Winter Journey

With Hope in His Hands

ecause 1 want to see the sunset again from the Sau Valley." "That seems like a stupid kind of reason for risking your life."

"When 1 was young, 1 came back from Saxony because 1 was homesick."

"You'll always be a fool."

"Yes. I'll always miss Sau."

The two men were standing under the savage sun, which fell hard on the back of their necks, taking their time to empty the stinking content of their pails, making it look like the shit was sticking, delaying a little longer and keeping their voices low, so no one would imagine they were having a conversation under that cruel sun. Oleguer truly did miss Sau and its imposing landscape. But what really consumed him, and the reason for the whole thing, was finding out why Celia didn't write to him. Twelve years of rats and cockroaches, waiting every day, every minute, every second of his life for a letter that never came.

"You've never seen a sunset in Sau," he replied to Tonet, so as not to have to bring Celia into the conversation.

"1 don't need to. 1 don't want to escape. If they find out, they'll kill you before they ask a single question. 1 don't want to know anything about it. You haven't told me anything." And he turned to leave with his empty but still stinking pail. Oleguer raised his head, discouraged, and saw that mean-faced soldier looking right at him, a sprig of rosemary in his mouth, his eyes bright with hatred of all the pitiful bastards locked up in the prison of the glorious King Ferran.

Six years ago, when planning the first attempt to get out, he hadn't kept anything back and had told his secret to Massip, the one he'd chosen for the escape, who, chewing on a blade of dry grass, had replied, Very nice, but what you should do is forget all about your damn daughter.

"Don't call her damned. I don't know why she doesn't write to me."

"Because she doesn't care a fig about you."

"No: she might be busy. She might've gotten married, maybe she has lots of children and…"

"You're an idiot," Massip had answered. "But I wish 1 had a daughter to miss. And who knew how to write, on top of it. And forget about escaping. I'm afraid to try."

At the time, Oleguer Gaulter had been forced to give up on the idea, because he couldn't carry out his plan alone and he knew that the only person with whom he could do it was Massip, the only prisoner for whom he would put his hand in the fire. The rest of them, if they knew about it in advance, would give away the plot to gain some tiny advantage with the warden. For if those walls had succeeded in anything, it was in degrading everyone inside to the point of taking away their sense of shame.

How things change: seven months later, Massip begged him to explain the escape plan, because of an emergency. They could talk in the yard then, in the morning, because the warden at the time had granted them a longer break, despite the unspoken indignation of the sullen jailers and the soldiers in the garrison.

"You'll have to climb out in the dark. It's the same plan."

"I don't care. That's great."

For three nights, behind the backs of their cellmates, they made sure that more or less at midnight, at the changing of the guard, everyone in the prison was asleep and they could help one another climb onto the roof, using the rope he'd braided with infinite patience out of hope and straw. From there, if they weren't afraid of the fall, the height of two tall men, they could get away across the fields, even if one of them broke a leg, and try to endure the pain until they got to the forest where, unless they were hunted with dogs, they could consider themselves almost safe. Massip, who seven months before had turned up his nose because the plan left too much to chance, had to admit that it was the only way possible. Three days earlier, they'd taken him to the warden's office and read him the official decree. Then he'd gotten the trots and gone running to Oleguer to ask, Hey, friend, what about that plan of yours?

"You'll have to climb out in the dark. It's the same plan."

"1 don't care. That's great," Massip had said. "I'll escape with you. And let's do it right away," he added. Oleguer decided it would be the first time when the midnight moon didn't turn the night yellow. Five days, Massip. But everything came to an end because, incomprehensibly, they put the date of the execution forward, and Oleguer's plan and Massip's life were both destroyed. The wretch had taken Oleguer's secret with him to the miserable tomb of the prisoners of the mad king Ferran, the sixth of that name, of the Bourbon line.

