The Siege

  A thread of snot hangs from one of the Mulatto’s nostrils, but he still musters the strength to smirk. A proud, insolent sneer that almost succeeds in becoming a smile.

  “I’m not much longer for this world, Comisario. Don’t tax yourself, and don’t tax me.”

  “My point exactly,” says Tizón. “There’s no need for either of us to tax ourselves. The deal is, you answer my questions and then we’ll leave you in peace until a judge decides what to do with you.”

  “A judge, no less. What a luxury.”

  Another slap, loud as a gunshot. Cadalso takes a step forward, about to intervene, but Tizón raises a hand to stop him. He can deal with this himself. He is in his element.

  “We will get it out of you, Mulatto. As you can see, we’re in no hurry. I can make you an offer. But as far as I’m concerned, we can make it brief … Bombs and pigeons: do you follow me?”

  The man says nothing, but looks at him uncertainly. The swagger has gone. Tizón knows his job; he knows that this sudden change has nothing to do with the blows. They are simply a flourish, like a matador brandishing his cape. The beast is elsewhere. In situations like this, showing some of your cards can have a miraculous effect, depending on who you are dealing with. With someone of even moderate intelligence, the most obvious thing is to look him in the eye.

  “Who is this person you mentioned who knows where the bombs fall? And how does he know?”

  Another pause, longer this time, but Tizón is patient by profession. The Mulatto looks at the table thoughtfully, then back at the comisario. Obviously he is weighing up what little future lies ahead of him, making calculations.

  “Because he is responsible …” he says finally, “for checking the bomb sites and sending back information … He’s the one who is keeping score.”

  Tizón does not want to mess things up, to overlook any possibility, any probability. Nor does he want to raise his hopes. His tone is careful, as though his words were made of fine crystal.

  “Does he also know where the bombs will fall? Could he guess?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  This is too good to be true, thinks the comisario—a shot in the dark with someone else’s gun. Nothing but smoke. If Professor Barrull were here, he would burst out laughing and stalk out of the room. A chess player’s guesses, Comisario. You’re building castles in the air, as usual. This is nothing but smoke and mirrors.

  “Give me his name, my friend.”

  He makes the suggestion quietly, carelessly, as though it is not remotely important. The prisoner’s dark eyes bore into his. Then he turns away, uncertain once more.

  “Listen, Mulatto … you’ve told us he uses carrier pigeons. I can check to see who in Cádiz keeps pigeons—it would only take me two days to find out for myself. But if I have to get by without your help, I don’t owe you anything … Do you understand?”

  The Mulatto swallows hard, twice. Or he tries to. His mouth is actually too dry to swallow. Tizón orders one of the henchmen to bring some water.

  “What difference does that make?” asks the Mulatto finally.

  “Not much. But it means either I owe you a favor, or I don’t.”

  The man takes his time to think this over. He tears his eyes from the comisario for a moment and watches the henchman return with a jug of water. Then he tilts his head to one side and Tizón sees a smile play on his lips, the same smile he could not quite manage earlier. It is as if the Mulatto is privately savoring some desperate, secret, particularly funny joke.

  “His name is Fumagal … He lives on the Calle de las Escuelas.”

  A POUND OF white soap, two pounds of green, two more of mineral soap and sixteen ounces of rosemary oil. While Frasquito Sanlúcar wraps the order, and pours the scented oil into a small flask, Gregorio Fumagal inhales the scents of the shop with pleasure. It smells of soaps, essential oils and pomades, and among the crates of cheaper merchandise are the pleasing colors of the more sophisticated goods, carefully protected in glass jars. On the wall, the long, narrow barometer forecasts changeable weather.

  “The green soap contains no copper sulphate, does it?”

  Beneath his thinning red hair, the shop owner’s freckled face takes on an offended look.

  “Not a drop, Don Gregorio, have no fear. This is a serious establishment … The soap is made with extract of acacia, which is what gives it such a lovely color. It is very popular, the ladies love it.”

  “With so many people in Cádiz, I’m sure trade is thriving.”

  Sanlúcar admits that he cannot complain. The truth is that, as long as the gabachos maintain their siege, he will have no shortage of customers. People seem to be attending more to their personal appearance. Even salves and pomades for gentlemen—carnation, violet, heliotrope—are selling well. “Smell this. Exquisite, is it not? To say nothing of the soaps and toilet waters for ladies. Business is booming.”

  “I can tell. You certainly have no shortage of stock.”

