In our stores, we had sixteen thousand stakes. According to my calculations, we needed a minimum of forty thousand. We didn’t have them. Well, what was I to do? Go sit in a corner and cry? Débrouillez-vous! I focused on covering the most exposed areas.
At least we were not short of enthusiastic help. The government could not pay for all the work that needed to be done, but thanks to the prevailing civic fervor, we were joined by six thousand volunteers. I spent long hours with them, out on-site, where the work was being undertaken. I showed people how they ought to be digging in more deeply, anchoring the foot of the stake well for when the sticking-out part is blasted into the air by the effect of the artillery fire; I made sure they were leaning out at an angle of forty-five degrees; that the end was well sharpened, all of that. We were short of the stakes, tools, workers, and above all, time we needed to transform Barcelona into a hedgehog-city.
I was spending that July 25 supervising the works on the palisade when Ballester and his men came past. They were leading their horses behind them, and they were happy and flushed with wine. A lot of the whorehouses that were best supplied with the strongest liquor were outside the walls, waiting for travelers before they entered or left the city. They were doubtless returning from just such a brothel. It wasn’t hard to understand. There was an end-of-the-world mood in those establishments. When the Bourbons showed up, the party would stop.
It was four days since they’d arrived, and they had become famous for how profligate they were in taverns and brothels. And for their fistfights with the guards. Each time I heard news of them, I shook my head, disappointed. Perhaps recruiting them hadn’t been such a good idea after all.
When I saw them, I addressed their leader. “Ah, Captain Ballester,” I said, not thinking, prompted by the urgency of the situation. “Leave off what you’re doing and help us with these stakes. We need all the hands we can get.”
I should have seen his answer coming. They all burst out laughing, saying they had come to fight, not to work. This was bad, as their refusal to comply forced me into a confrontation.
I had told Ballester quite clearly that if he was joining an organized defense, he consequently had a duty toward discipline. If I allowed him to ignore me once, and in front of everybody, I would never have his respect again. I was in my shirtsleeves because of the heat. It was not the ideal attire for intimidating a gang of killers. Yes, this was bad. To make matters worse, when they recognized Ballester, the workers who were closest put down their tools and waited expectantly, holding in a gasp of fear. All the same, Longlegs Zuvi walked up to the Miquelets and said: “That’s an order. Here everyone works.” And pointed a finger all the way down their line. “Everyone.”
“Really?” Ballester answered. “Because I don’t see any Red Pelts here sticking in stakes.”
“We’re not out in the field now. Here we fight differently.” I took a few steps back and took one of the workers by the arm, a very young girl. I tugged her over and showed her open palms to Ballester. “Look at the blood flowing on her hands. These scratches are decorations every bit as worthy as any you can earn from some heroic deed in war.”
Ballester moved his face close to mine and, with barely contained hatred, whispered: “If what you wanted was manual laborers, why the hell did you ask us to come?”
“When are you going to understand,” I replied in the same tone, “that all of this is not for me but for the common good?”
“What I am beginning to understand,” said Ballester, “is that war is a good excuse for the Red Pelts to subjugate us even more than they used to.”
I was going to answer when we heard a terrific noise: All the bells in Barcelona were ringing the warning bell. Dozens of wild belfries, announcing the bad news. We looked up. The sentries on the walls had been warning us for some time. So absorbed were we in our squabble that we hadn’t even heard them. From the top of the bastion, they were shouting: “They’re coming! They’re coming!”
When news that is so long awaited is finally confirmed, it becomes somehow unreal. They were here. Although for weeks we had thought of nothing else, the fact stunned me. Ballester, the palisade, everything was suddenly meaningless faced with the danger that was so imminent.
“What are you waiting for?” shouted the sentries. “Get to the nearest entrance. Get inside or they’ll close the gates!”
They were a couple of very young lads, poorly armed, one of them wearing a pince-nez. On that day, this particular sector was being guarded by the philosophy students. They looked more fragile than the paper in their books. The one in the spectacles pointed toward the horizon.
“Run! There’s a whole army heading this way!”
Victus
1
You! Yes, you! How dare you set foot in my home? I’ve just been reading what we’ve been writing until now.
What do you call this? What do you call it? You’ve transcribed everything I’ve been saying! Word for word!
That’s what I asked you to do? Well, yes, it was, but even you can surely understand that some things aren’t to be taken literally. When you tell a visitor to “make themselves at home,” do you really mean that? No! Naturally you do not!
When I began my tale, I assumed you’d sprinkle a little sugar about; I wanted a nice, straightforward book, like the ones Voltaire wrote, silly Candide, that whole thing. Well, not as puerile as that, perhaps, but properly laid out on the page, so people can read it, right up to the señoritas in their salons. And look at this! Do you not know what you’ve done? You, yes, you! You are to literature what Attila the Hun was to grass!
Així et surtin cucs pel nas, filla de. .!
What I’m about to say isn’t to do with my tale, but it’s important you all know: Waltraud has left me.
That’s right. Odd, wouldn’t you say? That deceitful, big-assed ninny of a cockroach, she mutinied two weeks ago, altogether unexpectedly. I’ve seen neither hide nor hair since. Well, not nothing: She put a note under the door the other day, containing some ridiculous allegations to justify deserting. That she was very sorry, all that rot. She was shameless enough to accuse me of acting improperly!
And you, reader, haven’t gotten the full picture of our relationship.
Don’t for a moment think she was working on this book out of the goodness of her heart — not at all! That was her excuse! Deep down, she thinks she’s the author. Like the sheepdog that grows so accustomed to biting the sheep, it begins to think it’s the shepherd. Although. . I don’t mind admitting there have been times when she altered the course of the story as it was getting a little out of hand. Now she thinks I won’t be able to carry on without her, that there’s no way for me to recount the bitter end of the siege of 1714. Well she’s wrong, very wrong! She wants me to get down on my knees and beg her to come back! Vanity! Women! Which idiot invented the second word when we already had the first? I’ll never ask that letter-sucking magpie back!
I, Martí Zuviría, Engineer, by the Grace of le Mystère, Bearer of Nine Points, Lieutenant Colonel under His Majesty Carlos III, engineer in the Army of America’s Rebel States, and in the Austrian Imperial Army, and in Prussia, the Turkish Empire, for the Tsar of Russia, the Creek, Oglala, and Ashanti Nations, Aide-de-Camp to the Maori King Aroaroataru, Comanche, Mystériste, expert in siege warfare, ducker and diver, frightened of swimming, et cetera, now, always, and in summary, human scum: