Cathedral of the Sea (34 page)

SINCE HE DID not have to work with the
bastaixos
that day, Arnau returned home early. He had cleaned the chapel quickly, replaced the spent candles with new ones, said a rapid prayer, and bidden the Virgin farewell. Father Albert saw him running from the church, and Mariona saw him running into the house.

“What’s wrong?” the old woman asked. “What are you doing here so early?”

Arnau glanced quickly round the kitchen: there the three of them were—mother and two daughters, sewing at the table. The three of them stared at him.

“Arnau!” Mariona repeated. “Is something wrong?”

He realized he was blushing.

“No ...” He had not even thought of an excuse! How could he have been so stupid? And they were staring at him: all three of them, peering at him standing in the doorway, panting. “No,” he said, “it’s just that I finished early today.”

Mariona smiled and glanced at the girls. Their mother, Eulàlia, could not help smiling either.

“Well, if you’ve finished early,” said Mariona, disturbing his thoughts, “you can go and fetch me some water.”

She had looked at him again, thought Arnau as he carried the bucket to the angel fountain. Did that mean something? He swung the bucket: of course it did.

He did not have much opportunity to find out. If it was not Eulàlia who got in his way, he came up against Gastó’s few remaining blackened teeth; and if neither of them was in the house, Simó mounted guard over his two sisters. For days, Arnau had to be content with casting glances at them out of the corner of his eye. Occasionally he could get a good look at their faces: they had delicate features, with strong chins and prominent cheekbones. Their noses looked Roman, and both had shining white teeth and those amazing brown eyes. On other occasions, when the sun shone in through the windows, Arnau felt he could almost touch the blue sheen on the silky locks of their jet-black hair. Once or twice, when he felt really safe, he allowed his gaze to travel downward from the elder sister, Aledis’s, face to her chest, where her breasts could be glimpsed even through the coarse cloth of her smock. The sight made his body quiver. And when he was sure no one was watching him, he even dared to look lower still, at the curves of her body and legs.

Gastó Segura had lost everything during the months of hunger. This had made him even more bitter than he already was by nature. His son, Simó, worked with him as an apprentice, but his greatest concern was his two daughters, whom he could not provide with dowries in order to secure good husbands. Yet their beauty was in their favor, and Gastó was sure they would make good matches. If they did, that would be two fewer mouths to feed.

For that reason, he was desperate for them to remain untouched, so that no one in Barcelona could have the slightest doubt about their decency. This was the only way, he told Eulàlia and Simó, that Aledis and Alesta could make good marriages. Father, mother, and eldest brother had all taken this task upon themselves, but whereas Gastó and Eulàlia thought there would be no problem fulfilling it, Simó was more worried about them living any length of time in the same house as Arnau and Joan.

Joan had become the outstanding pupil at the cathedral school. He had mastered Latin in no time at all, and his teachers were delighted at this thoughtful, sensitive pupil who in addition was so deeply devout. He was so gifted that nearly all of them foresaw a great future ahead of him in the Church. Joan gradually won Gastó and Eulàlia’s respect, and the two of them would often sit with Pere and Mariona and listen in rapt attention to the way the young lad explained the holy scriptures. As a rule it was only the priests who could read those books written in Latin, and yet now, in this humble house by the sea, the four of them could enjoy the sacred teachings, the ancient parables, and other messages from the Lord that they had previously heard only from the pulpit.

If Joan had won the respect of all those around him, Arnau could say the same: even Simó regarded him with great admiration: a
bastaix!
Almost everyone in La Ribera knew of the efforts Arnau made to carry stone for the Virgin. “They say that the great Berenguer de Montagut got on his knees to help him,” another apprentice had told Simó, hands spread wide in astonishment. Simó imagined the great master, respected by noblemen and bishops, kneeling at Arnau’s feet. When the master spoke, everyone, including his father, kept silent, and when he shouted ... when he shouted, everyone trembled. Simó watched Arnau when he came home at night. He was always the last to arrive. He looked tired and sweaty, carrying the leather headpiece in his hand, and yet... he was smiling! When had Simó ever come home from work smiling? On several occasions, he had crossed Arnau’s path as he was carrying stones down to Santa Maria: his legs, arms, and chest seemed made of iron. Simó stared at the block of stone and then at Arnau’s straining face: how could he possibly have seen him smile?

All this explained why, despite being older than them, when Simó had to look after his sisters and Arnau or Joan appeared, he kept in the background and the two girls could enjoy the freedom they were denied when their parents were there.

“Let’s go for a walk on the beach!” Alesta suggested one day.

Simó wanted to refuse. Walking along the beach: what would his father say if he saw them ... ?

“All right,” said Arnau.

“It will do us good,” Joan agreed.

