by Josep Pla
Portaló is a narrow funnel of the shallowest water cut into the mineral cataclysm that is the plain of Tudela. As the wind and sea aren’t at all favorable and we are hungry, we decide to head to the tiny beach and wait for better weather. We check our provisions and realize we are running short.
“You,” says Hermós imperiously, “jump on land and make a fire, wherever you can, while I go and try my luck with the cast net…”
On the beach, I’m immediately struck by the solitude of that place, reinforced by the deserted communal hut, a deep silence floating on the wind and the distant echo of the sea crashing against the rocks. I reflect on the number of times I have proclaimed my love of solitude, yet how unappealing I find the idea of spending more time than is necessary in Portaló. Vanity and petulance make us spout so much nonsense! While I’m searching for firewood, I think I glimpse the eyes of a fox behind the corner of a rock. Of course, it’s a figment of my imagination. But I suspect that if Hermós wants to stay in Portaló, I will use the eyes of this fox I’ve never seen to scare him off and make him change his mind.
There is little in the way of wood. I use all the rubbish the sea has deposited on this small solitary strand. I find a lady’s shoe in a remarkable state of preservation. I add it to the sparse bundle of reeds, strips of cork bark, and scraps of wood I have collected. I create a space for the fire with three rocks and try to light it. Literally speaking, it isn’t the first time I have tried to do this; in any case, lighting a fire is such an elemental activity! After using ten or twelve matches, I’m dismayed to see that the fire isn’t taking. I start doubting my ability. I try again. But however often I do so, the result is the same. I can’t light a fire. I can’t light a fire! I have used up a whole box of matches and the fire isn’t lit. Lighting a fire appears not to be as elemental and simple as I’d thought. I’m embarrassed and feel extremely ridiculous. All that buoyant exuberance in almost every aspect of my life, and now I had really fallen short: I’m unable to light a fire cradled by three rocks. I think: if only I had the strength of mind to cherish that episode! However, in a few hours’ time I’ll be once again holding forth frivolously and light-headedly on whatever topic crops up, and will have forgotten I couldn’t light that fire. I feel irritated and uncomfortable with myself. Perhaps the most stupid thing in life is the way we are permanently inclined to forget our own futility, our own ineffable, intrinsic ineptitude.
Hermós arrives in the boat. He brings a magnificent tray of mackerel. However, he seems silent and down: it must be the void left by the departure of Don Víctor. When he notices I’ve not lit the fire, he reacts indignantly. He bawls at me. I respond: “Hermós, I have a confession to make…”
“What’s the matter?”
“I must tell you that I was unable to light a fire…”
He goes over to the stones, looks at the firewood, touches it and says: “This fire can be lit. The wood is dry.”
He slightly changes the position of one rock and applies a match, and the fire lights…
“Now you can tell everyone I couldn’t light a fire. I’m hopeless, a total disaster.”
He stares at me for a while and then grins and says: “But didn’t you know that men like you are good for nothing? You never know which way the wind is blowing…”
We eat grilled mackerel with vinaigrette. They taste a touch bitter, and deliciously fresh. Then we drink coffee. We eat our lunch in silence. We eat the fish on slices of bread, glancing at the sky from time to time. Meanwhile, we see that the northwesterly is slowly abating. The long white horses disappear. Shortly, a gentle southeasterly breeze blows up.
“What are you planning to do now?” I ask Hermós when he’s finished tidying things up.
“We’ll raise the sail and off we go to Portbou…”
“Do you want to make it in one day? It’s quite a long way.”
“If we can…”
We hoist the canvas within the cove of Portaló. The light wind favors us.
“It is a light wind. And aren’t they light…!” says Hermós, thinking of lobster catchers. Lobster catchers, when they haul their creels aboard, always say, “Aren’t they’re light?” And then after a short pause Hermós says, “Take the tiller. I must catch up on my sleep. If the wind strengthens, you handle it. If it stops, give me a shout! When you see Portbou, turn landward.”
He stretches out on the boards, lights a cigar and is soon blissfully asleep. He dozes off staring at the open sky. Dozing off like that must be like turning the blue of the sky inside out. His cheroot dangles from his lip and over his cheek. It’s a comical sight.
