by Josep Pla
“Before we say goodbye,” I told him, “I’d like to ask a favor of you.”
“And I’d like to ask one of you too.”
“That’s fine, then we’ll be quits…Please tell me who you are.”
“I’m somebody they call Bread and Grapes.”
“Are you from Cadaqués? I don’t recall ever seeing you.”
“No, senyor. I’m from Llançà.”
“So you are the Bread and Grapes from Llançà? That’s a lovely nickname! I’ve heard about you. I’ve heard it said that Bread and Grapes is more or less a full-time smugg…”
“No, senyor, you’ve been misinformed…! That’s not to say that, if something comes up, you don’t make the most of it, if you get my drift?”
“Naturally! And now it’s your turn…Get a move on, or we’ll be soaked like a couple of geese.”
“Yes, senyor. I just wanted to ask if we could meet up tonight…”
He formulated that question with the same intensity as the one he’d asked by the En Morell stockyard. His face set in a forced smile, his pupils swelled.
“Where do you want to meet? I’m staying at La Marina tavern. You can come any time after dinner.”
“No, senyor, the tavern is out of the question. I realize this will be a bother but we should meet at home, or rather, the house where I’m staying. It’s behind the church…The door will be ajar…no need to knock.”
And he gave me details of the house’s whereabouts.
“So when would you like me to come?”
“Is eleven all right?”
“That’s perfect…And then you can tell me something. Why they call you Bread and Grapes.”
“I’ll tell you whatever you want. Don’t you worry.”
* * *
—
I begin to like living in Cadaqués when all the summer visitors have gone, when the town is imbued with the emptiness of so many shuttered houses, the gloomy presence of ruined buildings, when nobody strolls along the streets and the mistral lifts cats’ tails, when behind those rather theatrically decorated façades you sense the pulse of a hard, persnickety, rather mysterious life, full of self-denying misery. It’s then that I like the town, no matter the weather.
After dinner – the tavern’s dining room was empty – I spent some time in the café – which was empty too – and at a quarter to eleven started to walk down El Portal on my way to the rendezvous we had agreed upon. When it rains and turns damp and overcast, Cadaqués – the geology of Cadaqués, its landscape – turns black and shiny, the dark slates become slick with a lead-tinted juice where the light seems to dwell and soften into a matte dark blue. That night, there was a faint, icy drizzle. Rainwater dripped monotonously off roofs. The slates were sticky and moist. The dearth of street lighting seemed deliberate, so you would slip and break your skull. Not a soul on the streets. An almost dramatic silence. The odd window let out a small crack of light: yellow light seemingly from a sickly person’s bedroom. Sometimes you thought you heard the vaguest, almost imperceptible noise of a distant conversation behind a door. When I reached the front of the church, I heard the owls in the belfry.
I turned up the side street to the right of the church – as you look at the façade – and took fifty steps in the sooty black. Up that side street, at a spot where I imagined there were houses with collapsed roofs, the path starts to descend. I walked along it gingerly so as not to stumble. As I did so, I realized how little I knew Cadaqués, the numerous corners of the town I’d never seen, despite my long stays there and the curiosity the town aroused in me. The end of my descent left me in front of a solitary house with a crack of light in the door. I went in as agreed: without knocking.
I found myself in a long passageway at the end of which a murky, yellowish light flickered. As I walked down the passageway, Bread and Grapes appeared in the diffuse light. When I came to the end, I saw I was in the kitchen. There was a small fire in the hearth in a back corner. Hearth fires in Cadaqués tend to be meager.
“How are we?” I asked.
“I must say we’re well,” he replied, forcing a laugh.
I felt, however, that Bread and Grapes wasn’t as upbeat as he had been at dusk. I thought he looked depressed and seemed tired. While he helped me take off my sou’wester, he said naturally and calmly: “Sorry to have been such a nuisance…It’s no night to be tramping the streets…”
“Don’t worry…I always go to bed late. Besides, I can tell you I’m really thrilled to be speaking to a man by the name of Bread and Grapes. It’s a lovely nickname, if a little strange.”
