Voices of Pamano: Character Map, Family Trees, and Relationships
Full spoilers: this guide covers the entire novel, including its ending.
Two teachers give us our bearings in Jaume Cabré’s Voices of Pamano: Oriol Fontelles, working in Torena in the 1940s, and Tina Bros, who recovers his notebooks in 2001. Between them lie the Vilabrú family’s wealth, the Venturas’ losses, the Serrallacs’ gravestones, and several histories that people have reasons to conceal. A household name can replace a surname; a child can acquire another name and another family; the same resistance alias can belong to several men.
Start with the overview, then follow the family or period you need. The name lookup near the end brings the most confusing aliases together.
The main connections
Tina reads them as a father’s account intended for his child, then searches for that child and for people who remember the schoolmaster. Jaume Serrallac, once Oriol’s pupil, helps her question the village’s inherited version of events. Elisenda Vilabrú belongs to both periods: Oriol’s lover in the earlier story, she later finances the religious campaign built around his death.
Three connections prevent much of the confusion. Marcel is Oriol and Rosa Dachs’s biological son, adopted by Elisenda and Santiago Vilabrú. Lieutenant Marcó is Joan Ventura, Ventureta’s father. The older Jaume Serrallac is the schoolboy Jaumet grown old.
Oriol, Rosa, and the Vilabrús
Oriol Fontelles Grau. The schoolmaster is also an amateur painter, Rosa’s husband, and Elisenda’s lover. His visible association with the Falange gives Torena the image of a collaborator. Lieutenant Marcó recruits him into the resistance under threat and requires him to maintain that public cover, even with Rosa. Oriol shelters people at the school, carries messages, operates a radio, and takes part in armed action. His clandestine work coexists with compromising acts, including his participation in a prisoner’s mistreatment.
Rosa Dachs Esplugues. Pregnant when she accompanies Oriol to Torena, Rosa becomes disgusted with his accommodation of Targa. She pleads for Ventureta’s life and eventually leaves Oriol. In Barcelona she gives birth to a boy, Joan, whom she registers under her own surname. Her letter tells Oriol that their child is a girl, making it harder for him to find them. Tuberculosis brings her to the hospital in Feixes, where Renata cares for her and Joan.
Joan Dachs / Marcel Vilabrú i Vilabrú. These names belong to one person. Oriol’s repeated address to a “daughter” reflects his mistaken knowledge of the child. Sister Renata’s attempt to contact him reaches Elisenda after his death, and Elisenda takes charge of the boy. She and Santiago adopt him as Marcel. Much later, Tina finds the adult heir and delivers a copy of his father’s writing. He destroys that copy and uses what he has learned to pressure Elisenda over the family business.
Elisenda Vilabrú Ramis. The daughter of Anselm Vilabrú and Pilar Ramis grows into a landowner and businesswoman whose reach extends from Torena to Barcelona and Rome. Her father’s and brother’s murders govern her alliance with Targa. Her affair with Oriol ends catastrophically when she discovers his clandestine radio and orders Targa to kill him; she then tries to stop the shooting. Targa fires before she can save Oriol. Her later sponsorship of his beatification depends on the fabricated story that he died defending the tabernacle against the resistance.
Santiago Vilabrú. A distant relative from the Barcelona branch of the Vilabrús, Santiago is Elisenda’s husband and Marcel’s adoptive father. His business dealings include black-market transactions, and his affairs take him away from the marriage. Elisenda forces him to accept the adoption and altered inheritance arrangements. His death leaves her in command of the family’s expanding interests.
Mertxe / Mercedes Centelles-Anglesola i Erill. Marcel’s marriage to Mertxe is arranged by Elisenda and celebrated at Montserrat in 1971. Mertxe is the mother of their son, Sergi. An early separation gives way to a reconciliation engineered by Elisenda; the marriage later ends in divorce. She returns for the Vatican ceremony for a fee, as Marcel’s ex-wife.
Sergi Vilabrú. Marcel and Mertxe’s son is Oriol and Rosa’s biological grandson and Elisenda’s grandson through adoption. Elisenda is also his godmother. When she privately calls her grandson Oriol, she means Sergi.
The earlier Vilabrú generations
Marcel Vilabrú, Elisenda’s grandfather, lived from 1855 to 1920. His sons include the elder Josep Vilabrú, who died in 1905, August, and Anselm. Elisenda later gives the adopted child her grandfather’s name.
Anselm Vilabrú Bragulat is Elisenda and Josep’s father, Pilar’s husband, and August’s brother. A retired army captain, he is murdered during the Civil War alongside his son Josep Vilabrú Ramis, Elisenda’s older brother. This younger Josep is a different man from the uncle who died in 1905.
