The Catalans: A Novel (25 page)

On the left there were screams of laughter: the delight was returning. A man with his clothes on backward and a mask fixed to the back of his head, but still more disguised in drink—drowned in wine—had done something so very funny that the man whom Alain asked could not reply coherently, choked and helpless with the laughter as he was. Alain stood up to see, but there was only the man being led away by his friends, the inane head wagging backward as he went.

In the moment of calm that followed, a thin man, covered from head to foot in a black cagoule, stood in front of the Gaudérichs’ table, to the right, a little way from Alain. He had chosen his time exactly, and the general attention was all upon him: and when he said to Gaudérich, pointing with his hand, “Is Naboth with you? Is Naboth enjoying the feast today?” everybody heard him, and it was clear from the hiss of indrawn breath that everyone had understood. Gaudérich himself turned livid: with a forced, uneasy smirk he darted his glance from side to side to see how many of his friends had heard.

It was Xavier’s return that saved Gaudérich’s rich and greasy face: he sat down beside Alain, and as he sat the first of the rockets soared up, to burst in an unearthly plume above the harbor.

The band was tuning: a row of oboes, long and straight, the double-bass behind, two trumpets and a bombardoon; and on the left, in front, a man with a tiny pipe and a tiny drum, the drum hung from the wrist of the hand that played the pipe while he beat it with the other: no strings, as strings; no strings at all.

The second rocket—whoosh and hoo-oo from a thousand upward-gazing faces. That one was red again. Now the third. Up up and hoo-oo-oo again, for this one was higher still: a split second’s pause before the great blue star opened, burst, expanded, and the evening was begun.

Alain, excited, his perception heightened, concentrated, heard the distant tap, the rocket’s fallen stick, and then the first shrill pipe screamed out. Quickly the people were clearing the space in front of the band: they were quieter now, and over the hum of voices the harsh shrilling of the little pipe pierced clear, unbroken, playing on four notes, a shrill, disturbing, warning scream.

“Is this it?” asked Alain, leaning eagerly forward.

“Is it what?”

“The sardana.”

“Yes. Of course it is. What else should it be?”

The lights, all the lights in the Place went out: some fool had turned the switch, but the instant angry roar showed so clearly that the crowd hated him and his joke that the fool, having hesitated for a moment, turned it on again. But in the darkness one of the musicians had dropped his papers from the balcony, and while they were recovering nothing could go on.

“. . . you forget that I have not seen it before,” Alain was saying through the noise. And indeed it was his first sardana, for it had not rooted itself in Saint-Féliu again the last time he was
there. They had danced it still in Cerbère, but it was the Spanish
Catalans who had brought it back to Saint-Féliu when they flocked over in their thousands at the end of the Civil War: and in his absence, the young people growing up with it, it had become as much a part of Saint-Féliu as the American vine on the hillsides.

There was quiet again: quietness and expectancy.

In the Place, naked lights hung in the trees

the leaves by them an unnatural brilliant green.

Below, were lines of people, a square

people lining the Place.

The front row sits on the warm paving stones—the warmth rises in the evening and the stones are soft.

And there are benches. Behind, the others stand;

some lean in doorways.

They are waiting the sardana.

Now the harsh tense vibrant screaming of the single pipe

before the music

and then the music. Loud discordancy

barbarous to an unaccustomed ear

unnatural intervals and time

a harsh high braying, crude, unripe.

No easy sweetness—here no dulcet chime

and thump, the nagging beat, irregular, unmeaning

but not to them.

The first men stand out in the open

just stand there, quite indifferent. Some old, some young

and now three girls. Join hands, a ring

but hardly move.

And over them and through the trees the crying spate of sound.

An undetected change in rhythm and the dance begins.

Small life, dull shuffled paces and the faces grave

some faces grave, some talking, grinning—jokes

but soon are grave and priestlike—hieratic is the word—and firm.

The steps are forming now, the ring expands

hands stretch out and others break the ring

break and join with hands, man woman man

are twenty paired—another ring down there behind.

Attentive heads, but what are they attending? Music? Are dance and music joined?

Or are these things on different planes?

The steps cut high, rope canvas shoes cut high

Eyes watching the opposing steps across the ring

Backs straight and high-held hands

the whole ring hangs downward from the hands

the puppet bodies hanging from the hands

and legs are hinged—the feet free from the bodies’ weight play off the ground.

The ring is hanging from the pulsing hands.

Now down: the ring contracts

it is symbolical perhaps?

the catching, netting fish?

he does not care.

Then high again, and wheeling now

half this way then half that

moved by laws he does not understand—no difference to his ear

and high, the leaping clean-cut high and springing steps

unchecked by weight—a flying, levitation?

not ever seen by him before.

And heads flung high.

Of course the music and the dance are one

dull clod he was those minute-years ago (but richer now)

The rhythm stops

a brutal thump. No more.

The hands go downward, centripetal in

a quick hard shake and now the pattern breaks

the fragments insignificant—a shopman or a sardine-factory hand

No longer priests.

The darkness and the shining trees are different now

a flat awakening

How far you were removed

Up and high—pierced, saturated with the music, rapt.

Relaxed now

but still unsatisfied and hungry for the next

waiting for the single pipe again

Wait long and hard and here it is again

harsh shrill stab right to the middle ear

a jet of brittle sound and longed-for pain.

After the second dance there was a long pause and Alain began to collect his scattered impressions. He turned to Xavier, saying “I think it is immensely . . .” But another man had joined them, and he and Xavier were talking in a low, animated tone, their heads leaned close together.

