Albert Sanchez Pinol - Victus - The Fall of Barcelona

I laughed and laughed. I should not have. What I was reading on that piece of paper, that little scrap, was the worst that humanity is capable of. And not because of its malice toward the enemy, not that. It contained something far more terrible, as time would tell.

What was so diabolical was that only a few years later, this little scrap of paper would be transformed into a reality, but applied to Catalonia, and on a biblical scale. The Bourbons, projecting their own fears, punished imaginary offenses so thoroughly that no stone was left unturned. The mass murder began long before the war ended. After September 11, 1714, the legal framework of Catalan order was pulled down and Castile’s installed in its place. For decades Catalonia would be considered a land under military occupation. All of its rulers came from Castile. The once rich country was ruined by taxes, and the majority of its population reduced to penury. Finally, to keep Barcelona under control, they erected the Ciudadela, the most perfidious Vaubanian fortress ever conceived. Can you guess who its author was? Nail on the head, first time: your man Joris van Verboom, the Antwerp butcher. Such was his reward for his part in the siege of Barcelona. Have I already told you how I killed him?

But who would have imagined all that in 1710, with the Allied army in Madrid and Charles boasting — however nominal it may have been — the title of king of all Spain. Evil is at times impossible to see, and I sensed no animosity at all. People were pleasant, even obsequious; the war remained something being played out at a dynastic level, far from the day-to-day wretchedness of Spain’s various peoples. I tore the pamphlet into pieces. What at first had made me laugh, on more careful reading made me furious. I had seen the outrages of the Spanish forces at Beceite, Catalan forests full of nooses and hanged men. Now I could see the source of their soldiers’ and officers’ murderous bile.

I returned to my lodging in a stormy mood. I would have liked to break someone’s skull, but whose? Whose? The blame didn’t fall on any person in particular, but on something like an invisible mist. Evil is like a black cloud; it forms high above, out of our reach and beyond our understanding, and when it pours down upon us the cloud itself is unseen, and we merely suffer its torments.

I didn’t want to share a table with anyone that evening. I went up to my attic room furious, with a hunk of bread and some cheese. Zúñiga wasn’t there. Just as well. As I say, this wasn’t a day to be shared with anyone, friends even less than enemies. I sat down on my straw mattress. The cheese was dry. Since I had no knife, I started to rummage around in Zúñiga’s effects for one. Next to his straw mattress was his round leather bag. On a different day, I would have been more restrained with other people’s belongings, but I needed a knife, and besides, we were friends. I turned the bag upside down, tipping its contents onto the floor.

There was nothing solid inside, only sheets of paper. Hundreds of pamphlets, quarto sheets identical to the one I’d been given to read moments earlier in that tavern. I had a bunch of them in my hands when Zúñiga came in.

I had previously been friends with a man, a man called Diego Zúñiga, and through that door some other man came in, a stranger about whom I knew nothing, apart from his mission: to give his life for Philip V, the most loathsome man of the century. His watery nature now made sense, that way he had of looking without being seen, his discreet, almost insubstantial profile. Earlier images of Zúñiga flashed though my mind. In Almenar, I had caught him coming out of the little workers’ house where Verboom was hidden. He must have hidden the man there himself. Yes, until that moment it had never occurred to me: Some people are born spies.

I flung the handful of leaflets in his face and shouted: “This trash is yours!”

He didn’t bat an eyelid. This was Zúñiga, invisible Zúñiga, and he never let his passions betray him. He simply went about picking up the bits of paper, acting as though I weren’t there. I kept on at him.

“You ask me why I have served my king? Is that what you wish to know?” he replied at last. “Why I have risked my life, spent years and years hiding out among the enemy? Two words, I suppose: fidelity and sacrifice.”

“A king’s privilege is that we will uphold him, not hate for him,” I said. “Only a barbarian could wish to confront peoples and nations as though they were armies.”

He smiled. “When your government ministers violated their oath of fidelity to King Philip, who was it that set up the Catalan people on a collision course with their king? And what did you think would happen next? That Castile would look upon such a slight to their sovereign unmoved — a sovereign who, if we’re being quite accurate, is yours, too? That, after you had brought war to Spain and betrayed us, we’d just stand there, arms crossed, doing nothing? We have an empire to preserve, Martí, and in Barcelona, all they want is to bleed it dry. Castile has supported itself for three hundred years, while you people concerned yourselves with other matters, hidden beneath the skirts of your liberties and constitutions.”

“Oh empire, empire. . What have you gained by conquering a world? The American Indians hate you; your European neighbors don’t envy you, just hold you in contempt, and maintaining that myriad of possessions overseas has ruined Castile’s exchequer. And you think you have the right to demand that other kingdoms take part in your excesses, and do so for the glory of Castile! I took you for an intelligent man, Diego.”

“I also hold myself as such,” he responded coolly. “Which is why I regret having been unable to comprehend the Catalan soul. Can you explain the reason for this unreasonableness? Why do you wish to destroy a mighty union that would make us powerful and well respected? Why do you so detest a common scheme that should have unified the peninsula centuries ago?”

“Because what you people call unity is in truth oppression! Tell me: Would you move the court to Barcelona? Would you allow Castile to be ruled by Catalan kings? Your ministers to be chosen from among Catalan government ministers alone? Would you like the idea of your villages and towns occupied by Catalan troops, having to bear them, take them into your homes, offer them up your wives?” I waved some pamphlets under his nose. “According to what I’ve read here, I imagine not!”

“Natural law dictates that big will consume small, the weak yield to the strong. Despite everything, that is not Castile’s position. You could be a privileged part of a whole, and instead you choose to be less than nothing. It’s incomprehensible.”

“Maybe what’s incomprehensible is measuring honor in terms of a hunger for war. That road has led you to nothing but defeat and bankruptcy. Every prosperous nation flows with money and sweat, not weapons and gunpowder. But you people insist on stubbornness, obtuse heroism. Every ship that is filled with cannons instead of barrels is one more ship lost to trade; every regiment trained and armed, an industry wasted. At least that is what my own fellow citizens feel.”

To Zúñiga’s credit, he knew how to listen, I’ll give him that.

“I understand now,” he said. “Greatness doesn’t move you, only riches. Not glory but wealth. You detest the Spartans for the same reason you love the Sybarites.” He took a step toward me. “But tell me, Martí, what’s the point of a life bereft of epic desires, shorn of exploits to pass down to the next generation? Your scheme for life is no different from that of an earthworm. No light and no dreams, always under the earth, never rising above your times. Better to lose your life in battle than waste it in some tawdry backwater.” He concluded with this pronouncement: “Mediocrity of spirit, that’s what’s wrong with you.”