A Long Petal of the Sea(8)

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PROFESSOR MARCEL LLUIS DALMAU rapidly distinguished Roser from the rest of his students. In his desire to teach his pupils what he knew of music and life, he slipped in political and philosophical ideas that doubtless had more influence on them than he ever suspected. In this at least Santiago Guzman had been right. Experience had taught Dalmau to beware of those students who had too much facility with music, because as he often said, he had not yet come across any Mozarts. He had seen cases like that of Roser, youngsters with a good ear who could play any instrument, who soon became lazy, convinced this was enough for them to be able to master their art, and therefore could do without study or discipline. More than one ended up earning a living in popular bands, playing at parties, hotels, and restaurants, as what he called “cheap wedding entertainers.” He set out to save Roser Bruguera from this fate, and took her under his wing. When he heard she had been left on her own in Barcelona, he opened the doors of his home to her, and later on when he learned she had inherited a piano and had nowhere to put it, he removed the furniture from his living room and never once objected to her endless practicing of scales during her daily visits to them after her classes. Since Guillem was away at the war, Carme lent her the bed he normally slept in; this meant she could snatch a few hours’ sleep before she went to the bakery at three in the morning to bake loaves for the new day. From lying so often with her head on the pillow of the younger of the Dalmau boys, breathing in traces of Guillem’s manly smell, the girl fell in love with him, and would not allow distance, time, or war to dissuade her.



Roser came to be part of the family as easily as if she were a blood relation; she became the daughter the Dalmaus had always wished for. They lived in a modest house, rather gloomy and run down because it had not been looked after for many years, but spacious. When his two sons had gone off to war, Marcel Lluis suggested Roser come to live with them: that way she could reduce her costs, work fewer hours, practice the piano whenever she liked, and at the same time help his wife with the household tasks. Although some years younger than her husband, Carme looked older, because she went around panting for breath and coughing, whereas he was full of energy. “I hardly have the strength to teach the militiamen to read and write, and when that’s no longer absolutely necessary, there’ll be nothing for me to do but die,” she would sigh. In his first year of medical studies, her son Victor diagnosed her lungs as being like cauliflowers. “Damn it, Carme, if you’re going to die, it’ll be because you smoke so much,” complained her husband when he heard her coughing, without taking into account the tobacco he himself smoked or ever imagining that death would come for him first.

So it happened that Roser Bruguera, who was so close to the Dalmau family, was with the professor when he had a heart attack. She stopped going to her classes, but went on working at the bakery and took turns with Carme to attend him. In the empty hours she would entertain him by playing the piano, filling the house with music that soothed the dying man. She was present when the professor gave his last words of advice to his eldest son.

“When I’m gone, Victor, you’ll be responsible for your mother and Roser, because Guillem is going to die fighting. We’ve lost the war, my son,” he told him, pausing all the time to draw breath.

“Don’t say that, Father.”



“I realized it back in March, when they bombed Barcelona. Those were Italian and German planes. Reason is on our side, but that won’t help stave off defeat. We’re on our own, Victor.”

“Everything could change if France, England, and the United States intervene.”

“You can forget the United States: they’re not going to help us in any way. I’ve heard Eleanor Roosevelt has tried to convince her husband to intervene, but the president has public opinion against him.”

“They can’t all be against it, Father: you can see how many American young men in the Lincoln Brigade have come to Spain and are willing to die alongside us.”

“They’re idealists, Victor, and there are very few of those in the world. A lot of the bombs that fell on us in March were American.”

“But Hitler and Mussolini’s Fascism will spread throughout Europe if we don’t stop them here. We cannot lose this war: that would mean the end of all that the people have achieved and a return to the past, to the feudal misery we’ve lived under for centuries.”

“Listen to me, son: nobody will come to our aid. Even the Soviet Union has abandoned us. Stalin is no longer interested in Spain. And when the Republic falls, the repression will be dreadful. Franco has imposed what he calls cleansing, that is, outright terror, utter hatred, the bloodiest revenge; he won’t negotiate or pardon. His troops are committing unspeakable atrocities…”

“So are we,” retorted Victor, who had seen a lot.

“How dare you compare the two! There’ll be a bloodbath in Catalonia. I won’t live to suffer it, my son, but I want to die in peace. You must promise me you’ll take your mother and Roser abroad. The Fascists will take it out on Carme because she teaches soldiers to read and write: they shoot people for a lot less than that. They’ll take revenge on you because you work in an army hospital, and on Roser because she’s a young woman. You know what they do to them, don’t you? They hand them over to the Moors…I’ve got it all planned. You’re to go to France until the situation calms down. In my desk you’ll find a map and some money I’ve saved. Promise me you’ll do as I ask.”