And so, and in memory of poor Massip, he'd spoken of the sunset in Sau only to Tonet. Tonet, the shit bucket in his hand, had looked at him askance and moved away. Oleguer, thinking about all of this, stopped leaning against the wall of the yard and went towards the setting sun, where there were no other prisoners to call him crazy. He trusted no one, but if in the end he'd chosen Tonet, it would be Tonet, who was as small and as slight as Massip. He spent the time that hung heavy on his hands thinking of Celia, of those who'd died, of Master Nicolau, of the landscape of Austria and of Saxony, as different as their language, which he'd come to master after the six or seven years he spent there. And when he tired of reviewing his memories, he spent his time perfecting the escape plan he'd explained to Massip. He knew that after midnight, when the watch changed, most of the sentries took the opportunity to get some sleep, because nothing ever happened in the prison and it was so dark that it was impossible to take a step without falling into one of the holes or poorly covered drains in the yard. What the jailers didn't know was that, after twelve years, Oleguer's eyes, besides getting paler-more from hopelessness than from the darkness-had adjusted to seeing in the dark, like cats' eyes. Another thing they didn't know was that, instead of the predictable route through the yard, he planned to go over the roof, where it was impossible to take a step at night without risking your neck. And why doesn't she write to me one single time? Just once?… He'd sent her seven letters during the first seven months. A comment from the previous warden to the effect that she didn't seem to want to answer made him stop writing for a time. For fear of seeming pathetic? No: so as not to annoy her. But a few months later he went back to writing brief, imploring notes, in which he said, Celia, my daughter, just let me know you're alive, that you're well, that you've married, that you have children, that you remember me. Just a sheet of paper saying, Hello, Father. 1 don't ask for anything else. Hello, Father; it's what 1 most want in the world, Celia.

Then they changed the warden and put in that bastard Rodenes, who called himself baron without being one and who enjoyed watching the bodies of his herd grow thin because of the villainy for which they'd been imprisoned. No more walking in the yard and a return to the convent rule of perpetual silence, too much squawking. Then they even forbade writing, or do you think we should burden the royal mail with your drivel? You shouldn't have committed a crime in the first place. And six years went by like that, or maybe seven, waiting every day for Celia's letter. For that reason, and not because he missed the sunsets in Sau, which he could hardly remember, he'd decided to escape from His Majesty's prison.

When he was seven years old, his father, who had moved from Sau to Barcelona, apprenticed him to the workshop of Nicolau Saltor, the master organ builder. Had his father known that, by putting him in contact with Master Saltor, he was condemning his son to a life sentence at the age of forty and to dying, rotten inside and out, locked up in the most squalid penitentiary in the country, he would surely have taken him back. But that's the thing about destiny: it reveals not the whole story, but only the little piece it chooses, and then it misleads you with an ambiguous snicker.

And so, unaware of his fate, Oleguer soon stood out in the workshop of Master Saltor. He was an apprentice for only a short time. At the age of fifteen he was the master's ear in the lengthy process of tuning the pipes, and his hands carressed the metal, the wood and the felt, and his mind penetrated the secrets of the complex mechanical miracle of the sound of the organ and the many ways of configuring an efficient wind-chest. He started to live life through the thousand sounds of the organ and, without realizing it, he was more or less happy.

He was shocked when, the next day, as they were going back after emptying the buckets, Tonet said, Fine, yes, I'm interested. I'm tired of shitting in a pail. But first you have to tell me exactly how it's going to work.

They had to wait until they were in the yard. Sitting in a sunny corner, so no one would bother them, he explained, without wiping at the sweat that ran down him, that he'd had the key to the cell for twelve years, since the day after being locked up. That it had been a piece of luck; a jailer you don't know dropped it in the corridor and nobody realized that it bounced off something and ended up by his feet, inside the cell. He hid it in the straw, without knowing if he'd be able to use it, and after looking for it unsuccessfully, all they did was make a copy of the key instead of changing the lock. And a few months later, by dint of patiently watching the movements of the jailers, he found out that the same key opened the door at the end of the corridor, the one that led to the attic and, through a hole in the chimney, to the roof. For a dozen years, the key had burned in his mind, but he'd been able to keep the secret until it was the right time for the escape. Yes, over the roof. Where they least expected it.

