“Maybe he wasn’t as mad as he seemed.”
Vilajuana nodded silently, his face overwhelmed with memories.
“Then tell me what you’ve been trying to forget for so many years.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Vilajuana said.
Fragment of
THE FORGOTTEN:
Víctor Mataix and the End of Barcelona’s Lost Generation
by Sergio Vilajuana
(Ediciones Destino, Barcelona, 1989)
One does not need to be Goethe to know that sooner or later any writer worth his salt will come across his Mephistopheles. Kind-hearted writers, if they exist, will offer him their soul. The rest will sell him the soul of any of the gullible people who stand in their way.
The above is the opening paragraph of Ink and Sulfur, a lighthearted piece bursting with irony, written by Víctor Mataix in 1933 and presumably inspired by the misfortunes of his friend and colleague David Martín.
Víctor Mataix, who was worth his salt and that of a few others, came across his own Mephistopheles one day in the autumn of 1937.
If living off literature had already been a tightrope act until then, the outbreak of the war swept away what was left of the precarious publishing business that had provided Mataix with his purpose and upkeep. People still wrote and published, but the genre that now prevailed was propaganda, pamphlets, and eulogies at the service of grandiose causes soaked in noise and blood. In a matter of months Mataix found himself, like so many others, with no other way of making a living but from other people’s charity and through chance, and the odds were usually short in those days.
His last publishers, to whom he had entrusted the series of novels called The Labyrinth of the Spirits, were two shrewd gentlemen named Revells and Badens. Badens, a noted gourmand and connoisseur of fine foods and products of the land, had retired temporarily to his farmhouse in the Ampurdán to grow tomatoes and study the secrets of truffles, while awaiting for the madness of the times to abate. He was a born optimist: squabbles made him sick, and he wanted to believe that the conflict would last no longer than two or three months, after which Spain would return to its natural state of chaos and absurdity, where there was always room for literature, good food, and business. Revells, a fine scholar of power games and political theater, had chosen to stay in Barcelona and keep his offices open, even if barely idling. The literature section had been relegated to an uncertain limbo, and the bulk of the business now concentrated on printing speeches, leaflets, and exemplary stories that exalted the heroes of the moment, who varied from week to week thanks to inside struggles and the intimations of a hidden civil war within the declared civil war that affected the Republican side. Less optimistic than his partner, who continued to send him crates of splendid tomatoes and garden vegetables, Revells suspected that the situation was going to drag on for some time yet and end worse than badly.
Revells and Badens, however, still paid Mataix a small salary out of their savings, as an advance on future works. Despite his reservations, Mataix accepted it reluctantly. Revells ignored his objections and insisted. When the discussion inevitably drifted into scruples, or what the publisher called “a load of bullshit from someone who hasn’t really gone hungry yet,” he smiled ironically. “Víctor,” he reassured him, “don’t weep on our account: you’ll make it up to us one day, I’ll make sure you do.”
Thanks to his publishers, Mataix managed to provide his family with some food, a situation that was beginning to be quite privileged. Most of his colleagues were in far more precarious and dramatic situations. Some had joined the militia in a fit of passion and romanticism. “We’ll exterminate the Fascist rat in its putrid den,” they sang. More than one of them reproached him for not joining them. It was a time when large numbers of people turned the propaganda posters covering the city into their creed and conscience. “If you’re not prepared to fight for your freedom you don’t deserve it,” they told him. Mataix, who suspected they were right, was filled with remorse. Should he abandon Susana and his daughter Ariadna in the large house on the hill and set off to meet the massed ranks of the so-called Nacionales? “I don’t know what nation they’re talking about, but it’s not mine,” a friend told Mataix, who had gone to see him off at the station. “And it’s not yours either, even if you don’t have the courage to come out and defend it.” Mataix went home feeling ashamed of himself. When he got there, Susana threw her arms around him and burst into tears. She was shaking. “Don’t leave us,” she begged. “Ariadna and I are your country.”
As the war advanced, Mataix discovered that he couldn’t write. He would sit for hours in front of his typewriter, staring at the horizon beyond the large windows. In time, he began to go down to the city almost every day, to look for opportunities, he said, or to escape from himself. Most of his acquaintances were by then begging favors in the shady black market of servitude that spread in the shadow of the war. Rumor had it among starving men of letters that Mataix received a nonrefundable salary from Revells and Badens. “Envy is the gangrene of writers,” his old friend Martín had already warned him. “It rots us while we’re alive until oblivion hacks us down unceremoniously.” In a matter of months his acquaintances were no longer acquainted with him. When they saw him approaching in the distance, they would cross over to the opposite pavement, murmuring among themselves, laughing scornfully. Others passed him by, averting their eyes.
The initial months of the war had left Barcelona plunged in a strange somnolence of fear and internal skirmishes. The Fascist rebellion had failed in Barcelona in the first few days after the coup, and there were those who wanted to believe that the war was now a distant event, that in the end it would be seen as just one more piece of bravado from generals with little stature and even less shame. In a matter of weeks, they said, everything would return to the feverish abnormality that characterized the country’s public life.