“Immensely impressive,” repeated Alain to himself, and he took a pull at his drink, but the ice had melted in the milky pastis long ago and the drink was tepid. The violence that underlay the music, or rather that ran through and through it, was not that Moorish? The deaf thumping of the little drum, that was, surely? He wished he had been to North Africa: there he might have found so many likenesses. But these easy voyages, one never took them. Even Cerbère, where this dance had persisted through the years of Catalan decay: he had never even been to Cerbère to see it, although that was in walking reach. Nor to Amélie to see the bears—or was that dance at Prades?

He looked out into the crowd: they were milling across the Place again, staring at the musicians, calling across to friends, horseplay, and little boys darting among the legs of the grown people.

“That is an almost pure Moorish face,” he thought, looking at one man, yellow-faced, untanned in spite of the long summer in the boats; a dark earth-colored face, momentarily unmasked. “Of course, they were here for a very long time. When was it they were driven out? The Morisco villagers, I mean.” He thought of the tall, thin Moorish towers in the land behind. “How vague one’s knowledge is. How one forgets. But half the people here have Moorish blood: we have, perhaps. Xavier would make a Berber chief.”

The band had drunk: they were passing down their glasses. They were arranging the next piece on their music-stands, changing their reeds, grunting into the bombardoon.

People were beginning to draw back to the edges, sitting down again, swearing that they could not see through those who were standing up. The music was going to start; but by now Alain was quite filled and saturated, and now, when the big rings formed, he could no longer watch and listen with that first absorbed intensity. But now he could see the little superficial things that he had missed before, the players and their motions, the fact that the dancers took off their masks (why? no answer came) and that even a plain girl looked beautiful if she had a well-shaped body, beautiful so long as she was in the ring, upright, held straight but supple in the dance. There were some who danced better than others; a young mason in brown trousers whose feet flew with such grace and true proportion that the music seemed to bear him up: it was he who was the leader of that ring; the inspiration ran from his hands round, and the girl next to him, who had danced indifferently the time before, was dancing now with all her soul, grave, concentrated, and anonymous—unconscious. Unconscious, that was it: once the dance was well begun all affectation went, no simpering, no coy restraint. Her hair was flying on her shoulders, and the ring went round.

If only Madeleine were there. Oh that would be a sight for God. He imagined her there, her hands held high, her back straight with incomparable grace. But did she dance the sardana? He did not know.

But of course she would not be there tonight, with the blundering wit of the town leveled at her: she would be at home, in that dismal house behind the angle of the wall. The Fajal men were there and women too: Pou-naou and Dominique he had already seen—just little dominoes, quite recognizable.

There was no room for all the dancers now: they were forming inner rings, concentric rings; and in the middle three alone: all dancing with abandoned gravity.

Xavier had gone. The little man who had been there talking with him was still there, and Alain recognized him as Lesueur, an employee of the police. He was not a man whom Alain liked, but he was a civil little man—a Frenchman—and he bowed to Alain, making some commonplace remark about the dance.

“Where is Maître Roig?” asked Alain when he had replied.

“You did not hear him?” said the man.

“No, not at all.”

“I thought as much, though you nodded at the time. He has gone to the scene of the murder.”

“I do not follow you.”

“But surely . . . did you hear nothing of what he said, then?”

“No.”

“I thought you were very calm. He told you the whole thing and said he would come back. So you heard nothing?”

“Nothing at all.”

“Well, seeing that he told you there can be no harm in my repeating it. So you were not paying attention all the time.” This seemed to fascinate Lesueur. He hitched his chair nearer, and leaning over the table he said, “He must have thought you were listening, of course. But all the time you were absent—distrait, as I might put it.” He had a curious air, this little man in civilian clothes, unmasked and ordinary, yet as strange among all those fantastic garments as if he were the one sole man disguised. Leaning still farther over, so that his breath was in Alain’s half-averted face, he shaded his mouth with his hand and said, “A fellow has stabbed his wife’s lover.”

“Am I wanted?” asked Alain, with his hands on the arms of his chair.

“Oh no,” said Lesueur with a smile. “He made a thorough piece of work.”

“Who?”

“Nadal, Etienne; rue de la Victoire. He was found by the husband, Batlle, Abdon, and killed in the very act.”

“En Sin-bargonya in the carrer dels Mors,” muttered Alain, translating rapidly: yes, he knew all about that. A sudden thought crossed his mind. “But he had lost his leg?”

“Yes,” replied Lesueur, “the dead man had a wooden leg.” With precise and disapproving solemnity he added, “That is what rendered the situation so indelicate.”

The music swelled up, harsh and menacing: it was hard and bitter music and Alain felt the horrible inconsistency of the wretched wooden leg—the inconsistency was underlined. High tragedy, the furious boiling of emotion . . . but the wooden leg. Lesueur was saying “I believe we shall have to congratulate Monsieur le Maire very shortly now.”

“You mean for his re-election?”

“No,” said the little man, smirking archly, “I mean the happy event: the young lady’s case went through this morning—very quietly: no fuss or opposition. Five minutes. But he has told you, of course.”

The refrain was beginning again and the rings spread out; this was the faster dancing, and the faces in the ring were shining under the naked lights.

Xavier had slipped back unseen into his place: he had been there for some time, for he had drunk his cognac and resumed his mask. Finding him there, Alain bent sideways across to say, “Can I be of any use?”

“No,” said Xavier. “It is all in hand.” He seemed happier now, well poised and confident; distinctly happier.