A Long Petal of the Sea(34)
“Yes, I see it. What do I have to do?”
“I’m sorry, Roser…you’ll have to marry me.”
She gave him such a terrified look that Victor couldn’t help but smile, even though it didn’t exactly fit the solemnity of the moment. He repeated what Neruda had said about giving priority to families.
“You’re not even my sister-in-law, Roser.”
“I was married to Guillem without any certificate or blessing by a priest.”
“I’m afraid that doesn’t count in this case. To be frank, Roser, you’re a widow without really being one. We’re going to get married today, if possible, and register the child as our son. I’ll be his father; I promise I’ll care for him and protect him, and love him as if he were my own. And the same goes for you.”
“But we’re not in love…”
“You’re asking a lot, Roser. Isn’t affection and respect enough for you? At times like these, that’s more than sufficient. I’m never going to force you into a relationship you don’t want.”
“What does that mean? That you’re not going to sleep with me?”
“Exactly that, Roser. I’m not a scoundrel.”
And so, in a few minutes on that bench in the square, they made the decision that was to determine the rest of their lives, as well as that of the child. In the rush to flee, many of those forced out of Spain arrived in France without any identity papers; others lost them en route or in the concentration camps; but Victor and Roser still had theirs. Their Quaker friends acted as witnesses to the wedding in a brief ceremony held in the town hall. Victor had polished his new shoes and was wearing a borrowed tie; Roser, who was calm by now although her eyes were puffy from so much crying, wore her best dress and a spring hat. After the ceremony, they registered the child as Marcel Dalmau Bruguera, which would have been his name had his father lived. They celebrated with a special dinner at Elisabeth Eidenbenz’s maternity home that ended with a crème Chantilly cake. The married couple cut the cake and distributed slices to everyone there.
As Victor had promised Pablo Neruda, after exactly three days he returned to the office of the Chilean Legation in Paris and placed the marriage certificate and his son’s birth certificate on the poet’s desk. Neruda gazed at him from behind his sleepy-looking eyelids and studied him for several seconds, intrigued.
“I see you have a poet’s imagination, young man. Welcome to Chile,” he said at length, stamping the form. “Did you say your wife’s a pianist?”
“Yes, sir. And also a seamstress.”
“We have seamstresses in Chile, but we need pianists. Go with your wife and child to the Trompeloup port at Bordeaux, next Friday, as early as possible. You’ll leave on the Winnipeg at nightfall.”
“We can’t pay for the passages…”
“Nobody can. We’ll see. And don’t worry about paying for Chilean visas, as some consuls insist. I think it’s shameful to charge refugees for a visa. We’ll take care of that in Bordeaux as well.”
* * *
—
THAT SUMMER DAY, AUGUST 4, 1939, remained forever engraved on the minds of Victor Dalmau, Roser Bruguera, and the other two thousand or more Spaniards sailing toward that long, narrow South American country that clung to the mountains so as not to topple into the sea. None of them knew anything about Chile. Years later, Neruda was to define it as a long petal of sea and wine and snow…with a belt of black and white foam, but that would not have left the migrants any the wiser. On the map, it looked slender and remote.
The square in Bordeaux was teeming with people, a huge crowd that grew minute by minute, suffocating in the heat under a bright blue sky. Trains, trucks, and other vehicles crammed with new arrivals kept pulling up. Most of them had come straight from the concentration camps and were hungry, weak, and unwashed. Since the men had spent several months separated from their women and children, the re-encounter between couples and families produced dramatic, emotional scenes. They hung out of train windows, shouting when they recognized loved ones and falling sobbing into each other’s arms. A father who thought his son had died at the battle of the Ebro, two brothers who had heard nothing about each other since the Madrid front, a battle-hardened soldier who discovered a wife and children he had never expected to see again. And all this without any trouble, with a natural instinct for discipline that made the job of the French guards much easier.
Pablo Neruda, dressed from head to toe in white, together with his wife, Delia del Carril, also decked out in white and wearing a big, broad-brimmed hat, was overseeing the process of identification, health checks, and selection like a demigod. He was aided by consuls, secretaries, and friends seated at long trestle tables. Permission to board was granted with his signature in green ink and a rubber stamp from the Spanish Refugee Evacuation Service. Neruda solved the visa problem by issuing collective ones. The Spaniards were put into groups and had their photograph taken. Each one was quickly developed, and then someone cut out the faces and stuck them on the permits. Charity volunteers handed out snacks and toiletries for everyone. Each of the three hundred and fifty children received a complete set of clothes: Elisabeth Eidenbenz took charge of distributing them.
This was the day of departure, and the poet still needed a lot of money to pay for this immense transfer of migrants. The Chilean government refused to contribute, arguing that it would be impossible to justify the expense to a hostile, divided public at home. To everyone’s surprise, a small group of very formally dressed people suddenly appeared on the quay, volunteering to pay half of every passage. When Roser saw the group in the distance, she handed Victor the baby and ran to greet them. Among them were the Quakers who had taken her in. They had come in the name of their community to fulfill the duty they had set for themselves ever since their origins in the seventeenth century: to serve mankind and promote peace. Roser repeated to them what she had heard from Elisabeth, “You always appear where you’re most needed.”