by Joan Sales
The six of us would sit round the table at mealtimes in Villar – the commander and his wife, the doctor and his, and Marieta and I, as if we were one big family. Headquarters had been set up in the rectory; it had a large dining room. Before the war it had obviously been used as the parish office and the rector had had the following inscribed on the wall in large letters:
N O B LA S P H E M I N G
The anarchists had scratched off letters and changed it to
DO BLASPHEME
The first time Captain Picó came to El Villar – I saw this with my own eyes – he asked the commander to reinstate the previous text in the name of culture, but however much he insisted, the commander and Dr Puig turned a deaf ear. The room was heated by a big iron stove and had the most beautiful tall grandfather clock I’d ever seen; naturally, Picó was the one to get it to work after an entire morning spent fiddling with screwdrivers and tweezers. It was a joy to hear it strike every hour, half and quarter with its chimes; I felt a slice of peacetime had been reintroduced. The commander’s wife spent hours and hours next to the fire listening to the clock’s tick-tock and knitting jerseys in a Viennese rocking chair that must once have been the head maid’s.
Marieta invariably refused to eat what was on offer at lunch and she’d be given the omelette that was all she ever ate. The child’s lack of appetite was a worry for her mother; imagine her astonishment one day when she discovered that Marieta had gone to the soldiers’ kitchen when the bugle had signalled grub’s up. “My parents are starving me,” she announced, before knocking back three helpings of watery stew. After I’d brought her a drowsy frog that was as stiff as a board and showed her how it would liven up in the warmth from the stove and start jumping, Marieta often explored the river banks looking for frogs hiding under piles of rotten foliage. Once they’d been warmed and woken up, she treated them with a mother’s loving care and played with them as if they were dolls; she spoke to them like babies, made soup and fed them with a baby’s bottle, which, of course, they refused. Then she forgot them and the frogs lay overheated and abandoned in a corner of the house.
As for the commander and Dr Puig, they pledged abstinence after their wives arrived and went together to throw a bottle of rum, “a symbolic bottle”, down a hole in the ice on the river – a solemn ritual performed in the presence of Picó and Lluís who had been “summoned as witnesses”. From now on there’d only be table wine in Villar. It was kept in a cupboard in the parish office – we used the cupboard as a pantry – and the commander had all other barrels and hogsheads collected up from village cellars and kept under lock and key in the sacristy: he gave the key to his wife. It was total control; Dr Puig could rightly say that “one day posterity should know that they died of thirst like real men.”
The battalion’s medical store or first aid post occupied a semi-basement in the rectory where my superior and I went at fixed times each day to attend to soldiers who might appear. They rarely did, so most days we just chatted by the stove we’d installed there. We had very little work: the battalion had lost half its men, the dry cold and good food fortified the soldiery, and in those deserted villages they couldn’t possibly catch the classic clap. The doctor began to confide in me, telling me “personal secrets”, as he called them, that generally centred on his often stormy relationship with his wife. Initially, as long as he remained strictly faithful to his “solemn pledge”, it would go like this: he’d let off steam by telling me about his father-in-law, a filthy-rich purveyor of pork delicatessen – number one in the Boqueria market – whose only daughter was Merceditas. I replied that there was nothing shameful in being the daughter of a pork butcher: “But don’t you understand?” he exploded. “Don’t you get it? The shame is on our side, we’re a total waste of time!” From the very first day the soldiers had started to call her “Dr” rather than “Sra Puig” and he was well aware of that; he, too, often addressed her as “Dr”.
But, oh dear, his fidelity to his “solemn pledge” was short-lived. One day, when I went down to the medical store, I caught him swigging a bottle. He’d not heard my footsteps. In the half dark he tried to hide it among the medicine, but I’d seen it was a bottle of Fundador, the famous Andalusian cognac, and it really caught my eye because the brand had vanished from the republican zone soon after war broke out.
“Yes, it’s genuine Fundador,” he crowed, slightly shamefacedly. “Cruells, I was literally dying of thirst! A few days ago, Lluís appeared in the rectory with a bottle of eau de cologne and you’ll understand that that wasn’t for me. So I asked Picó why, if Lluís could find eau de cologne in no man’s land, he couldn’t seek me out a drop of Fundador. It’s an act of mercy to give drink to a thirsty man! So Picó brought me some from no man’s land, a lovely lot! So what if it’s fascist cognac? I couldn’t care a damn! One’s real friends remember you when you’re having a bad time, don’t they? Picó is one; he thought of me whereas Lluís thought only of my wife. Poor Lluís, if only you knew how he strives to keep her happy; misfortune tells you who your true friends are; when you’re really down, a friend brings you a good cognac rather than trying to sweet-talk your wife.”
He spoke more expansively than usual: he’d clearly been drinking for some time.
“So what if it’s a fascist cognac? She is too! She’d like me to go over to the other side . . .”
“Just like my aunt?” I exclaimed frankly.
“Just like your aunt! All these aunts are the same . . . and Merceditas is one . . . One of those who walk down the street and the shameless students shout out: ‘What a beauty!’ A fascist like all the other beauties; the proper thing to do would be to execute her but that would upset Lluís.”
