I was so absorbed in the two of them that it took me a while to comprehend the nature of their task. There were brigades attaching heavy chains to the support beams of buildings, and when the order was given, lines of men and women heaved on these. The houses came crashing down, a great peal of dislodged stone and clouds of masonry. And I saw one of the wrecked houses was ours! I finally went over to them. The recompense was Amelis’s face when she saw me — I’d never seen her so happy.
Certain embraces mark out stages in our lives. I’d returned, I was with them again, and as we clasped each other, it was like sealing a bond that even two kings had not been able to break asunder. I could also feel how thin she’d become, her ribs jutting into my fingers.
“For the love of God,” I said, “you’re pulling out the rubble of our own home.”
“Well, there wasn’t much left of it anyway,” said Peret, who was with them. “We were hit by two cannonballs not long after you were captured.”
They were working, as it turned out, on building a “cutting.” A draconian measure, I learned, that had been imposed by the government.
When the walls of a sieged city suffer irreparable breaches, there’s one emergency course of action: the cutting. Its name comes from what it’s intended to do — cut the advance of the besieging army after they’ve taken control of the ramparts. The idea being to create a zigzag parapet just inside and running parallel with the ramparts. It wants to be as tall as possible, with a ditch dug along it to effectively increase that height. Just as the invaders think they’re through, there’s one more obstacle for them to get over.
At Bazoches, cuttings were given short shrift. Why? Because they’re useless. In all my many days, I’ve yet to see one fend off any large-scale assault. If Herculean bastions hadn’t done the job, why on earth would a puny barricade like that? Before my capture, I’d argued vehemently against the project. And my reasons were many.
First: the adverse effect of a cutting on morale. Knowing there’s one more place where they might shelter, the troops manning the rampart have a tendency to submit rather than fight to the death. Second: This second line of defense is less effective, and the invaders, emboldened by having vaulted the first hurdle, will overrun it easily. Third: The way Barcelona was set out meant that our cutting was situated on a plain directly beneath the bastions. The victorious Bourbons would be firing down on us from above, with all the advantages that signifies. Fourth and most important: This terrain also had lots of buildings in it, when what was needed was a clear shot; Barcelona was such a dense urban agglomeration that the buildings virtually hugged the inside of the rampart walls. Whole streets would have to be flattened. And the inhabitants would hardly be thrilled at the government demolishing their homes.
Though as it turned out, at least regarding the last point, I was mistaken. The people living in the houses weren’t opposed to the demolitions; they supported them, in the name of saving the city. They were all there, half-starved men and women helping to pull down the roofs beneath which they’d always lived. I couldn’t make sense of it. In order to defend their homes, the people of Barcelona were prepared to destroy them.
My Bazoches eyes detected something half buried in the ruins of our building. I went over. It was Amelis’s carillon à musique. I cradled it like a baby, cleaning off the dirt and muck. It was broken, unsurprisingly — I opened it, but no music came out. I later learned that Peret, who feared thieves more than going hungry, had taken it back to the house when Amelis wasn’t looking, thinking that the bolts on our door would be a better protection than the canvas walls at the beach. He seemed to have missed the fact that cannonballs can do slightly more harm than any robber. I took the music box back to Amelis. “It’s all right,” I said. “We’ll find someone to fix it.”
I felt somewhat guilty. I’d been taught how to build or repair monumental walls but was helpless in the face of a small box that played music when opened. You could never tell if Amelis was being serious when it came to the box, because what she said was: “No matter.”
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 whirlpooclass="underline" 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.