by Josep Pla
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“A few hours later we were off the north coast of Majorca. Those hours of my life were haunted by what I’d been so unfortunate to see. I couldn’t pluck up the courage to say a word. I’d not enjoyed that spectacle one bit. We met up in a place – which will remain nameless – with the schooner I had first seen by the Medes Islands.
“My state of health wouldn’t allow me to sail any farther. I disembarked. A few months later, when I happened to be in Begur, I received a present: some wonderful binoculars I sold a few days after for three hundred pessetes. They were obviously worth much more. But some things are best forgotten, don’t you agree?”
BREAD AND GRAPES
It wasn’t so many years ago that a lot of small border towns had sizable military garrisons, depending on local requirements. Cadaqués had one too.
I still remember that Christmas night in Cadaqués, the furious mistral that blew up at twilight and howled for two days nonstop and the pure, pale-blue mineral expanse of sky dotted with fiery twinkling stars.
A group of three or four soldiers staggered out of a dance hall in high spirits because they were plastered or perhaps feeling liberated by that special day; shouting and swearing in the freezing air, they headed toward the Bar Marítim. There was a small boat on the beach opposite the bar. Those poor lads had the bright idea of dragging it into the water and taking a trip around the bay. When they saw what the soldiers had in mind, the people in the bar tried to warn them of the dangers of such an escapade. However, they were country boys and it was impossible to dissuade them from their drunken enterprise. The Cadaqués mistral is treacherous. Because the wind blows from the beach, the stretch of sea closest to land appears calm; it was a waste of time trying to tell those hapless youths that twenty-five yards beyond the breakwater the sea was roiling furiously. It was clear to the eye: the wind was raising a flurry of fine foam, like a mist of tiny glass particles, like luminous, ethereal white tulle. The exchanges became so violent it almost came to fisticuffs. Those lads pulled the boat into the water and jumped in.
I think I hardly need add that nothing more was ever heard of those unfortunate youngsters and no trace of their boat was ever found, and nothing will ever be heard of them, however many years go by.
That terrible episode brought on by human folly reminds me of a mysterious event years ago in which I was randomly and indirectly involved. My intention isn’t to suggest that the events on that Christmas night might elucidate that past experience. Not at all. I simply mean that what happened that night allows me to suggest a hypothesis – one I believe to be quite plausible – as to what happened in El Jonquet Cove one November night in 1920…
I’ve been familiar with the coves of Cape Creus for many a year, and if anyone was so kind as to ask me which part of that striking landscape I prefer I’d say that El Jonquet – or Es Jonquet as locals say – has stolen my heart.
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I’ve often thought of building a small, comfortable house there when I get to be a millionaire. Until that day arrives – which might even come to pass – my contact with the place is that of a loyal, infatuated passerby. Whenever I can, I go and spend an hour there – it is my favorite Cadaqués excursion, whether by land or sea. It is a longer haul from Cadaqués to El Jonquet by sea than by land. The distance by land is just what my body demands to satisfy its daily routine needs. In the course of my dark, twilit life, dominated by the strange phenomenon of unavoidable, intermittent forays leading me into the most unlikely places at the most extraordinary times, I consider El Jonquet to be a model haven.
I know there are more exciting, more precipitous, headier places on this unique peninsula. Some perhaps enjoy a purer, more virginal and profound silence, while others enshrine a more compelling, entrancing solitude. The teasing irregularity of some rock formations can have the same obsessive allure as the feverish calm of olives groves. It’s not that I don’t like all that – and other things besides. But if a landscape is to be at a human level, it needs a hint of sweetness. El Jonquet has that hint of sweetness, which is not to imply it doesn’t share the area’s general tonic: the taste of bitter olives.