He sighed: “Doesn’t it rile you that Lluís and Picó find such strange things in no man’s land? When I think how the innocent Lluís . . . hmm . . . when I think how half the human race . . . Can I be frank with you? In this brigade we’ve never had a good word for Soleràs yet he was the only one to hit the nail on the head. He was an idiot, I agree, but he hit the nail on the head. Ever since he vanished, this brigade’s not been worth a monkey’s fart. Soleràs would say: ‘Everyone gets cuckolded as he deserves, with a few honourable exceptions.’ Well, you know, I am an honourable exception – I’ve never been cuckolded as I deserve; Merceditas has never done such a thing to me, quite the contrary. She’s quite the opposite of a cuckolder! To cuckold me, she’d have to make someone else happy, and she’d kick the bucket rather than do that.”
From that day on he often drank surreptitiously in our underground medical store. When it was lunchtime, he’d keep himself steady so his wife never realised he’d had one too many. In any case she was inclined to look only at herself, and wasn’t alone in that. When they are all pretence, as was the case with Sra Puig, their foolishness is stunningly obvious, like a millionaire who stands out because of his millions. That aside, she was a fine woman; she lived for herself and for a family that was an extension of herself. If she hadn’t been such an attractive and shapely platinum blonde, we’d simply have said “a fine woman”. Because that’s what she was, basically. Her husband feared her even as he mocked her. He’d say things to send her into a fury. One day, when we’d had to go to Santa Espina to deal with a soldier with a dislocated foot and returned to Villar in time for lunch, he started to wax enthusiastic about Picó’s wife: “She’s niceness personified! She was a delight helping us to put that poor fellow’s bones back in place; and no anaesthetic, you know” – he glanced at Merceditas – “because we didn’t have any, we’d forgotten to take any. She kept encouraging the soldier; she could turn a tame heifer into a bull! And a dark-haired beauty into the bargain, yum!”
“And you, my dear,” she retorted – she was always calling him “my dear” –“you are a donkey, and what’s worse, most uncivil.”
Back in the basement, he told me: “Cruells, you heard her – a donkey! Did one cram anatomy and pathology for that simple soul to call one a donkey to one
’s face? Oh, Cruells, if only you knew! Oh, Cruells! I adore that simple soul! Yes, I adore her. There lies the rub: I adore her. Oh Cruells, oh Cruells, if only you knew! You don’t, but I’ll tell you: I’ll let you in on another ‘private secret’.”
He closed the basement door with a grand mysterious flourish and after a pause, as if pondering over the great confession he was about to make, he got it off his chest: “All men fall for Merceditas in the street. Especially adolescents – hmm, adolescents! The eyes of adolescents bulge out of their sockets, like somebody starving in front of a pastry shop window. And, you know, those fucking adolescents eye her up and down – in the middle of the street with no respect for my humble presence.”
“That’s hardly her fault,” I suggested.
“Not her fault? Her father is the wealthiest delicatessen owner in the whole Boqueria market! The king of cold meat and sausages! Every year the guild of the purveyors of delicatessen used to give a ball: this was way before the war, before we students went crazy. A torrent of silk and diamonds! Dinner-jacketed men and ball-gowned women. They elected a committee to choose the ‘guild princess’ and I happened to be its secretary. The chair was Josep Maria de Sagarra, who never missed a single beauty contest: he chaired the lot! On this occasion there was no need go to a vote or a second round because the committee was unanimous from the start: we were captivated by Merceditas! To huge ovations, Sagarra proclaimed her Miss Barcelona Delicatessen, the Chorizo Princess!”
Once again I tried to come to the defence of Sra Puig.
“She has her qualities, you say? Of course, she does, who doesn’t? She certainly does: the rump of a Renaissance popess,” and he kept repeating “the rump of a popess”, an expression I found rather shocking, while his hands described it with a broad circular gesture. “Is her popess’ rump what you’d call a ‘quality’? Yes, I won’t deny she has undeniable qualities. She has, for example, if you could only see it, a beauty spot, that’s as hot as pepper . . . oh! she has qualities . . . !”
I tried to halt this stream of “private secrets” that were too close to the bone, but he lost his temper: “Aren’t you my subordinate in this army? Since when isn’t one allowed to let off steam with one’s subordinates in this damn awful brigade? Can’t one talk about anything in this brigade?”
The first time I went to Santa Espina after this set-to I asked Picó not to give the doctor any more bottles of cognac. He eyed me sarcastically: “But he keeps asking for them,” he said, “and I’m at his mercy. I can’t refuse.”
I was totally in the dark about the medical attention Picó was receiving from Dr Puig – didn’t he swear time and again he’d turn his machine gun on the doctor before letting him touch him? I was utterly unaware and it came as a complete surprise; I kept quiet so as not to put my foot in it, because you never know . . . I vaguely remembered that when Picó talked of his years in the Foreign Legion in Africa, he’d mysteriously said that “every lass leaves you a lifelong souvenir”. In any case, Dr Puig had never said a word. One afternoon, when I was alone in the medical store tidying our stocks, reorganising the contents of the big cupboard, I found a little bottle I’d never seen before: it was labelled Polierotikol. I showed it to the doctor the next morning.
