Victus

by Albert Sanchez Pinol

  He took me to his tent and gave me some hot wine. He then had his private surgeon come and see to the bullet wound in my leg.

  “The wound is clean,” said Dupuy. “The bullet has only punctured the thigh flesh. If it had hit the artery, you’d be dead by now.”

  I rolled up my sleeve. I wanted to tell him about my Points once more, as the first time he’d been able to see only the ones nearest to my wrist.

  “Four,” I said, preempting him. “The fifth hasn’t been validated.”

  Dupuy was a very eminent man. “Yes, I thought as much,” he said. “Don’t forget, though: Whether or not it’s been validated, the tattoo is still there. And you must show that you deserve it.”

  I changed the subject. What news?

  “Marshal Berwick is yet to arrive,” he explained. “I was traveling with him, but what with the artillery train, and Miquelets constantly ambushing us, progress was so slow that he asked me to come ahead. He wants me to weigh up the situation. And from what I can tell, this siege has been managed badly, very badly. All the men are on edge. As your treatment shows very well.”

  I was about to speak, but he put a finger to his lips. “Listen: I’m not in a position to help you as I’d like, unfortunately. You’re outside of what I can control; the siege is still being run by the Spanish. You know how thin-skinned they are. You’re a lieutenant colonel, and you’re their prisoner; I can’t just take you off them.”

  Again I was going to say something, but Dupuy made me be quiet. “Shut up and listen! This is how it’s going to go: They’ll interrogate you, but they won’t be too rough. Yes, yes, I know we’re at war, all courtesy’s gone out the window, and torture’s become de rigueur. Don’t worry, though, I’ve found someone. He serves King Philip, but he’s one of ours. You’ll be interrogated, but not roughly. A few days with our man, then you’ll be under me.”

  “Who is this individual?” I asked. “French or Spanish?”

  He smiled, pointing at the entrance to the tent. “The first person to come through there and use sign language with you. Whoever that is.” Before leaving, he asked me, “Martí, do you mind telling me what you were doing inside a city besieged by the king’s forces?”

  His look was as withering as that of a Ten Points. Neither did I want to lie, nor could I have lied. I was both honest and concise. “I was working as an engineer,” I said.

  His reaction was that of someone with more Points than I. “I see,” he said simply, and left the tent.

  I had reason to fear what was coming to me next. So much had changed in such a short space of time that I couldn’t get my thoughts in order. The only people who came into the recently erected tent were Dupuy’s legion of servants, bringing in furniture, and one French officer who came hoping to pay his respects to the cousin of the great Vauban. And me in the field bed in one corner, bandaged up and unable to move. I carefully watched everyone who came in, waiting for someone to address me with the sign language of engineers. Nothing.

  Midway through the afternoon, four Spanish soldiers came in, sent by a captain. They made me go with them in spite of my protests. Their bearing didn’t seem particularly soldierly, which is to say they seemed very slovenly, and everything they did seemed strained, as happens with men unwillingly obeying orders. As they dragged me through camp, they kept glancing from side to side, as though afraid someone else would step in and stop them.

  The unfortunate houses on the site of the Bourbon camp had been turned into stores or residences for the high command. They took me into one of the latter. We climbed some steps up to the first floor, and I was locked in a room containing an old table and two shabby-looking chairs. A fine layer of dust covered the floor and furniture. The panes in the single window were smashed. The Bourbon camp was the sack, and this tiny room a sack within the sack. Jonah in the belly of the whale? He had nothing on me then!

  “Our man”—in the words of the innocent Dupuy—appeared half an hour later. I saw what had happened. Dupuy, just arrived at the Bourbon encampment, was met by a Points Bearer who showed himself to be compliant and polite. In the belief that the sacred fidelities of Bazoches were still in effect in the world, Dupuy had placed full confidence in the man.

  “Our man” came in and immediately reprimanded the soldiers he had with him. Why hadn’t his guest, the honorable enemy, been given drink and plenty of food? But with his hands, in our sign language, he said to me: “I’ve got you, you swine.”