* * *
Mataix no longer believed that. And he was scared. He knew that a civil war is never just one fight, but a tangle of large or small fights bound to one another. Its official memory is always established by chroniclers entrenched on the winning or the losing side, but it is never the story of those who are trapped between the two, those who seldom set the bonfire alight. Martín used to say that in Spain an opponent may be scorned, but anyone who does things his own way and refuses to swallow what he doesn’t agree with is hated. At the time, Mataix hadn’t believed him. But he was beginning to think that the only sin never forgiven in Spain was that of refusing to take sides, to join one flock or another. And where there are flocks of sheep, the hungry wolves always make an appearance. Sadly for him, Mataix had learned all this and was beginning to smell blood in the air. There would be time enough later on to hide the dead and invent stories. Now was the moment to pull out the knives and pay homage to cruelty. Wars soil everything, but they clean the memory.
That fateful day of 1937 when his destiny was about to change, Mataix had gone down to the city center to meet up with Revells. Whenever they met, the publisher invited him to lunch at the Bar Velódromo, close to the offices of Ediciones Orbe, on Avenida Diagonal, and slipped him an envelope under the table with enough money to keep his family for a couple more weeks. That day, for the first time, Mataix refused to accept it. This is how he describes the scene in his Memory of Darkness, a sort of fictionalized chronicle of the war and the years that took him to prison, which was never published, and in which he is one more character, seen by an omniscient narrator who might or might not be the Grim Reaper:
* * *
The glazed front of the large Bar Velódromo stood at the point where Calle Muntaner loses its elegant slope, just a few steps from Avenida Diagonal. Its aquarium light and its cathedral ceilings offered asylum and a lounge where coffee substitutes were served to those who still tried to believe that life went on, and that tomorrow, or perhaps the day after tomorrow, would be just another day. Revells always chose a corner table from which he co
uld observe the whole room and see who came in and out.
“No, Señor Revells. I can no longer accept your charity.”
“It’s not charity, it’s an investment. Believe me, Badens and I are convinced that in ten or twenty years you’ll be one of the best-selling authors in the whole of Europe. And if I’m wrong, I’ll become a priest and Badens will eat mortadella instead of truffles. I swear on this dish of snails a la llauna.”
“You and your silly remarks.”
“Take the money.”
“No.”
“All those millions of Spaniards, and I’ve come across the only one who won’t take money from under a table.”
“What does your crystal ball say about that?”
“Look, Víctor, I’d be happy to accept a book in exchange for an advance, but at the moment we can’t publish it. You know that.”
“Then I’ll have to wait.”
“Years might go by. There are people in this country who are not going to stop until they’ve all massacred one another. Here, when people lose their mind, which is quite often, they’re capable of shooting themselves in the foot if they think that by doing so they’ll make their neighbor lame. This is going to go on for a long time. Trust me.”
“In that case it’s better to die of hunger than to live to see it.”
“Very heroic. Forgive me if I’m not sobbing with emotion. Is this what you want for your wife and daughter?”
Mataix closed his eyes and sank into his own misery. “Don’t say that.”
“Well, then, don’t you talk such nonsense. Just take the money, for God’s sake.”
“I’ll give it all back to you. To the last céntimo.”
“I’ve never doubted that. Go on, eat a bit. You haven’t tasted a thing. And take some of this bread home. And by the way, come by the office: there’s a crateful of wonderful garden vegetables from the Ampurdán sent to you by Badens. Please, you must take something, the office is starting to look like a greengrocer’s.”
“Are you leaving?”
“I have things to do. Take care, Víctor. And keep writing. We’ll be publishing again one day, you’ll see, and I’m counting on you to make us rich.”
The publisher headed off and left Mataix sitting alone at the table. He knew that Revells had only come to give him the money, that once he’d accomplished his mission he’d preferred to leave and save him the embarrassment and humiliation of feeling he was unable to provide for his family without charity.
He was finishing his food and starting to put the leftover pieces of bread in his pockets when a shadow fell on his table. He looked up and saw a young man wearing the remains of a ragged suit, holding a folder of the kind that piled up in the courts and registry offices. He looked too frail and destitute to be some political commissar out to get Mataix.
“Do you mind if I sit down?”
Mataix shook his head.
“My name is Brians. Fernando Brians. I’m a lawyer, though I might not look like one.”
“Víctor Mataix, writer, though I might not look like one either.”
“What times these are, don’t you think? Anyone who is anyone is a nobody, and anyone who just a couple of days ago was a nobody is now someone.”
“A lawyer and a philosopher, it would appear.”
“And all at a very attractive price,” Brians agreed.
“I’d love to be able to hire you to defend my pride, but I’m afraid I’m short of funds.”
“Don’t worry. I already have the client.”
“So what’s my role in this story?” asked Mataix.
“The lucky artist who has been selected for a very lucrative job.”