“So you’ve finally found it,” he said, “even though I’d hidden it as best I could. I have my bright ideas, you know, my very own! Like a Renaissance pope. Yes, Cruells, don’t give me that po-faced Jesuit look; don’t try to tell me there weren’t any popes in the Renaissance.”
“I don’t really know what it’s all about,” I replied, “but I don’t think you should have recourse to pep pills. They are bad for your health, or so they say. People say that medicines made from extract of Spanish fly” – I’d seen the ingredients on the label – “are extremely dangerous.”
“I shouldn’t? Well, I don’t need it. My heart’s still young. You know, it’s for Picó, but don’t tell anyone. A professional secret! He came across it in no man’s land; you can find everything there, it’s a wonderful place. When you had the bright idea of inviting the ladies, Picó was worried stiff: ‘Doctor, please,’ he said, ‘I’m twenty years older than my wife and I’ve not done it for eighteen months, I’m out of training!’ He was afraid he’d make a poor fist of it. You never know with men from the Foreign Legion, they all suffer from their prostates. They’ve all had ‘maladies d’amour’ as Picó calls them: he wanted ‘a little something to help me achieve an honourable outcome’. For a case like this, in which a man’s honour is at stake, there’s nothing like Polierotikol, a classic cure, tried and tested down the ages. The only problem being you can’t find a drop in the republican zone. ‘Don’t you worry, doctor,’ said Picó, ‘I’m sure to find some in no man’s land.’ It’s amazing what he and Lluís find there! But Picó would have been capable of downing it in one swig and he’d have exploded like a frog! That’s why I keep it in the cupboard and give it to him in small ‘dioceses’, as he calls them. He’s very pleased with it, and according to him, he feels as frisky as a fighting bull.”
Soon after, Commander Rosich remembered that one of these days it would be Saint Llúcia’s day – in fact 13 December had already come and gone – and that she was the patron saint of infantry. We tried to tell him that he was wrong on two counts. The patron saint of infantry, as we all knew, had always been the Immaculate Virgin, that is, 8 December and not 13, and, besides, it was already 16 December. All to no avail. He wanted us to have a “gala lunch” in Villar “in honour of our patron saint” and that was that. At least we all agreed on one point: whether Saint Llúcia was the patron of whatever, and whenever her day happened to fall, she was a most worthy excuse to let our hair down. Now, as these memories drift hazily back, I feel shocked by how grotesque it all was, when I think how all that happened during the most vicious war . . . the battle of Teruel was about to start or had perhaps already started in which thousands of soldiers died of gangrene because of the freezing cold. But we were on the dead front, and the theatre of war, as far as we were concerned that winter, was as remote as the other end of the world. I’m sure that all wars are similar: those who’ve lived through their horrors and know they will live to see them again give themselves up to the most ludicrous tomfoolery when there’s a lull. We never talked about colleagues from the brigade who’d been killed in action, already in the hundreds since the war started; anything that might depress us was banned from conversation, as was that sublime genre of patriotic or revolutionary anthem now sung only by the two-timers in the rearguard – however much the political commissars strove to impose them at the front – where we thought they were unbearably trite.
Now when I recall that soon after the “gala lunch” we started to see squadrons of serried aeroplanes pass overhead on their way to or back from Teruel, now when we are aware of the icy horrors of that midwinter battle in Aragon . . . However, I must describe our “gala lunch” as it was and not as it ought to have been – as if it could really have been any different.
As well as the usual half dozen diners at the Villar rectory, Captain Picó and his wife, and Lluís and his together with Ramonet, were invited: eleven all told. The commander ordered a soldier attached to the general staff, a professional calligrapher, to prepare eleven menus in Gothic script that were placed opposite each table setting: “Partridges without cabbage, jugged hare, home-produced wine . . .” I should add that some time earlier the satirical magazine L’esquella de la torratxa had reached us from Barcelona with a joke about a gentleman in a bar. “Vermouth without olives,” he ordered. “It will have to be without anchovies,” retorted the waiter, “because we ain’t got no olives.” This joke was a huge success in Barcelona at the time when there was nothing at all to eat, but it was evident that the capitana, that is Sra Picó, wasn’t familiar it, since she asked, in a surprised tone, why the menu made a point of saying that the partridges were being served “without cabbage”.
“They will have to come without cabbage,�
�� the commander told her affably. “We’d rather have served them without truffles given the solemn nature of the occasion, but truffles . . .”
“We ain’t got,” Dr Puig rounded off his sentence in a deadpan tone.
“Home-produced wine” naturally meant retrieved from cellars in the village, the ones the commander had locked away in the sacristy. For this “gala lunch” they’d prepared a large table with linen napkins brought from no man’s land and it was a handsome sight. We wanted to put Sra Puig in her place, to force her to recognise that our brigade had style, that nobody could be more refined or well mannered. Each of us tried to recall proper “form”, pre-war “form”, all with a view to making her recognise that we weren’t like the flat feet, that our forte was our savoir faire.