  “Our man” was none other than Joris Prosperus van Verboom, the Antwerp butcher.

  6

  When everything was over, after Barcelona had fallen and the war was drawing to its close, Verboom was given some very cushy sinecures indeed by Philip V. He stayed on in Catalonia. Barcelona—defeated, flattened, bloodied—remained a source of unease to the Bourbons. There is a form of submission more absolute than death: endless slavery. Little Philip gave the task to Verboom.

  I’m going to include two very rough sketches of the city—if my hairy hippopotamus manages not to lose them, that is. The first one you’ve already seen; it’s of old Barcelona as it was immediately before the siege.

  And in this next one, you can see what Verboom did to it.

  The star that’s been added on, the Citadel, was the work of Verboom. Yes, the Citadel. He leveled a fifth of the city for building materials. A perfect bastioned enclosure, there not for the people’s protection but from which to control, subdue, and, if necessary, fire cannons on them. An urban tumor that converted Barcelonans into prisoners in their own city.

  But what am I doing talking about what happened after the siege? Held captive behind enemy lines, in the hands of my enemy, I had quite enough on my plate.

  My usual quick thinking had deserted me. My only way out was to get in touch with Dupuy. Impossible: Verboom stood in my way; a man capable of plotting my kidnap must have been sufficiently foresighted to hide that fact. Most likely, he was going to kill me there and then. And later, he’d allege that I’d tried to get away, and say to Dupuy that some imbecile soldier had shot me by mistake—anything. Shit.

  Verboom had arrived in the night, like a sea mist, or like deathly fevers. I’d managed to make myself a weapon, a knife fashioned out of some wood I’d pulled off the window frame and, for the blade, a shard of glass thrust into it. If worse came to worst, before they tried to kill me, I’d try to take his eye out.

  However, I quickly saw that the situation was not as I had imagined. The Antwerp butcher brought one servant soldier with him, and his only weapons were a tray, a bottle, and two glasses. The servant put these down on the table and went out. When Verboom and I were alone, I erupted in indignation. “How dare you lock me up! I defect, I offer my services to King Philip, and this is my reward. You can’t imagine what I’ve been through, coerced by those rebels to take part in their deluded attempts to defend their city!”

  Verboom’s only response to my theatrics was to take a seat, pour wine into the two glasses, and say: “Drink.”

  I refused. He could have been planning to poison me, to save himself from having to do something violent and then for Dupuy to find out.

  “Come now, don’t be ridiculous,” he said, grimacing. “Think I’d go so low? This is good port—using it as rat poison would be a waste.”

  He took my glass and drained it in one go. But it would take more than that to win my trust. The silence was eventually broken by the rumbling of cannons starting up outside. The walls shook, and chalk dust fell across the table. Intuitively, Verboom put a hand over his glass, glancing up, which actually convinced me: No one tries to preserve a drink with poison in it. I poured myself some more port and felt it strip my throat. What was Verboom up to? He wasn’t exactly getting to the point.

  Jimmy was going to arrive within a matter of days. The person whose Attack Trench design ended up being used to take Barcelona would gain a large share of the praise. When he was released in 1712, Verboom made a plan for a future siege of the city. But Jimm
y had sent Dupuy ahead to design another trench. Dupuy was a Seven Points. Jimmy was very likely, in any case, to use the trench of a Vauban family member, which would make all the butcher’s efforts for naught. Goodbye, glory, goodbye, rewards!

  In a nutshell: Verboom was hoping I’d correct, refine, and improve the trench he’d been planning. I was a Five Points—well, sort of—and had the advantage over Dupuy of having been inside the city and therefore knowing what state the defenses were in.

  In spite of my situation, I burst out laughing. Did he really think I was going to help him?

  “You’re the reason I spent two years locked up,” he said. “Two long years.”