We make little headway. It is a limp southwesterly, but all the same, the coastline trundles by, imperceptibly, like life itself. “The patient use the sail,” say sailors. After four or five hours sailing, late into the twilight, we arrive opposite Portbou. I wake up Hermós. I hear a train whistle. We anchor on the small quay. I register the precision of the place-name – “Port-oxen.” The mountains within which Portbou is tucked have bovine shapes. The town seems animated. From the quay, one can see glowing cafés.
We spruce up a bit and jump on land. We order an aperitif on the terrace of one establishment. Suddenly, two tables over, we spot our dear friend Morató, universally known in the Lower Ampurdan and Palafrugell as Zorrilla. Boisterous cries of delight. Morató thinks we have come by train. He refuses to believe we have come by sea, from Calella, in such a small sailing dinghy. When he accepts that we have, after we’ve insisted time and again, he suggests we go and say hello to the mayor.
“We should…” says Hermós enthusiastically. “You have to keep in with the powers that be…”
I’m on the verge of throwing the saucer for the glass of absinthe at his head. I restrain myself.
Morató is a man who is always ready to join in whatever life has to offer. He works in Portbou with some members of his extended family. He departs for a moment and reappears shortly thereafter with bottles of magnificent French champagne. We’re all set to go. I struggle to stop Hermós from singing “Vostè que s’en va a Nàpols” at the top of his voice in the middle of the café. Morató is a great fan of theatrics, and of singing, hunting, eating and drinking, declaiming, and generally of anything that helps kill time uproariously. He is a tall, thin, fairish man, with large earlobes and a dynamic, engaging character. He’s the Ampurdan sort who is spontaneous, rather childish, playful, light as a feather and frivolous. We spend the night with him. Vast quantities of alcohol. Afterward I don’t dare ask how our night in Portbou ended. I barely remember a thing.
* * *
—
5 October. At around nine thirty a.m., the sea is placid, the sky cloudless and there’s no hint of a wind. The sun is bright but gets cooler by the hour. We row off after stocking up on supplies and drinking cups of black coffee. The previous night has left us feeling weary and moody.
We reach the post indicating the frontier, rowing mechanically, in silence. When the post is behind us, Hermós says: “We’re now in French waters. What do you reckon?”
“That’s obvious enough!”
“Aren’t you pleased? Who’d have thought it?”
“I’m surprised it’s so calm. What do you think the weather will do?”
“The day hasn’t settled yet, but I’m sure it will be the mistral. In this neck of the woods when the wind’s not sure what to do, it’s always a northwesterly.”
We make slow progress. Cape Béar, the color of brown stew, stands out clearly. The atmosphere is radiant, delicate, crystal clear: time for the mistral, naturally. Hermós is staring hard at the horizon on the French side. Suddenly, as we are about to turn around Cape Cerbère, he stands up straight and, pointing to a blotch on the sea, says:
“What can you see over there?”
“I see a buoy. It must be marking out some creels.”
“Forget the buoy! F
arther on, past that…”
“It looks like a ship…”
“Right. It’s a war ship, a coastguard ship, or perhaps a gun boat…” he says excitedly, turning quite pale.
“Well, so what?” I say. “What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? For Christ’s sake! I mean I don’t like the look of that ship one bit. I don’t want to be near that kind of vessel. They scare me. They are much worse than the little skiffs belonging to the customs police…”
“But that vessel is at least four miles away. It can’t even see us.”
“You won’t convince me it can’t see us. Those vessels miss nothing. They carry all sorts of telescopes. Compared to their telescopes, the one Senyor Joanola has in El Canadell is like a drinking glass.”
We row for a stretch. The houses of Cerbère heave into sight, their rooftops a roast-beef red. What most surprises me when we pass the frontier is the way the color of roofs immediately change. However, Hermós is getting increasingly agitated. I’m intrigued to know what he’ll decide to do.
Out of the corner of my eye I can see he’s making an effort and building up some Dutch courage. He says imperiously: “Take my word for it! Let’s turn our back on that vessel and get on our way this instant.”
“Hermós, that isn’t the deal?”
“What do you mean ‘that isn’t the deal’?” he asks, up in arms.
“Weren’t we supposed to go to France? This is what people call a cop-out.”