Pilar Ramis leaves Anselm and the children for Joaquim Ortiga. They live in Argentina, where she dies. Bibiana intercepts and destroys Ortiga’s letter announcing her death, so Elisenda never receives that account of her mother’s later life. Júlia of house Pona, in Sorre, is the woman the younger Josep loves and imagines marrying before his death.
Canon August Vilabrú Bragulat is Elisenda’s paternal uncle, a mathematician and cleric who oversees her education. He helps initiate Oriol’s religious commemoration, then learns enough to want the cause stopped. Elisenda’s use of confession traps him within the secrecy of his office. He is distinct from the village priests and from Tina’s son Arnau.
Elisenda’s household, lovers, and business circle
Bibiana, from house Moros in Baiasca, raises and protects Elisenda with a mother’s attachment. Her loyalty includes concealing family history. She is neither Pilar Ramis nor Elisenda’s biological mother. Ció and Carmina belong to later household service; Carmina is dismissed after overhearing the Quique scandal.
Romà Gasull is Elisenda’s lawyer, confidant, and business fixer. Adoption, inheritance, bribery, and the religious campaign pass through his hands. His devotion to her is unrequited. When Marcel tries to displace Elisenda, Gasull ultimately warns her.
Jacinto Mas, Elisenda’s chauffeur and enforcer, knows the family’s secrets and polices Marcel’s relationships. His claim to be Marcel’s father is a lie. When she dismisses him, he sexually assaults her; she resists and orders him out. Later accounts repeat his boast that they were lovers, but that boast is at odds with the narrated years of frustrated desire. After retirement he lives near his sister Nieves in Zuera; he collapses and dies just after a threatening visit from Gómez Pié. The scene leaves the means of his death unstated.
Quique Esteve, ski instructor at Tuca Negra, is Elisenda’s paid lover and Marcel’s skiing companion. He also initiates Marcel sexually. Mamen Vélez de Tena, Elisenda’s friend, is another of his lovers; he also recalls two weekends with Mertxe before her wedding. Mamen’s son Ricardito is among his sexual partners too. Her husband Ricardo Tena is a separate person. Elisenda dismisses Quique after Marcel’s wedding and threatens him into silence.
Ramona, a philosophy student and aspiring writer from Sants, is Marcel’s lover during his youthful rebellion. Jacinto pays and threatens her to end the relationship. Lisa Monells is another of Marcel’s university partners; Montse Bayo belongs to that student circle. This Ramona is different from the older woman of house Feliçó mentioned in Torena. Marcel’s village friend Xavi Burés, later an opposition councilor in Torena, is a different person from Arnau’s schoolfriend Paco Burés.
Nazario Prats, the provincial governor, participates in the family’s corrupt business dealings. Rafel Agullana, also called Burot, is a landowner involved in Elisenda’s acquisition of Tuca land; he is different from Rafael Gassia. Enqvist and Ahnlund are the Swedish partners in the ski development. Their business connections belong to the growth of Tuca Negra, rather than to the family tree.
Sister Renata and Dr. Josep Aranda link Rosa’s illness to Tina’s eventual discovery. Aranda treats Rosa; Renata cares for mother and child and makes the consequential telephone call. Madame Corine / Pilar Mengual runs the brothel where Gasull confronts Santiago with the adoption papers. Tita Recasens is Santiago’s companion there, and Notary Carretero assists with the legal documents.
The Venturas, Targa, and the resistance
The Ventura household
Joan Esplandiu i Rella / Joan Ventura / Lieutenant Marcó. The former smuggler is Glòria Carmaniu’s husband and the father of Joanet, Cèlia, and Rosa. “Ventura” comes from the house inherited by Glòria. Marcó commands resistance operations and recruits Oriol, whose public friendship with Targa makes him useful as an informer. His feud with Targa predates the war; the murder of his son gives their later confrontation its personal urgency.
Glòria Carmaniu / Mother Ventura. She tries to save Joanet, survives his killing, and later helps her husband lure Targa into a fatal trap. In Tina’s time she is the elderly woman living with Cèlia. Her conviction that Oriol betrayed the family comes from the public history she has lived with; Targa himself murders Joanet and falsely blames Oriol for the denunciation.
Joanet Ventura / Ventureta / Joan Esplandiu Carmaniu. The fourteen-year-old is Joan and Glòria’s eldest child. Targa interrogates him about his father, forces Oriol to take down a distorted version of the exchange, and shoots the boy. His grave eventually bears an inscription naming fascism as his murderer. He is a different Joan from both his father and Oriol’s infant son.