“What can we do about that? It was my father’s and I was stuck with it.”
I heard what sounded like a stifled laugh and turned my head toward where it originated. I saw a young woman in front of the fire, looking in our direction; she seemed young and dark with the whitest of teeth and immaculate hair, but was slovenly dressed.
“Maria…” said Bread and Grapes, rather embarrassed. “You must know her. Everyone in Cadaqués does. She’s my landlady…”
I apologized for not seeing or greeting her earlier. Maria got up from the fireside and asked if she could get me anything. Bread and Grapes drowned out my thanks by telling her to bring coffee and a bottle of cognac.
The room had a round table, reed chairs, a corner cupboard, a tiled floor, a stove, the hearth, prints of Naples, a bucket, a pitcher, a lurid calendar and a small mirror hanging from a hook on the cupboard. The ceiling was vaulted and the walls whitewashed. There were two steps and a door in the corner opposite the hearth, the door – I imagined – to the stairs. It was all simple, shabby and ordinary. I felt quite at home after three minutes in that kitchen. Nothing jarred: everything felt lived in, useful and comfortable. There didn’t seem to be a draft in the place, an absence which is always welcome.
When we’d poured our coffee, Bread and Grapes told the girl: “Maria, my dear, time for you to go to bed. I’ve got to talk to this gentleman and tomorrow we have to be up early…It’s late!”
Maria shrugged her shoulders emphatically, nodded, and with a conniving smile went through the door to the stairs without saying a word.
“Now you’ll tell me…” I began, when we were face to face.
“Yes, senyor,” said Bread and Grapes, livening up. “I’ve heard you take a stroll to El Jonquet every day…”
“Yes, senyor, that’s right.”
“Please understand that if I could do this myself, I’d not have bothered you. I could, if you like, use a friend from Cadaqués. But believe it or not, I trust you, whom I’ve known for three or four hours, more than any such person. You are the right man.”
“Right man for what? Please explain yourself.”
“Right man to keep an eye on the boat in El Jonquet, the one we were discussing this evening.”
“But why do you want me to do this? What does ‘keeping an eye on’ entail exactly? I don’t think I’ve ever kept an eye on…”
“Of course, of course…I’ll ask a question that will help you understand. Did you notice that Fatty Verdera’s sloop has a rowboat?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Where was it when you left El Jonquet this evening? Tied to the stern of the sloop or on land, on the beach?”
“It was on land, on the beach.”
“Do you know what that means? Do you know what it means if the rowboat is on the beach? It means nobody is on the boat, that Fatty and the pilot have disembarked.”
“Obviously!”
“That’s what I mean by keeping an eye on…There are lots of small details concerning this boat I must keep abreast of to make sure they don’t do me down…”
“So what you want me to do is to look around whenever I go to El Jonquet and then tell you what’s going on…”
“Exactly…You won’t arouse any suspicion because y
ou’ve never been mixed up with any of us. If they spot me in the vicinity of El Jonquet, even though I’m a dab hand at these things, something will go wrong. I’d rather not think what might happen if they see a member of my gang in Cadaqués! We all know each other, right? And have done so from way back, if you get me.”
“But what’s it all about? What are all these squabbles? Is it to do with smuggling?”
“I told you this evening it would take a long time to explain.”
“That’s all very well. But you do realize one favor earns another. I promise I’ll keep going to El Jonquet, as I always do, and I’ll tell you what I see in the cove. But you must understand I don’t want to get mixed up in anything unpleasant, particularly anything that might implicate me out of ignorance.”
“It’s all very urgent…I don’t know how to put it…You’re the only person who can avoid a disaster.”
“That wasn’t what I meant…”
“You’re asking me to reveal something very sensitive…”
“As are you…We are level pegging. I think it absolutely fine that you smugglers are discreet and cautious. Discretion and absolute silence are the basis of your business. But you must realize, dear Bread and Grapes, that I know who you are. I’ve heard people talk about you a lot. Only a moment ago, a man in the café said he’d seen you in Els Jònculs at midday.”
