On the first day of discussion, the secretary to the parliament asked the ecclesiastical branch their view. As theirs was the smallest group of the three, it seemed logical that this should be cleared up before the others. Their answers were evasive. Not a yes, not a no. They just contended theological abstractions, according to which war is itself a bad thing, and when it breaks out between Christians, the good Lord weeps blood.
A fine bunch of Philistines! To the best of my knowledge, the Vatican has blessed dozens of wars, and they have never been too bothered that people have died in them. What was more, up till now, for thirteen long years of world war, it had never for a moment occurred to them to think that war was a very unpleasant thing. And then came the knife in the back.
Benet Sala had a good pretext for leaving Barcelona. Around that time, he had been called to Rome. And in one of those ruses so very typical of the Vatican, he had coordinated with Starhemberg to set sail the same time as the Allied forces.
Suddenly, the Barcelonans found themselves abandoned by the army who had been protecting their bodies and, simultaneously, by the shepherd who was meant to be caring for their souls. Naturally, Benet’s aim was to demoralize the very Christian people to whom he owed spiritual service, so that they would waver, surrender, and go into the slaughterhouse as docile as lambs. When I die, I hope to be able to have a few words with Benet Sala. Because I have no doubt we will both roast in the cauldron of Pere Botero, that devil of legend, but I can swear that Sala will also be drowned in it, strangled by yours truly in the soup.
Meanwhile, in the city, emotions were running higher and higher. What happened next is hard to explain.
Religious expression has always been a good outlet for feelings of powerlessness. The streets were filled with processions praying for the city’s salvation. They were an absolute nuisance, making trouble under our window day and night. While they were no more than murmuring crowds at first, their excitement grew with the city’s. The procession that caused the greatest impact was the one made up of the dozen young women who went off on pilgrimage to the holy mountain of Montserrat in a quest for divine intervention. (Montserrat is a very curious mountain to the northwest of Barcelona. It looks like a blunt-edged handsaw, at the summit of which is kept a strange virgin with black skin.)
Call me an unbeliever, but processions made up of pretty young women with tight-fitting bodices do seem rather better attended than the ones with people in hoods flagellating themselves. That vision, at a certain moment, prompted a thought in the minds of the people: “Well, actually, now that we think about it, why do we have to put up with girls this delightful going off to be sacrifices?” And in that way, religious processions were transformed into proclamations of rejection of the surrendering of the city. Eventually, the cries for the city’s saint, Saint Eulalia, were transformed into a clamor against Philip V.
And good old Zuvi? What was he up to while all these civic convulsions were going on?
What I was interested in, in those days, was reviving the legal case concerning my inheritance. I had plenty of free time and often stopped by the lawyers’ offices. The only thing that occurred to me that might speed up the case was talking to Casanova himself — he was the lord and master of that office. Nothing doing. Casanova was never to be seen there, and his employees just dizzied me with dispiriting circumlocution. That Señor Casanova had a senior political position now and couldn’t offer me his support, that the courts were overflowing with all this unrest, that this, that that, and the other. Other times the door wouldn’t open the whole day, so chaotic was everything. When that happened, I’d be in a filthy mood. When I was arguing with some pettifogging junior, I could always rail at him and get some of it off my chest, even if it did no actual good. But what can you do with a closed door? If they gave me a good brigade of sappers, I could storm a twenty-bastion fortress in twenty days. But the house of a lawyer? There was no point in even trying.
“Hey, Martí, want to see something fun?” Peret said one day.
The debates in parliament had started, and Peret had invited me to attend.
“You’re planning to go in?” I said scornfully. “There’s a triple guard on the door; the Plaza de Sant Jaume is full of hotheads. Can’t you hear?”
Through our windows, we could hear the howling of the indignant people as they gathered there.
“Just follow me and keep quiet. And put your Sunday clothes on.”
I had nothing better to do, so I followed him. It took us some time to get there, because Sant Jaume was indeed overflowing with a noisy mob. They weren’t revolutionaries, exactly; they weren’t crowding up against the doors and the guard. Their eyes were on the balcony. The people didn’t want to topple the government, they wanted to be led. Their cry was: “The Crida! Publish it! Publish the Crida!”
By the Crida, they were referring to the legal call to arms. Only the Crida had the sacrosanct power to call up Catalan adults in defense of the country, and anyone who rose up without its support found himself reduced to a Miquelet — that is, an outlaw, however patriotic his intentions may have been. That was why it was so important that it be published according to legal procedure. And the raison d’être of the Red Pelts was, naturally, to prevent it.
Peret walked me around the building to the door on Calle de Sant Honorat, which was much narrower and more discreet. There he muttered a few words in the ear of the two soldiers who were standing guard, and they let us in. I was surprised by the soldiers’ attitude, at once complicit and suspicious.
“A certain gentleman has offered me some money in exchange for my support for the cause he is defending,” Peret explained as we climbed the stairs.
The parliament was split into two opposing camps: those in favor of releasing the Crida, gathering an exclusively Catalan army and resisting, and those who would prefer us to submit ourselves to the approaching army of the Bourbons. As I have said, the Red Pelts had no interest in protecting the constitutions, and without a legal Crida, there could be no call to arms. So I followed Peret, and before I knew it, we were in the Chamber of Sant Jordi itself.
Imagine a large rectangular hall, high-ceilinged, with stone walls. Three of the walls were covered by grand chairs upholstered in velvet — red, naturally — in strictly kept rows. On the main table, there was nothing but a book of oaths and a small bell, all on top of a big crimson cloth. In theory, the bell was to begin and end different people’s turns to speak. I say “in theory” because when debates became more heated, the speakers didn’t care a fig for that bell.
On paper, the whole of the Catalan territory had the right to send representatives, which was impossible, when you bear in mind that three quarters of that territory was already occupied by the enemy. Things had moved into a new phase that day. With the voting rights divided out and all sewn up, both groups were concentrating on finding other ways of exerting pressure. Yes, you’ve guessed it: hiring mercenary throats to yell out their slogans and disturb the opposing speakers. Peret was a suitable candidate, because his age meant he could pass as an old patrician and because he would have sold his mother’s grave for a dish of fried squid. And the Chamber of Sant Jordi was every bit as stormy as the country itself. Not everyone who was supposed to be there was there, and not everyone who was there was supposed to be. Many members were unable to attend (they had good excuses: they were rowing in galleys or hanging from trees); others had simply abandoned their obligations.