Albert Sanchez Pinol - Victus - The Fall of Barcelona

What is a home, a hearth? Often it’s a melody or the memory of a melody. As long as she still had that box, she’d have a home. All that had broken was the outer casing, nothing more.

“No matter,” she insisted. “As long as we have the box, the melody will be easier to remember.”

I went to see Don Antonio that same afternoon. I had to tell him about Little Philip’s letters in support of a wholesale extermination, and about Queen Anne dying. And, of course, the details of the Attack Trench. Thanks to the discipline of the Spherical Room, each and every detail was stored in Zuvi’s little head.

Making my way to see him, in that brief journey, I observed the oppressive, filthy atmosphere of the city now. Pyramids of refuse piled up on the beach. The people of Barcelona, always so jovial, all now withdrawn, and the usual merry air replaced by a collective despondency. I saw many more men in the family-run shops than at the start, injured in the fighting, arms and legs missing, convalescing among their loved ones. Women cooking watered-down soups. I saw an argument break out between a couple of them, scratching and pulling each other’s hair. As far as I could make out, it was over half a stolen turnip. Entering the streets, I found the very color of the city to have altered, with a gray layer of dust and ash covering everything. And the only battalions not to have deserted, and still in one piece, were those of the Coronela.

Don Antonio was so gaunt, with his clothes hanging off him, that had it not been for his general’s uniform, I’d barely have recognized him. He’d hardly slept or eaten since the trench had begun, someone later told me. We sat opposite each other, and he listened at length to what I had to say. A map was spread out, and on it I sketched the features of the trench’s progress. The heart can be a stealthy thing sometimes, for the more technical the discussion became, the more I found myself shaken by heinous and disproportionate sentiments.

I’d learned at Bazoches how to focus my mind and put aside my feelings, which cloud clear thinking. But in the Barcelona of 1714, those two opposed poles converged; a deeply rational part of me awoke deep emotions. Who but I, after all, could possibly know the full significance of those ink lines and shapes on the map, apparently so innocuous?

I had set out the line along which the Bourbon trench was advancing, branch by branch. First parallel — there outside the window, growing longer by the hour, while we talked — second parallel, third parallel.

I found myself choking, and as I said the words “. . and finally, they’ll meet the moat, . ” my voice cracked. I excused myself: “Forgive me, General.”

“I want you to go and oversee the cuttings works,” he said. “And for the love of God, no blubbing!”

I tried to evince a firmness I utterly did not feel, and before going out, I came up with something in relation to the great question Vauban had one day asked me.

“Who knows,” I said, “if we persevere, perhaps we can devise a defense so perfect that the enemy will desist.”

But Don Antonio only shook his head. “Son, to come anywhere near perfection, it would be a question of going beyond merely mortal dimensions. And if it’s a crime to force professional soldiers into it, what authority could we call on to force an entire city?”

It was a hopeless cause, a fact that no one knew better than Don Antonio. He’d argued a thousand times for the government to negotiate peace. I don’t believe any man can ever have suffered a moral quandary such as his then. Persevering with a harebrained defense went against his conscience, when to give up would be an abrogation of his sense of honor. He made several gestures toward throwing in the towel. But he never meant it — he was only using it as a threat in negotiating with the Red Pelts. He was caught in a paradoxical whirlpool: the soldiers blindly obeying him, him obeying the Red Pelts, and the Red Pelts doing as the people wanted. And what was the Coronela, anyway, if not the citizens themselves, armed? Long before the trench had begun, Don Antonio had his eye on a single objective: to avoid a senseless slaughter. A noble ideal, but it was becoming less and less possible with every passing day, particularly as those who sought to save the day were the ones who preferred the idea of self-immolation to surrender.

And me? I’d become an observer of — and at the same time a participator in — that madness of ours. On my first night back, as I lay with Amelis in my arms under the canvas of our tent, we spoke very few words. The broken music box rested on the floor by our bed mat. I preferred not to say too much about what had gone on when I was in the Bourbon encampment. That morning, when the two of us had found each other again, the sight of her hands, bloody from hefting sharp rocks, had made my questions about Verboom feel somewhat less pressing. And now, together, with our naked skin touching, it seemed best just to say nothing.

“A favor” was the one thing I did say. “That Sunday dress of yours, the violet one. Burn it, would you.”

She let out a tired laugh. “Martí,” she said, “you perfect fool. It’s been a long while since I sold that dress, for money to buy food with. ”

Jimmy now aimed his artillery — all of it — on the bastions of Portal Nou and Saint Clara and on the stretch of rampart between. Pópuli’s murderous but erratic approach was over, replaced with one that was methodical and persistent, as well as adjusted to the way the trench was proceeding. And who had designed it? I found the thought growing and beginning to consume me. The furrow grew closer and closer, day and night, while the cannons sought to create a breach for the final assault.

Naturally, Costa and his Mallorcans did what they could to make life difficult for the enemy gunners. They aimed at the Bourbon cannons and the top of the trench, raining down death on as many sappers and soldiers as possible. The enemy also tried to pick out our cannons, and it was mayhem for all. Cannons from either side seeking each other out, and some of ours belching out grapeshot across their parallels, and some of theirs knocking down our walls and killing our men. Costa was always around, chewing on his parsley sprig, barking orders. Cannons fired, cannons dragged to a new position. And between them, the Coronela rifleman, making sure the soldiers in the trenches kept their heads down.

Those tailors, carpenters, and gardeners knew that until their shift was over, they’d be coming under cannon fire day and night, immured in the pentagonal tomblike bastions. They glanced nervously at the skies, in hope of clouds, as any rain would dampen the gunpowder and thereby slow the Bourbon artillery in their tasks. Alas, this was the peak of summer. The Mediterranean always makes Barcelona’s heat humid, and in August, the air turns to a horrible soup. Ah, yes, that blue cloudless sky, no promise of rain, blue, constantly blue: Never has the color blue seemed so uncompromising. And the heat — that of summer, combined with the heat of battle.

The bombardment was so intense that whenever you were up on one of the bastions, you’d constantly be breathing rock dust. Large motes floated on the air: Lifting your hand up was like stirring a dense pollen. A brief stint on Saint Clara or Portal Nou and the gaps between your teeth would fill up with earth; no, something worse, because you knew it was also formed of human remains, ground to stone and dust by the shelling. Some men grew snide, others lost their minds; not a man exists who can resist the effects of an endless bombardment, not a single one. Sometimes they’d crack suddenly, crawl off into a corner, and curl up, not let anyone come near. Their eyes would flutter faster than hummingbird wings, their hands make wringing motions. Madness is always a form of fleeing inside oneself.