The Madre de Dios sailed with the trade winds for a few weeks more.
Coasting Spain, she passed Cadiz without stopping and headed toward the Strait of Gibraltar, the entrance to the Mediterranean controlled by the English, who were allies of Spain and enemies of Napoleon. With no major alarms, they followed the coast without putting into port, and finally arrived at Barcelona, the end of Diego and Bernardo’s journey.
To their eyes, the ancient Catalan port resembled a forest of masts and sails. There were ships of every origin, shape, and size. If the youths had been impressed by the little town of Panama, imagine the effect Barcelona had on them. The city lay proud and massive against a leaden sky accented with turrets, towers, and walls. From the harbor it looked like a splendid city, but in the dark of night the face of Barcelona changed. They were not able to debark until the next morning, when Santiago de Leon lowered dinghies to ferry his impatient crew and passengers ashore. In the greasy harbor hundreds of little launches were circulating among the larger vessels, and thousands of gulls filled the air with their squawking.
Diego and Bernardo bid farewell to the captain, Galileo Tempesta, and the sailors who were pushing and shoving to get into the yawl, in a frenzy to spend their pay on liquor and women. The auditor, meanwhile, had to carry his daughter, who had swooned from the foul odors in the air. And with good reason. When they reached shore, a beautiful and lively but unhealthful port awaited; deep in garbage, it was crawling with rats as big as dogs that boldly darted between the legs of a hurried throng. Wastewater ran in open gutters where barefooted children splashed in play and women emptied chamber pots from upper-story windows, yelling “Heads up!” to passersby, who had to jump aside to keep from being drenched with urine. Barcelona, with its hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, was one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Encircled by thick walls, guarded by the sinister La Ciudadela fort, and trapped between the ocean and the mountains, it had nowhere to grow but up. Garrets were added to houses, and rooms were subdivided into tiny cubicles where tenants crowded together without fresh air or clean water. Foreigners in assorted attire walked around the docks, insulting one another in incomprehensible tongues: sailors wearing striped stocking caps and sporting parrots on their shoulders, stevedores rheumatic from carrying too-heavy loads, rude vendors selling jerked beef and biscuits, beggars bubbling with lice and pustules, derelicts with ready knives and desperate eyes. Prostitutes of the lowest degree mingled with the crowd, while the more pretentious among them rode in carriages, competing in splendor with distinguished ladies. French soldiers trooped around prodding pedestrians with the butts of their muskets for the pure pleasure of annoying them. Behind their backs, women cursed them and spit on the ground. Nothing, however, could dim the incomparable elegance of that city bathed in the silvery light of the sea. When they stepped onto shore, Diego and Bernardo were so unaccustomed to walking on land that they staggered and nearly fell, just as they had on Flores
Island. They had to hold one another up until they could control the trembling of their knees and focus their eyes.
“And what do we do now, Bernardo? I agree with you that the first thing would be to rent a coach and try to locate the home of Don Tomas de Romeu. You say that first we ought to claim what is left of our luggage? Yes, you’re right.”
So they pushed their way through the crowd, Diego talking to himself and Bernardo a step behind, alert, fearing that someone would grab his distracted friend’s purse. They passed the market, where bovine old women were selling the produce of the sea, standing in puddles of fish heads and guts that were soaking into the ground beneath a cloud of flies. It was here they were intercepted by a tall man with the profile of a buzzard. In Diego’s eyes, judging from the blue velvet uniform, the gold epaulets of his jacket, and three-cornered hat perched on his white wig, he had to be an admiral. He greeted the man with a deep bow, sweeping the cobbles with his California sombrero.
“Senor Diego de la Vega?” the stranger inquired, visibly taken aback.
“At your service, caballero,” Diego replied.
“I am no caballero, sir. I am Jordi, Don Tomas de Romeu’s coachman. I was sent to look for you. I will return later for your luggage,” the man clarified with a frown, thinking that the youngster from the Indies was making fun of him.
Diego’s ears were beet red, and as he clapped his hat back on his head and prepared to follow, Bernardo was choking with laughter. Jordi led them to a slightly shabby carriage where the family majordomo was waiting. They rolled through tortuous cobbled streets leading away from the port, and soon came to a neighborhood of elegant homes and somber mansions. They turned into the patio of the residence of Tomas de Romeu, a large, dark, three-story house sitting between two churches. The majordomo commented that they were no longer disturbed by bells pealing at all hours because the French had removed the clappers as reprisal against the priests responsible for stirring up the guerrilla fighters. Diego and Bernardo, intimidated by the size of the house, did not even notice how rundown it was. Jordi led Bernardo to the servants’ quarters, and the majordomo escorted Diego up the exterior stairs to the piso noble, or main floor. They walked through salons in eternal shadow and icy corridors hung with threadbare tapestries and arms from the time of the Crusades. Finally they came to a dusty library badly lighted by a few candles and a dying fire in the fireplace. Tomas de Romeu was waiting there. He welcomed Diego with a fatherly embrace, as if he had known him always.
“I am honored that my good friend Alejandro has entrusted his son to me,” he proclaimed. “As of this instant you are a member of our family, Diego. My daughters and I will see to your comfort and contentment.”
De Romeu was a ruddy-faced, paunchy man of about fifty, with a roaring voice and thick sideburns and eyebrows. His lips curved upward in an involuntary smile that softened his rather haughty aspect. He was smoking a cigar and holding a glass of sherry in his hand, he asked a few courteous questions about the voyage and about the family Diego had left behind in California, then pulled a silk cord to summon the majordomo, whom he ordered in Catalan to take his guest to his rooms.
“We will dine at ten. You need not dress, we will be just family,” he said.
That night in the dining room, an immense hall with ancient furniture that had served several generations, Diego met the daughters of Tomas de Romeu. He needed only one glance to decide that Juliana, the elder, was the most beautiful woman in the world. Possibly he exaggerated, but it was true that the girl had the reputation of being one of the belles of Barcelona, as alluring, everyone said, as the celebrated Madame de Recamier of Paris had been in her day. Her elegant bearing, her classic features, and her raven black hair, milky skin, and jade green eyes were unforgettable. She had so many suitors that the family, and the merely inquisitive, had lost count. Gossip had it that they had all been rejected because her ambitious father wanted to climb a couple of rungs of the social ladder by marrying her to a prince.
They were mistaken; Tomas de Romeu was not capable of schemes of that nature. In addition to her remarkable physical attributes, Juliana was cultivated, virtuous, and sentimental; she also played the harp with tremulous fairy fingers and performed charitable works among the poor.