The Arcades Project - Operi

Mter the vineY31-d, we rested on a narrow hillside-the same plateau where we met our
Greek a few weeks later, But that is another story. The sun had climbed high enough to
warm us, so it must have been about four to five hours since we had started out. We
nibbled on the food I had brought in my musette, but nobody ate much. Our stomachs had
shrunk during the last months-first the concentration camps, then the chaotic retreatfa
pagaille, or The To tal Chaos. A nation on the run, moving south; at our backs the
empty villages and ghost tuwns-lifeless, soundless, till the rattling of the German tanks
gulped up the stillness. But, again, that is another story, a very long one,
VVhile we rested, I thought that this road across the mountains had turned out to be
longer and more difficult than we could have guessed from the mayor's description. On
the other hand, if one were familiar with the terrain and didn't carry anything, and were
in good shape, it might really take considerably less time. Like all mountain people,
Monsieur Azema's ideas of distance and time were elastic. How many hours were "a few
hours" to him?
During the following winter months, when we did this border crossing sometimes
twice or even three times a week, I often thought of Benjamin's self-discipline. I thought of
it when Mrs. R. started whining in the middle of the mountains: " . .. don't you have an
apple for me ... I want an apple . .. ," and when Fraulein Mueller had a sudden fit of
screaming ("acro-dementia," we called it) ; and when Dr. H, valued his fur coat more than
his safety (and ours). But these again are different stories,
Right now I was sitting somewhere high up in the Pyrenees, eating a piece of bread
obtained with sham ration tickets, and Benj31Illn was requesting the tomatoes: "WIdl
your kind permission, may I . .. ?" Good old Benjarnin and his Castilian court ceremony.
Suddenly, I realized that what I had been gazing at drowsily was a skeleton, sun
bleached. Perhaps a goat? Above us, in the southern blue sky, two large black birds
circled. Must be vultures-I wonder what they expect from us, . . . How strange, I
thought; the usual me would not be so phlegmatic about skeletons and vultures.
We gathered ourselves up and began trudging on. '"The road now became reasonably
straight, ascending only slightly. Still, it was bumpy and, for Benj31nin, it must have been
strenuous. He had been on his feet since seven o'clock, after all. His pace slowed down
Some more and he paused a little langeI; but always in regular intervals, checking his
watch. He seemed to be quite absorbed by the job of timing himself.
TIlen we reached the peak. I had gone ahead and stopped to look around. The view came
on so sudden, for a moment it stnlck me like a fola morgana, Duwn there below, from
where we had come, the Mediterranean reappeared. On the other side) ahead, steep
cliffs-another sea? But of course, the Spanish coast. Two worlds of blueness. In our back,
to the north, Catalonia's Roussillon country. Deep down La Cole r1lleille, the autumn
earth in a hundred shades of vermillion. I gasped: never had I seen anything so beautifuL
I knew that we were now in Spain, and that from here on the road would nm straight
until the descent into the town. I knew that now I had to tU1l back. The others had
the necessary papers and visas, but I could not risk being caught on Spanish soil. But,
no, I could not yet leave this group to themselves, not quite yet. Just another short
stretch . ..
Putting down on paper the details which my memory brings back about this first time I
crossed the border on the Roule Lisle!; a nebulous picture surfaces from wherever it has
been buried all these years. 11nee womentwo of them I know vaguelycrossing our