If you happen to be in Cadaqués and feel like a walk there, you must leave Plaça de les Herbes and take the Sa Felipa side street and then the road to Port Lligat as far as the fork that leaves the cemetery on the right and continues on the road to the En Duran farmhouse. Keep on this path enclosed between two drystone walls for a while until you come to the path that goes down to the Bucs stream and En Morell stockyard. The Bucs stream is the one that shapes Port Lligat Beach and carries that name because in bygone times its banks, perfumed by the most delightful southern plants, were a home to beehives – beehives that in Cadaqués are called “bucs,” as befits a town with such a huge and varied character.* Then walk past the En Morell stockyard and on your left the telephone posts to the Cape Creus lighthouse and take the track over the barren land by S’Alqueria, and if you keep to this track, it will take you to the entrance to the El Jonquet olive grove. Walk through the grove, make a gentle descent across a series of terraces over the cove and you will reach your journey’s end.
This path is one of the most satisfying in the Cadaqués area. It passes through hollows bound by walls of slate; the deep silence of the olive groves hangs over the path; ecstatic in the still air of that haven – slightly shadowy in winter, air turned a crisp green by the olive trees – and in the summer enjoys the sun’s divine, intense heat and gilded pink haze. It also passes through high, barren, windblown places, a convulsed geology of stone belfries, thorn bushes, nettles, gorse and tamarind allowing glimpses of expanses of sea, the blackish-yellow bare terrain of the cape, and the olive-treed slopes and side of Puig Alt.
That olive grove in El Jonquet is the exact spot where I intend to build the small house I mentioned a moment ago (if when I’m a millionaire, they agree to sell it to me). That olive grove is a wonder, one of the most beautiful and best tended around Cadaqués. It is a kind of terraced garden wrapped in a transparent, pristine glow. Gardens of green-leaved trees are always full of gentle shade, liquid in some places, wrinkled in others. The only gardens that are bright, dry and brimming with life and grace are olive groves. The one in El Jonquet is amazingly elegant and well ordered. The height of its elevated terraces is perfect. The drywalls supporting them are hand built to perfection, quite sumptuous. The three small steps to go up and down the terraces are beautiful. The stones channeling the irrigation water seem voluptuously placed. The trees don’t bear a single blemish. The sweet tension of such order amid the landscape’s romantic wildness leaves an unforgettable impression.
Now if you look for El Jonquet on a maritime chart, you will find it in the southwesterly depths of the great Guillola Bay. The cove has the same geographical orientation as Cadaqués Bay and, thus, turns its back on the mistral. It is an incision made by a stream – the riera from Puig Alt – through two relatively high walls of slate. The eastern wall is home to an olive grove and a semiruined hut; the western wall, the olive grove I have described and a hut in a perfect state. At the foot of this wall there is is a very narrow strand of fine, lead-colored sand, which two or three Cadaqués fishermen use as the summer base for their boats. In winter it is a solitary place. That torrent from Puig Alt carries, I reckon, the most water after the Cadaqués and perhaps Els Jònculs rieras along this stretch of coast. This doesn’t mean it always carries water but simply that it is always ready to do so. Jònculs and Jonquet are names that allude to a plant – els joncs, or reeds – that grows in damp, watery places. One curious aspect of El Jonquet is that the sea rushes in through the opening the stream has created between the two slate walls and penetrates a long way upstream, creating a small fjord that is a thing of pure joy. The mix of sea and stream is quite shallow, so that El Jonquet represents the strange phenomenon of a beach in the process of formation,
a marsh that is solidifying. Now, I couldn’t say whether this beach will remain in a perpetual state of attempting to become one or if, on the contrary, it will eventually attain the actual state of a small beach. That probably depends on a “significant” swelling of the stream or a “significant” stormy sea.
The reeds I mentioned grow in this confluence alongside aquatic plants flowering at water level, water that is lethargic, drowsy and idle.
Guillola Bay is so solitary, because fishermen sail from one end to the other, to and from Cape Creus or Mar d’Amunt, rarely stopping, but that solitude and silence seem to bestow on El Jonquet the special quality brought by the pure, impassive joy that sea and land seem to possess – all fine-tuned by bloodless, skeletal water.
