Cathedral of the Sea Read online

  “This is my house,” the boy said finally, pointing to a small, one-story building. Outside the door were copper pots of all shapes and sizes. A heavily built man sat there working. He did not even pause to look up at them. “That was my father,” the little boy said, once they had gone beyond the building.

  “Why isn’t he ... ?” Arnau started to ask, turning back to look.

  “Wait,” was all the other boy replied.

  They went on up the alley and skirted the houses until they were behind them, in a series of small gardens. When they reached the one that belonged to the boy’s house, Arnau saw with surprise that the boy climbed the wall, and encouraged him to do the same.

  “Why ... ?”

  “Come on up!” the boy ordered him, straddling the top of the wall.

  Then the two of them jumped down into the tiny garden. There, Arnau’s companion stood staring at a small hut, which had a small window opening on the side facing the garden. Arnau waited, but the boy did not move.

  “What now?” Arnau asked finally.

  The boy turned to Arnau.

  “What ... ?”

  But the little urchin paid him no attention. Arnau watched as he took a wooden crate and put it under the window. Then he climbed onto it, staring inside the dark hole.

  “Mother,” he whispered.

  A woman’s pale arm appeared hesitantly at the window. The elbow rested on the sill, while the hand went straight to the boy’s head and started caressing his hair.

  “Joanet,” Arnau heard a soft voice say, “you’ve come earlier today. The sun is not yet high in the sky.”

  Joanet merely nodded his head.

  “Has something happened?” the voice insisted.

  Joanet did not reply for a few moments. He took a deep breath and then said: “I’ve brought a friend.”

  “I’m so happy you have friends. What’s his name?”

  “Arnau.”

  “How does he know my ... ? Of course! He was spying on me,” thought Arnau.

  “Is he there with you?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Hello, Arnau.”

  Arnau stared up at the window. Joanet turned toward him.

  “Hello ... madam,” Arnau said, unsure of how to address a voice coming out of a dark window like this.

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m eight... madam.”

  “That means you are two years older than my Joanet, but I hope you get on well and can stay friends. Always remember: there is nothing better in this world than a true friend.”

  That was all the voice said. Joanet’s mother’s hand went on stroking his hair, while the boy sat on the wooden crate, legs dangling.

  “Now go and play,” the woman’s voice suddenly said, and she withdrew her hand. “Good-bye, Arnau. Look after my boy: you’re older than he is.” Arnau tried to say farewell, but the words would not come out. “Good-bye, my son,” the voice added. “Promise you’ll come and see me.”

  “Of course I will, Mother.”

  “Go now, both of you.”

  THE TWO BOYS walked aimlessly down the noisy streets of the city center. Arnau waited for Joanet to explain, but when the boy said nothing, he finally plucked up the courage to ask:

  “Why doesn’t your mother come out into the garden?”

  “She is shut in,” Joanet told him.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. She just is.”

  “Why don’t you climb in the window then?”

  “Ponc has forbidden it.”

  “Who is Ponc?”

  “Ponc is my father.”

  “Why has he forbidden it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why do you call him Pone instead of ‘Father’?”

  “Because he’s forbidden that too.”

  Arnau came to a halt and tugged at Joanet until the two were face-to-face.

  “I don’t know the reason for that either,” the boy said quickly.

  They carried on walking. Arnau was trying to make sense of all this, while Joanet was waiting for his new friend’s next question.

  “What is your mother like?” Arnau finally asked.

  “She’s always been shut in there,” Joanet said, trying to force a smile. “Once, when Pone was out of the city I tried to climb in, but she would not let me. She said she didn’t want me to see her.”

  “Why are you smiling?”

  Joanet walked on a few paces before replying.

  “She always tells me I should smile.”

  The rest of that morning, lost in thought, Arnau followed through the streets of Barcelona the dirty-looking boy who had never seen his mother’s face.

  “His MOTHER STROKES his head through a small window in the hut,” Arnau whispered to his father that night, as they lay side by side on their pallet. “He’s never seen her. His father won’t allow him to, and nor will she.”

  Bernat stroked his son’s hair exactly as Arnau had told him his new friend’s mother had done. The silence between them was broken only by the snores of the slaves and apprentices who shared the same room. Bernat wondered what offense the woman could have committed to deserve such a punishment.

  Pone the coppersmith would have had no hesitation in telling him: “Adultery!” He had told the same story dozens of times to anyone who cared to listen.

  “I caught her fornicating with her lover, a young stripling like her. They took advantage of the hours I was at the forge. Of course, I went to see the magistrate to insist on proper compensation according to the law.” The stocky smith obviously took delight in citing the law that had brought him justice. “Our princes are wise men, who know the evil of women. Only noblewomen have the possibility of refuting the charge of adultery under oath; all the others, like Joana, have to undergo a challenge and face the judgment of God.”

  All those who had witnessed the challenge remembered how Pone had cut Joana’s young lover to ribbons: God had little possibility to judge between the coppersmith, hardened by his work in the forge, and the delicate, lovelorn young man.

