by Joan Sales
I’d like to have told her it was my first day in Barcelona since the start of the war and that the roast sea bass was all I had eaten and would eat that day; but the old woman was quite far away now, although I could still hear her curses: “Yer all the same! A gang of scoundrels! Republicans or fascists, yer all sons of the same bitch!”
That one dish cost me a hundred and twenty-five pesetas: what a whole month’s full board and lodging cost before the war. Auntie had refused to let me mingle with the other seminarists – “they could be sons of the concierge or heaven knows who” – and had placed me in a boarding house for seminarists from good families; I don’t know why, but memories of the big dormitory in that boarding house came flooding back. Twenty boarders slept on as many iron beds; the air at night turned as thick as water and we were like twenty large static fish. We were twenty lethargic sturgeons, each on our narrow iron bedstead, and our dreams spurted like gas that stank higher than that air – the big white walls were the screens on which we projected absurd films from our subconscious, and our regular breathing was like a muffled concert . . . Why did all this rush back at the sight of the innkeeper’s bill? The exorbitant sum made me immediately understand how loathsome I must have seemed in the eyes of that old woman. I knew, as we all did at the front, that people ate very little and very poorly in Barcelona; we knew, but could never have imagined how badly . . . At a stroke I understood the glimmer of excited anticipation that had surprised me in the eyes of so many girls, and how the scrofulous mouths and strangled waists were all about hunger. Poor underwater panther, I thought. And while I thought that and got up from the table, there she stood, right in front of me.
A high narrow doorway on the other side of the street opposite the inn caught my eye because several copies of the same poster were stuck on surrounding walls: “Liberatories of prostitution”. I’d seen it lots of times on my comings and goings along the streets of Barcelona next to the one that said “Make tanks, tanks, tanks” and so many others that were justly renowned. This one really perplexed me because I couldn’t work out what it was supposed to represent. A house? A woman sewing? Several women reading books? Or with a baby? Then, lo and behold! The high narrow door opened and I was astonished to see the girl from the tram in the dingy entrance. I walked over, quite bewitched. Her yellow eyes looked at me without a trace of shock: she clearly didn’t recognise me.
“I was just off,” she said. “Now’s not a good time.”
“When would you like me to come back?”
“After midnight.”
She had a very strong foreign accent. Right then that old woman reappeared by a mound of rubbish at the bottom of the street; while she poked at it she glared at us, her look full of hatred and contempt. She started to sing so we could hear her:
Allons, enfant de la grand’pute,
le jour de merde est arrivé.
“She’s got a screw loose,” said the underwater panther, taking it lightly. “Don’t take any notice. She knows I’m French and sings that to annoy me.”
“Did you say I should come back after midnight?” I asked, amazed she’d offered me such a late appointment. “In any case, I don’t want the pesetas back, just the documents. I’d even give you more money in exchange for the documents . . . five hundred, say.”
She stared at me.
“Come upstairs.”
The steps up those dirty narrow stairs were worn down. We walked through a small lounge furnished in terrible taste where other women were sitting who didn’t even give us a glance. She ushered me into her room at the end of a corridor with numbered doors just like a hotel; in fact I thought we were in the lowest of low hotels. But her room could have been a monk’s, it was so small and sparsely furnished, and there was even a plaster image of the grotto in Lourdes on the bedside table, in front of which a wick burned in a glass of oil.
The panther made as if to pull her blouse over her head.
“What are you doing?” I exclaimed in astonishment. She looked at me perplexed, perhaps wondering about my mental state. “I only want my papers! The military police . . . I need them! You can keep the pesetas but give me back those papers.”
“What’s this nonsense all about, kid?”
I could see she was angry and now I saw that her hair was black whereas the girl in the tram – I remembered it well – had very bright flaxen hair. I apologised. I’d put my foot in it and mumbled such pathetic excuses that all she gathered was that I’d mistaken her for a pickpocket. As I stumbled down the stairs, she stood on the landing in a furious temper and unleashed after me the most obscene insults I’d ever heard.
•
It was four o’clock when I turned up at the mansion in Pedralbes where Trini lived. She wasn’t at home. The maid led me to the drawing room and said she’d soon be back. I was surprised by everything I saw.
