Madrid’s main square is a constant bustling revel. It is the last staging post on the road to the capital of the empire, which is why people gather to hear and comment on the latest news. The same square is the site of autos-da-fé, bullfights, and executions. A happy triple confluence, as spectators can marvel at the penitent, before the bullfights then take over, and the spectacle is rounded off with all the fun of a beheading. The audience members are still chatting about the condemned man’s last words when messengers arrive from the far reaches of the empire to recount the slaughter carried out by the Mapuche Indians in some colony or other, or an attack on a Caribbean port.
Spaniards are not too greatly enamored of their dominions. So very far away, after all, and they get so little real benefit from them, that the good news is received with the same indifference as the bad. I found this mild nature extremely appealing. To a Barcelonan, Madrid seems like the most peace-loving of places. We Catalonians live in a state of war, war that is dormant but also constant, everyone against everyone else. Poor against rich, those from the wealthy coastline suspicious of the mountain barbarians from the interior, Miquelets against foreigners and the Guard against the bandits. On the sea were the Berber pirates, whose particular business was kidnapping travelers and demanding ransom. And to complete the picture, hordes of stone-lobbers otherwise known as students. All this, not to mention the dynastic wars, which are the only ones historians consider worth recounting.
For many, varied reasons, it was different in Madrid. The presence of the court restrained any violent challenge to established power; the city was far from the path of any invaders, and by nature, the Madrileños are not much inclined to rebellion. Like every court, Madrid was a honeycomb that attracted a huge mobile population. People who—like any opportunists—were interested not in fighting but in huddling together. Perhaps the strangest thing was that in Madrid, popular aggression issued solely from one particular class: the emboscados, or Stealthy Ones, young noblemen who wore cloaks covering their faces and bodies and spent their days looking for any excuse to duel.
As if life were not dangerous enough, all Madrid needed was these lunatics, a strange mixture of a knight-errant and a night jackal. The merest slight would be cause enough for them to demand a duel—to the death, no excuses. The nighttime belonged to them, which was why, when the sun set, Madrid was transformed into a much duller city than Barcelona. I very quickly learned that the best thing to do was to appear poor and pitiful, since, for an emboscado, there was no value in killing just anybody. And since good old Zuvi was always less dignified than a shaggy Indian, I managed to avoid their attentions without too much trouble.
Now for the best part of all. If you ask me where this little soldier stood to attention the most times, he would surely answer you two places: Cook’s Tahiti, and Madrid in that autumn of 1710. Definitive proof that there’s something wrong with the world lies in the fact that whores charge money to screw. And you can just shut up and write, sanctimonious old cow. However, when the rumor spread that they were all Bourbon agents, the poor Madrid tarts had no choice but to lower their prices, then lower them again. And when they were right down near ground level, lower them again. It was obvious that it was all a lie dreamed up to torment the Allies. And yet the occupying forces swallowed it completely. Considering Little Philip capable of the lowest acts, they shut themselves up in their quarters in search of consolation, replacing the whores with the bottle. A soldier’s mind can be unpredictable.
Anyway, I was saying that, for Longlegs Zuvi, at least, those were incredibly happy days. The army had entered Madrid, but Charles was on the outskirts, attending to his little bits of business and preparing his great triumphal entrance. In the meantime, I was spending my days screwing low-cost beauties.
To begin with—I hold my hands up—I made a real novice’s mistake.
On the first day, as I walked through the southern part of the city, I stopped to look at one of those horrible windowless facades. A friendly Madrileño who appeared to be at a loose end came over to me. “What are you looking at with such interest? Are you planning to set up a house of mischief?”
“Not to set them up or manage them,” I replied, ever the innocent. “I would be satisfied with enjoying them myself. Do you know whether visiting a ‘house of mischief’ is very expensive?”
“Lord, no,” the good fellow replied, “why should it be? Here in Madrid, we are all very welcoming. Go in, go in, ask the owner anything you like.”
