Cathedral of the Sea Page 5

  Then he turned his attention to the land by the shore. He could see five ships close in, near the island of Maians. This was another novelty: until that day, Bernat had seen only drawings of ships. To his right, he saw the mountain of Montjuic, which also swept down to the sea, and was surrounded by fields and plains; then the city of Barcelona itself. From the low promontory of the Mons Taber in the center, hundreds of buildings spread out in all directions : low houses built one on top of another, but also magnificent palaces, churches, and monasteries ... Bernat wondered how many people lived there, because all of a sudden, the buildings came to an end: the city was like a beehive crammed inside walls, with open fields beyond. There were forty thousand people living there, Bernat recalled someone telling him.

  “How is anyone going to find us amongst forty thousand people?” he mused, looking down at Arnau. “You’ll be a freeman, my son.”

  Bernat was certain they could hide in the city. He would look for his sister. But first he had to get in through a city gate. What if the lord of Navarcles had sent out a description of him? That birthmark of his ... But during the three nights of his walk down from the hills, he had been devising a plan. He sat on the ground and picked up a hare he had shot with his crossbow. He slit its throat and let the blood drip onto the small pile of sand he had cupped in his hand. He stirred blood and sand together and, as the mixture dried, spread it around his right eye. Then he put the hare back in his sack.

  As soon as he could feel that the mixture had dried, and he could no longer see out of his eye, he set off down the hill toward the Santa Anna gateway, on the northernmost side of the western wall. Lots of people were lined up to get into the city. Arnau was awake by now, and Bernat carried on stroking his head as he slipped in among the crowd, dragging his feet as he did so. A barefoot peasant bent double under an enormous sack of turnips turned toward him. Bernat smiled at him.

  “A leper!” shouted the peasant, dropping his sack and jumping out of his way.

  To his astonishment, Bernat saw the whole line of people in front of the gate rushing to one side or the other, leaving the track littered with sacks, food, a couple of carts, and several mules. Even the blind men clustered around the Santa Anna gateway began to stir.

  Arnau started to cry, and Bernat saw some of the soldiers at the gate draw their swords, while others made to close the heavy wooden doors.

  “Go to the lazaretto!” someone shouted at him.

  “But it’s not leprosy!” Bernat protested. “I simply got a branch in my eye! Look!” He lifted his arms and waved them about. Then, carefully placing Arnau on the ground, he started to take off his clothes. “Look!” he repeated, showing everybody his strong, healthy body, with no signs of disease or wounds. “Look! I’m a peasant farmer, but I need a doctor to cure my eye, or otherwise I won’t be able to work.”

  An official pushed one of the soldiers toward him. He came to a halt a few paces from Bernat and surveyed him.

  “Turn round,” he said, gesturing with his finger.

  Bernat did as he was told. The soldier looked him up and down, then shook his head to the official. Another man at the gateway pointed with his sword toward the bundle at Bernat’s feet.

  “What about the boy?”

  Bernat bent down to pick Arnau up. He stripped off his clothes with his right side pressed against him, then held him up horizontally, holding him by the side of his head so that no one would spot the birthmark.

  Looking back at the gate, the soldier shook his head once more.

  “Cover that wound,” he said. “If you don’t, you won’t get anywhere in the city.”

  The line re-formed outside the gate, which swung open. The peasant with the turnips picked up his sack again, avoiding looking at Bernat.

  Bernat passed through the gateway with one of Arnau’s shirts covering his right eye. The soldiers gazed after him, but made no move to follow him. Leaving Santa Anna church on his left, he followed the rush of people into the city. He turned right into the Plaza Santa Anna, looking down at the ground the whole time. As the peasants spread out through the streets, gradually Bernat saw fewer and fewer bare feet, or rope and leather sandals, until all at once he found himself staring at a pair of legs covered in flame red stockings, with tight-fitting shoes, made entirely of some fine material, that ended in such long points that at the end of each of them was a tiny golden chain that led back to the ankles.

