Cathedral of the Sea (36 page)

Arnau listened in silence to his brother’s words.

“Joan,” Arnau said once he had finished. “Do you think I could marry Aledis?”

“Of course! But you ought to wait awhile until you have made your way in the guild and can support her. In any case, it would be wise to speak to her father before he promises her to anyone else, because if he does that, you are lost.”

The image of Gastó Segura and his few blackened teeth seemed to Arnau like an unsurmountable obstacle. Joan guessed what his brother was afraid of.

“You have to do it,” he insisted.

“Would you help me?”

“Of course.”

Silence returned to the two straw pallets ranged on either side of the hearth.

“Joan,” said Arnau after a few moments.

“What is it?”

“Thank you.”

“It’s nothing.”

The two brothers tried hard to sleep, but found it impossible. Arnau was too excited at the idea of marrying his beloved Aledis. Joan was lost in memories of his mother. Could Pone the coppersmith have been right? Wickedness was natural in women. A woman should be ruled by man. A man should punish his wife. Could the coppersmith have been right? How could he respect his mother’s memory and give his brother this kind of advice? Joan remembered his mother’s hand poking out of the tiny window of her prison, caressing his head. He remembered how he had hated—and still did—the coppersmith Ponc ... but what if he had been right?

OVER THE NEXT few days, neither of them had enough courage to speak to the bad-tempered Gastó, whose situation as tenant in Pere’s house constantly reminded him of his misfortune at losing his own home. He became increasingly sour whenever he was in the house—which was the one time the two brothers had the opportunity to raise the question with him. His endless growls, protests, and insults continually made them posptone the idea.

Arnau was still bewitched by the atmosphere Aledis generated. He watched her, followed her with his eyes and in his imagination. There was no moment in the day when he did not think of her, except when Gastó made his appearance: the presence of her father made his heart shrink.

This was because, however much the priests and his own guild might forbid him from doing so, he could not take his eyes off Aledis when she, knowing she was alone with her plaything, seemed to take every opportunity to allow her loose, faded smock to press against her body. Arnau was ensnared by the vision: those nipples, breasts—Aledis’s entire body was calling out to him. “You will be my wife. One of these days you will be my wife,” he thought, his mind ablaze. He imagined her naked, his mind wandering along forbidden, unknown paths: the only naked female he had ever seen had been the tortured body of Habiba.

On other occasions, Aledis bent over in front of Arnau. She did not kneel down, but bent from the waist, deliberately showing off her rear and the curves of her hips. She also took advantage of every opportunity she had to raise her smock above her knees and show her thighs. Or she would put her hands on the small of her back, pretending to feel a nonexistent pain, and bend backward so that he could see how flat and smooth her stomach was. Afterward she would smile or, making as if she had suddenly discovered Arnau’s presence, would seem embarrassed. When she went out, Arnau was left struggling to wipe the images from his mind.

Whenever something like this happened, Arnau became even more determined to find the right moment to talk to Gastó.

“What the devil are you two doing just standing there?” Gastó spluttered once, when the two lads came up to him with the ingenuous idea of asking for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Joan’s tentative smile vanished as soon as the tanner stepped between them, pushing them away from him.

“You ask,” Arnau said to him on another occasion.

Gastó was alone at the table downstairs. Joan sat opposite him, cleared his throat, and was just about to speak when the tanner suddenly looked up from the hide he was busy examining.

“I’ll flay him alive! I’ll tear his balls off!” the tanner exploded, spitting saliva out between the gaps in his blackened teeth. “Simooó!” Joan shrugged in despair toward the figure of Arnau, who was hiding in the corner of the room.

Simó came running. “How could you have stitched this so badly?” Gastó said, pushing the piece of leather under his nose.

Joan got up from his chair and left them to it.

But he and Arnau did not give up.

“Gastó!” Joan shouted after him one evening when the tanner had left the house after supper, apparently in a good mood, and the two boys had followed him down to the beach.

“What do you want?” he said, still striding on.

“At least he’s letting us speak,” the two boys thought.