“He’s wrong there. I was here at midday and at four I was by the En Morell stockyard waiting for you.”
“I’m sorry I kept you waiting so long. I just wanted to say that everyone knows exactly who you are. Not the details of what you’re up to, of course, but they recognize your face.”
“Whatever you say. But we can never be too discreet.”
“That’s true. And that’s why I’m surprised you want to keep discretion all to yourself. I’ve a right to a bit of discretion too, don’t you think?”
“I can see I’ve got this all wrong, that I’ve made the wrong choice…!” said Bread and Grapes, in an anguished tone, wearily getting up from the fireside.
“No, you haven’t! You can assume, for my part, that I have forgotten everything we could, can or might talk about. I’ve a hopeless memory. How about a drop more cognac?”
“I can see I shouldn’t have said a word…” insisted Bread and Grapes, in that same upset tone.
“You’re wrong. Come on, let’s clear the air…What’s the problem with Fatty? You portray him as a dangerous character. I believe you. But I think you’re just as dangerous. I thought you seemed very agitated this afternoon. And I think you’re even more so tonight, despite being so cautious. What’s your beef with Fatty?”
“None. What do you expect? Business matters.”
I stared at him. Suddenly he changed tack and asked: “Why do you need to know?”
“No need at all. I’m just curious. Curious…in a literary kind of way.”
“What do you mean ‘literary’?”
“So I know what’s going on and then, some day or other, thirty years hence, I might tell…”
“Don’t you see I shouldn’t have told you a thing?”
But he said that in a very different tone of voice – at least that’s what I felt. I sensed he was beginning to trust me.
“Would you believe me if I say I find you very hard going?”
“Well, that’s mutual…”
I got up from my chair, went toward my sou’wester, which was hanging behind the door, intending to put it on and leave.
“Sit down! What’s the rush?” he asked, blocking my way. “What have you got on in the morning? Nothing, I bet…”
“This is a waste of our time…”
“Why be so impatient? How long have we known each other? Don’t be so prickly! We’ve time to talk about everything, sit down!” “I prefer things ready and shipshape. You must take your chances when they arise. Blather gets you nowhere.”
Obviously, before getting embroiled in any escapade with that individual, however insignificant the business of the boat in El Jonquet was, I wanted clarification, to know more or less what was behind the quarrel between those two men. The presence of Fatty Verdera in Cadaqués was very odd. Bread and Grapes’s suppressed tensions, even more so. What surprised me most was that Bread and Grapes, an expert in clandestine activities in the area, notorious for his skill in obtaining secret information – the customs police had never been able to catch him in the act – should try to use me in the matter of El Jonquet. It was a bold step to approach a stranger like myself, hoping for a collaboration that might turn out to be embarrassing and counterproductive. He’d clearly heard good things about me. No doubt, he thought I was an idler who went to El Jonquet to write poems. But there lay the rub: why had he approached me when he himself could have hidden in the cove for a week, confident he wouldn’t be seen by anyone? The veil over his intentions was very thin. But what exactly was he planning? What was Bread and Grapes up to in El Jonquet?
I didn’t return to the fireside, and it was then, when Bread and Grapes saw I was determined to walk away, that he decided to open up. We had our exchange standing by the door to the passageway. He probably rambled on for twenty minutes nonstop, jumbling things up as people do when circumstances affect them directly. A smuggler lives obsessed by the idea of betrayal. He believes that if he weren’t subject to betrayal, he would be invulnerable and could exercise his trade with complete impunity. The source of betrayal is envy and resentment. Sometimes envy assumes a commercial form; sometimes it is spite – namely, annoyance caused by the presence of certain individuals in our environment, gratuitous, unintentional annoyance some people arouse simply by being in our vicinity. Bread and Grapes outlined all that incoherently, in fits and starts, but his verbal incontinence did reveal a few facts. Facts that are important for subsequent events in this story.
