A Barcelona Heiress

by Sergio Vila-Sanjuán

  “Now that sounds quite cynical.”

  “Lopez Ballesteros asked to see me. He believes that I’m in danger. He told me that you had informed him that Danton is going to target important figures among Barcelona’s elite.”

  I was puzzled. “That’s true, but I thought he was referring more to prominent business leaders. You’re not in the crosshairs right now.”

  The count smiled.

  “And long may it be so. It seems, however, that after talking to you, Lopez Ballesteros obtained additional information on the vigilante’s targets, and I’m one of them, although I don’t quite understand why. Because of my position, Pablo, I am often called upon to mediate between opposing parties. As a result, I have become an expert in the quintessentially Catalonian tradition of el pasteleo.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “No, I’m completely serious. El pasteleo refers to arbitrating between two parties, based on the premise that neither is completely in the right. But in this business with the vigilante, there is little room for reconciliation. I must confess that, although I have barely engaged in any, I do find mysterious activities alluring. Who do you believe this strange figure is?”

  “I think he’s someone who is very bitter about something we don’t know. And that he has been of great service to Beastegui and General López Ballesteros’s pacification campaign. Danton is a symbol many people can identify with.”

  “That López Ballesteros …” Güell hesitated, “is really quite a character. You won’t find many officers who are better read.”

  “He knows Don Quixote by heart, that’s for sure,” I answered.

  “But, at the same time, he is doctrinaire and violently fanatical. I know he’s under a lot of pressure from His Majesty, the government, and some friends of ours to crack down on the situation in Barcelona. But listen to what he was going to do. One day he calls me to the Civil Government building, leads me to the red room, and says to me, ‘Look, Güell, Barcelona cannot continue floundering like this. We must put an end to these outrages, restore peace to the city, and assure the security of the monarchy.’

  ‘But what can we do, General?’

  ‘Russian gold is buying off all of Barcelona’s bravest, and one day we are going to wake up and find ourselves ruled by a caricature of the Soviet regime, which it shall be difficult to overthrow. To deal with this situation it’s going to take guts, and I’ve got them. I’m going to show you a list of the people who must be shot or deported in forty-eight hours to make peace a reality. There are seventy or eighty of them, but what do a few victims matter—especially when they’re guilty—when the safety of a city and the security of a whole regime is at stake? Look here.’ And he showed me a list of names.”

  “Who was on it?” I inquired.

  “Union leaders and activist lawyers: Ángel Lacalle, Salvador Seguí, Luis Companys, Evelio Boal, Juan Casanovas, Francisco Layret … And the writer Eugenio d’Ors too. Aghast, I said to him, ‘General, what you propose is impossible. You won’t be able to do it, and even if you could, it wouldn’t do any good. Who told you to execute Eugenio d’Ors, who is nothing more than a rhetoric-spouting intellectual? As for the union leaders and activists, you can’t just have them killed without a trial. Do you remember what happened when the monarchy killed Ferrer Guardia after a kangaroo court? The international scandal was so severe that it marked President Maura’s political demise, despite the respect he commanded. If you perpetrate a St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in Barcelona you will only succeed in sinking the Spanish monarchy. Until now Catalonian authorities have been able to maintain that they are opposed to both the terrorism practiced by the unions and certain business leaders alike. To hear it from you, however, it would seem that the government itself has decided to resort to terrorism.’

  “I don’t know if I managed to convince him. He told me that everyone was demanding results, and that something would have to be done. He remained there, ruminating over his lists and plans, and I’m not certain he won’t go ahead with them. What can I do for you, Irina?”

  A towering blond dressed in a foulard, flower-patterned dress had appeared on the terrace, smoking from a cigarette holder.

  “Excuse me, Juan Antonio, dear, but what is a baldachin?”

  “It’s a wooden construction, generally adorned with fine tapestries, which is installed over an altar or throne to provide it with greater solemnity.”

  “And a chassis?”