Not that I’d imagined it would be any different from her letters; indeed I’d not really imagined the place at all. I only knew what Lluís had told me about her and what I’d been able to infer from the letters; at the time I never wondered what right I had to interfere in the private life of a woman I didn’t even know. I felt so sure of the path I’d taken and so convinced it was my duty to help Lluís regain his wife’s love and restore peace to their relationship. I didn’t realise how slippery the path was; I could only see the good it would do Lluís and Trini – Trini, the converted anarchist, the daughter of a couple united by a free love she too had embraced, and now about to take another wrong step perhaps and go astray for ever . . .
I looked around me: nothing bohemian or disorderly. Surrounded by pine and cypress trees, the mansion was located in the top part of Pedralbes. A huge bougainvillea in full flower displayed its crown, despite it being December, across the drawing-room windows. From there I could see the whole city stretching down to the sea. There was little in the way of furniture: what there was gave the impression that it had been selected piecemeal by someone choosing friends for a lifetime. A Louis Philippe armchair stood by one window, high-backed with wings, upholstered in yellow and green striped satin, its arms and wings fringed with lace. From where it sat you could see the garden, with a tall bare lime tree in the foreground. I felt it was wonderful to be seeing that window, armchair and lime tree so close and real, just as I’d read in the letters. This is the lime tree, I told myself, this is the armchair and this is the table lamp. It was here that she was reading a geology book when she heard the pistol shots . . . I could see that mahogany secrétaire in a corner of the room, so ethereal, as if it wanted to pass unperceived, and above it, on the gleaming white wall, the oval portrait of the Carlist colonel. It was the only painting in the drawing room; the walls were so white and bare they brought to mind lovingly ironed linen napkins. The slanting light of that December evening, muted by the thick curtains, came to rest on the mahogany polished by age, on the yellow and green striped chair, on the large red beret worn by the romantic colonel with huge side whiskers; the light caressed him like a gentle loving hand, and when the sun was about to set, one last ray shone on the rock-crystal chandelier – a small chandelier, almost a toy – generating the glittering colours of a rainbow.
How long did I wait in that drawing room, taking in every detail and lost in my dreams? How lovely it was to be there! It was so well positioned – the three windows faced south – you almost didn’t feel the December cold in a Barcelona without coal or firewood; the fire in the hearth was out and so was the stove but the sun had been warming the room the whole day and you simply forgot it was the threshold of winter. How different from my boarding-house dormitory, so icy and grey with its twenty iron bedsteads and endless walls . . .
Trini walked in at that very moment.
Now that I know how this woman was to mark me for life, I’m trying to re-create the impression she made when I saw her for the first time. But strange as it may seem, I can find nothing startling in the depths of my memory. The woman I saw in front of me didn’t reflect
any of the images prompted by my reading of her letters. At the time she was a young twenty-one- or twenty-two-year-old – I’d had my twentieth birthday a few months before – tall and slim, with a bright-eyed, determined expression I found unsettling. She already knew the reason for my visit from a letter Lluís had sent and didn’t seem to be at all interested in talking about it. Right from the start I’d made the mistake, as I realised later, of suggesting to her that a husband and wife need to show understanding towards each other and avoid harsh judgements. I’d hoped that she’d see my comment as a general one and not as an allusion to her situation that I only knew about from the letters. I broached the matter so clumsily she immediately saw it as an attempt to interfere and make peace between her and Lluís. I tried to explain. She interjected to tell the maid to serve tea: “I must warn you that you’ll have to drink it without sugar – we don’t even remember what that is. On the other hand, you’ll find as much tea as you want in Barcelona, because nobody drinks it. We got the habit from Soleràs, who’d lived abroad: he got us into the habit of drinking it and once you’re hooked you can’t do without it. What a pity one can’t nourish oneself on tea alone; today I went after twenty kilos of dry, maggot-eaten marrowfat peas . . .”
I tried to swing the conversation back to the matter of our excursion that had to be organised in the next forty-eight hours; she kept interrupting.
“They were very expensive; fat, yellow marrowfat like horse’s teeth. You could see the maggots snug at the bottom of their holes. Perhaps we’re not as unlucky as we think we are in Barcelona; when you’re really hungry, it should be cheering to find maggots in your marrowfat: protein!”