“I wanted ... to talk to you about Aledis ...”

Hearing his daughter’s name, Gastó came to a sudden halt. He turned and brought his face so close to Joan’s that his rotten breath made the boy reel.

“What’s she done?” Gastó respected Joan; he took him to be a serious young man. To hear him mention Aledis, combined with his naturally suspicious nature, made him think the lad was about to accuse her of something. The tanner could not allow the slightest stain on his precious jewel’s reputation.

“Nothing,” said Joan.

“What do you mean, nothing?” Gastó pressed him, his face still only inches away from Joan. “Why did you mention Aledis then? Tell me the truth. What has she done?”

“Nothing, she’s done nothing, I swear.”

“Nothing? And you, what about you?” he barked, turning to Arnau. Joan was relieved. “What have you got to say for yourself? What do you know about Aledis?”

“Me? ... Nothing ...” Arnau’s hesitation served only to increase the tanner’s obsessive suspicions.

“Tell me!”

“There’s nothing ... no ...”

“Eulàlia!” Gastó did not wait to hear any more. He bawled for his wife, and set off back to Pere’s house to find her.

That night the two boys were overcome with guilt as they heard Eulàlia cry out in pain as Gastó tried to beat an impossible confession out of her.

They tried to broach the subject twice more, but got nowhere. After several weeks, disheartened, they decided to speak to Father Albert. He smiled and promised to talk to Gastó on their behalf.

“I’M SORRY, ARNAU,” Father Albert told him a week later. He had called the two boys to meet him on the beach. “Gastó Segura does not agree to your marrying his daughter.”

“Why?” Joan wanted to know. “Arnau is a good person.”

“Do you want my daughter to marry a slave from La Ribera?” the tanner had told the priest. “A slave who doesn’t earn enough to pay for a room?”

Father Albert tried to convince him: “There are no slaves working in La Ribera. That was in olden times. You know it’s forbidden for slaves to work—”

“It’s work for slaves.”

“That’s in the past too,” the priest insisted. “Besides,” he added, “I’ve found a good dowry for your daughter.” Gastó Segura, who thought the conversation had already finished, suddenly turned back to hear what the priest had to say. “It will allow her to buy a house ...”

Gastó interrupted him once more: “My daughter doesn’t need any rich man’s charity! Keep your wiles for others!”

When he heard Father Albert’s words, Arnau stared out to sea. Moonlight was shimmering across the water from horizon to shore, dying in the foam of the waves breaking on the beach.

Father Albert let the lapping of the waves calm them. What if Arnau asked the reasons behind the tanner’s refusal? What could he tell him?“

“Why?” stammered Arnau, still staring out at the horizon.

“Gastó Segura is ... a very strange man.” Father Albert could not break the boy’s heart still further. “He wants a nobleman to marry his daughter! How can a mere tanner aspire to something like that?”

A nobleman. Had the lad believed him? Nobody should feel belittled by the nobility. Even the waves lapping patiently, endlessly, on the shore seemed to be waiting for Arnau’s reply.

A sob echoed along the beach.

Father Albert put his arm round Arnau’s shoulder. He could feel his body shaking. He put his other arm round Joan, and the three of them stood gazing out to sea.

“You will find a good wife,” said the priest after a while.

“Not like her,” thought Arnau.

 

 

F
OUR YEARS HAD passed since Gastó Seguro refused to give his daughter’s hand in marriage to Arnau the
bastaix.
A few months later, Aledis was married off to an old master tanner, a widower for whom his young bride’s charms more than made up for her lack of dowry. Until the moment she was given away, Aledis never left her mother’s sight.

Arnau himself was now a tall, strong, and good-looking young man of eighteen. During those four years he had lived from and for the guild of
bastaixos,
the church of Santa Maria, and his brother Joan. He carried more than his share of goods and stone blocks; he gave money to the guild, and attended religious services devoutly. But he had not married, and the guild aldermen were worried that a lusty young man like him might fall into temptation, which would mean they would have to expel him from the brotherhood.