  The royal sentence was carried out as stipulated in the Laws and Usages: “If the woman should win the challenge, her husband will keep her honor-ably, and will meet all the expenses she and her friends might have incurred in this case and challenge, and will make good any harm to her champion. But if she is defeated, she and all her goods will become the possession of her husband.”

  Pone could not read, but he quoted this passage from memory as he showed anyone who cared to see the legal document he had been given:We rule that if he wishes Joana to be handed over to him, said Pone should offer proper surety and swear to keep her in his house in a place twelve feet long, six feet wide, and two rods high. That he should give her a straw mattress large enough to sleep on, and a cloak to cover herself with. The place of her confinement is to have a hole in which she may discharge her bodily functions, and a window through which food is to be given her. The said Ponc shall provide each day eighteen ounces of fully baked bread and as much water as she requires. He will not give her or cause her to be given anything which might hasten her death, or to do anything which might lead to the death of said Joana. In respect of all of which, Ponc is to provide a proper guarantee and security, before the aforementioned Joana is handed over to him.

  Pone supplied the magistrate with the required surety, and Joana was handed over to him. He built the brick hut in his garden, making it two and a half yards long by a yard and a half wide. He made sure there was a hole for her to carry out her bodily functions, and left the window through which Joanet, who was born nine months later and was never recognized by Pone, could have his hair stroked by his mother. In this way, he walled up his young wife for the rest of her days.

  “Father,” Arnau whispered to Bernat, “what was my mother like? Why do you never tell me about her?”

  “What do you want me to tell you? That she lost her virginity raped by a drunken nobleman? That she was a whore in the
lord of Bellera’s castle?” thought Bernat.

  “Your mother... ,” he answered finally, “was unlucky. She never had good fortune.”

  Bernat could hear how Arnau swallowed hard before asking the next question.

  “Did she love me?” the boy asked, his voice choking with emotion.

  “She didn’t get the chance. She died giving birth to you.”

  “Habiba loved me.”

  “And I love you too.”

  “But you’re not my mother. Even Joanet has a mother to caress his head.”

  “Not all children have ...” Bernat started to say. “The mother of all Christians,” he suddenly thought, as the words of the priests surfaced in his memory.

  “What were you saying, Father?”

  “That you do have a mother. Of course you do.” Bernat could feel his son relax. “All children who like you have no mother are given another one by God: the Virgin Mary.”

  “Where is this Mary?”

  “The Virgin Mary,” Bernat corrected him, “is in heaven.”

  Arnau lay in silence for a few moments before he spoke again.

  “What use is it having a mother in heaven? She can’t stroke me, play with me, kiss me, or—”

  “Yes, she can.” Bernat could clearly recall what his father had explained when he asked these very same questions. “She sends birds to caress you. Whenever you see a bird, send your mother a message. You’ll see how it flies straight up to heaven to give it to the Virgin Mary. Then the other birds will get to hear of it, and some of them will come to fly round you and sing for you.”

  “But I don’t understand what birds say.”

  “You will learn to.”

  “But I’ll never be able to see her ...”

  “Yes, of course you can see her. You can see her in some churches, and you can even talk to her.”

  “In churches?”

  “Yes, my son. She is in heaven and in some churches. You can talk to her through the birds or in those churches. She will answer with birds or at night while you are asleep. She will love and cherish you more than any mother you can see.”

  “More than Habiba?”

  “Much more.”

  “What about tonight?” Arnau asked. “I haven’t talked to her tonight.”

  “Don’t worry. I did it for you. Now go to sleep, and you’ll find out.”

  8

  THE TWO NEW friends met every day. They ran down to the beach to see the boats, or roamed the streets of Barcelona. Each time they were playing beyond the Puig garden wall and heard the voices of Josep, Genis, or Margarida, Joanet could see his friend lifting his eyes to the sky as if in search of something floating above the clouds.

  “What are you looking at?” he asked him one day.

  “Nothing,” said Arnau.

  The laughter grew, and Arnau stared up again at the sky.

  “Shall we climb the tree?” asked Joanet, thinking that it was its branches that were attracting his friend’s attention.

  “No,” said Arnau, trying to spot a bird to which he could give a message for his mother.

  “Why don’t you want to climb the tree? Then we could see ...”

  What could he say to the Virgin Mary? What did you say to your mother? Joanet said nothing to his, simply listening and agreeing ... or disagreeing, but of course, he could hear her voice and feel her caresses, Arnau thought.

  “Shall we climb up?”

  “No,” shouted Arnau, so loudly he wiped the smile from Joanet’s lips. “You already have a mother who loves you. You don’t need to spy on anyone else’s.”

  “But you don’t have one,” Joanet replied. “If we climb ...”

  That they loved her! That was what her children told Guiamona. “Tell her that, little bird,” Arnau told one that flew up toward the sky. “Tell her I love her.”

  “So, are we going up?” insisted Joanet, one hand already on the lower branches.

  “No, I don’t need to either ...”

  Joanet let go of the tree and looked inquisitively at his friend.

  “I have a mother too.”

  “A new one?”

  Arnau was unsure.

  “I don’t know. She’s called the Virgin Mary.”