  Bernat raised his eyes, and found himself staring at a man wearing an elaborate hat. He was dressed in a black robe shot through with gold and silver threads, a belt also decorated with gold, and leather straps sparkling with pearls and other precious stones. Bernat stood there openmouthed, but the man looked past him as if he did not even exist.

  Bernat hesitated, lowered his eyes once more, then gave a sigh of relief. The man had not given him so much as a second look, so he continued on his way down toward the cathedral, which was still under construction. Bit by bit, he plucked up the courage to look around. Nobody seemed to pay him any attention. He stood watching the workmen swarming round the cathedral: some were hewing stone, others were climbing the tall scaffolding that covered the building, still more were hauling on ropes to lift blocks of stone ... Arnau began to whimper, demanding his attention.

  “Tell me,” he said to a passing workman, “how can I find the potters’ quarter?” He knew his sister Guiamona was married to one.

  “Carry on down this street,” the man said hastily, “until you reach the next square, the Plaza Sant Jaume. There’s a fountain in the middle. There you turn right and continue until you come to the new wall, at the Boqueria gate. Don’t go out into the Raval neighborhood. Instead, walk alongside the wall until you reach the next gateway, Trentaclaus. That’s where you’ll find the potters.”

  Bernat struggled to remember all these different names, but just as he was about to ask the man to repeat them, he discovered he had already disappeared.

  “Carry on down this street to the Plaza San Jaume,” he whispered to Arnau. “That much I remember. And once we’re in the square, we have to turn right again ... That’s it, isn’t it, son?”

  Arnau always stopped crying when he heard his father’s voice. “Now what do we do?” Bernat said out loud. They were in a different square, the Plaza Sant Miquel. “That man only mentioned one square, but we can’t have made a mistake.” Bernat tried to ask a couple of passersby, but none of them stopped. “Everyone is in such a hurry,” he complained to his son. At that moment, he caught sight of a man standing by the entrance to ... a castle? “Ah, there’s someone who doesn’t seem to be rushing anywhere ... Begging your pardon,” he said, touching the man’s black cloak from behind.

  Even Arnau, strapped tightly to his father’s chest, seemed to give a start when Bernat jumped back as the man turned round.

  The old Jewish man shook his head wearily. He knew that Bernat’s reaction was the result of the Christian priests’ fiery sermons.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Bernat could not help staring at the red and yellow badge on the old man’s chest. Then he peered inside what he had at first thought was a fortified castle. Everyone going in and out was a Jew! And they all wore this distinguishing mark. Was it forbidden to talk to them?

  “Did you want something?” the old man repeated.

  “How ... how do I find the potters’ quarter?”

  “Carry on straight down this street,” said the old man, pointing the direction. “That will take you to the Boqueria gate. Follow the wall down toward the sea, and at the next gate you’ll find the neighborhood you’re looking for.”

  In fact, the Church had forbidden only carnal relations with the Jews; that was why it forced them to wear the badge, so that nobody could claim not to have realized whom they were consorting with. The priests always railed against them, and yet this old man ...

  “Thank you, friend,” said Bernat with a timid smile.

  “Thank you,” the old Jewish man replied
. “But in the future, take care that no one sees you talking to one of us ... let alone smiling at us.” His lips twisted in a sad grimace.

  At the Boqueria gate, Bernat found himself caught up in a crowd of women who were buying offal and goat’s meat. He watched them examining the wares and bargaining with the stallholders. “This is the meat that gives our lord all his problems,” Bernat muttered to his son, and then laughed at the thought of Llorenç de Bellera. How often had he heard him threatening the shepherds and the cattlemen who supplied Barcelona with meat! But he never dared go any further, because anyone taking livestock to the city had the right to graze them wherever they liked in all Catalonia.

  Bernat skirted the market and walked down to the Trentaclaus gate. The streets here were wider, and as he drew close to the gate, he saw dozens of pots, bowls, jars, and bricks drying in the sun in front of the houses.

  “I’m looking for Grau Puig’s house,” he told one of the soldiers guarding the gate.

