by Joan Sales
“Commander, I know mysteries much more terrible than yours.”
“More terrible? Where are they? Under the bed?”
“Nothing like that. In the monastery in Olivel.”
“The mummies!” He stared at me, his eyes bulging out of their sockets.
“They aren’t mummies, Commander; luckily they are alive and healthy – two children who love each other.”
“I don’t like stories about mummies, Lluís . . .”
It was hard to channel him where I wanted him to go. I thought if I managed to get him to mount his horse, a ride in the open air would help clear away his drunkenness. It suited me fine if he was a bit tipsy, but not that much.
“Commander, whether these children have a father or not depends on you . . . Imagine Marieta . . . without a father . . .”
His dark beady eyes looked me up and down and quickly began to fill with tears. “Marieta doesn’t want them to kill her dad. She really doesn’t!”
“Well, boots on, Commander. Let’s not waste another second.”
I pulled them on him; he let me do that as docilely as could be while he kept a tight hold on the owl. In the dining room they were spitting out their coffee and splitting their sides laughing, and didn’t notice when we left.
The commander’s horse, which he rarely rides, is as fleet of foot as Acorn; we galloped the whole way. Once we were in the sacristy he sat down on the floor because he couldn’t stand up straight; “I’ll teach the band a really funereal march because one shouldn’t make fun of the dead. Who does Picó think he is? I’m the commander, not him.”
“Absolutely right, but listen . . .”
The wine made him belch, a huge, resounding, lengthy, modulated belch: afterwards he seemed calmer, as if that magnificent belch had cleared his brain.
“I’m all for Wagner, you know. I want funeral marches that are the real thing, the ones that speak to the depths of my soul. Ah, there are so many mummies . . .”
It was now or never: “Commander, the register of deaths and marriages is in this cupboard. I’ve found a very important entry among the latter. I beg you to pay close attention. The future of two innocent children is at stake.”
It made a much greater impression than I had anticipated: he read and reread the last entry in the register and tears the size of chickpeas rolled down his cheeks.
“And to think that the old women in Olivel, those magpies, call them bastards . . . So why doesn’t the lady of the castle protest?”
“She’s afraid people won’t believe her; and also because of the purely religious nature of the wedding. Just think, Commander, the anarchists have been here and we don’t have such a wonderful reputation. We aren’t exactly thought of as Jesuits.”
“One of these days I’ll line up the battalion and they’ll say the rosary to a man. Who the hell do they think they are?”
“Yes, Commander, we all know you’re a champion of order and culture, but all the same they dumped a political commissar on us, and worse still, he’s from the ‘flatfooted’ brigade. With one stroke they dragged our prestige through the mud.”
“I’ll scare him so much he’ll beat it like crazy! You just watch, Lluís, see me get on with it. I’m your father, for heaven’s sake, I’m the battalion commander! I watch over you. I was the one, you know, who unpicked and re-sewed his trousers, when he was asleep. The doctor wanted to help but he was too drunk and couldn’t thread the needle however much he screwed his eyes up. It was left to me to perform that delicate sewing operation.”
“While we wait for the commissar to clear off from the battalion, and he’ll take his time because he’s like a pot of glue, we must carry out this righteous deed. Why didn’t the lady of the castle say something? Just think for a moment how the friar superior and the other four friars who were witnesses were murdered the following day, and she may not be aware that the friar superior wrote this entry in the register before he was murdered. She knows that not one friar escaped alive.”
“But some did escape through the woods, everyone agrees on that.”
“Yes, Commander. I’d also clung to hopes that one of the signatories of the register was among them. But they are all dead, dead as doornails: I’ve checked that. The villagers identified the corpses.”
“The friars who survived could make a declaration to the effect that the marriage took place, even if they didn’t sign the register.”
“The marriage took place after the survivors fled. As regards the people who were still in the monastery, just remember that the anarchists executed even the day labourers – three or four men, the poorest in the village the friars paid out of charity. They were so poor they wore wooden clogs . . .”
