A Barcelona Heiress (30 page)

“Yes, I thought so too. I’ve tried to avoid partisanship my whole life, harboring hopes that if I refused to be dogmatic I could stand aside and observe the clashes between ideologies without being dragged into them. But that was wishful thinking … Sometimes I think that it’s better not to expect much from life because then, when good things do happen, you’re pleasantly surprised. Ángel Lacalle warned me a few days ago that my name was on one of those sinister lists going around. My crime, apparently, was living in a small palace, despite the quantities of money I have given to charitable causes, some of them even, as you well know, supported by the anarchists themselves. In any case, it was bedlam in Barcelona, and there was nothing to be done but flee. But let’s not talk about politics. Let’s be positive. What about your children? And your wife?”

“Pilar stayed in Barcelona. She and the children will follow me in a few days. Lacalle promised me that he would get them passes to leave the city. We are all to meet in Italy, and we’ll decide what to do there. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I’ll try to reach Paris. I’m not as fortunate as you. I don’t have anyone to wait for. Solitude is something that has always allowed me to live as I please, but it also comes with a price that seems high at times. Luckily, I dedicate little time to feeling sorry for myself. I shall move to some pretty place where I can remember the good times and recall all the beautiful things that were part of my life. Do you remember when we met on that horseback ride on the Marquess of Llobregat’s estate? Or the party at The Ritz when the infantes came to Barcelona?
And those functions on behalf of the Red Cross, with their formidable and bossy marchionesses? Do you remember the streetcar strike, when you rode with me?”

“Yes, I also remember the gunmen, the civil governor who trampled on the law, and my cases as a public defender, killers degraded by poverty and ignorance, and when Lacalle and I were shot at. But I also remember when I saved that inheritance of yours thanks to the forgotten legal precept of the sacramental testament.”

“I think that there is a phrase which defines all of this. Dickens,
A Tale of Two Cities
. Come on, you knew it by heart!

“‘It was the best of times,’” I whispered, “‘it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair …’”

We kept on talking for a good while until the coast dwindled to a thin line of gray and brown, and many of the passengers began to drift toward the ship’s restaurant, as it was dinnertime, or head for their cabins. Isabel walked off to find some friends. Thus the stern was soon half empty, with almost nobody left to look back toward that land disappearing in the distance which we were not to see again for a long time. In an instinctive gesture I reached up to my lapel to touch and smell the flower I used to wear there. But there was nothing there, so I reached into my pocket in search of a cigar.

During the different phases involved in the drafting of this book the help of my wife, Mey, was fundamental and irreplaceable, while my children, Leticia, Sofía, Víctor and Nicolás spurred me to explore a few generations back in my family’s history.

Lluís Permanyer, Paco Villar, Borja de Riquer, Rossend Casanova, Silvia Ventosa, Ignacio Aramburu, José Luis García Abril, Luis Ignacio Manegat, Fabiola de Zuleta Alejandro, Jaume Susany, Eduard Susanna, Dani Cortejo, Colonel Jesús Alberto García Riesco, and, at Barcelona City Hall, Carla Vidal and Susana Crespo helped me analyze different sets of relevant information.

Baltasar Porcel, who will be sorely missed, gave me two good bits of advice which I tried to follow. Montse Sanpere, Juan Luis Oliva de Suelves, the Viscount of Güell, the Marquess of Llupiá, and the Count of Montseny generously shared their memories—and a few documents—of other times.

Of the many related readings undertaken, the works of Ferran Aisa on Catalonia’s anarchist culture were especially useful to ascertain certain details, as was León Ignacio’s classic
chronological study of the years of
pistolerismo
in Spain, during which union and business forces employed violent operatives and gunmen to advance their positions.

Lilian Neuman, José Enrique Ruiz Domenèc, and Dr. Juan Marí Palacín provided me with wise and practical advice on the text. Deborah Fernández and Ana Camallonga proofread the original Spanish text. On the home stretch, Emili Rosales buoyed me with his invaluable confidence and enthusiasm, as did Antonia Kerrigan and Pilar Lucas.

Though the generous assistance of Carlos Ruiz Zafón and Arturo Pérez-Reverte came as no surprise, it represented one of the most rewarding aspects of writing
A Barcelona Heiress.

Sergio Vila-Sanjuán
(Barcelona, 1957) is one of Spain’s most well-known cultural journalists and is currently coordinator of the
Cultura/s
supplement of the newspaper
La Vanguardia
. He received a degree in History from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and later, as a Fullbright scholar at Boston University, obtained a Master of Liberal Arts. Vila-Sanjuán has published several books on journalism, and was commissioner of the Barcelona Year of the Book and Reading, 2005. His first novel,
A Barcelona Heiress
, inspired by real historical events and by figures from his family background, received enthusiastic reviews and is currently being translated into several languages.

¹
Translated from: Pablo Neruda, “El Nuevo Soneto a Elena” (New Sonnet to Hélène),
Crepusculario
, 1923.