  “Why would there be any shortage? With the English as our allies, we have goods arriving from all over the world. See this alkanet root I use to dye the soaps? I used to have it shipped in from Montpellier—now I get it from Turkey, and it’s cheaper.”

  “And you still have as many female customers?”

  “You have no idea! Ladies of every class. From local women to high-class ladies. And lots of rich immigrants.”

  “It’s strange, given the current state of affairs.”

  “Well, I’ve given it a lot of thought: I think that’s precisely why they come. It’s as though the war is giving people a thirst for life, they want to go out and meet people, they want to look their best … Like I said, I can’t complain. It’s true that I’m a careful businessman. It is not enough for the products to smell good and be pleasing to the touch, they have to be displayed to their best advantage. I make sure they look good.”

  Frasquito Sanlúcar finishes packing the order, hands it across the counter to Fumagal and wipes his hands on his gray smock. “That will be nineteen reales,” he says. While the taxidermist rummages in his pocket and takes out two silver duros, Sanlúcar taps out a jolly rhythm on the counter with his knuckles. Tum-te-te-tum Tum Tum. The tapping stops suddenly as they hear a muffled explosion in the distance. It is barely audible. Both men look towards the door. Outside, the passersby barely seem to react. The bomb obviously fell on the far side of the city, thinks Fumagal as Sanlúcar gives him his change and goes back to rapping out a rhythm on the counter. It is not surprising that people in this area are not troubled by the French artillery. The area around the Mentidero is outside the range of the shelling from the Cabezuela. And, according to the taxidermist’s calculations, it will remain that way for a long time. Too long, unfortunately.

  “Be careful, Don Gregorio. Even if the French are firing at random, you never know what they might hit … How are things near you?”

  “We get some shells falling but, as you say, it’s random.”

  Tum-te-te-tum Tum Tum. Gregorio Fumagal steps out into the street with his package under his arm. It is early, and the street is still in shade. Hoarfrost covers the cobblestones, the balustrades, the railings and the plant pots. In spite of the explosion he has just heard, the war seems as remote as ever. An olive seller, driving a donkey weighed down with jars toward El Carmen and the Alameda, is hawking his wares—green olives, black olives, queen olives, he calls. Fumagal encounters a water-seller with a barrel on his back. On one of the first-floor balconies, a young servant, her arms bare, is shaking out a mat, watched from the street corner by a man who is leaning against the wall and smoking.

  The taxidermist heads down the Calle del Óleo toward the city center, engrossed in his own thoughts. In recent days, his thoughts have been less than serene. As he passes a coal yard, he steps off the pavement to avoid the people queuing to buy picón—cheap charcoal. Winter is just around the corner, the rains are getting heavier and already people are having to light the little brazier
s under the tables known as mesas camillas. Turning off the street, Fumagal glances over his shoulder and sees that the man who was smoking on the corner is behind him. It could be a coincidence—indeed, it probably is—but the mounting sense of danger makes him uneasy. Ever since war came to the city and he made contact with the French camp, uncertainty has been his constant companion; but recently, particularly since his conversation with the Mulatto on the Plaza San Juan de Dios, he has been continually fretful. Gregorio Fumagal is no longer receiving any news, any instructions. Now he is working blind, not knowing whether his messages have arrived. He no longer has any guidance, and no means of contact other than the pigeons he sends toward the Trocadero. Their numbers are steadily dwindling, and he has no idea how to replace them. When he sends the final messenger fluttering off, the tenuous link that binds him to the far shore will be broken. At that point, his solitude will be complete.

  In the little square at the end of the Calle del Jardinillo, Fumagal stops in front of a haberdasher’s window and casually glances behind him again. As the tall man passes and keeps walking, the taxidermist watches him out of the corner of his eye: his dress is slovenly, an ill-fitting frockcoat and a battered round hat. He could be a policeman, but he could equally be one of the hundreds of unemployed immigrants who wander around with a safe-conduct in their pocket that exempts them from being conscripted to fight in the war.

  Imagination is the worst thing, Fumagal thinks as he walks on, and the fear that spreads through his body like a malignant tumor. Now is the time to draw a distinction between reality and experience: reality tells Fumagal that he does not know whether he is actually being followed, while experience tells him that, given the circumstances, it is all too likely. Thinking about it logically, it seems more than probable. But this conclusion is not a tragedy; in fact, it might even be a relief. To die would not be so bad, after all. The taxidermist believes that the fate of every man depends on imperceptible forces within the framework of universal laws. All things eventually come to an end, including life. Like animals, like plants, like minerals, one day he too will have to give back his borrowed particles to the universal store. It happens every day; indeed, he contributes to it. It is a consequence of the laws of nature.