This gave him a real jolt: his eyes glinted with energy.
“How do you know? Were you there?”
“The carlana told me. I know every detail because of her. The anarchist committee assassinated the parish priest; the carlà was afraid, rightly, that he would meet the same fate. He thought of escaping; but foreseeing the risk that he might be killed if he failed, his conscience began to stir. He decided to marry the mother of his children before fleeing. It was impossible to do so in Olivel, since they’d killed the parish priest, so the monastery was his only option. The members of the committee were all from elsewhere and hadn’t yet realised it existed; the villagers kept quiet about it because they loved the friars. That same night the castle lord saddled Acorn and went there secretly with his lady riding behind. The younger friars had fled: the friar superior and the remaining four were about to. In the circumstances, the marriage was held in articulo mortis. They rode back equally secretly to Olivel and the carlà was preparing to make his escape, after leaving her in the castle, when the seven anarchists arrived . . .”
The commander listened excitedly: “So, naturally, no-one knows apart from her. They’re all dead . . . What does one do in a case like this? You’re a lawyer, Lluís; you must know the tricks of the trade; advise me. We must make ripples with this one, show we’re not a bunch of Jesuit-eaters like the ‘flatfooted’ brigade. Back in Barcelona, I have a blessing from the pope in articulo mortis . . .”
“We’ll start by taking statements from the witnesses.”
“Witnesses? Didn’t you just say they were all dead and mummified?”
“The men who raided the niches may know something. We’ll get them to sing.”
Once we were at H.Q. he handed me my appointment as a prosecutor. I saw those six fellows; six wretches willing to declare anything under the sun provided we didn’t execute them. They always think we want to execute them. They came to H.Q., one after the other, cowering like beaten dogs. The file fattened. They sat down and signed an impressively endless rubric. I don’t think they understood a word; they felt too happy they weren’t being executed to ask for explanations.
Restituto, who’s not quite all there in the head, had got tangled up with a double mattress that his wife had tied him to with a rope round his body. You could only see his head and feet. All Olivel came to their windows to stare: “What the hell’s up with you, Restituto?”
“Crikey, that should silence the bullets!”
I returned to old Olegària’s really late. She can’t go to bed until I’m back, even though she’s not cooking my supper anymore. She sat in a low chair by the fire for it gets cold at night; poor summer, your glory is uncertain too . . . I sat down next to her – as I did to have my breakfast before the “republic of the pipe” was founded. In the early days the old girl gave me ridiculous things for breakfast, like jerky soaked in vinegar or salted herrings with hot pepper, while I’m the sort who can at most down toast dunked in white coffee. She thinks milk is for the ailing; and as for toast, “Joshua! What a waste of bread!” And she’d make the sign of the cross watching me stick a slice over the embers on the end of a fork. Toasting something as hallowed as bread . . . what a sacrilege! I also had to brew my own coffee; she didn’t know what coffee was and once when s
he took a sip she spat it out like poison.
“Old Olegària, what can you tell me about the lady of the castle?”
“She’s no laydee, Don Luisico. The ’ole village knows ’oo she is.”
“The village could be wrong.”
“How could the ’ole village be wrong? She’s from Castel, from the Turdy ’ousehold, that’s what they call ’er father.”
“I know, old Olegària. Santiaga told me. Even if she hadn’t, I’d have guessed that Turdy’s daughter and the lady of the castle were one and the same. Some things hit you in the face: the loose ends tie up of their own accord. Poor lady of the castle . . .”
“Poor laydee my backside! If you’d have met the laydee ’oo’s deceased, may she rest in peace, now she was a real laydee. We’d all line up by the spot where the boundary cross used to be and welcome ’er when she came to Olivel. She’d ride up real laydee-like in ’er trap, pulled by a mule. I can see it now, a gleaming dapple grey, stuffed with carob beans, treated better than any pope. May she rest in Glory now.”
“The lady or the mule?”