  “The Virgin Mary? Who is she?”

  “She is in some churches. I know that they,” he went on, pointing to the wall, “used to go to church, but they never took me with them.”

  “I know where she is.”

  Arnau’s eyes opened wide.

  “If you like, I’ll take you. To the biggest church in Barcelona.”

  As ever, Joanet ran off without waiting for his friend’s reply, but by now Arnau knew what to expect, and soon caught up with him.

  They ran to Calle Boqueria, skirted the Jewish quarter, and ran down Calle del Bisbe until they reached the cathedral.

  “Do you think the Virgin Mary is in there?” Arnau asked his friend, pointing to the mass of scaffolding rising round its unfinished walls. He watched as a huge stone was lifted laboriously by several men hauling on a pulley.

  “Of course she is,” Joanet said determinedly. “This is a church, isn’t it?”

  “No, this isn’t a church!” they both heard a voice behind them say. They turned round and found themselves face-to-face with a rough-looking man who was carrying a hammer and chisel in his hand. “This is the cathedral,” he corrected them, proud of his position as the master sculptor’s assistant. “Don’t ever confuse it with a church.”

  Arnau looked daggers at Joanet.

  “So where is there a church?” Joanet asked the man as he was about to continue on his way.

  “Just over there,” he told the surprised boys, pointing with his chisel back up the street they had just come down. “In Plaza San Jaume.”

  They ran back as fast as they could up Calle del Bisbe to Plaza San Jaume. There they saw a small building that looked different from all the others, with a profusion of sculpted images around the doorway, which was raised above street level, at the top of a small set of steps. Neither of them thought twice about it, and they leapt through the doorway. Inside it was dark and cool, but before their eyes even had time to get used to the darkness, they felt a pair of strong hands on their shoulders, and were propelled back down the steps.

  “I’m tired of telling you children I’ll not have you running around in the church of San Jaume.”

  Ignoring what the priest had said, Arnau and Joanet stared at each other. The church of San Jaume! So this wasn’t the church of the Virgin Mary either.

  When the priest disappeared, they got back on their feet, only to find themselves surrounded by a group of six boys who were as barefoot, ragged, and dirty as Joanet himself.

  “He’s got a really bad temper,” said one of them, signaling toward the church doors with his chin.

  “If you like, we could tell you how to get in without him seeing you,” another one told them. “But once you’re inside, it’s up to you. If he catches you...”

  “No, we don’t want to,” Arnau replied. “Do you know where there is another church?”

  “They won’t let you into any of them,” a third boy said.

  “That’s our business,” Joanet retorted.

  “Listen to the little runt!” The eldest boy laughed, stepping toward Joanet. He was a good head taller than him, and Arnau was worried for his friend. “Anything that happens in this square is our business, get it?” the boy said, pushing him in the chest.

  Just as Joanet was about to react and fling himself on the other boy, something on the far side of the square caught the attention of the whole group.

  “A Jew!” one of them shouted.

  They all ran off after a boy who was wearing the yellow badge. As soon as he realized what was about to happen, the little Jewish boy took to his heels. He just managed to reach the entrance to the Jewish quarter before the group caught up with him. They all came to an abrupt halt, unwilling to venture inside. One of them, a boy even smal
ler than Joanet, had stayed behind. He was wide-eyed with astonishment at the way Joanet had been prepared to stand up to the older boy.

  “There’s another church down there, beyond San Jaume,” he told them. “If I were you, I’d get away now,” he said, nodding toward the others in the group, who were already heading back to them. “Pau will be very angry, and he’ll take it out on you. He is always upset when a Jew gets away from him.”

  Joanet bristled, waiting for this boy Pau to reappear. Arnau tried to pull him away, and finally, when he saw the whole group racing toward them, Joanet allowed himself to be dragged off.

  They ran down in the direction of the sea, but when they saw that Pau and his gang—probably more interested in some more Jews in the square—were not pursuing them, they slowed their pace. They had barely gone a street from Plaza San Jaume when they came across another church. They stood at the foot of the steps and looked at each other. Joanet lifted his chin toward the doors.

  “We’ll wait,” said Arnau.

  At that moment an old woman came out of the church and clambered down the steps. Arnau did not think twice.

  “Good lady,” he asked when she reached them, “what church is this?”

  “It’s San Miquel,” the woman replied without stopping.

  Arnau sighed. San Miquel.

  “Where is there another church?” Joanet asked quickly, when he saw how crestfallen his friend was.

  “At the end of this street.”

  “Which one is that?” he insisted. For the first time, he seemed to have caught the woman’s attention.

  “That is the San Just i Pastor. Why are you so interested?”

  The boys said nothing, but walked away from the old woman, who watched them trudging away disheartened.

  “All the churches belong to men!” Arnau said in disgust. “We have to find a church for women; that’s where the Virgin Mary must be.”

  Joanet carried on walking thoughtfully.

  “I know somewhere ...,” he said at length. “It’s full of women. It’s at the end of the city wall, next to the sea. They call it ...” Joanet tried to remember. “They call it Santa Clara.”