No Man's Land (67 page)

Rose Macaulay
was born in Rugby in 1881. At the beginning of the war, she worked in the British Government Propaganda Department. In May 1915 Macaulay went to work as a Volunteer Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse at a military convalescent hospital near Cambridge.
Non-Combatants and Others
, from which this extract is taken, was published in 1916 and is an autobiographical account of her time spent as a VAD nurse. Dedicated to ‘my brother and other combatants' the book is a critical portrayal of a middle England self-glorifying in its recognition of the bravery and sacrifice of its soldiers. During the war relations between women and men changed. The women, many of whom lost loved ones at the front, reacted to the cynicism and indifference that prevailed at home. They put their energy and enthusiasm into the campaign for the vote, for equality and for peace. After the war Rose Macaulay became a sponsor of the Peace Pledge Union, touring the country and using, whenever possible, the BBC to get the pacifist message across. During the Blitz, her London apartment was totally destroyed and she had to rebuild her life and library from scratch. Her best-known novel,
The Towers of Trebizond
, was published in 1956. Rose Macaulay died in 1958.

JOSEP PLA

VERITABLE EQUINE ITEMS OF DENTISTRY

from
The Grey Notebook

translated by Peter Bush

6
JULY
. The war is about to end. Germany is responding like a cornered animal. Thousands of Americans are landing in Bordeaux. All the arrogance of the early years of the war has evaporated like a puff of smoke. The Germanophiles have shut up. The Kaiser's boasting now begins to look absurd and grotesquely flamboyant. The war will end in a matter of weeks…

Mossèn Così bumps into Grandmother Marieta in the street. Mossèn Così, the parish sacristan, cultivates a plot of land he rents from Grandmother Marieta. He says: ‘Just you see, Mrs. Marieta, just you see! England will win again! We had such high hopes and all dashed to the ground! The Protestants are going to win again, the simpletons who believe in a free conscience… What will ever become of us, Mrs. Marieta? The future looks very black, very black indeed… We would have been so happy with the order the Germans would have established! Now, to be frank, I don't know whether I will be able to pay you your rent…'

‘What was that?' Grandmother Marieta asks quickly and energetically. ‘Are you saying you won't pay me my rent because England will win the war?What kind of excuse is that, Mossèn Emili? Have you gone mad? If you don't pay the rent by St. Michael's day, I assure you I will send you packing… Whatever
has
got into you?'

Reactionaries in our country have always and will always be Germanophiles. Their
bête noire
will always be England. And that is because of what Mossèn Così was saying a moment ago, because England embodies the spirit of free conscience. This is the perennial complaint. Those who claim the preferences of these people are incoherent because Germany is as Protestant as England have got it wrong. There is no incoherence whatsoever, quite the contrary: they grasped the issue perfectly… They know that Protestantism in Germany is quite innocuous. Let's be absolutely clear: German Protestantism counts for nothing when compared with the German military spirit of authoritarianism and subordination. And it is this spirit of Germany that fascinates them. They know that German Protestantism has no punch and literally counts for zero in comparison to this military spirit. And they are quite right. Germany is a country where authority is all-important, even though it is Protestant. England is
the
country of free conscience, even if it has such a poor army. Mossèn Così knows what he is talking about.

*

6 August
. In Canadell there is a young lady who is so distinguished and posh that she calls a barometer a ‘baarrometer'. On the other hand, fishermen call a thermometer a ‘tarmometer'.

After reading Carles Riba's wonderful translation of
The Odyssey
, what one most misses, in the air along this coast, is the smell of grilled meat, hecatombs of oxen and calves spread on the pagan strands in the era of Homer. This scent makes you daydream. The smell of pinecones is very pleasant. The smell of shellfish is intense rather than substantial. The southwesterly wafts a briny smell. What we lack is the strong, manly smell of legs of beef being grilled. This country would be complete, would be sensational with this additional aroma.

I observe three or four fourteen- or fifteen-year-olds making holes in the walls of the wooden beach huts with their catapults so they can watch the ladies undressing when it is time for a swim. It is always amusing to compare perennial schoolboy tales with the touchstone of reality.

In my adolescent days we too made holes in beach hut walls. However, it is evident that these lads work in a much more discreet, coordinated fashion. While one is twisting his catapult, two or three others provide a screen so nobody can suspect what he is about to do. In my day we were much more blasé. We made our holes out in the open and made no attempt to camouflage or keep secret what we were doing. No doubt about it: on this point, we won the day.

Because of the war there are a number of families in El Canadell who would normally live in France and Germany. They've taken refuge there while they wait for the war to end. These families have spent their lives doing business together, have always been acquainted and are related, be it closely or distantly. Now war has come between them. They have quarreled and spend their time scowling or grimacing at each other. When they meet on the beach or anywhere else, they create a spectacle, the amusing spectacle a head-on meeting of Marshal Hindenberg and General Foch would generate. They go rigid and defiant and only refrain from trading insults or coming to blows because too many people are around.

From one day to the next, Xènius now flourishes the idea of the moral unity of Europe. It is an admirable, sublime idea, but the situation in El Canadell shows how that moral unity has splintered. It is sad to have to acknowledge that the importance we accord to the most sublime, rapturous principles depends on circumstance. Man is no rational animal. He is a sensual beast.

*

22 August
.Yesterday was a bad day. A light easterly wind (or wind from the eastern plains). Intermittent rain. Holidaymakers at a loss. Their houses are too small to withstand a cloudburst. The fishermen keep their clogs on all day. The novel phenomenon of clogs echoing along streets. Today people have returned to their espadrilles. Everything has dried out. A lively wind from the north and blue sky, and it's as if everything has resurrected anew. The chill in the air has gone. At any rate, the breeze is lighter, less invasive and the sultriness has gone too. The gentle wind is so pleasant it is like a splash of cool water on the cheek.

