Cathedral of the Sea (13 page)

Arnau had no idea where he was, but did not care: he was too busy trying to spot his companion’s quick, agile figure as he picked his way among all the people and stallholders, some of whom shouted in protest. He was less adept at avoiding the obstacles, and paid the consequences of the anger his fleet-footed companion’s passage aroused. One of the stallholders cuffed him round the ear; another tried to grab him by the shirt. Arnau managed to avoid them both, but by the time he had escaped, the other boy was nowhere to be seen. He found himself all alone, on the edge of a large square full of people.

He recognized the square. He had been there once before, with his father. “This is Plaza del Blat,” Bernat had told him. “It’s the center of Barcelona. Do you see that stone in the middle?” Arnau looked in the direction his father was pointing. “That stone divides the city into quarters: La Mar, Framenors, El Pi, and La Salada or Sant Pere.” Now Arnau reached the end of the silkmakers’ street and stood under the gateway of the Veguer castle. There was such a crowd in the square it was impossible for him to make out the figure of the boy in the square. He looked round: on one side of the gateway was the city’s main slaughterhouse; on the other stood trestle tables full of bread for sale. Arnau looked again, searching for the boy near the stone benches that lined the square. “This is the wheat market,” his father had explained. “On these benches here you can see people who sell it in the city; on those over there are the peasants who have brought their crops for sale.” But Arnau could see no sign of the boy on either side of the market, only tradesmen haggling over prices, or the country people with their sacks of grain.

While he was still trying to make out where the boy might be, Arnau found himself being pushed into the square by the crush of people making their way in. He attempted to stand to one side near the breadmakers’ stalls, but his back brushed against a table, and someone cuffed him painfully round the ear.

“Get out of here, you brat!” shouted the baker.

Arnau was quickly submerged again in the rush of people and the noise of the market. He had no idea which way to turn, but was pushed hither and thither by adults much taller than him; some of them, bent under sacks of grain, did not even see him under their feet.

He was starting to feel giddy, when all of a sudden the cheeky, dirt-streaked face of the boy he had been chasing through half of Barcelona popped up in front of him.

“What are you doing standing there?” said the stranger, raising his voice to be heard over the noise of the crowd.

Arnau did not reply, but this time made sure he had a firm grip on the boy’s shirt as he was pulled across the square and down Calle Boria. At the far end they came into the coppersmiths’ neighborhood. The narrow streets here rang to the sound of hammers beating metal. By now they had stopped running; exhausted, Arnau was still clutching the other boy’s shirtsleeve, forcing his rash, impatient guide to slow to a walk.

“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:

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—”