Cèlia Esplandiu / Cèlia Ventura. Joanet’s sister is one of Oriol’s pupils. Her unused exercise books become the notebooks in which he writes to his child. She survives into the later period and receives Tina alongside her mother.
Rosa Esplandiu Carmaniu / Roseta Ventura. The younger sister of Joanet and Cèlia becomes Jaume Serrallac’s first fiancée and dies at twenty. She belongs to the Ventura household; Rosa Dachs is Oriol’s wife.
Manel Carmaniu, Glòria’s cousin, suffers the confiscation of his land under Targa. He later tries to help the wounded Marcó and assists Glòria in burying him secretly in the Ventura courtyard.
Political allies, enemies, and concealed names
Valentí Targa Sau / Valentín Targa. Torena’s mayor and Falangist chief is also called its executioner. Elisenda pays him to avenge Anselm and Josep and supports his rise. Their initial bargain includes a sexual encounter, followed by her prohibition on further intimacy. His later claims of mutual love exceed that bargain. He kills Ventureta and Oriol, organizes other reprisals, and helps fabricate the schoolmaster’s martyrdom. Marcó and Glòria arrange his death: Marcó stages a road crash and kills Targa when the crash itself leaves him alive.
Andreu Balansó and Arcadio Gómez Pié are Targa’s henchmen, repeatedly identified by a thin mustache and curly hair respectively. Tina later interviews Balansó in Peñíscola. His account repeatedly stops short of the fatal instant in the church; the narration shows Targa firing. Gómez Pié’s later appearance in Zuera connects him to Jacinto’s final scene.
Isabel, nicknamed Snoepje in the Dutch translation, is Targa’s lover. She recognizes Oriol as the man who earlier tried to shoot Targa in Barcelona. Claudio Asín is Targa’s ideological mentor and a participant in the regime’s violence and commemorations. Colonel Silván and his assistant Benicio Fuentes belong to the military chain from which Oriol obtains information about patrols.
Eliot is a shared resistance alias. Oriol uses it, Marcó sometimes uses it, and other operatives do too; the name alone does not identify one man. J-five, rendered j-vijf in this edition, is Oriol’s radio call sign. Valdés is a resistance fighter associated with Marcó and Oriol. In the corpse episode, Morrot names the dead fighter whose body carries misleading papers downriver; Oriol’s notebook also gives that name to the dead man’s surviving Galician brother.
Máximo Cid commands the anarchist group responsible for the 1936 execution scene. He forces local Republicans to participate. Josep Mauri shoots Anselm; Rafael Gassia, of house Misseret, shoots Josep Vilabrú. Joan Bringué, of house Feliçó, refuses to shoot but burns Josep’s body under orders. The men have different acts within the same atrocity. Targa later hunts them as the objects of Elisenda’s revenge.
Cassià is Josep Mauri’s older brother. A careless remark about tobacco reaches Cecilia Báscones, the Francoist tobacconist, and exposes Josep’s long concealment at home. Felisa, Josep’s wife, shares his hidden life and mourns him. Targa has Josep killed and presents the death as suicide. Cecilia also supplies the claimed miraculous cure used in Oriol’s beatification campaign.
Feliu Bringué, Joan Bringué’s son, becomes Torena’s democratically elected mayor and restores older street names after the dictatorship. He is distinct from his wartime father. Pere Cases Tribó, of house Majals, is the appointed mayor who succeeds Targa. Marc Bringué, one of Tina’s pupils, is Joan Bringué’s great-grandson.
Priests and people passing through the school
Father Aureli Bagà Riba serves Torena in Oriol’s time and, with August’s support, becomes the first postulator—the priest promoting his cause for beatification. Father Fernando Rella belongs to the later village: he marries Marcel and Mertxe, baptizes Sergi, speaks with Tina, and accompanies the pilgrims. Father Llebaria is connected to August’s retirement home and confession; Father Dot hears Elisenda’s confession in Baiasca. Mother Venància, the Theresian educator, helps form Elisenda’s rigid childhood outlook.
Oriol shelters more than one group of refugees. Yves and Fabrice are boys from Lyon traveling with their parents and a dog. Oriol names the dog Achilles; it returns alone, stays with him for a time, then resumes its journey north. A separate party includes a Dutch mother, her two daughters, and a mathematician being taken toward Lisbon. The mathematician is not the woman’s husband. Marcó’s report of the Lyon family’s deportation is the source of Oriol’s knowledge of their fate.
