Albert Sanchez Pinol - Victus - The Fall of Barcelona

“And what’s wrong with you,” I replied, “is that you are drunk on books of chivalry. The bad ones!”

The little laugh he let out was as powerful as it was contemptuous. He had hidden from me his role as a spy, even used me as camouflage. Who would have suspected such a thing from the companion of a harmless libertine like Longlegs Zuvi? I grabbed him by the neck and pushed him up against the wall.

“Someone scribbles this shit, off in some unseen corner, and then, before you know it, the forests are full of hanged men,” I said. “I’ve seen it! A pile of falsehoods like this gets written down, and the next day, people who have nothing to do with writing have their throats slit and their bodies thrown off cliffs. Just tell me you don’t believe the travesties written in these pamphlets. Tell me!”

I looked him in the eye and, in that same moment, understood something terrifying. I cursed my blindness, for his smile told me that he, my good friend Diego Zúñiga, had written or dictated those words.

“Castile has conquered a whole world,” he said. “And now four bloodsuckers show up from Barcelona, shielding themselves behind Archduke Charles, and want to take everything our forefathers died for. Never. And believe you me, Martí: A lot of people are going to pay. The king’s power may not extend as far as Vienna or London, but you can be sure every last corner of Spain is within his reach.”

I let him go. Good old Zuvi never liked things to be too definitive, but my voice has rarely been firmer than when I said: “Diego, you and I are no longer friends.”

That really was not my best day in Madrid. I spent the night going from tavern to tavern, not to find new whores but to drink. Very well, I’ll tell you the truth: What I really wanted was to bash someone’s face in. I’m no great brawler, but I would never deny the value of a good fight. When everything is going wrong, the best thing a man can do is throw a few punches, if possible in the face of someone who deserves them. And if not, well, then the next fellow who happens to be passing. Man against man. It hardly matters who gives and who receives: Venting your anger is ample.

I felt guilty, too, very guilty. I had accompanied the army in the hope that something bad, a war, would do me good, bring me a teacher, but how was I to find Maganons in Madrid? In my drunken madness, I started rolling up people’s right sleeves in search of Points. Unfortunately, the tavern patrons gave me a wide berth. With my Barcelona accent and my cursing of Philip V, they took me for an agent playing drunk in order to flush out Bourbons. Even the most foolish believed I was a pro-Austrian provocateur. I could find nobody to comfort me, nor to confront me. I can still see myself there, slumped against the penultimate bar, drunk, alone, and shouting: “How can it be that in the whole of Madrid, I cannot find one single friend, nor one single enemy?”

It was already the early hours of the morning when I found my way to a dive full of rowdy drinkers. If I couldn’t get a beating there, I never would. I was so far gone, I could barely stand. The place was packed, not a single seat free. I saw five men sitting squashed around a table. The one in charge was in his fifties, a big fellow, authoritative-looking. At any other time I would have recognized him at once, but wine is no friend to memory, may the Ducroix brothers forgive me.

I grabbed the smallest of the five by the neck and yanked him from his seat. I sat down on it, put my feet up on the table, and said to that man in his fifties: “Mind if I join you?”

He didn’t rise to the provocation. Instead of throwing the first punch, he nodded to his men to ignore me. They were arguing about military matters, and one of them made reference to something defensive.

“What you have just said, señor ,” I interrupted him, “is utter nonsense. Sticking stakes in glacis only gives your attackers steps to use. Well, idiots speak idiocies, I suppose that’s no surprise.”

The man in his fifties must have had considerable authority, because even after that, he managed to rein in the man I’d offended. Looking at me, he said: “Before you find yourself trading blows with Rodrigo, who, by the way, will demolish you, it would be interesting to hear you back up your insults with argument.”

“You should know, señor , that it was not I who spoke,” I said, defending myself, “but the great Vauban, who speaks through me.”

“Oh, damn,” said the big man sarcastically. “So you’re in the habit of breakfasting with French marquises of a morning?”

“I was,” I replied, to his disbelief, and qualified it: “Sometimes.”

Now that the argument was between him and me, I could take him in more fully and, despite the wine, did at last recognize him. “Wait a moment, I know you! Since I saw you, it’s been going round and round in my head; I was confused by your lack of uniform, but I’ve remembered at last.” I waved a finger toward his nose. “Tortosa! Yes, that’s right, Tortosa! You’re General Rumpkicker! You sent me flying back down the glacis!” I got to my feet and challenged him, circling my fists in front of his face. “Come on, then, seeing as you’re so brave. See if you dare to give me a kick now that you’re not in your general’s uniform!”

The old man looked at me as an old dog looks at a bluebottle.

“Shall we shut him up once and for all, Don Antonio?” his men intervened.

“Just try it!” I laughed. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Madrid has been occupied by the Allies. I just have to step outside and whistle. The Guard will be delighted to arrest our friend the general, especially bearing in mind what happened at Tortosa, added to the fact that the Guard is made up of Catalans.”

The whole group gave a laugh so unanimous that everyone else in the place stopped and looked over. What was funny? I didn’t understand it at all. Quite unnerved, I dropped my fists and scratched the back of my neck.

“I’d be very happy to take you down a peg or two,” said this general. “But first, sit beside me and tell me what you made of that siege.”

I did. Maybe it was a way of letting off steam, as useful as coming to blows. I spent a long hour drinking and discoursing on the flaws and defects of the Tortosa siege. That Attack Trench, an incomplete joke. Our rushed, shallow digging. Inadequate materials, inadequately applied. An Attack Trench en règle is a more sophisticated construction than a pyramid! And that one was no better than an absurd collection of galleries going nowhere, walls braced with green pine instead of proper uprights. The earth that should have been compacted kept spilling down. And what did it lead to? All those unnecessary deaths. Thousands of lads murdered, but it was politics that killed them, not the enemy, cojones . The trench only had to make it as far as the city walls. The English commander, a sensible man, would have surrendered. But, oh no, that pig Orléans wanted glory in a hurry. What did a few thousand deaths matter to him? I say again, cojones !

I was incredibly drunk. Once I had vented all this, I looked at the general. The wine was coming out of my ears. “And as if that wasn’t enough, you gave me a kick on my behind!”

I wanted to use my hand to pick up my glass. But my eyes could no longer calculate distances, and my fingers passed through it as though it were a ghost-thing. I was seeing triple: Three generals sat before me now.

My disquisitions on Tortosa were of some interest to him, because he grabbed me by the lapels and, shaking me hard, asked: “Where did you learn all this? And why did you mention the French engineer?”

The alcohol had defeated me. I looked at him. I opened my lips, very slowly, to tell him something about Bazoches. I gave up, couldn’t, didn’t want to. And what was more, why should I have? My mouth all furred up, I moved closer to the general’s ear and moaned sadly: “Tell me something, I beg you. Do you know The Word?”