  At this point, his hate for me became more than palpable. Everything about Verboom was large: his body, his head, his teeth, like those of a hippo. I gulped, suddenly very afraid. He paused, letting me savor his intimidating force. I was under lock and key, and I was alone; he could do with me as he pleased. And we are all what we are; Saint Jordi killed the dragon as easily as crushing a cockroach, Roger de Llúria brushed aside a hundred thousand Turks over the course of three breakfasts, and King Jaume took Mallorca and Valencia just because he felt bored with his palaces in Barcelona. But as it turned out, Longlegs Zuvi wasn’t Saint Jordi, or Roger de Llúria, or King Jaume. I was simply very, very afraid.

  “I did nothing to you. Nothing!” he bellowed. “One day I was at Bazoches castle, courting a lady, and a muddy gardener crossed my path. What have I got against gardeners? Nothing. But that day in 1706, I was slandered—vile slander—and four years later, in 1710, I was captured—again, vilely—and now, another four years on, here’s this vile gardener again. Except this time, there’s nothing to stop me ridding myself of you. Nothing!” He wagged a finger at me. “And yet there is a small possibility I might let you off. If you do as I tell you, I’ll merely exile you to the island of Cabrera or some such godforsaken spot.”

  He left me alone to think about it. He left the drawings for the trench he’d designed, along with some scraps containing the technical details. I didn’t bother looking at them. A prisoner has obligations, and he has rights, which add together to form the only thing he must do: escape.

  I looked out of the smashed window. Jumping from the first storey wouldn’t kill me. A broken ankle for my freedom seemed like a good exchange. There were two soldiers on guard down there, of course. I didn’t need to get back to the city, though—that would be impossible—but simply to get hold of Dupuy.

  Using that spring sun, the papers on the table, and a bit of the windowpane as a magnifying glass, I could start a fire. Confusion. Guards are always more indulgent if it’s a fire an escapee is fleeing. They’d be unsure, even if for a second, whether to help or arrest me. I’d have time to shout at the top of my lungs. Sound carries around a military encampment even more than in echoey mountains, and my strange tidings surely would reach Dupuy. Once Dupuy knew what was happening, Verboom would think twice about killing me. After that, time would tell.

  I picked up one of the pieces of paper with Verboom’s notes on it, and supported myself against the window frame, waiting for the morning rays to begin pouring in. The black of the ink would go up before the white of the paper. I’d direct the light with a piece of concave glass. Before my eyes, some fragment of Verboom’s instructions.

  It’s strange the things you remember—such as what happened to be on that piece of paper:

  . . . on the left side G, and if time permits, we construct the return H and the redoubt I, and build the battery K of 10 cannons for the mills L, and the bridge at the new port on side M, and whatever we can of the defenses of the bastion of Sainte Claire and of the old wall which encloses it. This manoeuvre will require 1,000 armed men and then . . .

  I turned my head. The map was there on the table. For a moment, I put off my plan to set the place on fire. Once an engineer, always an engineer. I was magnetized by the map. I began examining it.

  It was a representation of Barcelona, with its city center and battered walls. And, on the fields around, the zigzagging trench planned by Verboom. The numbers and initials marked on the map had their key in the notes. I had planned a quick glance but ended up sitting down and studying it closely, cross-checking it with the notes.

  I scrutinized Verboom’s trench, the instructions for how it should be carried out. I went back to the map. And again.

  This wasn’t much of a trench. Truly, it wasn’t. The sheer weight of Bourbon numbers meant, somehow or other, they were bound to reach the ramparts. With huge losses, yes, but what did that matter? None of this would figure in the end: The point was that Dupuy’s design would be better, far better, and Jimmy would opt for that one.

  Then something happened. One thought led to another: If that was so obviously the way things were going to turn out, wasn’t it my duty to intervene? When the Dutch butcher came back, there was good old Zuvi, sitting and reading over his notes.

  “Well?” he said.

  “Do you want my opinion or not?” Picking up the sheets of paper, I tore them in half and threw them scornfully on the floor. “Des ordures.” Before he could become animated, I added: “The problem is not so much the design as the whole basis of your approach.”

  We argued it over. I, being the superior engineer, prevailed.