  On the Plaza del Palillero, between the stalls selling engravings and newspapers from Monge and from Vindel, locals and passersby crowd around recently posted notices and discuss their contents. One of them gives notification that the Cortes, at the request of the Regency, has recently approved a tax requiring the inhabitants of the city to contribute twelve million pesos to the upkeep of the naval forces and fortifications. They’re bleeding us dry, someone shouts. King or no king, nothing changes. The other poster offers news that the City of Havana, against the express orders of the Cortes, has repealed the decree emancipating black slaves, calling it detrimental to the island’s interests, and positing that it might have the same effect on Cuba as a similar French law did on Santo Domingo: revolution and anarchy.

  Fools, thinks Fumagal as he passes the crowd, barely pausing to give them a contemptuous glance. At least it should give them something to talk about for a couple of days. Ancient traditions have left these people with an affinity for their chains: kings, gods, parliaments, decrees and proclamations that change nothing. The taxidermist believes that humanity moves from one master to another, and is made up of miserable wretches who believe themselves free while acting against their natural inclinations, incapable of realizing that the only true freedom is that of the individual and consists in allowing oneself to be swept along by the forces that control us. The actions of mankind will always be governed by fate; or the amoral Natural Order and the relationship between cause and effect. Something that makes the word evil moot. Paradoxically, society condemns the very inclinations that characterize it; but that condemnation is merely a flimsy barrier against the dark impulses of the heart. The human animal, stupid to the point of insanity, prefers illusions to a reality that in itself disproves the notion of a Supreme Being who is merciful, intelligent and just. Surely it is an aberration for a father to place a weapon in the hands of a fractious child and then condemn that child for using it to kill.

  “Where did the last bomb fall?” Fumagal asks a blacksmith who is making a fishing lure in the doorway of his forge.

  “Nearby, opposite the Candelaria … It didn’t do much damage.”

  “No victims?”

  “No, thanks be to God.”

  Residents and soldiers are working among the rubble on the little square. The bomb, Fumagal notices when he gets there, fell right in front of the church without damaging the houses on either side and, although it exploded, the size of the site—with the buildings set far apart—has meant that damage was limited to a few broken windows, some chipped plasterwork, and a few broken roof tiles. The wind is blowing from the west, he notes, something which probably contributed to the bomb falling in this part of the city, further east and not as far as the last four bombs. Pretending to be curious and blending in with the other onlookers—some boys are picking up twisted shards of lead from the ground—Fumagal walks slowly, concentrating, counting his steps, calculating the distance, using as his reference the corner post on the Calle del Torno, the remains of an old Moorish column. With or without the Mulatto, whether he has pigeons or the pigeon loft is empty, he is determined to carry on what he is doing, fulfilling the ritual according to his personal standards—inevitable and deliberate.

  Gregorio Fumagal has counted seventeen steps when he notices that someone in the crowd seems to be watching him. It is not the same man he saw earlier, but another, of average height, wearing a gray cape and a bicorn hat. Maybe they have several people watching him, he thinks. Or perhaps it is just his mind playing tricks again, something that is beginning to seem like an incurable disease. The taxidermist believes that all men are diseased, infected at birth by the contagion that is life and by its madness, the imagination. And when fear arises, the imagination runs out of control, giving birth to fanaticism, to religious terrors and madness, and—he smiles savagely at this thought—to great crimes. Simple people despise great crimes, ignorant of the fact that they require the same passion and tenacity as great virtues; oblivious to the fact that the most virtuous of men could, by an imperceptible confluence of correctly aligned forces, become the most criminal of men.

  On an arrogant impulse that he does not trouble to analyze, but which is merely the logical outcome of his earlier reasoning, Fumagal puts his head down and walks briskly, feigning preoccupation, and deliberately collides with the man in the bicorn.

  “Excuse me,” he says, barely glancing up.

  The man mumbles something unintelligible and moves aside; Fumagal smugly goes on his way. Come what may, he has no intention of fleeing the city. Socrates, obedient to the unjust laws of his own country, also refused to flee his jail cell when the door was left open for him. He accepted the rules, confident—as Gregorio Fumagal is—that by his very nature Man can act only as he acts. Everything is necessary—such is the dogma of fatalism.