  THE PUIG FAMILY had been neighbors of the Estanyols. Bernat well remembered Grau, the fourth of eight starving children who could never get enough to eat from their meager landholding. His mother had a special affection for the Puig children, because their mother had helped give birth to Bernat and his sister. Grau was the brightest and hardest-working of them all; that was why, when Josep Puig received a kinsman’s offer for one of them to become a potter’s apprentice in Barcelona, it was Grau he chose. Grau was ten years old at the time.

  But if Josep Puig found it hard to feed his family, it was going to be impossible for him to find the two bushels of white flour and the ten shillings his relative was demanding in return for taking on Grau for his five years’ apprenticeship. Added to which were the two additional shillings that Llorenç de Bellera demanded in order to free a serf from his obligations, and the clothes Grau would need for the first two years of his apprenticeship : the master potter had agreed to supply only what was necessary for the last three.

  This was what brought Josep Puig to the Estanyol farmhouse with Grau, who was a few years older than Bernat and his sister. Old man Estanyol listened closely to Puig’s proposition: if he endowed his daughter with the list of things Puig outlined and offered them to Grau at once, Puig promised his son would marry Guiamona as soon as Grau reached the age of eighteen and was a qualified craftsman. The old man studied the boy: sometimes, when Grau’s family was in dire need, Grau had come to lend a hand in the Estanyol fields. The boy had never asked for payment, but Estanyol had always made sure he went home with some vegetables or grain. He trusted him. He accepted the offer.

  After five years’ hard work as an apprentice, Grau became a qualified craftsman. He was still bound to the master potter, who was sufficiently pleased with him to start paying him a wage. When Grau reached eighteen, Grau kept his promise and married Guiamona.

  “My son,” his father said to Bernat, “I’ve decided to give Guiamona a fresh dowry. There are only two of us, and we have the best and most fertile lands in the region. They might need the money.”

  “Father,” Bernat interrupted him, “why do you think it’s necessary to give me an explanation?”

  “Because your sister has already received her dowry, and you are my heir. The money is yours by right.”

  “Do as you see fit.”

  Four years later, when he was twenty-two, Grau sat the public examination, which took place in front of four officers of the guild. He made his first pieces for them: a water jug, two plates, and a bowl. The four men looked on closely, and then unanimously granted him the title of master potter. This allowed him to open his own workshop in Barcelona, and of course to use his own stamp, which was to be put on every piece of pottery made in his workshop, in case there were any complaints about his work. To honor the meaning of the word “grau” in Catalan, he chose the outline of a mountain as his stamp.

  Grau and Guiamona, who by now was pregnant, moved into a small, one-story house in the potters’ quarter. By royal decree, this was situated on the western edge of the city, in the land between the new wall built by King Jaime I and the ancient Roman fortifications. They used Guiamona’s dowry to buy the property, having saved it for just such an occasion.

  It was there, with the pottery workshop and their living quarters sharing the same space as the kiln and the bedrooms, that Grau began his career as a master potter. It was a time when the expansion of Catalan trade was bringing about a revolution among the potters, calling for a specialization that many of them could not accept.

  “We’re going to make only jugs and storage jars,” declared Grau. “That’s all.” Guiamona glanced at the four masterful pieces he had made for his examination. “I’ve seen lots of traders,” he went on, “begging for jars to sell their oil, honey, or wine in. And I’ve seen lots of potters turn them away on the spot because their kilns were full of complicated tiles for a new house, bright crockery for a noble, or an apothecary’s pots.”

  Guiamona ran her fingers over the masterpieces he had created. How smooth they were to the touch! When Grau had triumphantly presented them to her after passing his examination, she had imagined that she would be surrounded with similar beautiful pieces. Even the guild officers had congratulated Grau, because he had shown he was a true master of his craft: the decorations of zigzag lines, palm leaves, rosettes, and fleur-de-lys on the water jug, the two plates, and the bowl, displayed a wealth of color on a white tin glaze background; the coppery green so typical of Barcelona that every master potter had to use, but also violet manganese, black iron, cobalt blue, and antimony yellow. Each line or design was of a different shade. Guiamona could scarcely wait for the pieces to be fired, in case the clay cracked. As a finishing touch, Grau applied a layer of clear lead glaze, which made them entirely waterproof. Guiamona could still feel how much smoother they were. But now ... all her husband was going to make was storage jars.