  “In a fireplace, the slab or iron plate placed at the back part to protect it.”

  “Thanks, dear. I’ll keep reading.”

  When she walked away Güell turned back to me.

  “Irina is a White Russian duchess. I met her in Berlin. She was completely penniless, so I invited her to spend a few months here. She speaks several languages perfectly, and she’s helping me to write a book I’m working on, based on my notes and recollections. Right now we are on a chapter about my house in Comillas and, naturally, the vocabulary is a bit technical.”

  “I have to go, Count. I have a lot of work today.”

  “Of course, but promise me that you will keep me up to date on the situation with Danton.”

  “You can be sure that I will.”

  After leaving the Güell mansion I strolled to the Bonanova streetcar stop, savoring the cool serenity of that patrician quarter which blessed the city with more greenery than any other.

  * * *

  We were in Barcelona’s oldest church, built in the fourth century and later rebuilt several times. The priest, clad in a cassock covered by a surplice and stole, opened the Holy Gospels, laid his hand on their pages and solemnly posed the question: “Do you swear, in God’s name, that what you said you heard from the deceased’s lips, on her deathbed, and wishing to bequeath, is the truth?”

  Under the altarpiece at Santa Cruz de Pere Nunyes, the first witness knelt down and placed her hand upon the sacred tome. “I do.”

  The chief magistrate of the investigative tribunal, convened there on the spot, initiated the interrogation while seated at a table laid with a velvet cloth that had been provided for him. Isabel Enrich gave me a knowing look. She and I, along with the others in attendance, were on the other side of the bars enclosing the San Félix chapel, with the interrogator and witnesses inside.

  I had gone to the Santos Justo y Pastor church as Isabel’s attorney and in response to her request after I had recommended that she avail herself of the instrument of sacramental testament.

  Isabel’s wealthy maternal great-aunt, the Marchioness of Sensat, had recently passed away during a visit to London. After feeling under the weather, just hours later she expired in the company of her maid and a friend. Through different family lines the marchioness had accumulated a considerable fortune consisting of numerous buildings and pieces of land in the heart of the city, and large properties in San Félix de Llobregat, Tordera, Balaguer, and Camprodón.

  The aristocrat had been very headstrong and, though in her seventies, considered herself very young and harbored a superstitious aversion to speaking of death or anything related to it. She had no children, though she did have several nieces, nephews, great-nieces, and great-nephews. She had been especially close to Isabel, who she received regularly and considered a kind of disciple, tutoring her in the art of managing as a woman in the upper echelons of Barcelona society. Back then, some close friends, and I myself, had advised Isabel to take an interest in the will of her venerable relative, as the marchioness had assured her on several occasions that she would be the one to inherit her fortune. Finding it in poor taste, Isabel always refused. When the lady passed away in the British capital, however, hordes of relatives emerged from out of the woodwork to claim a share of the inheritance.

  I didn’t normally attend to Isabel’s legal issues, as she was represented by the firm of Pons Lecrerc, one of the city’s longest-standing and most prestigious. But her attorney’s advice did not prevent her from coming to me when she realized that th
e struggle involving all those who felt entitled to a part of the fortune threatened to have her entangled in the affair for years.

  “And there is no document proving that she wished for you to be her heir, as she had repeatedly told you?” I inquired.

  “No. There were only verbal statements made to me over the years, and others made to her companions at the hotel in London, when she understood that the end was imminent.”

  “Did she tell them explicitly?”

  “Yes, she made it perfectly clear. She told them that she wanted her possessions to pass into my hands, but Pons Lecrerc says that this verbal testimony won’t hold up in court if my cousins allege that they were told the same thing.”

  “I think there is a solution,” I said.