“When she died she didn’t know she’d get grandchildren from the servant. I mean the old laydee of the castle, and it do seem like only yesser’day when the rumour went the rounds: ‘The laydee’s ’ad a stroke.’ She lived stuck in that wheelchair, poor thing, and ’er son mekkin’ ’er a granny behin’ ’er back. That vixen turned up the summer after she died; in the family way, and all eyes were on ’er belly. The wimmin were gossipin’ about note else.”
“I can imagine.”
“The village lads were up in arms at the shame of it and daubed the castle doors early the next morning.”
“What do you mean? Daubed with what?”
“Well, what d’yer think?”
“What animals!” and to think that Trini and Ramonet, in these people’s eyes . . . “My God, what animals!”
“The lord of the castle was furious when ’e saw it. ’e bid the people what done the daubin’ to do the cleanin’. As ’e gave them day wages now and then, they ’ad to obey.”
“And he was right, only piglets . . .”
“Piglets are women who don’t ’ave any shame. Wimmin around ’ere don’ live in sin, thanks be to God.”
“There are children, dear old Olegària, and they’re not to blame. They’re innocent.”
“Innocent they ain’t. They are bastards.”
No point arguing, logic isn’t her strong point. I try to get my way by another route.
“Dear old Olegària, you love your grandson.”
“Joshua! Don’ I do right?”
“If your son-in-law had married your daughter in untoward circumstances, before he died, and the marriage had remained a secret, your grandson would be a bastard, as they say in this village, and he couldn’t be called Antonio López Fernández, just plain Antonio Fernández.”
Her bleary eyes regarded me blankly. How could her grandson be a bastard? How could he not be a López? Some things require . . . too much imagination . . . !
The fire was gradually dying in the hearth and in the dim glow old Olegària, mouth gaping wide, looked like a witch; she stared at me taken aback, almost in a state of shock, as I told her my version of the facts. It’s very late and I can sleep peacefully: now my version, on old Olegària’s lips, will run through the village like a dose of salts. And the night-time breeze blows through my open window, bringing the song of the crickets and soaked in the scents of the death throes of summer.
21 AUGUST
A new development in the battalion. The commander received an order from the head of the brigade to have our battalion ready tomorrow. He’ll be coming to make an inspection. Nerves, panic and frantic activity; we’ve spent the day drilling. Recent recruits are poorly prepared and it’s our fault: we’ve pathetically wasted our time on the “baby’s bottle”, “pipe” and other foolishness. Even today, despite the panic, Gallart and Rebull have been up in arms: they’ve been swearing and cursing, and all because of Melitona, the blonde innkeeper. Picó had to sort them out: “What the hell has she done to make you so crazy?”
Obese, red in the face and sweating, Gallart tried to find excuses: “Well, haven’t you noticed the stir she causes when she walks up and down her tavern? She’s no tambourine shaker, more a brigade drum major!”
“If that’s the case,” Picó declared philosophically, “you have my permission to crack that nut together in peace.”
Each company drilled separately, ours on the threshing ground. But how can you teach in a day what we should have taught those soldiers over many weeks?
It’s late and I’m exhausted. Because of this furore there’s been not a whisper in the battalion about the news of the day in the village. Old Olegària was saying: “To think how the kids chucked stones at them and we old ’uns said ‘the bastards deserve it’! And now it turns out the poor littl’uns aren’t bastards after all . . .”
22 AUGUST
Our day of triumph. The head of the brigade congratulated Commander Rosich: “I congratulate you, I congratulate captains and officers and congratulate N.C.O.s and troops; you are a battalion that’s fit to engage in combat. Our brigade can be proud of you and the neighbouring brigade quite envious . . .”
The review took place on the esplanade in front of the monastery, the only space in the whole area where a battalion could be put through its paces. And our commander decided to choose that moment as an opportunity to give the friars a solemn burial. When would he have another such solemn occasion, with the whole battalion on parade in the presence of the head of the brigade and his chief of staff? The locals from Olivel took up their positions on the hillocks; Calvary was like an anthill. The mayor was in his Sunday best and a sight for sore eyes: black silk sash, black silk scarf round his head, brand-new rope and a tasselled walking stick. The day was as still as can be.