“You don’t say. And who is your client, if I may ask?”
“A man who values his privacy.”
“And who doesn’t?”
“Those who have none.”
“Forget the philosopher for a moment, and call in the lawyer,” said Mataix, cutting him short. “How can I help you, or your client?”
“My client is someone of great importance and even greater wealth. One of those men who have it all, as they say.”
“Those are the ones who always want more.”
“In this case ‘more’ includes your services,” Brians said.
“What services can a novelist offer in wartime? My readers don’t want to read, they want to kill one another.”
“Have you ever thought of writing a biography?”
“No. I write fiction.”
“Some would argue that no genre is more fictitious than a biography.”
“With the possible exception of an autobiography,” Mataix granted.
“Precisely. As a novelist you have to accept that when it comes to the crunch, a story is a story.”
“As a novelist, I only accept advances. Cash preferred.”
“We’ll be coming to that. But, just speaking theoretically, wouldn’t you say that a chronicle is made up of words, of language?”
Mataix sighed. “Everything is made up of words and language,” he replied. “Even a lawyer’s sophistry.”
“And what is a writer but a worker of the language?”
“Someone with no professional prospects when people stop using their brain and start thinking with their ass, for want of a better expression.”
“You see? Even when it comes to sarcasm, you have a touch of elegance.”
“Why don’t you stop beating around the bush, Señor Brians.”
“My client couldn’t have put it better.”
“While we’re in the mood for sarcasm, if your client is so important and powerful, aren’t you a somewhat low-profile lawyer to represent him? No offense.”
“None taken. In fact, you’re absolutely right. I’m representing someone through a third party.”
“Please explain,” said Mataix.
“My services have been requested by a prestigious firm that acts for the client.”
“Lucky you. And why doesn’t some member of this top-notch firm make an appearance around here?”
“Because they’re in the Nacionales’ zone. Technically speaking, of course. The client himself is in Switzerland, I believe.”
“Excuse me?”
“My client and his lawyers are under the auspices and protection of General Franco,” Brians explained.
Mataix checked the surrounding tables apprehensively. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention, but those were times when even walls had sharp ears. “This must be a joke,” he said, lowering his voice.
“I can assure you it isn’t.”
“Please get up and get the hell out of here. I’ll pretend I haven’t seen you or listened to you.”
“Believe me, Señor Mataix, I understand you perfectly. But I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I go out through that door without having secured your services, I don’t think I’ll be alive tomorrow. Nor will you and your family, either.”
There was a long silence. Mataix grabbed Brians by his lapels. The lawyer looked at him with infinite sadness.
“You’re telling the truth . . . ,” Mataix murmured, more to himself than to the lawyer.
Brians nodded.
Mataix let go of him. “Why me?”
“The client’s wife reads all your books. She says she likes the way you write. Especially your love stories. The others, not so much.”
The writer covered his face with his hands.
“If it’s any consolation, the salary is unbeatable.”
Mataix looked at Brians through his fingers. “And what do they pay you?”
“They let me go on breathing and they take care of my debts, which are not small. But only if you agree.”
“And if I don’t?”
Brians shrugged. “I’m told that hired assassins are very affordable in Barcelona these days.”
“How do I know . . . how do you know that these threats are believable?”
Brians looked down
. “When I asked that question, they sent me a parcel containing the left ear of my office partner, Jusid. They tell me that every day that goes by without a reply, they’ll send me another parcel. As I said, hired guns come cheap in Barcelona.”
“What’s your client’s name?” inquired Mataix.
“I don’t know.”
“Then what, in fact, do you know?”
“That the people who work for him don’t mess around.”
“What about him?”
“I know he’s a banker. Important. I know, or sense, that he’s one of the two or three bankers financing General Franco’s army. I know, or it has been implied to me, that he’s a vain man, very sensitive to the way history might judge him, and that his wife—as I said, a devoted reader of your work—has convinced her husband that he needs a biography that reflects his achievements, his magnificence, and his prodigious contribution to the good of Spain and the world.”
“Every son of a bitch needs a biography,” declared Mataix. “It’s the most dishonest genre in the entire catalog.”
“I’m not going to contradict you, Señor Mataix. Do you want to hear the good news?”
“Do you mean the bit about staying alive?”
“One hundred thousand pesetas deposited in an account in your name in the National Swiss Bank of Geneva on acceptance of the job, and a hundred thousand more on publication.”
Mataix stared at him in astonishment.
“While you take in the figure, please let me explain the procedure. Once you’ve accepted and signed the contract, you’ll begin to receive a biweekly emolument through my office, which will continue during the development of the work, without affecting the global total of your fees. Furthermore, you’ll receive, again through me, a document that apparently already exists, containing a first version of my client’s biography.”
“So I’m not the first?”
Brians shrugged again.
“What happened to my predecessor?” asked Mataix. “Have they also sent him to you in little pieces?”
“I don’t know. I believe the client’s wife thought his work had no style, class, or savoir faire.”
The Labyrinth of the Spirits Page 38