  * * *

  According to a number of medieval accounts, when the Moors conquered Barcelona in the year 801, Charlemagne’s son, Louis the Pious, endowed the Altar of San Félix with the capacity to render legally binding last wishes expressed on certain occasions. This privilege was maintained during the various dynastic changes Catalonia saw, and was confirmed by the Catalonian-Aragonese monarch Pedro el Grande in his legislative document the Recognoverut Proceres which, in the verbose style typical of the law, stipulated the following:

  “It is customary that if one leaves a testament and there are witnesses to his final will, whether on land or at sea, or in any other location, whether written or unwritten, though there be no notary present to vouch for the expression of said will, manifested verbally or in writing, to certify the last will or testament, so long as there are witnesses to that last will or testament who do concur in their accounts, and do within six months so swear in the San Justo church, at the Altar of San Félix Mártir, and there be a notary present to validate this testament, and other persons affirming that they too saw and heard the deceased express his last will, verbally expressed by the testator, this shall be considered a sacramental testament.”

  Why had Pons Lecrerc not apprised Isabel of this option? The most probable answer is that he didn’t remember it. Catalonian sacramental testament was not well regarded by my colleagues. Many considered it an utterly obsolete remnant of a folk tradition. It was one of the last surviving vestiges of the Visigothic laws in our legislation, and Catalonian civil law specialists had been squabbling over the issue for decades. Legal scholar Durán y Bas argued that it should be repealed, due to both the decline in society’s religious sensibility and the way in which it had allowed parties to express their testaments before priests, inside the country and before vice consuls overseas, without any need for a notary wherever one was not on hand. More traditional scholars, on the other hand, such as Juan Maluquer y Viladot, opposed any alterations to old Catalonian civil law, at least until reform was carried out and a commission of Catalonia’s legal authorities were able to draft a Code for the Principality, which years following the era I describe would ultimately come to pass.

  Perhaps Pons Lecrerc, a freethinking Republican who had been a close friend of Isabel’s father’s, rankled at requirements such as that the witnesses could take their oath only at the Altar of San Félix; this caveat was so sacrosanct that the very Supreme Court had ratified it in a verdict issued on June 26, 1877, in which it nullified the validity of testimony provided by a witness who had been unable to reach the church due to illness. I didn’t share my colleague’s capricious aversions, and counseled Isabel Enrich to avail herself of the historic legislation and persuade her aunt’s companions to take an oath swearing as to what they had heard. Antiquated or not, the practice established by Louis the Pious, when applied correctly, remained valid.

  Although sacramental testament clearly granted preference to male witnesses, in this case there were none. The Baroness de Alp, as radiant as a Pyrenees meadow, and the maid Fermina Muguruza, who had accompanied the Marchioness of Sensat on her journey, were sworn in and then questioned by members of the court. The two concurred in that, fearing she would die and fully cognizant of what was happening, the marchioness had told them, in her velvety London room, that her fortune was to be inherited by Isabel Enrich.

  A number of family members present also exercised their right to speak, as the convention of sacramental testament entitles those who consider themselves affected to put questions to the witnesses, and insisted that the lady’s last wishes also benefitted them. The friend and maid, however, stood their ground, even though things took an ugly turn with more than one of them. In the end the judge declared the act concluded and the people dispersed. We who had been in attendance once again trod the church’s floor, made up of the timeworn tombstones and ossuaries of the parish’s patrons and members of the city’s different guilds (“Mariano Casanovas, cloth seller,” “Bruno Llobet, merchant,” “Macia Feliu, fisherman”) before stepping out into Plaza de San Justo. Isabel and I stopped before the Gothic fountain erected in front of the historic palace of the Moixó family. Spouting freshwater from Moncada, the fountain was built two years before the Black Death devastated medieval Catalonia.

  “I believe you are now Barcelona’s richest woman,” I told my friend, who seemed troubled.

  “Yes, and that’s going to come with great responsibility,” she said. “By the way, you seem to be glowing lately. Has something happened to you that I don’t know about?”

  And she was right. I felt revitalized and exuberant, as if my brief but intense liaison with Libertad had freed me of tensions and emotional fetters, especially with respect to Isabel herself.

