Cathedral of the Sea (14 page)

“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.”

T
HE 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 smaller 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.”

“But that’s not the Virgin either.”

“But it is a woman. I’m sure your mother will be with her. She wouldn’t be with a man who wasn’t your father, would she?”

They went down Calle de la Ciutat to the La Mar gateway, which was part of the old Roman wall near Regomir castle. It was from here that a path led to the Santa Clara convent, built in the eastern corner of the new walls close to the shore. They left Regomir castle behind them, turned left, and walked down until they came to Calle de la Mar, which led from Plaza del Blat to the church of Santa Maria de la Mar before splitting into small parallel alleyways that came out onto the beach. From there, crossing Plaza del Born and Pla d’en Llull, they reached the Santa Clara convent by taking the street of the same name.

In spite of their anxiety to find the church, neither of the two boys could resist stopping to look at the silversmiths’ stalls ranged on either side of Calle de la Mar. Barcelona was a prosperous, rich city, as was obvious from the array of valuable objects on display: silverware; jewel-encrusted jugs and cups made of precious metals; necklaces; bracelets and rings; belts—an endless range of fine objects glinting in the summer sun. Arnau and Joanet tried to examine them more closely, but were chased away by the artisans, who shouted at them and threatened them with their fists.

Chased by one of the apprentices, they ran off and eventually came to Plaza de Santa Maria. On their right was a small cemetery, the fossar Mayor, and on their left was the church.

“Santa Clara is down ... ,” Joanet started to say, then suddenly fell silent. What they could see in front of them was truly amazing.

It was a powerful, sturdy church. Sober, stern-looking even, it was windowless and had exceptionally thick walls. The land around the building had been cleared and leveled, and it was surrounded by a huge number of stakes driven into the ground, forming geometrical shapes.

Ten slender columns, sixteen yards high, were placed around the small church’s apse. The white stone shone through the scaffolding rising around them.

The wooden scaffolding that covered the rear of the church rose and rose like an immense set of steps. Even from the distance they were at, Arnau had to raise his eyes to see the top, which was much higher than the columns.

“Let’s go,” Joanet urged him when they had seen their fill of the men laboring on the wooden boards. “This must be another cathedral.”

“No, this isn’t a cathedral,” they heard a voice say behind them. Arnau and Joanet looked at each other and smiled. They turned and looked inquiringly at a strong man who was toiling under the weight of an enormous block of stone. So what is it then? Joanet seemed to be asking as he smiled at him. “The cathedral is paid for by the nobles and the city authorities, but this church, which will be more important and beautiful than the cathedral, is paid for and built by the people.”

The man had not even paused: the weight of the stone seemed to push him forward. Yet he had smiled back at them.

The two boys followed him down the side of the church, which was next to another cemetery, the fossar Menor.

“Would you like us to help you?” asked Arnau.

The man panted, then turned and smiled at them again.

“Thank you, my lad, but you had better not.”

Eventually, he bent down and deposited the stone on the ground. The boys stared at it, and Joanet went over to try to push it, but it did not move. At this, the man burst out laughing. Joanet smiled back at him.

“If it’s not a cathedral,” Arnau said, pointing to the tall octagonal columns, “what is it?”

“This is the new church that the La Ribera neighborhood is building in thanks and devotion to Our Lady the Virgin—”

Arnau gave a start.

“The Virgin Mary?” he interrupted the man, eyes opened wide.

“Of course, my lad,” the man replied, ruffling his hair. “The Virgin Mary, Our Lady of the Sea.”

“And ... where is the Virgin Mary?” Arnau asked again, staring at the church.

“In there, in that small building. But when we finish the new one, she will have the best church that the Virgin has ever had.”

In there! Arnau did not even hear the rest of what the man was saying. His Virgin was in there. All at once, a sound made them all look up: a flock of birds had flown out from the topmost scaffolding.