The door was indeed ajar, showing no sign of fear or caution as regarded passersby. I climbed a narrow flight of stairs. On the second storey, there was a fine woman darning clothes. And what a discreet first floor it was! Not so much as a window, doubtless to hide the office carried out there.
“Hello!” I greeted her. “How many girls are there in the house?”
The woman gave me a strange look. Perhaps she’d taken me for a constable, and I wanted to reassure her. “Don’t worry,” I said, “I’m only a customer.”
At that moment, a man came in. I repeated my question, and although the fellow looked confused, the woman gave him to understand that I was a rather illustrious visitor.
“Well, I’ve got my wife here,” he replied, somewhat disconcerted, “whom you’ve already met, my three daughters, and my blessed mother. But might I ask who you are? And why are you interested in the women?”
“You employ your own daughters? Is that normal in Madrid?” I said, a little scandalized. “Well, your customs are no business of mine. Mind showing me them? And how much do you want for me to enjoy them for a while? Nothing unusual, just a quick bit of rough-and-tumble. You must understand, I’ve come from a long way away, and I have my needs.”
The man turned livid and wanted to throw me out.
“Oi, look, I’ll pay my way!” I protested. “Your outrage is a bargaining ploy, I’m guessing, eh, but do name your price first. Take Catalan money? I haven’t had time to visit the money changer.”
To my surprise, he furnished himself with an ax—and raised it above his head!
“Look, you will never meet a tougher negotiator than the son of a Catalan trader, so you can calm down,” I said. “All I want is to go to bed with your daughters, all three at once, if that will get me a discount.”
When I saw him charging toward me, ax ready to swing, I told myself that the best thing would be to race back down the stairs.
“Your loss,” I shouted as I fled. “And you should know, sir, you have just put a considerable dent in this city’s once great reputation for hospitality!”
When I told this story to Zúñiga, he roared with laughter. “Houses of mischief” were not brothels but the name by which people in Madrid referred to a particular kind of legal ploy. According to the city’s laws, the king had the right to charge taxes on the second storey of every building. In order to avoid paying, people would build their houses in such a deceptive way that the first floor had no external windows and looked like an extension of the tiled roof. Houses of mischief! For the love of God, what did they expect me to think? And who would even think of imposing such a foolish tax? Truly, playing host to a court would never be good business.
All the same, putting aside such minor misunderstandings, which can happen to any visitor, it didn’t take me long to get used to the sweetnesses of the city. I would spend the day flitting from flower to flower, and when I returned to my attic, the patriotic innkeeper would be waiting for me: “You always come home so exhausted! I wouldn’t trade my job for that of a spy, no sir, I wouldn’t. You have such deep bags under your eyes, my friend. I can see that the comings and goings of an agent to the king must consume both body and soul.”
At this point, my dear vile Waltraud gets annoyed, protests, and starts to squirm, calling me a bad husband, depraved, and a libertine. Of course, this is the female view and could never be a man’s. Whatever can you be thinking, my little wood louse, do you really believe Amelis was waiting for me, quietly spinni
ng like a Penelope? In spite of everything, we loved each other, which is something that your blond pigeon brain will never understand.
On September 28, Charles finally made his entrance into Madrid. The plan was that the king should attend mass at the Atocha sanctuary and subsequently make his triumphal entrance into Madrid. Some triumph! Ha! And ha again! Here, write down a good deal of mocking things, write laughter and jeers, a thousandfold!
Charles came in on a white horse, wearing an extremely elegant black suit. You should have seen the look on his face. Because out on the streets, there was nobody to be seen, absolutely nobody, apart from good old Zuvi and a one-legged man who hadn’t had time to hide.
He wasn’t their king. The Madrileños hated Charles just as much as the Catalans hated Little Philip. The previous day, an order had gone around that the people should wash the route clean of the usual city filth, and deck the balconies with garlands. Naturally, they did no such thing. The streets were as thick with dung as ever, if not more so. He found the balconies empty and shut. The bells seemed to be tolling rather than chiming. When he was still only on Alcalá Street, he turned back without reaching the palace and supposedly uttered the words: “Madrid is a desert!”