If you have a temperament given to living on the edge of the madding crowd, you can spend many a blissful hour in that place. And I have spent many hours there, listening to the silken wind stirring the olive trees and gazing at the light transfiguring the placid, sleepy sea, watching the majestic progress of sea bass in the inlet’s transparent waters, red mullet dozing on the glassy sand underwater or sand smelt jumping over the translucent surface of the watery mirror.
El Jonquet’s location makes it quite exceptional. It is a natural haven when north winds blow. When the wind blows from inland – mistrals and southwesterlies and westerlies – it offers complete shelter (that is, for small vessels). Talladolins, a rock towering by the southern entrance to the cove, guarantees – we would suggest, providentially – the emptiness of the present beach, and elongates the horn hewn by its gentle sweep ensuring the stillness of its waters. As these winds dominate on summer days, these rocks shelter the waters. During wintertime, the situation is quite different. A vessel anchored there wouldn’t survive storms from the east. Sudden southwesterly squalls hit El Jonquet with highly unpleasant surges of water. When a mistral wind blows from the small fjord created by the stream, a boat must be firmly moored if it is to stay put. However, maybe with two anchors cast like a cat’s whiskers there might be an opportunity to begin a more or less hazardous escape…
With this information in mind (objective information, which can be confirmed by locals), anyone would find fully justified my surprise at seeing that unknown vessel anchored in El Jonquet in late November.
That afternoon I started my walk back to Cadaqués when darkness was falling. I’d been daydreaming too much. When you catch sight of something new, an unusual presence, a vessel you’ve never seen before in a normally empty expanse of sea, you are taken aback. The chitchat the sea can generate is remarkable. Anything out of the ordinary provokes curiosity. That’s perhaps down to isolation: the more isolated and deserted your environment, the more striking any novelty. I think you could prove that the biggest gossip is the individual who’s most isolated.
As I said, it was late November. It had been a protracted Indian summer and we’d had very fine weather for days: gentle winds and sunny seas. The sun warmed less and less but showed good will. People were starting to harvest the olives, and by day the groves were full of muted conversations.
However, the weather changed that afternoon. The sky was covered by a low, gray ceiling, a light but persistent, monotonous south wind set in like a throbbing migraine, and I think the odd drop of rain fell on my way back from El Jonquet. They weren’t exactly separate drops of rain, more a damp viscosity in the air. The change in the weather imbued nature with a calm, quiet sense of expectation.
When I reached the En Morell stockyard I heard someone speak, close at hand, in a gruff voice: “Good evening!”
A greeting I returned mechanically with another “Good evening!” I stopped instinctively and took two or three steps back because I thought the person who had greeted me was behind me. Then I saw the silhouette of a man leaning on the corner made by the stockyard shed and wall. If someone had walked by on the path from the Cape Creus lighthouse – the customs police, for example – they wouldn’t have registered his presence, even though he was only a few feet away.
The individual I’m referring to stepped away from the wall and approached me. He struck me as small, stocky and ill shaven, and I saw the butt of an extinguished cigar on his lip. I didn’t recognize his features at all and couldn’t remember ever seeing him in Cadaqués.
“Excuse me…” he said rather shyly. “You are Senyor Pla, I believe. I’d like a couple of words with you.”
“Fire away…”
“Come closer to the wall…and you won’t get wet. You’ve come from El Jonquet, fa, right?”
I must confess that that “fa?” was reassuring. It was a word that could be used only by somebody from thereabouts, by someone with local roots.
“Yes, senyor, I’ve come from El Jonquet,” I replied.
“Did you notice anything unusual?”
The question was formulated – the dim light of dusk enabled me to see this – with unrestrained curiosity. He was the kind of man who, when speaking about something close to his heart, dilates his pupils so his eyes appear to bulge.
“There’s a boat anchored in El Jonquet that I think isn’t from these parts,” I replied matter-of-factly.