Simó said nothing. So the five of them went out into the sunshine: Aledis with Arnau, Alesta alongside Joan, and Simó bringing up the rear. Both the girls let the sea breeze play with their hair and mold their loose smocks against their bodies so that their breasts, stomachs, and thighs stood out.

They walked along in silence, looking out to sea or kicking at the sand, until they came across a group of
bastaixos
relaxing on the beach. Arnau waved at them.

“Would you like me to introduce you to them?” he asked Aledis.

She glanced over at the group of men. They were all staring at her. What could they be looking at? The breeze pressed her smock up against her breasts and nipples. Dear God! It seemed as though they were trying to burst out of the material. Aledis blushed and shook her head, although Arnau was already going over to the men. She turned on her heel, and Arnau was left standing there.

“Run and catch her, Arnau,” he heard one of his colleagues shout.

“Don’t let her get away,” another one said.

“She’s a pretty one!” a third man added.

Arnau ran until he had caught up with Aledis.

“What’s wrong?”

She did not answer. She turned her face away and held her arms folded across her chest, but did not insist they return home. So they walked on along the beach, with only the sound of waves for company.

THAT SAME NIGHT, as they were eating by the hearth, Aledis rewarded Arnau with an extra second’s attention, a second when she kept those enormous brown eyes of hers fixed on him.

It was a second when Arnau once more heard the waves on the shore, and felt his feet sinking into the sand. He glanced round to see if anyone else had noticed, but Gastó was still talking to Pere, and nobody else seemed to have seen a thing. No one seemed to hear the waves.

When he dared look at her again, Aledis had lowered her gaze and was pushing her food around the bowl.

“Eat, child!” Gastó the tanner ordered, seeing her toying with the food rather than raising it to her mouth. “Food isn’t for playing with.”

Gastó’s words brought Arnau back down to earth. For the rest of the meal, not only did Aledis avoid looking at him again, but she made a deliberate show of ignoring him.

It was several days before she offered him a silent gift similar to the one she had given him that night after their walk along the beach. Until then, on the few occasions they met, Arnau had been longing to see her eyes on him, but Aledis always managed to avoid him, or kept her face turned away.

“Good-bye, Aledis,” he said to her absentmindedly one morning, as he left for the beach.

It so happened that they were alone at the time. Arnau was about to shut the door behind him, but something he could not describe made him turn and look at the girl instead. There she stood, erect and beautiful by the hearth, an invitation in her great brown eyes.

Finally! Finally. Arnau blushed and looked away. Flustered, he made to shut the door, but as he was doing so, he stopped a second time: Aledis was still standing there, calling out to him with those eyes of hers. And she smiled. Aledis had smiled at him!

His hand slipped off the door latch. He stumbled and almost fell. He did not dare look at her again, but rushed off toward the beach, leaving the door wide open.

“HE GETS EMBARRASSED,” Aledis whispered to her sister that same evening, before their parents and brother came upstairs, when the two of them were lying on the pallet they shared.

“Why should he be?” Alesta asked. “He’s a bastaix. He works in the port and carries blocks of stone for the Virgin. You’re only a young girl. He’s a man,” she added, with more than a hint of admiration.

“You’re the silly young girl!” her sister snapped.

“Oh, and you’re a grown woman, are you?” Alesta replied, turning her back on her sister as she spoke the same words their mother used whenever either of them asked for something they were not old enough to have.

“That’s enough,” Aledis said, to calm her.

“A grown woman. I am, aren’t I?” Aledis thought of her mother and her friends, of her father. Perhaps ... perhaps her sister was right. Why would somebody like Arnau, a
bastaix
who had shown the whole of Barcelona his devotion to the Virgin of the Sea, become embarrassed when a young girl like her looked at him?

“HE GETS EMBARRASSED. I’m sure of it,” Aledis insisted the following night.

“Silly goose! Why would he?”

“I don’t know,” Aledis replied, “but he does. He gets embarrassed when he looks at me. And when I look at him. He gets flustered, he turns red, he runs away ...”

“You’re crazy!”

“Maybe so, but ...” Aledis was sure she was right. Although the previous night her sister had made her doubt it, she would not succeed again. She had proved it. She had watched Arnau, and waited for the right moment, when nobody could catch them by surprise. She went up to him, so close she breathed in his body smell. “Hello, Arnau.” Nothing more than that, a simple greeting accompanied by a gentle smile, so close to him they were almost touching. Arnau blushed, looked away, and tried to get away. When Aledis saw him pull away from her, she smiled again, this time out of pride at discovering a power she did not know she had. “You’ll see tomorrow,” she told her sister.

The fact that her sister was there as a witness led her to take her coquettishness still further; she was sure she would succeed. That morning, as Arnau was about to leave the house, Aledis stood between him and the door, leaning against it. She had planned the move over and over again in her mind while her sister slept.