  AT THE FOURTH attempt, the lock opens soundlessly. Rogelio Tizón warily pushes the door, slipping his picklocks into his pocket. The procedure took less than three minutes. In his long experience of dealing with pickpockets and other thieves of the kind known in their profession as gentlemen of industry, the comisario has acquired a number of skills, one of which is the ability to use picklocks—he is a rum dubber, in thieves’ cant—which has proved extremely useful. Ever since padlocks and door locks were invented, there are few secrets that cannot be discovered by the skillful use of picklocks, skeleton keys, hacksaws, files and diamond-point tools.

  The policeman moves slowly down the hallway, checking every room: bedroom, water closet, dining room, and then the kitchen, which has a stove burning wood and coal, a sink, a meat safe and a rat trap baited with a piece of cheese next to the pantry door. Everything is spotless and orderly, even though it is the home of a bachelor—by now, T
izón has found out everything he can about the suspect. The workshop is at the end of the corridor and when the comisario gets there, the light streaming from the door onto the terrace bathes the room in a golden glow. It reflects off the glass eyes, the beaks, the varnished claws of stuffed animals on perches and in display cabinets; it shimmers on glass jars filled with embalmed birds and reptiles.

  Rogelio Tizón opens the glass door and goes up to the terrace. At a glance, he takes in the whole city: the watch towers, the chimneys, the laundry hung out to dry. Then he checks the pigeon loft, finds three birds there, after which he goes back down to the workshop. There is a brass clock on a dresser and a bookcase containing some twenty volumes, almost all illustrated tomes on natural history. Among them, he finds an old, well-thumbed edition entitled Historiae natrualis de avibus by someone named Johannes Jonstonus, as well as two volumes of the Encyclopédie and a number of other banned French books, all hidden between apparently innocent covers: Émile, La Nouvelle Hélloïse, Candide, De l’esprit, Lettres philosophiques and Système de la nature. A strange smell permeates the room, of alcohol mingled with unfamiliar substances. In the center is a large marble table on which something is covered with a white sheet. Pulling it aside, the comisario discovers the body of a large black cat, disemboweled and already half-stuffed, its eye sockets filled with cotton wool and the body cavity with wadding, through which protrude pieces of wire and string. Rogelio Tizón is not a superstitious man, yet he cannot help but feel a certain foreboding at the sight of the animal, the color of its fur. Ill at ease, he covers the body again, doing his best to leave the sheet exactly as it was before. The sight of the cat’s carcass and the stuffy atmosphere of the room suddenly make him feel nauseous. Tizón yearns to light a cigar, but the lingering smell of tobacco smoke would let the owner of the house know an intruder had been here. The whoreson, he thinks as he looks around, brooding. Accursed, damnable whoreson.

  Next to the marble table is a lectern with a sheaf of notes: details about the animals he has stuffed and the various stages of the process. The comisario moves over to another table, between the terrace door and a display case inhabited by the frozen figures of a lynx, a barn owl and a monkey. On this table are flasks of glass and porcelain containing chemicals, and instruments similar to those a surgeon might use: saws, scalpels, pincers, saddler’s needles. Having inspected everything, Tizón moves over to a third table, large and fitted with drawers, set against the wall beneath various branches on which a pheasant, a falcon and a bearded vulture perch. Their poses are extremely lifelike—this man is clearly a master of his art. On the table is an oil lamp and a number of papers, which Tizón quickly leafs through, trying to replace each one exactly as he found it—more notes concerning natural history, sketches of animals and suchlike. The first drawer in the table is locked and the key is nowhere in sight, so Tizón again takes out his picklocks, selects one of the smallest, slips it into the lock and with a little effort—click, click—he manages to open the drawer. Inside he finds a neatly folded map of Cádiz, measuring about three palm-lengths by two, similar to those that can be purchased anywhere in the city and which many families have hung on their walls to mark the places where French shells have fallen. This one, however, is hand-drawn in black ink; the detail is thorough and precise, and the legend in the bottom right-hand corner gives scales in both Spanish varas and French toises. In the margins are marked lines of latitude and longitude, but the numbering does not relate to the historic meridian of Cádiz, nor the meridian of the Naval Observatory on the Isla de Léon. Paris, perhaps, thinks Tizón. A French map. It is professionally drafted, similar to those used by the military, which is undoubtedly where it came from. But what is most striking is that the owner has not simply marked the places where bombs have fallen, as others in the city might do. Instead, they are carefully identified using numbers and letters, and are connected by penciled lines to a gradated semicircular reference point located on the east of the map—the direction of the French artillery fire from the Trocadero. Together, the marks form a network of lines and circles carefully traced using various instruments in the drawer: slide rules, measuring rods, compasses, set squares, a large magnifying glass and a good-quality English compass in a wooden case.