"1 won't be able to get through the hole in the chimney."

"Stop eating for a few days. 1 can get through it."

"If we get onto the roof… we could break our necks."

"Yes. But they don't guard the roof."

The soldier with the gray beard and the sprig of rosemary was observing them from afar, with such a nasty look on his face that it seemed as if he could hear their words. When Tonet had heard everything, he sucked in air, put a hand on Oleguer's back and said, in a whisper, "It's impossible." And after pausing and looking at the soldier who was watching them, "But I'm coming with you. On one condition."

"What."

"That Faner comes with us."

He should have thought of that. Tonet and Faner were always together. They were hand-in-glove, and when he told Tonet about the escape, he hadn't thought of that. He thought through all the steps, imagining them now with Tonet and Faner, who was even scrawnier than Tonet.

"All right, Tonet," he sighed after a moment, "Faner can come if he's willing to break a leg." He smiled wearily and added, "But if he squeals, I'll kill him."

And that was how they decided to escape in two weeks, when the moon was again on the wane. Oleguer spent what were to be his last days in prison sitting, his back against the wall of the cell, his hands clasped behind his neck, thinking of Vienna, which he knew almost better than Barcelona. When King Carles gave up the throne, he called together part of the court he'd had in Barcelona and a group of generals and officers sympathetic to Austria. It was the express wish of the queen that Master Nicolas Saltor go to Vienna as well. Oleguer, only nineteen years old, his parents dead and his eyes eager to see new things, went gladly into voluntary exile as assistant to Master Nicolas, to serve the king who in Vienna became an emperor and changed his name from Carles to Karl and his number from third to sixth.

Then, exactly then, when Oleguer was counting down the days in prison, leaning against the wall with his hands behind his neck, thinking about Vienna, about Celia, about Sau, about the death of Maria, about the terrible news that his heart had told him about Pere, they replaced the bastard Rodenes. No one breathed for a few days, praying that the routine of the prison wouldn't change, that everything would stay hopelessly the same, and escape would still be possible. And after the forest, if his legs were whole, he'd get a carter to take him to Vic, and the first thing he'd do would be to go to the house to see if Celia still lived there. Or if there were new tenants who could tell him where she'd gone. And he'd look her in the eye and say, Don't worry, I'll leave right away, my dear daughter. 1 don't want to bother you… But why haven't you written to me even once in twelve years, not even once? Your letters would have given me hope. Just having the paper in my hands, life would have been less painful. The day the troopers came looking for me with an arrest warrant because the framework of the Augustine's organ had collapsed and crushed two friars, 1 saw your eyes shine like pearls, my darling, with the tears you didn't shed to keep from making things worse. And 1 only had time to say, Go to Bertrana's house, they'll take you in, it's only for a few days. But it turned out that one of the dead friars was the head of the order, and was some kind of cousin to a minister of the mad king, and the few days had turned into a few years with a recommendation of special treatment. And 1 kept writing, Sweetheart, how are things at Bertrana's, what are you doing, I'll be back soon. And from you, nothing, And because 1 hadn't felt my heart skip a beat, 1 kept on writing.

Because one day, Massip had said, God forbid, but maybe she's dead. And he managed to smile and say, Come on, 1 would've known, the way 1 knew about my Maria, who died when he was away from home, repairing the water damage to his organ in the cathedral of Manresa, which took him two months. And while he was tuning, still unsatisfied, the bassoon pedals on the epistle side, he felt his heart skip a beat at the very moment, they told him later, that Maria had given up the ghost all of a sudden, without warning. And when Pere went under the wheels of that cart, he, who was walking from Prats to Moia, with a good contract for the repair of three harmoniums, turned right around, lost the contract and, just as he feared, he'd lost his son and heir. And my heart hasn't skipped a beat, Massip. My Celia is alive and well, but I can't imagine why she doesn't write to me.

They fired Rbdenes and replaced him with a thin, sober and quiet man who kept his candle lit until well after midnight. For the first few days the guards were always exchanging looks, trying to figure out how far they could go and how much trouble the new warden was going to be.

