Albert Sanchez Pinol - Victus - The Fall of Barcelona

It was as though someone had ripped my lungs from my chest when I heard this. Jimmy. His cruel and calculating nature, his inexorable determination. I’d have been far happier taking on Satan. Why? Because Jimmy only ever entered the fray if the odds were in his favor.

Don Antonio gave us the news in a military council with the principal commanders. Our agents must have been professionals when it came to counting things, because he then went on to enumerate, battalion by battalion, the French forces Jimmy was bringing with him. I remember the hush that came down. Any officer with half a brain knew what this meant. Nobody spoke the words, but everyone was thinking: “ Now what?”

Don Antonio gave me that night off. We’d also moved to the beach, into a basic tent made out of strips of old clothes. To Barcelonans, boredom was like a sickness, and on the beach, they kept it at bay with music. The truth is, dining out in front of the beach, my troop of children, dwarves, and old men around me, I felt a little lighter.

Amelis and I retired soon after. I was too tired for lovemaking. Our bed could not have been more simple: one blanket under us and one on top, the sand itself our mattress. The tent had very few comforts, but Amelis kept her music box beside the pillow. She opened it. There, in that crude beach tent, the melodies it played had an especially consoling air.

I recounted the war council to Amelis. “The good news is that the siege will be over soon,” I said.

“We’re going to surrender?”

I didn’t think she’d understood. “We’re already at a disadvantage in every department,” I said. “But when these French reinforcements arrive, the mismatch will be too huge. We’ll send an emissary to negotiate terms, honorable ones, probably something safeguarding lives and property. Jimmy won’t oppose that.”

“And that will be that?”

“We’ve held out admirably,” I said with some pride. “Far better than anyone could have asked.”

She grimaced but said nothing.

“What?” I protested. “If it comes to an end now, we’ll keep the house. Otherwise, sooner or later, this bombardment will knock it down.”

She got under the covers, brusquely turning her back. “Some kind of peace,” she grouched. “A year up on the ramparts for what? All that, and you’re just going to let them in, open the gates to the French rather than the Spanish?”

“Tell it to the Red Pelts!” I spat. “They’re the ones stockpiling provisions, selling food to the starving at inflated prices. The poor are already giving in. I was with Castellví yesterday, that Valencian intellectual, and we saw an old woman pass out in the middle of the street. All she knows is that she’s hungry.”

Amelis rolled over to face me. “And when she came around, you asked her if she wanted to surrender?”

“What she wanted was a bite to eat!”

Amelis blew the candle out.

Good old Zuvi was unusually quiet the next day. Curt orders were the only words I spoke. Ballester noticed. I was standing at the prow of one of the bastions, deep in thought, when he came over to me. With his usual Miquelet soft touch, he said: “What the cojones is with you?”

There was no reason to hide the facts from him, and I said what was happening. He answered with typically Miquelet-like bravura: He’d have Berwick for dinner, with a few pears and turnips.

I let out a tired laugh. “You don’t know Jimmy — Marshal Berwick,” I said, correcting myself.

“And you do?” He snorted.

“A little.” I knew him better than I’d wanted to. All that time ago we had been intimate — the memory of the scandal had faded, but his character I never forgot. “Jimmy’s an opportunist. He wouldn’t have taken on the task if it didn’t promise the chance to please his superiors and win further laurels and promotion. He’s bringing the elite of the French army — with them as reinforcements, and a capable commander, they’ll be unstoppable. It’s over.”

I didn’t expect any answer to that. But Ballester came and stood before me. “Know what?” he said in his usual resentful tone. “I put my trust in you once. I said to myself: ‘This one’s different. Maybe there are men in Barcelona who aren’t like the Red Pelts; maybe the war will be a chance to change things.’ That was why we came, so no one could say we weren’t here when it counted. I accepted taking orders from you. And now look at you, whimpering like a frightened little bitch. What did you think? This is war! You’re going to have good and bad moments, and anyone who gives up at the first sign of trouble, well, that only shows he shouldn’t have gotten involved to begin with.”

I stood and faced him. “Work it out!” I shouted. “When Berwick comes, it won’t be Navarran bumpkins we’re up against! He’s bringing Louis’s finest fighters, along with cannons and tons of ammunition. Dragoons, grenadiers, crack troops from the Rhine. The ramparts are in a state, the city half destroyed. Defended by civilians, not soldiers, and most of them famished and ill. I know precisely how Jimmy will go about things, and trust me, either we send an emissary or he’ll crush us.”

“I see it now,” he scoffed. “It’s all still ideas and numbers to you.”

That was too much. “Ideas and numbers that take into account how many have died! How many more? You lost three on the expedition — want them all gone?”

Ballester punched the battlement. “I want their deaths not to have been for nothing!”

“The point of defending a city,” I cried, even more exasperated, “is to save women and children and the sacred places! If we carry on, they’ll all be lost! We fight to safeguard them, not to see them devoured!”

“And the Catalan liberties, the constitutions?” he said. “Who’s going to safeguard them?”

“How should I know?” I said, holding my arms out wide. “Ask Casanova, ask the politicians. I’m just an engineer.”

He gave me the angriest, most accusing glance. “I don’t talk to politicians or engineers,” he said. “I only talk to men.” Then, lowering his voice, he whispered something deeply philosophical (not that he probably knew). “But such are few and far between in this city.”

Before I could manage a response, he turned and walked away.

In the following days, it was tenser than ever between Ballester and me. Rather than trying to do anything about it, I ignored him. When we came into contact, I acted like he wasn’t there. I refused an order to lead his men on a job. Which he took as an insult. Which it was. His problem, I thought. But the absence of our usual arguments, of those disputes both surly and lubricating, rather than easing things, increased the tension between us.

In a sense, we were a reflection of the mood of the city. Understandably, the news of Berwick’s approach didn’t do wonders for morale. And vague promises were all we had from the diplomats outside. Nice little letters from Vienna praising our constancy and fidelity. Doubtless Archduke Charles dictated them while mounting the queen, the two of them doing their utmost to ensure the “so-desired succession.”

During that period one day, I went with Don Antonio to a government meeting. He wanted me to help them understand the parlous state of our defenses. His reception was glacial.

It was beyond the Red Pelts’ powers of comprehension. They were, as a rule, whiners, consummate defeatists, and I thought my report would be used to win over the reticent few. On the contrary. They didn’t want to hear a word of what I had to say. Casanova, in particular, looked straight through me with his dark eyes.

I was very young. The public side of things wasn’t my affair; I’d been giving my all to the defense of the city. But that day, I had a chance to consider something that occurs only between political leaders.