“Yes, right: it’s exactly what they call a cop-out, but I give the orders here, don’t I?”
And trying to impress me even further, he punches the floor of the boat so hard it almost makes the vessel tip. Then he restates his position: “Besides, you know I really don’t like these wars…”
“Don’t you worry yourself. We can argue about that back in Palafrugell…”
To dispel any sense that I think he’s being ridiculous, I adopt the jauntiest look from my repertoire. We turn around, hoist the sail and a northerly tail wind slowly pushes us along. After that maneuver, he looks relieved, as if a huge burden has been lifted from his shoulders. However, he soon swings to the other extreme: he seems depressed.
We start preparing lunch with the food we bought in Portbou. He lights the fire and says we’ll have a stew and a boil-up at two, weather permitting.
“Head for Cape Creus, and when lunch is ready,” he says “we’ll eat lunch…”
“Don’t you want to stop in Port de la Selva?”
“There’s a police control in Port de la Selva, and you know we’re not carrying any papers. There’s always the chance we’ll get put in the slammer…”
No doubt about it: today is a fantastic day for acting the fool.
When the frontier post has completely disappeared from sight, Hermós starts singing a havanera. Then he strikes up with “Vostè que s’en va a Nàpols” at the top of his voice.
It continues to be a magnificent, clear, sunny, sparkling day. The northerly breeze hardly ripples the gleaming mirror of the bluest of seas. Our progress is slow but steady. It’s delightful. By five p.m., we’re opposite Culip. For a moment I anticipate that Hermós will want to spend the night there. I’m wrong. I hear him say: “It might be better if we slept the other side of Norfeu…There won’t be so many mosquitoes there. In times of war, perhaps it is best to keep your head down…”
It’s crisp and calm by Jugadora Cove. Darkness begins to fall. The Cape Creus lighthouse switches on. We lower our sail and row close to the shore. We cross Port Lligat Bay in the pitch black and leave through the northwesterly strait which is full of rocks and reefs, blindly finding our way. We strike submerged reefs and almost break an oar. Even so, despite the dark, dark night, Hermós finds his bearings. We row the full length of Cadaqués Bay, then row on for hours until we reach Jònculs, quite exhausted. It’s a long way to row from Jugadora Cove to Jònculs. Hunger and fatigue at sea produce a state of physical sanctity, an impoverished form of Franciscan sentiment. We anchor on the beach, our prow to the wind, and in no mood to eat, we doze off in a mineral sleep triggered by empty stomachs and aching bones. It must be past one a.m.
* * *
—
6 October. We raise our sail midmorning with a fresh northeasterly breeze and point the prow to the bank of the River Fluvià. The wind hits our stern full on.
To the west, the luminous lands of the gulf are dazzling. Sea and sky are simply glorious. It is on days like this that I understand the captivation the sea and air generate in our sickly spirits. There are moments when the sea is so wonderful, so delightful, so fulfilling that however much one resists the flow, all else seems meager and puny. When I think about such moments – and I’m experiencing one now – I feel most envious of Hermós. He has sacrificed everything to enjoy these moments in their full. Beyond the sea, nothing interests him. I am so much younger than he is, and feel that youthfulness in my veins, but I’m but a feeble apprentice writer and ridiculous, recalcitrant barfly.
Hermós lights the stove. One or two hours before waking me up, he threw a multiple-hooked fishing line into the water and caught a tray of shimmering, iridescent combers and catfish. Now it’s a matter of putting them in the pan and turning them into one of the finest meals on offer in these parts. I watch him. When boats sail with a back wind, they constantly dip and sway. This means that at any second the oil may spill, the pan fall, the stove roll onto the floor. To avoid that, Hermós is forced to hug the stove and the pan all the while. He’s wonderfully skilled. Not a single drop of oil falls from the pan. He reacts perfectly to the swaying of the boat.
“Congratulations, Hermós!” I exclaim, when I see he has fried the fish.
“That’s all right!” he replies, rather stiffly and seriously, with an undertone that reflects the previous day’s deplorable events.