He told me he’d been involved in contraband for many years and led a gang that operated along the coast of the Cape Creus peninsula (this was public knowledge). He added that, thanks to his endeavors, he was practically the kingpin in such matters (which was also well known). He said his gang was noteworthy because it was savvy, canny and rooted locally. He was a representative for a company that obtained its merchandise in Algiers. This company faced fierce competition from another Majorcan company that worked out of Gibraltar and Tangier. One of the ingredients in that rivalry was Fatty Verdera.
Fatty Verdera, who had skippered packets that crossed the gulf, knew the territory and as a result had been made responsible for this stretch of coast. He’d tried to establish a presence but had made no progress. Every partnership he’d set up had collapsed. Fatty Verdera had thus concluded that the only solution for his business lay with Bread and Grapes. He made contact. The men had known each other for years. Fatty suggested very favorable deals with a view to persuading him to leave the other company. Bread and Grapes rejected them outright; he wasn’t interested. He was a man of his word and happy with the deal he had with the enterprise he was serving and wasn’t prepared to leave it for the first newcomer who came calling. At first Bread and Grapes’s lucidity and obstinacy surprised Fatty Verdera. Bread and Grapes believed Fatty would now let things be and leave him in peace for good. Bread and Grapes was a man who preferred to carry out clandestine acts rather than talk about them. He was quiet and reserved. Banter made him anxious and made his blood pressure rocket. However, his rejection wounded Fatty’s self-esteem. Fatty wasn’t going to give up so easily. Commercially, that type of business was attractive because the territory offered such good prospects. Fatty considered his own failure to penetrate the business a black mark. He wasn’t one to accept such a setback lightly. So he believed he had to pursue Bread and Grapes. He entered negotiations with him that lasted months, in the course of which he vastly improved all his original offers. The only result was to increasingly inflame Bread and Grapes. Pursued by Fatty’s wheedling charms, Bread an
d Grapes was at the end of his tether. He felt all those offers, all those conversations, all that interest, were an insult to discretion, to silence, to the absolute reserve that was a basic requirement in their line of trade. He had engineered things so his family never knew where he was and had never been open about key matters with members of his gang; he now considered himself harassed and outraged by the lighthearted insouciance with which Fatty approached their activities. The moment came when the mere notion of Fatty’s existence sent his brain into a spin and gave him a strange sense of physical unease. He began to see him as a real enemy and to consider the way he was acting as a criminal, fateful source of rivalry.
However, up to that point things remained on theoretically innocuous terrain. Bread and Grapes could do nothing against Fatty because he had no evidence of wrongdoing. Nor could Fatty do anything against Bread and Grapes because he still hoped to win him over and involve him in his plans. Thus, de facto, each man stood his ground. But the day came when Fatty decided it would be impossible to recruit him to his outfit and that led to a marked change in the situation. After a long period when they had no news of each other, Fatty appeared on the coast in the stern of his old, battered sloop from Marseille. The sloop spent a long time, most of spring and summer that year in Llançà and Port de la Selva and then in the autumn sailed into the waters around Cape Creus. Apparently, Fatty was acting the tourist. On a short trip to Collioure he’d taken a woman on board – to wash the dishes, so he said. Fatty visited taverns, prepared tasty fish stews on board and soaked up alcohol like a sponge. Once when he was transferring from the rowboat to the sloop, he fell into the water and they struggled to drag him out. All that was surprising because it seemed so benign. Fatty was a businessman who never wasted his time on frivolous activity. But what really exasperated Bread and Grape was the fact that Fatty employed Tanau as his pilot, sailor and cook. Tanau was his enemy. He was, or so he said that afternoon, one of the few enemies he had on the coast. He was a persistent, all-out, unwarranted enemy. The two men had never had any serious or major contact; there’d never been any real friction between them, but Tanau hated Bread and Grapes for simply existing. He was Bread and Grapes’s enemy number one because Tanau was always talking about him. Given his line of business, talking about him was the worst offense possible; it broke and offended the reserve and discretion that went with the territory. “Talking about me, singling me out, is to betray me, do you see?” said Bread and Grapes. But Tanau had gone further: he’d informed on him openly. He was a real snitch. That was why when Bread and Grapes saw the two men together in the sloop, he decided things were entering a dangerous phase.