  Verboom perspired easily. My disquisitions had made him sweatier still. The beads on his upper lip, in particular, made me feel sick. In summary, I said: “Look, I’ve had a think about what you said, and perhaps you’re right: Our issues with each other are based on an old misunderstanding. Let’s change the agreement: Don’t exile me, promote me, and in exchange, I’ll work loyally on your behalf.”

  “Loyalty?” he said skeptically. “You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

  “You need to design another Attack Trench. And who’s going to do a better job than me? We need to start from the beginning.”

  “Your debt with me,” he said, “can’t just be wiped clean.”

  “Even you, who hates me, would find it hard to have me executed when I hand over the plan for this new Attack Trench.”

  I could see exactly what he was thinking, as though his skull were made of glass: It’s so close I can almost touch it! What have I got to lose?

  “Ink and paper,” I said. “A compass, set squares. That’s what I need. And a night to work on it.”

  It ended up being not one night but two, plus three entire days, shut up in that shabby little room. I didn’t even have a chance to shave. The artillery fire made the air in the room constantly thick with floating dust.

  I worked harder on that Attack Trench than I ever had on anything, pushing my being to its very limit. Believe me when I say the brain is the most tiring muscle to use. Never, ever, not before then or since, have good old Zuvi’s talents been tested so hard. I felt like an architect stubbornly trying to turn a decaying shack into something Rome would bless as a cathedral. My quill attacked the inkwell as I made use of my Bazoches faculties, and every line said to me I’d been born for such a task; all the hours under Vauban’s tutelage would be justified in these damned plans. “The optimum defense” had been Vauban’s question. And perhaps—time would tell—here was the answer: “The optimum defense consists of an Attack Trench.” . . . Because, as you might have guessed, I poured all my effort into jeopardizing, obstructing, and generally making the task of the Bourbon army impossible; to shaft the lot of them, from the wheels of their cannons to the toes of their press-ganged soldiers. My design had to seem brilliant on paper and be a disaster once executed. Verboom was a swine but no fool. He’d pick up on bad faith and obvious defects. So I wrought a very lovely lie, false but seductive, featuring elements that were genuine but, underneath, doomed to fail. It had to be sabotage, while seeming to better whatever Dupuy was going to come up with. To better Dupuy! And with Jimmy’s scrutiny to contend with as well! The very thought made my head spin.

  Whatever happened, a trench was going to reach Barcelona’s rampar
ts. They had more than enough men, whom their tyrant leader looked upon as nothing but cannon fodder. But a defective trench would delay them, possibly add a week or two to proceedings. And in such a time, this trifling universe of ours could turn fully on its axis. Who was to say? The king of one nation might die, or the queen of another; alliances might change; anything.

  Verboom, who went from impatient to extremely impatient, kept coming into the room. “Done yet? Berwick’s not far away. Hurry!”

  I dragged the table over to the window and the steep, defined shaft of sunlight. Thousands of dust motes floated around, reminding me of jellyfish in crosscurrents. Come the third morning, I felt like my tired, stinging eyes were on the cusp of melting.

  Verboom came in, slamming the door behind him and giving me a murderous glance. He’d run out of patience.

  “This might settle our account,” I said before he could speak.

  “Some job you must have done for it to be worth a man’s life,” he said, flattening out the plan on the table. “Especially yours.”

  He took a long time looking over the plans, and was expressionless throughout. He read the notes, went back to the map. The eternal inspection. I had no way of knowing what his little grunts and groans meant.

  In the end, I couldn’t contain myself. “Hopeful about our future trench?”

  He didn’t answer, as though I weren’t there. He peered closely at the map, running a finger over it. Without deigning to look at me, he said: “What do you think?” He finally looked up, facing me. “If I weren’t, you’d be dead already.”

  We spent the whole of the following day together, refining the plans. I was worn out; he oozed energy. He had a rough and limitless sort of strength. And my enemy was no dimwit, I’ll give him that. During those twenty-four hours, his attention didn’t stray from the table for one moment. My God, I thought, doesn’t he need to piss, to sleep, does he never eat? A bit of rusk cake and a bottle of port, and I could imagine him traversing whole deserts.