The head of brigade is a tall, stout lieutenant colonel in his sixties, an affable, courteous fellow with one distinguishing feature: he lost all his hair in his youth as a result of some illness – the whole brigade could tell you which – and wears a wig and painted eyebrows. This makes him look like a Japanese doll, a giant one, of course. Would you believe it? Catching a “walloping” bug gave him cachet in the eyes of the whole brigade – officers, N.C.O.s, the rank-and-file. “He’s a real man!”
“He’s got balls!” His car glinted by the monastery door; next to it, our commander’s vehicle, his blessed Ford, seemed a poor relation. The whole battalion had had to clean up the track with picks and spades so the whole length was wide enough to take a car, otherwise two of them would never have made it.
So much life and energy on that esplanade and inside it was so stiff and still . . . The battalion went through the motions to drum rolls and cornet blasts. I looked at my men, thinking: “What on earth have I ever taught them?”
Attention! The recruits stopped dead at the signal from the bugle. An unruly silence settled over the locals. The six idiots from the anarchist committee were sitting behind the mayor and they too were wearing their Sunday best. They stared at the Japanese doll with his medals and stripes with the eyes of hake unable to comprehend how they’d been hauled out of the water. The Japanese doll yawned and passed a handkerchief over his mouth in an elegant, half-hearted flourish. The moment had come. The moment to restore to mystery what belongs to mystery, to extend the veil once more and cover over what’s macabre, as if it were obscene.
The half dozen hake slid the mummies back into their niches in sight of the battalion and the village – “coram exercitu populoque”, said the Publicist, who’d clearly also spent time in a seminary. The battalion band struck up the “Death of Åse” and we initiates cast sideways glances at Picó, who was puffing away. He’s not a man to become vain in victory.
The Japanese doll kept yawning as the six hake closed up the niches guided by a building worker. The fact is the operation was endless, and thus tedious. The last brick was finally lai
d and people started to disperse when Rebull, in his capacity as political commissar, felt duty-bound to give us a speech: “From this moment onwards, the intellect, that is culture, will float for ever over these corpses, because hygiene and culture are inseparable from a democracy that is liberal, radical and federal, but can never be clerical. No, my friends, no, my brothers, no, my companions, no, my comrades, let nobody be mistaken: we are not clerical, but we are liberal, radical and federal . . . and we are the pillars of these social ideals . . .”
Nobody was listening; the villagers barely understood Catalan and we’d had enough of his litanies. And this is what our commander said: “Would the political commissar please stop haranguing us and let us get on with the war in peace.”
The brigade has decided to post guards by the entrance until such time as the monastery is restored to its rightful owners, the Order of the Merciful Virgin. The lieutenant colonel whispered to the commander, but loud enough for the officers to hear: “The flatfooted lot could never have put on such a splendidly orchestrated performance. They don’t know what hygiene and culture are . . .” We felt flattered and laughed as he winked at us and hugged the commander before getting into his car. When he drove off, the troops and locals applauded as one. We’re agreed that our lieutenant colonel is a most delightful man. “Just imagine, he’s from Manlleu,” said Gallart, who declares he knows that for sure.
Privately, when we were having supper in our republic, Picó explained the mystery of the funeral march: “Our battalion is like a married couple: he’s the commander but I wear the trousers.”
23 AUGUST
The success of our enterprise has taken us by surprise: the mayor and justice of the peace say that they already knew, that they had heard it from the lips of the lord of the castle. The commander has taken it on board and keeps asking for fresh statements. The mayor and the justice of the peace soon fattened the folder, quickly followed by the councillors and bailiff. The municipal secretary was the only one to be churlish; apparently he’s a man of advanced ideas and very opposed to religious marriages, particularly when they are in articulo mortis, but the commander had a solo session with him, and when he emerged from the exchange he signed on the line just like the others.