“What kind of vessel?”
“I think it’s an old sloop, the kind of boat they don’t build anymore.”
“It’s got a main jib and a forestaysail, no fa?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you see any movement on board?”
“I didn’t see a living soul all the time I was in El Jonquet. I’ll tell you one thing though: the boat is wonderfully anchored and in exactly the right place.”
“Course it is! It’s got a proper pilot! It could have been steered by a Cadaqués sailor.”
“Oh, so you know the crew?”
“Only too well!”
“Hey…what if we resumed our walk? That sheepskin coat you’re wearing is keeping you dry, but I’m getting soaked…”
“Fine by me. I’ll keep you company for a while.”
“So you’re not going to Cadaqués?”
“Yes, I am, senyor, but I won’t use the same path as you. I’ll go along the track to my neighborhood…”
Before he starting walking, he looked all around; he did that instinctively, but it was very noticeable. Then he strode off quickly; once we’d crossed the Bucs stream he walked at my pace. Initially we walked in silence. Then I thought it would be more relaxing to exchange a few words, at least to break the sinister twilight atmosphere.
“Don’t you think it’s rather rash,” I asked, “to anchor a vessel in El Jonquet at this time of year? If the wind blows from the east, they’ll be in trouble…”
“Course they will…but those people are always lucky. Besides, it’s a strong boat. It may be an old, shabby, unpainted boat, but it’s a little sloop built in Marseille and they’re strong swimmers. What’s more, it’s well treed and with the right sail it would last a good while – and gracefully – in the gulf.”
“Where’s it from?”
“From Ibiza. The master, who’s on board, is from Ibiza.”
“A smuggler?”
“No, senyor, if he were a smuggler, he wouldn’t be so close in.”
“So what’s this man doing hereabouts in winter? Is he fishing, convalescing, contemplating the scenery?”
“Nosey-parking.”
“What exactly do you mean by ‘nosey-parking’?”
“It would take ages to tell you. If you like, we’ll talk about that later.”
“You said there’s a pilot on board. Is the pilot from these parts?”
“Yes, senyor. He hails from the port of Llançà.”
“An acquaintance of yours?”
“You know, he’s an acquaintance of sorts, one of the few enemies I’ve got on these rocky shores. A bad character, I can tell you.”
“The sloop is carrying a
crew of two…”
“Yes. The master, Verdera by name, we call him Fatty Verdera because he is so stout. And the pilot is Tanau. When they were in Port de la Selva, another person was on board, a woman, but she’s left by now.”
“And who was she?”
“You can imagine! A skinny blonde from the French coast who drank like a trooper.”
“And do these people lead their lives on board? Do they eat and drink on the sloop?”
“When Tanau is around, they do. When he’s not, Fatty disembarks and eats in the inn. Tanau’s not on board right now. He’s gone back to Llançà to see his wife, who’s doing poorly.”
“Is this Fatty an old sea wolf?”
“You bet he is! He’s skippered small merchant ships. He knows this coast really well. He’ll have had many narrow escapes sailing to France.”
“That’s all very well, but I still don’t understand why these people anchored in El Jonquet when they could have easily moored by Cadaqués and been without a worry in the world. How come they’re being so rash?”
“I expect it’s because they think that’s the way to be nearer to the action…”
“And what action might that be?”
“Don’t ask me! But they reckon something is going to…They’re nosey-parking…”
“So we’re back to nosey-parking? What exactly do you mean?”
“We’ll talk about that in good time, perhaps sooner than you think, if you really want to, that is…”
We’d reached the fork by the En Duran farmhouse, and I felt he wanted to say goodbye. The lights of Cadaqués were flickering, and here and there I could see stretches of white wall. It was very dark. The viscosity in the air had heightened. You could feel an unpleasant muddiness underfoot. The tower of La Creu, the color of squid ink, stood out vaguely in the damp, clammy haze.