  Grau went up to her. “Don’t worry,” he said to calm her fears. “I’ll make more pieces like them just for you.”

  Grau’s calculation had proved correct. He filled the yard in front of his humble workshop with jugs and storage jars, and soon the traders of the city became aware that in Grau Puig’s workshop they could find everything they wanted. No longer would they have to beg for favors from arrogant master craftsmen.

  As a result of this, the building that Bernat and little Arnau came to a halt outside was very different from that first tiny workshop. What Bernat could see out of his left eye was a big house on three floors. Open to the street at ground level was the workshop; the master potter and his family lived on the upper two floors. Along one side of the house ran a garden for vegetables and flowers; on the other were sheds leading to the kilns and a terrace where hundreds of jugs and storage jars of all shapes, sizes, and colors were displayed. Behind the house, as stipulated in the city regulations, there was empty ground where the clay and other materials could be loaded and stored. It was here too that the potters threw the ashes and other waste from the kilns, which they were forbidden to throw into the city streets.

  Bernat could see from outside that there were ten people working nonstop in the workshop. None of them looked like Grau. Bernat noticed two men saying good-bye next to an oxcart laden with brand-new storage jars. One of them clambered on board the cart and set off. The other man looked well dressed, so before he could disappear back into the workshop, Bernat called to him.

  “Wait!”

  The other man watched him approach. “I’m looking for Grau Puig,” said Bernat.

  The man stared him up and down.

  “If it’s work you’re after, we don’t need anyone. Our master has no time to waste,” he growled, “and nor have I,” he added, turning his back on the newcomer.

  “I’m a relative of Grau’s.”

  The man stopped in his tracks, then whirled round to face him.

  “Hasn’t the master paid you enough? Why do you insist on demanding more?” he snarled, pushing Bernat out into the street
. Arnau began to cry. “You’ve already been told that if you come here again, we’ll report you to the authorities. Grau Puig is an important man, you know.”

  Although he did not understand any of this, Bernat let the man force him backward.

  “Listen ... ,” he protested, “I ...”

  By now, Arnau was howling in his arms, but then all of a sudden there was an even louder cry from one of the upper-floor windows.

  “Bernat! Bernat!”

  Bernat and the man turned round together and saw a woman leaning half out of the window, arms whirling like windmills.

  “Guiamona!” shouted Bernat, returning her greeting.

  The woman pulled her head in. Bernat turned to the man, his eyes narrowed.

  “Does Mistress Guiamona know you?” the man asked.

  “She’s my sister,” Bernat answered curtly. “And by the way, nobody in this house has ever paid me a thing.”

  The man apologized, hoping he was not in trouble. “I’m sorry. I was referring to the master’s brothers: first one came, then another, and then still another.”

  But Bernat saw his sister coming out of the house, so he cut the man off and ran over to embrace her.

  “WHERE’S GRAU?” HE asked his sister once he had cleaned off his eye and handed Arnau over to the Moorish slave who looked after Guiamona’s small children. As he watched the boy wolf down a bowl of milk and cereal, he added: “I’d like to greet him too.”

  Guiamona looked uncomfortable.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Grau has changed a lot. He’s a rich and important man now.” Guiamona pointed to the many chests lining the walls of the room: the sideboard; a piece of furniture Bernat had never seen in his life before, which was filled with books and crockery; the carpets adorning the floor; and the tapestries and curtains hanging from windows and walls. “He barely attends to the workshop and his potter’s trade these days; it’s Jaume, his chief assistant, who sees to everything. He’s the man you met in the street. Grau is busy as a merchant: ships, wine, oil. Now he is a guild official, which in accordance with the laws and usages of the city, means he is an alderman, a gentleman. Soon he expects to be made a member of the Council of a Hundred.” Guiamona looked around the room. “He’s not the same anymore, Bernat.”