On his cot in the murk, Oleguer was thinking about Celia, and to get her out of his head he reminisced about Vienna, the two years he lived in the still-unfinished Schonbrunn, working on the great organ in the Imperial Chapel, the next-to-last organ signed by Master Saltor before he succumbed to the fever that destroyed him. The emperor had been so pleased with the work he'd done that he gave Master Saltor permission to go and visit all of the organs in the empire and in Germany. A long year spent traveling, listening, playing, remembering, comparing and learning the deepest secrets in the impossible pursuit of the perfect instrument. It was in the year 17, when Oleguer had turned twenty-two, that Master Nicolau Saltor accepted the commission in Markkleeberg and set up a temporary workshop on the green banks of the Pleisse. With unusual rapidity he built a positive organ that was not very large but produced an angelic sound, for the town's Lutheran church. Oleguer knew that it was the best organ his master had ever made. And the master was glad to leave a sample of his talent in an unknown and lovely Saxon town. He had a metal plaque engraved with Saltorius barcinonensis me fecit, anno 1718, and he died, happy.

A week later, Oleguer felt sure that the escape plan was still workable. He informed the other two conspirators, who, on the sly and with great difficulty, were making a thin rope from wisps of straw from their pallets. And they agreed that there would be a new moon on Friday the seventeenth and they would escape that night, even if there was a thunderstorm. What they hadn't taken into account was the new warden's capacity for work.

The day came; the night came. With beating hearts, they waited for the other occupants of the cell to go to sleep and the jailer's light to grow dim as he went down the passage, so they could breathe freely and take the key from its hiding place. Their cellmates, one after another, began to snore peacefully; but that night the jailer's light, instead of growing dim as it was supposed to do, as it had done for thousands of nights, grew stronger. And, horrified, they saw that someone was opening their door. The jailer, the one whose mouth was black with cavities, pointed at him and said, You. And he smiled a cruel smile, showing his devastated teeth. The other two were breathless with fear; Oleguer was crushed. He didn't know how they could have found out about the escape plan. He looked at his co-conspirators accusingly, but they were too terrified to raise their eyes. Resigned, he followed the jailer and thought, I'll never see Celia's pearly eyes again. If only she'd sent me one letter… Like lightning the image of Master Saltor's burial flashed in his mind, and his decision to take on the commissions that his master had accepted in Markkleeberg, and the sensation of being all alone in the world because his parents were gone and his master too, and he was alone to say yes or no, to go right or left, to bang his head against the wall until it cracked or to go down the long hall that led to the warden's rooms.

The new warden received him in his office, standing and looking towards the gloom that was barely visible beyond the dirty glass of the window, no doubt trying to make out the escape route. The oil lamp that they could see from their cell was lighted and illuminated most of the room. On the table was a stack of papers. The new warden sat down in his chair and directed Oleguer with a brief nod to stand before him and wait to be tortured or sentenced to death for trying to escape from a prison of His Majesty the mad King Ferran.

"You've been here for twelve years."

"Yes, my lord."

"Longer than anyone else."

"Yes, my lord."

As if he were alone, the warden picked up a stack of papers and looked at one of them. That gave Oleguer time to try and take his mind off his fear by thinking about the little workshop in Markkleeberg and the first, smallish organ that he had made, under Master Saltor's protection, for the private wing of the school of Saint Thomas in the populous city of Leipzig, only a few leagues from Markkleeberg. And then the longing had begun, not for Barcelona, where he'd grown up, but for the more distant and indistinct landscape of Sau, the place of his birth. And he didn't rest until he'd sold the workshop for a good price, made a detour to avoid going through Vienna, and gone back to the lonely and silent mountains of the valley of Sau, to think and to meet Maria, whom fate, always hiding behind a tree, never showing its face, had reserved for him. When he took the position of organ master in Vic, Maria was already pregnant with his son and heir. Celia wasn't born until three years later, after he'd made the splendid organs of the University of Cervera and the Cathedral of Manresa. And now he had to say goodbye, my beloved Celia, to the only person still left to him, because escape and intent to escape are punished with being hanged by the neck until dead.