I persisted and tried to get her to tell me whether she and her son would be coming on the expedition; she interjected yet again: “I know, because Lluís mentions it in a letter, that you are studying for the priest-hood and that I can talk to you in good faith, as if you were my confessor. On the other hand, I assume that you have taken it upon yourself to give me edifying advice; it’s a pity I’m not in the mood to follow any. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all over with Lluís. It would take too long to tell you why, but you should realise that is the case. So I’d ask you not to mention him.”
I was upset by the lighthearted tone she adopted when saying this; I’d have preferred a tearful scene – even though other people’s tears always inhibit me.
“You are a Christian,” I said.
“How do you know?”
How? From the letters, of course. I shuddered: it was the first time I realised I couldn’t justify having read them and I was so embarrassed. My cheeks and ears were burning. She gave me a curious look: “What’s the matter? Lluís doesn’t know, so he couldn’t have told you.”
I looked down.
“So why don’t you tell me the truth for once?”
“The truth . . .” I stammered, staring at the floor.
“Yes, the truth: Soleràs told you. You’ve been talking to Soleràs.” She doesn’t know Soleràs gave the bundle of letters to Lluís, I reflected, trying to gather my thoughts; if she did, she wouldn’t say that Lluís doesn’t know she is a Christian.
“Soleràs may have spoken to me about you,” I said evasively. “Before disappearing from the brigade, he could have told me, for example, that you’d informed him of your conversion. He could even have told me that you’d been baptised; I could in fact have learned all this from Soleràs.”
“My God, I’m so hungry!” she interrupted me, as if barely paying any attention to what I was labouring to tell her. “Do you fancy a glass of Chartreuse? You can drink as much as you like. A pity the peas take so long to cook – we could eat a soup-plate full while we chat. Wouldn’t you like to know what I’ve been doing while you were waiting for me? I’d heard that an Algerian barge had managed to fool the fascist torpedoes and make it through to the quayside in Barcelona last night; they said it was carrying a cargo of kidney beans. Kidney beans! Do they still exist in this world? Well yes, they do, but only for whizz-kids, literally! By the time I reached there, there were no kidney beans left, only maggot-ridden peas – and think yourself lucky. I’m not complaining; there are plenty worse off, like the ones who got there and saw the peas run out. I brought twenty kilos of peas on my back, like a man with a sack; nowadays no-one bats an eyelid; we’ve lost all those hang-ups. Everyone is too busy trying to survive. At least war has this good side to it. The alarm went up, the sirens wailed; I had to go down to the metro and sit on some big steps among the crowd, holding the sack tight. What if it was stolen after all I’d done to get it! You know, when the alarm goes off they steal everything in these packed places. It wasn’t too bad down there: a warm draught smelling of tar wafted up from inside the tunnel and in the end became a form of heating. Besides, I’ve always liked the smell of tar. And the feeling that you belong to the mass, that you’re in the same boat with thousands of others as anonymous as you sharing the same dangers, the same hunger, the same cold, the same filth . . . it keeps you company. Your main worry in this world is to make sure you’re not the only one who’s unhappy.”
“One is only unhappy to the extent that one wants to be,” I replied rather sententiously, pouring myself another glass of Chartreuse. “It’s better to speak frankly about such things.”
“Fine, let me be equally frank: I don’t think you have much of a grasp of the situation.”
“You are making too much of an affair that’s a damp squib. You are highly intelligent and should be a little more understanding.”
“Lluís is more intelligent than I am or at least he thinks he is. I mean, if the situation was the reverse, should I be even more understanding? Let’s imagine – it’s only a hypothesis – that I’d taken advantage of the fact that he is so far away and seems to have forgotten me and had a little fling with some feudal grandee in the rearguard, or don’t you think they exist? Bah, the place is crawling with them. What do you think my brother Llibert is? There are lots: using the excuse that they were emancipating the proletariat they’ve emancipated themselves – and just look at them! They are the freest of the free! Bah, if we start on this, we’ll be here all night. But let’s get back to what I was saying. Once they’re broken, some things can never be soldered back together. Besides, I find it so hateful to talk about this!”
I admitted defeat.