Peret of house Moliner / Pere Moner Carrera, named Pedro Moner Carrera on his grave, is the photographer killed in the monument bombing at Sort. His wife is Encarnació. He is a different man from the Serrallacs who share the name Pere. Cinteta, Torena’s telephone operator, carries the calls that help join Oriol’s last day to Renata’s appeal from the hospital.
The Serrallac stonecutters
Pere Serrallac, the elder stonecutter, is Jaume’s father. An anarchist who must work under the dictatorship, he carves the stones through which Torena remembers its dead. He makes the original Ventura graves and promises that Joanet’s stone will one day tell the truth about his killing.
Jaume / Jaumet Serrallac is the boy in Oriol’s classroom and the older craftsman Tina meets. As a child he unknowingly carries Targa’s false message summoning Oriol to the church. His first fiancée, Rosa Esplandiu, dies young; he later marries another woman, has a family, and is a widower when Tina knows him. His father’s promise survives in the replacement Ventura stone.
Amèlia Serrallac, Jaume’s daughter, runs the stone business while her father continues skilled work and deliveries. The younger Pere is Jaume’s seven-year-old grandson, named after his great-grandfather. Cesc works in the shop; the novel does not give him a family tie to the Serrallacs.
Jaume initially distrusts Tina’s account of Oriol. Reading and conversation bring them closer, and his affection becomes explicit in his final address to her. Their friendship is not presented as a consummated love affair. After Tina’s death, he keeps her cat.
Tina’s family and later investigation
Tina Bros. A teacher in Sort and a photographer preparing a book about Pallars, Tina finds Oriol’s notebooks during the demolition of Torena’s school. She transcribes them, interviews villagers, follows hospital records, and finds the child to whom they were addressed. Her investigation runs alongside her marriage’s collapse, Arnau’s religious vocation, and her diagnosis of breast cancer.
Jordi Bofill / Jordi Oradell. Jordi, Tina’s husband and Arnau’s father, teaches alongside her and later serves on Sort’s council. He has an affair with the school secretary Joana. At the hotel he uses his second surname, Oradell. Tina confronts the couple and separates from him; his later monologue tries to justify his behavior.
Joana Rosa Candàs Bel / Rosa Bel. Joana is the school secretary who helps Tina obtain historical material and is also Jordi’s lover. Her hotel name combines her second given name with her maternal surname. She is different from both Rosa Dachs and Rosa Esplandiu, and from the other school secretary named Rosa.
Arnau / Arni. Tina and Jordi’s only son leaves his journalism studies to enter the Benedictine community at Montserrat. He wears a novice’s habit and obtains permission from his superiors to attend the final ceremony. Mireia, in Lleida, is a close friend whom Tina questions about his decision. Paco Burés, of house Savina, is his old schoolfriend and his connection to Mireia’s circle.
Maite, the school director, is Tina’s friend and colleague. Tina suspects her before discovering that Jordi’s lover is Joana. Ricard Termes and Miquel Darder belong to the school circle. Sergi Rovira, of house Ros, is Tina’s pupil, separate from Marcel and Mertxe’s son Sergi. Pep Pujol joins Marc Bringué in the pupils’ river-message project. Dr. Cuadrat is consulted about Tina’s breast lump; Dr. Aranda belongs to Rosa Dachs’s much earlier medical history.
Joeri / Joeri Andrejevitsj / Doctor Zhivago are names for the family cat. It watches the intruder in the opening and returns in Tina’s imagined conversations. Jaume takes it in after her death and calls it Kweeniehoejeheet, roughly “Don’t-know-your-name.”
The unnamed intruder copies and erases Tina’s files, removes papers and Oriol’s original notebooks, and plans to tamper with her car. Tina and the car are subsequently found in the Sant-Antoni reservoir before she reaches the hospital. The closing sequence strongly implies lethal sabotage, but does not name the intruder or explicitly identify who commissioned it.
Names, aliases, and repeated generations
House names stay attached to people even when their surnames differ. The Venturas make this especially visible: Glòria inherits house Ventura, her husband Joan Esplandiu acquires its name, and their children are called Ventura or Esplandiu in different scenes. The official Spanish forms found on monuments and papers can introduce another variation without introducing another person.