The warden too had gotten distracted, but by reading those papers. As if he'd forgotten about the criminal whom he had to punish. Suddenly he folded one of the papers, very carefully, raised his head and looked Oleguer in the face for the first time.

"Have you ever received a letter?"

"Never."

"Who is Celia Gaulter?"

"My daughter."

Then, he picked up the stack of papers and pushed them across the table towards the prisoner.

"They're all letters from your daughter. She writes very well."

His legs began to tremble. Finally, finally, dear Celia, so many letters in one day, how is it possible? And all of them opened. The warden explained that his daughter had been writing to him regularly once a month and explaining everything that was going on, including the birth of his grandchildren.

"Grandchildren?"

"You didn't know about that?"

The warden gestured to him that he could keep the pile of letters. He didn't know whether to faint right there or wait to go back to the cell and do it. The warden, almost as if he were apologizing, said, "1 don't know why they haven't given them to you, but she's been writing for years." And he couldn't keep from adding, "It seems that 1 know your daughter better than you do."

And with a nod of his head he indicated that Oleguer could go back to the filth of his cell, with the rats and the cockroaches. But with the letters. He could hardly walk, but he held the object of his delight tight in his hands. He didn't faint. The thin and sober warden must have ordered the jailer to put a light next to the door of the cell in case he wanted to read some of the missives before dawn. When he entered the cell, he sat down on his pallet, breathing heavily, both hands clasping the fat heap of letters.

"What did they do to you?" Faner whispered. But Oleguer didn't have the breath to answer. He was too agitated.

"Did they say anything about us?" Anxiously, Tonet.

Then he became aware of their presence. It irritated him to have those two pests there, keeping him from being alone with Celia, child, and me telling Massip that you didn't write to me. Poor Massip, who's been dead for years.

By the faint light of the fixture unwillingly hung by the toothless jailer, he was able to read the first letter, which said, My father, how are you? Tell me what you need, because Bertrana's sister-in-law told me she knows a man whose brother is serving in a company somewhere there, and he'll try and help us however he can. 1 miss you, Father, it said; but he couldn't read anything more because his eyes were filling with tears and those sweet letters were getting blurry. Faner and Tonet were leaning over him, whispering, alarmed, What the hell's wrong? Is it the death sentence? And he shook his head and cried, hardly able to believe that his daughter had written him so many letters. Grandchildren. He had grandchildren. And he cried some more. Tonet and Faner looked at one another, confused. A minute later, the henchman came to take away the light and they were left in the silent dark.

"It's almost midnight," said Tonet a little while later.

He didn't answer. He had too much to do holding onto the pile of letters and thinking of his daughter's pearly eyes.

After a while Tonet repeated, "It's midnight." And then, energetically, "Let's go."

"I'm not coming."

"What?"

In the dark he handed them the key that he'd held onto for a dozen years.

"I'm not coming."

"But you…" Incredulous. "Don't you…" He didn't understand. "But you've waited years for…" Desperate. "Why, Oleguer? Why?"

"1 have to read my daughter's letters. I'll escape some other day."

"But… If we get away, you can see her."

"I've been waiting for so long," he muttered to himself, so the others could hardly hear. And louder: "Letters are meant to be read. You can go without me."

"But it's your idea. If we use it now nobody else will be able to do it."

"I have things to do. Some other day." And with a touch of impatience: "Go on. Good luck."

They looked at one another, stricken. Tonet shrugged his shoulders and said to Faner, Let's go. And, almost angrily, he pointed at the body on the pallet cradling a pile of papers: The damp has finally rotted your brain.

"You should get going," he said, eager to be alone.

The two conspirators got out of the cell with the key and disappeared silently down the corridor, towards the door that led to the attic. When the faint sound of their furtive steps could no longer be heard, he made himself comfortable on the pallet, using his daughter's letters as a pillow. That night, for the first time in twelve years, he slept soundly.