  “It’s true, I am feeling well,” was my crisp reply.

  “Would you like to come to lunch?” she asked me. “I owe you, at the very least, a banquet and a toast of thanks—in addition to your fees, of course,” she quickly added, blushing.

  * * *

  Isabel lived in Sarriá, at the end of Paseo de Santa Eulalia. Her home was an imposing fourteenth-century masía, a traditional Catalonian country house that had been converted into a stately mansion in the neo-Gothic style, its enclosing walls draped with ivy. In front of the building a wide walkway stretched all the way across a spacious garden graced by two statues of feminine figures, replicas of Roman sculptures which gave the setting an almost dreamlike air.

  The servants brought us a light lunch, which I barely touched, and an excellent Bordeaux, of which I did partake, and then they made themselves scarce.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” she asked.

  “I’m flustered. When you invite me and allow me into your inner sanctum, I never know how far I’ll be allowed to go.”

  She smiled. “You’re the man of the hour. Savor it.”

  “What about all those pursuing you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You’re surrounded by suitors, aren’t you?”

  “Just to whom are you referring?”

  “Have you already said yes to Rocabert, or are you waiting for someone more interesting to come along?”

  Isabel laughed.

  “So, Rocabert told you … Well, I shouldn’t be surprised … He took me a couple of times to some beautiful beaches in the Maresma. He’s quite irresistible, as you know, very handsome and with that permanent smile of his which gives him an air of candor. First he tested the waters, as if a romantic relationship could be undertaken with a contractual approach to things, and then he put all his cards on the table, declaring his intention to seek my hand in marriage.”

  “And?”

  “I told him that I liked him and so forth, but that I found his proposal hasty and ill-timed, at least ten years too early, for I have no intention of marrying, if I ever do, before age forty.”

  Now it was I who was perplexed.

  “You never told me that.”

  “No? Well, that’s my intention. And, frankly, if I were to marry, before choosing a social climber like Rocabert, I would opt for someone more altruistic, human, refined, and intelligent. But I have no desire to marry. Come on, let’s have a coffee.”

  The cups ha
d been set out in a cozy sitting room where we threw ourselves into her favorite art deco chaise longue, under the magnificent portrait in cream tones which Ramón Casas had painted of her during her teen years. In the painting a defiant character could already be glimpsed amid her beauty, a trait which the Catalonian master had managed to capture with a flair worthy of Singer Sargent himself.

  “Sit next to me, here,” she said, taking my hand. “I am indebted to you. Acquiring this inheritance will allow me to do a great many things, to support altruistic causes which will help people. I owe you, and I want to thank you. Now… ,” she said, placing my hand upon her chest.

  “Wait, you’re mixing things up,” I stammered, even as I struggled to keep from quivering. “I don’t want you to compensate me for my services, but to act in accord with your sentiments.”

  “Don’t be absurd. Kiss me,” she sighed, drawing her lips near mine. “I only ask you not demand of me more than I can give,” she whispered, gently covering my mouth with hers.

  * * *

  López Ballesteros’s augury came to pass. A gunman lay in wait outside the Count of Güell’s home in Pedralbes, and opened fire when the count’s Rolls Royce passed through the gate. Fortunately his driver had the presence of mind to step on the gas while my friend dove for cover under his cushions. They emerged from the incident rattled but unscathed, with only a few bullet holes in the body of the vehicle remaining as a testament to what had happened.

  The Marquess of Malet was not so lucky. A few hours after the attack on Güell, the president of the Barcelona Streetcar Company was shot. Two masked individuals on a motorcycle, one of them wearing a long, gray trench coat, shot him as he got out of his car to enter his company’s offices. Seriously wounded, he fought for his life in a Barcelona hospital. Before making their getaway the culprits had left a slip of paper which read: “Danton continues to dispense justice.” Another identical note had turned up near one of the entrances to Güell’s home.