Name encountered | Who it refers to |
Lieutenant Marcó; Joan Ventura | Joan Esplandiu i Rella, Glòria’s husband and the resistance commander. |
Ventureta; Joanet Ventura | Joan Esplandiu Carmaniu, the commander’s murdered son. |
Joan Dachs; the infant Joanet; Marcel | Oriol and Rosa Dachs’s son, later Marcel Vilabrú i Vilabrú. |
Eliot | A resistance identity shared by Oriol, Marcó, and others. |
J-five; j-vijf | Oriol’s radio call sign. |
José Oriol Fontelles Grau | The Spanish-prefixed memorial form of Oriol’s name. |
Valentín Targa | The official Spanish form of Valentí Targa. |
Mertxe; Mercedes | Marcel’s wife, later ex-wife. |
Rosa Bel | Joana Rosa Candàs Bel, using part of her name at the hotel. |
Jordi Oradell | Jordi Bofill, using his second surname. |
Jaumet | Jaume Serrallac as a boy. |
Peret of house Moliner; Pedro Moner Carrera | The photographer Pere Moner Carrera. |
Madame Corine | Pilar Mengual, the brothel keeper. |
Snoepje | Isabel, Targa’s lover, in this Dutch translation. |
Doctor Zhivago; Joeri | Tina’s cat. |
For the repeated family names, keep the generations in view: grandfather Marcel Vilabrú precedes adopted Marcel, and Josep Vilabrú who dies in 1905 precedes Elisenda’s brother Josep, killed in 1936. Among the stonecutters, elder Pere is Jaume’s father, while younger Pere is Jaume’s grandson.
Times, places, and narrative voices
A short chronology
Period | Family and village changes |
1924 | The young Targa stabs Joan Esplandiu during their smuggling feud. Joan survives. |
1936–38 | Anselm and Josep Vilabrú are murdered; Elisenda later marries Santiago and recruits Targa as her avenger. |
1943–44 | Ventureta is killed. Rosa leaves Oriol and gives birth to Joan. Oriol’s resistance work and affair with Elisenda lead to his killing; the boy is adopted and renamed Marcel. |
1953 | Santiago and Targa die. Marcó returns to Torena, is shot during pursuit, and dies at home. Glòria and Manel bury him secretly. |
1957 | Tuca Negra opens as a ski enterprise, and the religious recognition of Oriol advances. |
1971 and afterward | Marcel marries Mertxe and later becomes Sergi’s father. Elisenda dismisses Quique; August dies. Marcel increasingly takes part in the family business. |
After the dictatorship | Jaume completes the truthful Ventura stone; Feliu Bringué restores old street names. Marcel and Mertxe’s marriage passes through separation, reconciliation, and eventual divorce. |
2001–02 | Tina recovers and researches the notebooks. Arnau enters Montserrat; Tina separates from Jordi. The Vatican ceremony and Torena monument honor Oriol while Tina’s investigation and life are brought to an end. |
Where the relationships meet
Torena is the mountain village of Oriol’s school, the Vilabrú home Casa Gravat (Huize Gravat in the Dutch translation), house Ventura, the Serrallac workshop, Sant-Pere church, and the cemetery. Sort is the nearby town of Tina’s school and later domestic life, also the site of the historical monument bombing. Torena and Sort are separate places.
Barcelona holds Rosa’s lodging in Poble-sec, Santiago’s affairs, and the later Vilabrú business world. Feixes is the hospital setting where Rosa and Joan’s history becomes recoverable. Ainet, in the Cardós valley, is the hotel meeting place used in both the earlier affair and Jordi’s later infidelity. Montserrat connects Marcel’s wedding with Arnau’s much later vocation. Rome and the Vatican frame the beatification, while the Sant-Antoni reservoir belongs to Tina’s final disappearance and discovery. Tuca Negra is the mountain and ski-development enterprise.
Whose account are we hearing?
Oriol’s first-person notebooks address the child he believes to be a daughter. Tina reads and transcribes them, but the novel also moves into scenes, memories, and thoughts beyond her knowledge. A sudden change in pronoun or speaker may carry us between a notebook, someone’s inner speech, a remembered conversation, and another period. The Vatican passages repeatedly gather the later family while opening onto its past.
Several stories acquire authority inside the novel without becoming true. Marcó does not kill Oriol; Targa does. Josep Mauri’s killing is disguised as suicide. Oriol’s public Falangist identity conceals resistance work, while his religious martyrdom conceals the circumstances of his death. The notebooks reach Marcel in a copy he destroys, and the originals are stolen from Tina. At the end, Jaume is left with his affection for her, her cat, and another life to remember beside the names he has carved.
Sources
Jaume Cabré, De stemmen van de Pamano, translated by Pieter Lamberts and Joan Garrit, Signatuur, Utrecht, e-book edition, April 2010; Dutch translation copyright 2007. This guide follows that edition’s narrative and dramatis personae. Its English descriptions are paraphrases, not quotations from an English translation. Original novel: Les veus del Pamano, 2004.
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