“So then, senyora, I’m to understand we’ll be making our trip without you. You will be the only one —”
“Not at all. You’ve quite misunderstood me. I’m not going to let slip such a fantastic opportunity to give my boy peace and quiet and good food! At the front, far from starvation and the bombs . . .” and she burst out laughing. “I tell you I find all this quite amazing! I’ll soon be on holiday from the university; it’s all coming together; the loose ends are all being connected. Your idea is wonderful!”
III
Don Andalecio’s house looked very different from the moment Trini and Sra Picó arrived. Each of them put their ideas into practice and, incredibly, never argued. For example, now – and this was the work of the “capitana” as we called her – a washing line stretched from one dining-room wall to another, with all the white bed linen drying in the heat of the fire. The day after she’d arrived she’d tried to hang the washing out to dry in the fresh air, and at ten degrees below each item had immediately turned stiff in her fingers: “Like slices of salted cod,” she said.
The smell of clean sheets drying became part of the atmosphere in the house. For her part Trini had discovered a bag of quicklime in one of the abandoned houses and with the help of Sra Picó, two assistants and the odd soldier she whitewashed the walls. Then she furnished the dining room with items she found in other houses, furniture she rubbed and rubbed until the antique walnut glowed. That room was no longer a burnt-out living space, unfurnished apart from the three fireside benches and the table we were so familiar with: all was now welcoming and comfortable. We spent the endless December nights around the fire in the
light from four or five oil lamps positioned on the furniture; rows of copper chocolate pots – which we found in every house – glinted red along the shelf of the chimney hood. One of the gleaming white walls was now dominated by a huge baroque chiaroscuro portrait of an old hermit: “San Onofrio”, according to the huge Roman script on the frame. He was the only surviving saint from the village church that had been razed to the ground.
Trini remembered the former beadle though he didn’t remember her – natural enough since beadles are few and students many. He was delighted to learn she was now a teacher in the faculty and felt most honoured to entertain her as a guest in his “fief in Santa Espina”, as he liked to call it. As soon as the ladies arrived he rushed to give her his latest find: an eighteenth-century agricultural treatise, in Catalan for good measure, that had turned up in a box in the corner of an attic in an abandoned village house.
As for Ramonet, his cheeks soon had good colour thanks to the cold dry air and plentiful healthy food; every morning his father took him for a ride in the brougham. They followed the cart track downstream halfway to Villar: Trini and I sometimes accompanied them. On the first few days, the boy looked wide-eyed at the frozen waterfalls; he’d just had his fourth birthday.
I divided my life between Villar and Santa Espina. In Villar, the commander’s wife killed time knitting jerseys for her husband. I’ve never met anyone with so many jerseys as our commander, and all knitted by his wife. It was strange how the couple were so alike: the same sallow yellow, the same dark droopy eyes. Their daughter was surprisingly serious for an eight- or nine-year-old, overly so; she seemed marked by the horrors she’d heard about since the start of the war and was still hearing about – seventeen months, a long time for her: she hardly had any pre-war memories. Even so, she was a quiet, biddable girl, though she occasionally did peculiar things. One morning in Barcelona – her mother told me – she escaped from their flat on carrer de Cervelló and stood in one of the entrances to the Boqueria market asking passers-by for alms: “I’m an orphan,” she told them. “The baddies have killed my mother and father and now my stepmother beats me.” There was something else that made me suddenly feel affectionate towards her, and it was much to everybody’s surprise, particularly her parents: soldiers on night duty found her between one and two o’clock in the middle of the street in her nightshirt; she was walking very stiffly, eyes half closed and apparently not feeling the cold. When they stopped and shook her, not realising what was wrong with her, she reacted as if she were in great pain. “An attack of sleepwalking,” was Dr Puig’s diagnosis. “That makes two of you in the brigade,” he added. He prescribed ordinary vitamin pills and answered the commander and his wife’s anxious queries: “Absolutely nothing to worry about; look at Cruells, he’s as right as rain.” The fact that she also suffered from similar odd attacks made me suddenly think of her as a little sister and at a stroke she was also more affectionate towards me; invariably, when I arrived back in Villar from Santa Espina, she’d run over and hug me, and she often asked me the same question she’d asked that had so taken me by surprise when I visited her house: “They won’t kill my daddy, will they?”