Albert Sanchez Pinol - Victus - The Fall of Barcelona

The offensive raised uncommon expectations among those of us in Barcelona. History books tend to forget the huge numbers of people who travel with an army on campaign. And since the number of civilians following an army convoy often exceeds the number of actual soldiers, it is, you will agree, a rather sizable thing to forget. On the one hand, there are the people providing services, from barbers to cobblers, indispensable functions for such a great contingent of humanity. But there was also the fact that the 1710 offensive was to be the decisive attack. Hundreds, thousands, of pro-Austrian Spaniards in exile in Catalonia joined the military columns, and they did so with the enthusiasm of people who finally see an opportunity to return home, galloping to victory. Matters didn’t end there, because in addition to the merchants and expatriates, there came a whole trail of opportunists. After all, Catalonia was the land that had been most faithful to Charles’s cause. It would make sense that, upon ascending the throne in Madrid, he would recompense his compatriots with perks and positions. And can you guess who was to be found among the worst of that pack of hustlers? Yes indeed, good old Zuvi. I told Amelis that this was an opportunity unlike any other, that with luck, I might be able to land myself a tidy sum we could use to pay off our debts.

And yet money wasn’t the true reason I added my name to the convoy of army followers. I never told Amelis that, of course. She never would have understood that I was risking my skin for a Word.

The trunk from Vauban had been a message from beyond the grave. It was as though the marquis were saying: “Is this the life your teacher prepared you for?” I told myself I could not accept the marquis’s fortune, not without making one final attempt to learn a word — The Word.

“Summarize the optimum defense”: That was what Vauban had asked of me. Half of Europe’s armies were attacking the heart of the Spanish empire. If they wanted to crown Charles, they would need to take the capital, Madrid. Spain and France would do their utmost to oppose this. The greatest leaders would clash on the bare wastelands of Castile; the whole struggle would hinge on Madrid’s defense. It promised to be a spectacle both tragic and grand, a clash of cosmic proportions. And within this theater, perhaps I might find a teacher to continue the marquis’s work. With his help, maybe The Word would be revealed to me. The recriminations I heard from Amelis made me happy, because there could be only one possible reason for her opposing my departure: love. But I had a debt to another love, and it was every bit as great.

I owed it to Vauban.

I needed to figure out some way to follow the army, so I came to an arrangement with a merchant who was planning to follow the troops with a two-horse covered wagon laden with barrels of stomach-churning liquor. He was calculating that when the army crossed the dry, uninhabited parts of Castile, where it would be impossible to procure any wine, the price of alcohol would soar.

We came to a mutually beneficial agreement. I needed transportation, and his wagon was covered with a bit of sackcloth that would serve as a roof over our heads at night. The merchant was accompanied by his son, a troubled lad whose wits were barely sharper than a dog’s. At night the merchant and his lad would sleep in the front section of the wagon, right behind the driver’s seat. Another passenger and I would be at the back, defending the rear.

This other passenger said his name was Zúñiga, Diego de Zúñiga. Eight decades have passed, and I still remember him as an altogether remarkable man. What set Zúñiga apart? Well, strange though it may sound, it was the fact that there was nothing about him that stood out, absolutely nothing at all. He wasn’t very talkative or very withdrawn; he wasn’t miserly or profligate; neither tall nor short; neither merry nor sad. Every man has his own distinctive manner, a certain way of clicking his fingers, an unusual laugh or a particular way of tilting his head when he spits. Zúñiga did not spit, his laughter was always buried away within the laughter of others, and he tended to keep his fingers hidden. A ghost would have seemed much more tangible beside him. He was one of those fellows you tend to forget the moment they have left your field of vision. As a matter of fact, as I try to reconstruct Zúñiga’s face now, I find it hard to gain purchase on it in my memory.

According to what he told me, he was the son of a moderately affluent family brought low by the war. Since his father was one of the few Castilians to have taken Charles’s part, the Bourbons and their supporters had expropriated the family’s possessions. By then an old man, he hadn’t survived the shock of it all. Zúñiga was a native of Madrid.

The two of us got on well, if only because we had a lot in common. For a start, our families were of a similar social standing, neither rich nor very poor, and life had brought us down several rungs on the ladder. We were the same sort of age, added to which was the similarity between our family names. We slept curled up next to each other. From the first day, it seemed quite natural that we should share our bread and wine. A shame he was not a more garrulous sort.

Shortly before arriving at Lérida, we caught up with the giant serpent that was the Allied army, a motley troop of Englishmen, Dutchmen, Portuguese, and even a regiment of Catalans (a gang of diehard loons, I must say), led by a high command every bit as diverse. We approached the main column by a little path that met it at right angles, and we had to wait hours for all the troops to pass, with their baggage, artillery, gun carriages, and provisions. Then came our kind: thousands of people who followed the army like seagulls the stern of a fishing boat.

Knowing that we were in for a long journey, and that there were gaps in my Spanish, I had brought with me the thickest book I could find. I would read it before turning in for the night, by the light of the fire, or even in the wagon. Between one jolt and the next, I’d be taken by fits of laughter, because it was a most brilliant piece of work and a delight to the spirit. What follows is a seemingly insignificant episode, but for some reason, one that has remained in my memory.

We had stopped at some spot or other. It was one of those plains that stretch out beyond Balaguer, a foretaste of Spain’s vast empty stretches, and to kill time, I began to read that book. Soon I was laughing. On every page, there were five things to make me chuckle. These outpourings attracted the attention of Zúñiga.

“May I ask what you’re reading?” He looked at words on the binding and said, with a mixture of distaste and disappointment, “Oh, that .”

Unable to understand his qualms, I exclaimed, ever so amused: “It has been some time since I’ve laughed so heartily!”

“Irony may be divine, but sarcasm is of the devil,” said Zúñiga. “And you will agree with me that this is a book abounding in sarcasm.”

“If a writer is able to make me laugh,” retorted cynical Zuvi, “I don’t much care how he does it.”

“The worst part is,” he went on, “that the writer reduces heroic feats to their basest, most wretched parts. And if we want to win this war, we need to extol the epic, not mock it.”

“I can’t see how you can dislike such an engaging, humorous story. I’ve just been reading a chapter in which the protagonist frees a chain of prisoners. His reasoning is very enlightened: Man is born free; it is therefore intolerable that any man should be chained up by other men, and as a result, any noble soul has an obligation to oppose such a thing. Once they have been freed, of course, the villains express their thanks by stoning him.” I burst out laughing. “Sad, amusing, superb!”