I cannot confirm this, because by that point in the procession, I had already gone off with some dire prostitute or another, so you will understand that Charles’s tantrums were of no interest to me. But right behind Charles, on another white horse, rode In-a-Trice Stanhope, and his face spoke volumes, even more eloquently than that of the king.
They’re all the same, these foreign generals, they never get it. They didn’t want to acknowledge that Castile and Catalonia were at war in just the same way as France and England; that Spain was a name that hid a reality more powerful than politics, trade, and even, if I may say so, common sense. A pitched battle between two opposing ways of understanding the world, life, everything. I tell you, I was watching the look on Stanhope’s face very closely; at last the man had understood what a fine mess he’d gotten himself into. Never had a commander failed so roundly after having completed his mission so perfectly. He had conquered Madrid, but doing so as an invader had lost Castile; he had crowned Charles, but Charles was an interloper on the throne and, as such, apt to change.
The English might come to accept a French dynasty reigning in London, or the French an English dynasty in Paris. The Madrileños would never put up with Charles as their king, never, and not because he was Austrian but because he was king of the Catalans. And Stanhope thought a couple of cavalry charges would fix the whole business. Don’t make me laugh! Yes indeed, my dear vile Waltraud: As you people would say, schöne Schweinerei, a fine old mess.
For the whole war, the Bourbons had been strategically superior. The Allies had conquered Madrid with a madcap kind of medieval cavalcade. The Bourbons always behaved according to the most methodical rules, like a slow, detailed snare. The Allies were in Madrid, but the French and Spanish were firmly anchored in Tortosa, in Lérida and Gerona. I’ll sort this out in a trice! I would laugh if it weren’t for the fact that the Allies’ tragedy would end up becoming ours, too.
Over the next few days, Charles attempted to appeal to the Madrileños, a thousand persuasions and flatteries. Free bullfights, gifts, and perks for the city. Nothing doing. He paid for three days of illuminations to which nobody showed up; until that time, I had never known how depressing a fireworks display without spectators could be. A people’s dignity cannot be bought, as monarchs are always forgetting.
He even went so far as to hand out money, in the manner of the Caesars. Several horsemen rode around the city with bags filled with coins that they would toss up into the air. The Madrileños did bend down to pick them up, naturally, because it’s one thing not being pro-Austrian and quite another being a fool. They did so, but did not forgo their most caustic sense of humor. Charles had proclaimed himself Carlos III of Spain. They would kiss the coins and proclaim sarcastically: “Long live Carlos the Third, while the money keeps coming!”
So as you can see, the conquest and occupation of Madrid was not as epic as the phrase suggests. And since Vauban’s question had been about the optimum defense, this was hardly the optimum setting for finding myself a teacher, nor for learning The Word. Meanwhile, the clamor against Charles was starting to grow. Not that people were plotting an uprising. It wasn’t that. The vast majority of Madrileños have one thing in common with the vast majority of Barcelonans: As long as their life continued unaltered, they were as little inclined to fight for Philip V as they were to fight against Carlos III. The Allied soldiers stayed shut away in barracks and had little contact with the people, so there was not too much provocation. And the Civil Guard was made up of Catalans, whose reputation for heavy-handedness struck dread into people. In any case, one might say that they had reached a state of perfect balance. When they caught a miscreant, they would give him a thrashing, force him to cry “Long live Carlos III!” and take him to a dungeon. And when they caught an innocent passerby, just the same: If they didn’t like the look of him, they’d give him a thrashing, force him to cry “Long live Carlos III!,” and he would be taken in, too.
