her body tremble, at once powerless and unyielding as his arms
enfold her, draw her to him. They stand frozen for a moment, Lolita swathed in her domino cape whose hood has fallen back, wrapped in this man’s embrace, silent and utterly calm. Her eyes never close, never leave his. Then she draws back and gently brings a hand up to his face, neither drawing him closer nor pushing him away. She holds him there, palm open, fingers splayed, stroking his face like a blind woman trying to imprint the image on her warm hand. When she finally withdraws it, she does so slowly, as though every inch that separates her hand from the corsair’s face causes her pain.

  “It is time to go back,” she says calmly.

  SIMON DESFOSSEUX IS having trouble sleeping. Before going to bed, he spent a long time making calculations for a new slow-burning fuse he has successfully been working on for several weeks, and also reading the most recent dispatch from the far shore: a message from the Spanish police comisario suggesting a new area to the east of the city which he is requested to shell at specific dates and times. Now lying in his hut, staring into the darkness, Desfosseux has the uncomfortable feeling that something is amiss. In his short, restless sleep, he thought he heard strange noises, hence the uncomfortable feeling when he woke.

  “Guerrilleros! Guerrilleros!”

  A scream comes from nearby and he sits bolt upright on his cot. He realizes with mounting panic that the noise he heard while he was asleep was the crackle of gunfire. Now he can clearly hear the rifle shots as he fumbles for his breeches and his boots; he adjusts his nightshirt as best he can, grabs his sword and his pistol and stumbles for the door. He is barely outside before an explosion rings out, lighting up everything around: the gabions, the trenches, the timber blockhouse and the soldiers’ quarters. The barracks from which the blast came are now burning fiercely—someone clearly tossed in a bomb made of tar and gunpowder. Silhouetted against the conflagration, half-dressed soldiers run in all directions.