We breakfast while we head toward the bank of the Fluvià. The taste of the fish, bread, oil and wine is so intense and subtle, so close to the genuine, real taste of things, that it is rapturous. Eating good, fresh, delicately flavored food in the open air is immeasurably precious. The difficult bit is coping with the open air. Hermós lives there as if he is in his native element. I, less so.
It’s ten days since I left home and I’m beginning to feel fatigued. It’s been a long time since I had any contact with this life. While I eat and drink, I feel the fresh air on my skin, the voluptuous light, the divine warmth of the sun. It is pleasant, nay, magnificent…but I immediately feel a kind of nostalgia prompted by inner weariness. A nostalgia for an air that is still, a light that is weaker, a sun that is dimmer. I think about how this open-air life we’re now leading, at once immediate and boundless, may be quite incompatible with the degree of foolishness an urban culture creates. In other words: the tragedy is that a moment comes in life when one can tolerate only bottled sun and the fresh air described in books. Culture is a sickly form of life.
There’s a brisk wind and we make rapid progress. The town of Roses stretches out before us bathed in a light that seems freshly made and alive. Lime white, shadows the color of black bread, apricot roofs.
“Don’t take us so close to Roses!” says Hermós, looking at me out of the corner of his eye, with the yellowy gaze of a rabid dog. “The harbor master will see us and stick us inside. Remember, we don’t have papers…”
Outside the Fluvià quay we see a boat fishing. Of course, we know the silt in the river mouth means the underwater sandbanks are constantly changing position and height, and that makes entry dangerous. To find out the latest on entry conditions, we draw close to the boat. Two men are rowing hard and dragging a net to catch shellfish. Hermós bellows: “Where’s the entrance to the river?”
The men keep rowing as if they’ve heard nothing.
The sea crashes against almost the entire quayside. Seagulls fly above the glinting crests of the waves, above the foam
that the wind blows away. A group of herring gulls stands motionless on the crimson sand of the beach, like a line of penguins.
We lower the flat sail and lock in our oars. We keep clear of the breakwaters. We assume the men in the boat didn’t hear us, and draw even closer. Hermós shouts out again: “Where’s the entrance to the river?”
As yet again he gets no response, he hollers and gesticulates violently.
“Are you mad or what?” he shouts wildly, like a lunatic.
Finally alerted by his gestures, the fishermen wave their hands and shake their heads strangely, as if apologizing for their lack of reaction.
“Now I understand!” says Hermós, laughing raucously and showing his teeth. “These men are deaf-mutes like the people you sometimes see around Canaletes. What do you bet that’s what they are? It’s very odd to come across deaf-mutes at sea, for Christ’s sake. It’s like being served an empty bottle of wine…”
The deaf-mutes continue to make signs with their hands and pull all kinds of faces. Hermós contemplates them for a while and then waves his arms at them in a blood-curdling, obscene fashion. Suddenly he makes up his mind…He grabs the tiller with both hands, turns the stern toward the waves and lets the boat be driven by the force of the sea. Everything happens as quick as lightning. Our dinghy rises on the back of a wave and, as if driven by an invisible power, is speedily deposited in the placid, murky waters of the river mouth. We’re slipped in there in a second. If we’d have brushed against a sandbank, it would have turned us over. The wave was eminently sensible and took us through the most feasible channel…
Now we’re in the middle of the river, we hoist our sail, and Hermós looks at me seeking approval for his latest crazy feat. When I feel I’ve recovered from my panic, I compliment him. He replies, contentedly: “When you are in that kind of jam, you have to do something or other…”
The northeasterly pushes us further upstream, through reddish, muddy waters. The bank on the right is low and green. The one on the left is a three- or four-yard-high embankment, an expanse of rich loam that glistens in the sun. As we push on upstream, the river bends gently and the current drops. A countryman ploughing behind a plump, pompous mare comes slowly into sight. A cart squeaks along the river bank. We pass a barge, bloated like a frog, hanging over the water. The peaceful countryside and silent land are as restful as a feather pillow. When you’ve just left the sea, land seems so peaceful and safe! As we sail upstream, the current becomes almost imperceptible. The water becomes shallower. Reeds and bulrushes grow on the mud of the banks. We anchor under the bridge in Sant Pere Pescador. Past its arches women are beating washing on rocks. A Gypsy caravan stands under rusty, autumnal leaves.