Hermós is fixing a trawl line in the shadow from a boat hauled up on the sand. I go over when he calls. He takes off his skipper's cap to reveal a sizeable whitish-yellow bald patch. Small, separate drops of sweat run down his pate. His face is ferocious and hairy with an anthropoid's flared nostrils and flabby lips.

‘So he says the war is coming to an end?' he comments, knocking a fishhook on the rim of the boatside.

‘Who does?'

‘A gentleman wearing shoes, in the café…'

‘Good heavens!'

After a long pause he declares: ‘Anyway, it's bad news.'

‘It's bad news to say the war is coming to an end?'

‘Yes, wars produce fish.'

‘Come on!'

‘I'm telling you! The voice of experience. I've had a new net made for catching argentines. I'm about to dye it. If the war ends, you can say goodbye to the argentines. You won't see one for love or money… Fish like noise, buzz, cannon fire, disasters…'

Sometimes, contact with humanity can be depressing.

Hermós said this with eyes that saddened as he spoke: his eyes believed what he was saying. My depression deepened. I never know what to say in these circumstances.

Fishermen like to sing – particularly songs with a lyric the mouth can relish to tunes rocked by the roll of the waves.

A fisherman from Calella who is fond of singing says to me: ‘I'd much rather be able to play the guitar than have a fancy mausoleum…'

When he speaks of his companion who he thinks is singing out of tune, he says: ‘When he sings it's like a fire crackling…'

*

3 September
. The war has lasted over four years – four years and one month to be precise. The number of dead, the amount of suffering, the volume of destruction and devastation the war has produced is beyond words. The arguments between Francophiles and Germanophiles have evaporated. It is impossible to sustain such tension for four years. People simply think about making money… and tomorrow is another day. If war wasn't ingrained with the arrant idiocy of cosmic phenomena, if war was triggered by the convergence of forthright, determined wills, it would shape and demonstrate human pettiness more clearly than any other act or argument – more than if a million tons of rocks were to crash on our backs. Human pettiness is indescribable. It makes absolutely no difference whether people do or don't think – whether they do or don't believe.

Watching how war impacts on certain individuals is an exercise in the observation of absurdity. A large number of
nouveaux riches
have had gold, silver or porcelain teeth and molars fitted – whole sets of teeth. Some have naturally horsy features. Others tend to create a similar effect by having huge teeth or dentures fitted that are quite out of proportion with the human mouth – veritable equine items of dentistry. In years to come, when these characters hear the name of Verdun, they will think: ‘Ah, Verdun, Verdun, oh right, that was when they fitted me with those teeth that proved to be so heavy I had to have them out…'

Only a few days ago Mr. C. was telling me with candid glee: ‘Well, surely you wouldn't want to deny this? We made a nice little pile out of this war… And you'll never guess what I told my good lady… You know, I told her: “Emília, we should have a water closet installed”. “Are you really sure, Artur, are you sure…?” my wife replied. I felt she was being excessively cautious. A few words did the trick: I summoned the plumber, and he installed the W. C. in next to no time. You realize we couldn't go on like as before, not for a single day more. It has quite transformed our life, do you see?'

*

4 September
. I bump into Marià Vinyas from Sant Feliu de Guíxols on carrer de Cavallers. He is perhaps the best performer of Chopin in these parts. Tall, elegant, urbane, smart and incisive, he still bears traces of style from the era of modernism. Like his close friend, Cambó, he wears his collar too high and too stiff. He tends to hold his back rather stiff to boot. Nonetheless, Vinyas is extremely witty and contemporary ways haven't dimmed this excellent side of him.

We talk about Juli Garreta, the composer of
sardanas
.

‘You know, we are good friends. A delightful man. We began playing together. He is a man who knows nothing much with any precision or detail but endlessly fresh, dynamic music pours from him. He is a miracle of infallible spontaneity and the best musician we have at the moment and I think his best is yet to come. He is very fond of rain. When it rains, he
enjoys
it like a lunatic. He was telling me yesterday that what he would most like would be a house in a barren waste, an isolated farmstead, so he could repair there on rainy days – repair there in order to see and hear the rain…'

Vinyas pauses and adds: ‘Last week he went to Roses on some business or other. He saw a local girl, probably a fishwife, beautiful, buxom and brimming with energy. He thought he'd seen a Greek marble statue and wrote a
sardana
. On his return to Sant Feliu he asked Rafael Pitxot to give it a Greek name, a dedication to a young woman. Pitxot laughed and said: “Call it ‘Nydia'”. Now, I do believe “Nydia” is the best
sardana
ever written in this country. It is truly wondrous…'

I reluctantly bid farewell to Vinyas. We friends that live in the Ampurdan are close neighbours but never meet. It is inexplicable, most peculiar. If we had more frequent contact, perhaps we would waste less time.

In the café, Joan B. Coromina says: ‘The perennial, if not the only problem with easel painting is this: is it or isn't it a good likeness? A painting is either realism or trash.'

Coromina makes this judgment as a result of his – very understandable – fascination for the paintings by the old artist, Gimeno, who continues to paint – in a famished, feverish state – the solitary fastnesses of Fornells. His opinion is possibly too judgmental. I think there is much more one could say…

We Francophiles are all smiles. At last we are beginning to throw off our obsession with Germany and this makes us feel lighter hearted. It is like being weaned off margarine.