Albert Sanchez Pinol - Victus - The Fall of Barcelona

It must have been seven in the evening when I saw them pass by on the way to the front, half army, half sword-brandishing mob. The Eulalia banner had returned to the origin of all banners: a nadir that joins men together in a single cause. Once a significant crowd had gathered, a phalanx of bayonets along its front edge, they set out to retake the bastions.

I also say: There are moments when even the stoniest hearts melt. Above the throng, the large rectangular standard rippled in the wind, the Eulalia sewn on it seeming alive. That girl, so young and sad. The banner, drawing nearer to its own demise, fluttered, and it was as though she were looking out at you — and only you.

Fleeting images, yes: I can see Costa, leaning his elbows on the stock of an empty cannon, observing the long column in tears.

“For God’s sake!” I cried. “Stop crying and give them some cover.”

He shook his head and, turning his palms up, said: “It’s over.”

So, this jumble of trained soldiers and seething civilians, they attacked. Their objective was to scour the ramparts of enemies, from Portal Nou to Saint Clara. They would have had less of a job tearing the Rock of Gibraltar out of the ocean and bringing it back to exhibit at Saint María del Mar.

Jimmy had already positioned thousands of soldiers and hundreds of sappers on and around the ramparts, in case some lunatic should come and try to retake them. The tragedy was that it wasn’t one lunatic but hundreds and hundreds of lunatics. They followed the banner of Saint Eulalia, crushed together like a herd of sheep, more concerned about protecting the standard than killing any enemies. It was a gruesome sight. Rifle fire strafed them from all sides. Dozens fell to the hail of bullets, but still the advance continued.

They came to the ramparts; the walkway around them was perhaps ten feet wide. Like rams, the two vanguards clashed. Another image from that day: the violet uniforms of our Sixth Battalion merging in bayonet combat with the whites of the enemy. Against all expectation, they overran a long stretch of the Bourbon-controlled ramparts. The multitude surrounding the violet girl thinned out as they pushed ahead, shouting battle curses and forcing the enemy back.

I was ordered to make my way to the center point of the Bourbon assault — thankfully, as it meant not having to witness the playing out of that mass suicide. Casanova, who claimed to have been injured in the leg, was evacuated from the fighting a little later. We saw him being carried past on a stretcher. I’m no surgeon, but to me, he seemed only lightly injured. He was more dejected than in physical danger, that much was certain, because when he came past us and people asked what was happening, he raised his head and said: “Go, sirs, and spur on the people, for the dangers are many.”

What no one knew at that point was that while a tourniquet was applied to his leg, his doctor was writing a certificate for him so he’d be able to flee the city. Enough about him.

Images, images, a constant stream of them. Barricades at every entrance to every street that fed onto the rampart area, to impede the Bourbon advance into the city center. Against all established siege wisdom, and to Jimmy’s surprise, taking the ramparts didn’t mean the end of the assault; it was merely the prologue. In any other siege, the defenders would have entered discussions at that point. In Barcelona, people fought on, in street skirmishes and from their windows, converting buildings into ramparts. I became an engineer once more: The streets were so narrow that small barriers could be thrown up in a heartbeat. While these parapets were being piled up by civilians, soldiers stationed themselves behind and began firing on the approaching Bourbons.

I ran into Ballester behind one of these barricades. He came as backup for the one I was helping erect. Ballester, yes, another image from that September 11, a day that would be his last. He was well aware of the fact, and know what? He seemed almost happy, loading and firing his rifle in unending succession. A kind of festive cheer had come over him, like that of someone who has sworn not to finish the night sober.

Clouds of gunpowder made it impossible to see very far. But just then, Ballester did see something, dropping his ramrod and shoving me. “Your child! And the dwarf! They’re between the lines! Look, look!”

Looking up, I could make out the two little monsters scurrying across the open ground between the Bourbon-controlled bastions and the mouth of the street we were on. Thousands of bullets flying, and a voice in my mind screaming: “What are you two doing here?” Only a few hours had passed since Anfán had made a sacred oath to me, and already it was broken. They were running, apparently without a destination, which was unusual; normally, they moved like a pair of hyenas, fixed on their goal as if they had compasses mounted to their noses. Then they went down. Amid flashes of gunfire and gunpowder vapor, I saw them fall. First Nan. Anfán stopped, began to go back for the dwarf, and then was hit himself, letting out a small cry, one more of surprise than of pain. The Bourbon volleys were coming so thick, such a lead hailstorm, that I was able to glance over the barricade for only a moment. Nan and Anfán had disappeared.

I tugged Ballester’s sleeve. “Did they get them?” I asked, sobbing. “Did you see it, are you sure?”

Ballester looked me in the eye; his silence said it all. Then a wailing sound reached our ears. Above the sound of the gunfire, the diminishing sound of a death rattle, and the words: “Father, Father, Father.” With his dying breath, Anfán had become a child once more. He’d fallen down into a rut, out of my field of vision. When Ballester spoke, it only exacerbated the torture; in a small, meek voice, he said: “He’s calling for you.”

It was all over. The end of the world was no longer only nigh: Your son calling you “Father” for the first time, and it also being the very instant before he passes away. That nameless tension that keeps us all alive then slackened in me. I inhabited an empty body for a time. I don’t know how long I was there, down on my knees, feeling that pain. The next thing I remember is Ballester’s face in front of mine: “You have to come with me,” he said.

All around, the uproar of battle continued, but the bloodbath seemed far away from me, signifying nothing. An obscene, incongruous apathy gripped me. I even burst out laughing. I mocked Ballester as he dragged me away, I mocked everything.

We made for the rearguard. Peret came into view. His very demeanor spoke, and I didn’t want to listen. My state was akin to that of a fever dream, when all we see and all we know is turned upside down. I said or perhaps thought: “I told that woman not to leave the beach.” Peret spoke, seemingly in unison with a group of people gathered around him like an assembly of ghosts: “We are at the beach, Martí.” I looked down at my feet and fell to my knees, which indeed sank into dirty sand. Out of nowhere, a question formed in my mind, one that I should have come up with a long while before: What did Anfán want to say to me? What could have forced him to come in search of me, though it had been emphatically forbidden? Lying in front of me, the body of Amelis.

“A stray bullet,” said an old voice, perhaps Peret’s.

I didn’t try to deny it; we’d seen too many dead bodies. The greenish hue under her fingernails was a clear sign. Even Ballester bit his fist, gasping. We suffered so much that September 11, the pain had to form a line.

I rubbed my cheek against hers, which had begun to turn chill. Yes: Death is a cold nowhere. And no, a cold cadaver does not come back to life. Yet just then she did: She suddenly sat up, like a tail thrashing.