It was the stealthy emboscado Bourbons and the fanatical priests who were having the most trouble. As far as I could make out, they were squandering their labors. On the one hand, they had no need to bribe the people of Madrid for their loyalty, for they had it already. And on the other, however much they might be induced, the Madrileños were prudent enough, or responsible enough, not to be so crazy as to rise up against an army. (Furthermore, why would they want to mutiny as long as there were bags of money raining down?) As for the Spanish priests, they are the very worst of all Catholics. Their interests are always allied with the interests of human stupidity, each of which they foment with every sermon, and neither a sense of the ridiculous nor the power of reason is enough to stop them.
One day I was sitting in some tavern when a beggar came in. Instead of asking for alms, he began to hand out leaflets. He left a couple on each table, including mine. Having nothing better to do, I read it. By the third line, I was unable to contain my laughter.
Some sly agent of Philip’s must have employed the beggar to hand out those scraps of paper, which gave a clear picture of the Bourbon mentality. The pamphlet did not attack the English, the Portuguese, or the Austrians. Not at all. Their entire rhetorical charge was aimed against the “rebels,” which is to say the Catalans. According to their author, the blame for the enemy having occupied Madrid did not lie with the Allied forces or in Bourbon incompetence but with the Catalans and their plotting. Even I ended up convinced that in their free time, the Catalans had invented crab lice, bunions, and piles. That the Catalans also suffered from these evils was no excuse, just as the Jews were damned, however much of a Jew Christ Himself may have been.
I don’t remember precisely the points made in the pamphlet, and perhaps it’s better that way. All I have retained are the main charges against us. When the war ended, we would rape all the women in Castile and murder their husbands or send them off to the galleys. According to this pamphlet, the Catalans were behind a plot to take power and monopolize the trade with America (from which Catalonia had always been strictly excluded, being from a separate kingdom). Taxes on the Castilians would be not merely extortionate but would make slaves of them, with all the money ending up in Barcelona’s coffers for the rebels to enjoy. Natives of Catalonia would supplant the whole of the army’s high command, and all Castile’s judges and jurists. To be certain of maintaining a hold over Madrid, a fortress would be erected, which would keep its inhabitants enchained until the end of time.
I laughed and laughed. I should not have. What I was reading on that piece of paper, that little scrap, was the worst that humanity is capable of. And not because of its malice toward the enemy, not that. It contained something far more terrible, as time would tell.
What was so diabolical was that only a few years later, this little scrap of paper wou
ld be transformed into a reality, but applied to Catalonia, and on a biblical scale. The Bourbons, projecting their own fears, punished imaginary offenses so thoroughly that no stone was left unturned. The mass murder began long before the war ended. After September 11, 1714, the legal framework of Catalan order was pulled down and Castile’s installed in its place. For decades Catalonia would be considered a land under military occupation. All of its rulers came from Castile. The once rich country was ruined by taxes, and the majority of its population reduced to penury. Finally, to keep Barcelona under control, they erected the Ciudadela, the most perfidious Vaubanian fortress ever conceived. Can you guess who its author was? Nail on the head, first time: your man Joris van Verboom, the Antwerp butcher. Such was his reward for his part in the siege of Barcelona. Have I already told you how I killed him?
But who would have imagined all that in 1710, with the Allied army in Madrid and Charles boasting—however nominal it may have been—the title of king of all Spain. Evil is at times impossible to see, and I sensed no animosity at all. People were pleasant, even obsequious; the war remained something being played out at a dynastic level, far from the day-to-day wretchedness of Spain’s various peoples. I tore the pamphlet into pieces. What at first had made me laugh, on more careful reading made me furious. I had seen the outrages of the Spanish forces at Beceite, Catalan forests full of nooses and hanged men. Now I could see the source of their soldiers’ and officers’ murderous bile.
I returned to my lodging in a stormy mood. I would have liked to break someone’s skull, but whose? Whose? The blame didn’t fall on any person in particular, but on something like an invisible mist. Evil is like a black cloud; it forms high above, out of our reach and beyond our understanding, and when it pours down upon us the cloud itself is unseen, and we merely suffer its torments.