Cathedral of the Sea (77 page)

ARNAU LEFT THE Jewry. He turned left, took Calle Banys Nous down to Plaza del Blat, but when he was in Calle Carders by the corner with Calle Montcada close to his own house, he suddenly halted. What was the point? To clash yet again with Eleonor? He turned on his heel to go back to Calle de la Mar and his exchange table. From the day he had agreed to Mar’s marriage ... Ever since that day, Eleonor had pursued him relentlessly. At first she did it stealthily. Why, she had not even called him her beloved before then! She had never concerned herself about his business, what he ate, or even how he felt. When that tactic failed, she tried a frontal attack. “I’m a woman,” she told him one day. She must have been discouraged by the way Arnau looked at her, because she said nothing more ... until a few days later : “We have to consummate our marriage; we’re living in sin.”

“Since when were you so interested in my salvation?” Arnau asked.

Despite her husband’s gruff rejection, she did not give up. Eventually she decided to talk about it to Father Juli Andreu, one of the priests at Santa Maria. He was interested in the salvation of the faithful, among whom Arnau was one of the most highly regarded. With him, Arnau could not find excuses as he did with Eleonor.

“I can’t do it, Father,” he told the priest when he confronted him one day in the church.

It was true. Immediately after handing Mar to the lord of Ponts, Arnau had tried to forget her. Why not have a family of his own? He was all alone. All the people he loved had gone from his life. He could have children, play with them, devote himself to them, and perhaps find what was missing. But he could do this only with Eleonor, and whenever she sidled up to him, or pursued him through the palace chambers, or he heard her false, forced voice, so different from the way she usually spoke to him, all his resolve came to nothing.

“What do you mean, my son?” asked the priest.

“The king forced me to marry Eleonor, Father, but he never asked what my feelings were for his ward.”

“The baroness ...”

“The baroness does not attract me, Father. My body refuses.”

“I could recommend a good doctor ...”

Arnau smiled. “No, Father, no. It’s not that. Physically I’m fine; it’s simply...”

“Well, then, you should make an effort to fulfill your matrimonial obligations. Our Lord expects ...”

Arnau listened to the priest’s harangue, imagining the stories Eleonor must have told him. Who did they think they were?

“Listen, Father,” he said, interrupting him. “I cannot oblige my body to desire a woman if it doesn’t.” The priest raised his hand as though to intervene, but Arnau stopped him. “I swore to be faithful to my wife, and I am; nobody can accuse me of being otherwise. I come often to Santa Maria to pray. I donate large sums of money to the church. It seems to me that my contributions to building this church should compensate for the shortcomings of my body.”

The priest stopped rubbing his hands. “My son ...”

“What do you think, Father?”

The priest searched among his scant theological knowledge for ways of refuting Arnau’s arguments. He was defeated, and soon hastened away among the men still working on Santa Maria. Left alone, Arnau went to find the Virgin in her chapel. He knelt before her statue.

“I think only of her, Mother. Why did you allow me to give her to Lord de Ponts?”

He had not seen Mar since her marriage to Felip de Ponts. When her husband died a few months later, he tried to approach the widow, but Mar refused to see him. “Perhaps it’s for the best,” Arnau told himself. The oath he had sworn to the Virgin bound him even more than ever now: he was condemned to be faithful to a woman who did not love him and whom he could not love. And to give up the only person with whom he might have been happy ...

“HAVE THEY FOUND the host yet?” Arnau asked the magistrate as they sat opposite each other in the palace overlooking Plaza del Blat.

“No,” said the magistrate.

“I’ve been talking to the city councillors,” Arnau told him, “and they agree with me. Imprisoning the entire Jewish community could seriously affect Barcelona’s commercial interests. The seagoing season has just begun. If you went down to the port, you would see there are several ships ready to depart. They have Jewish goods on board; they will either have to be unloaded or will need to wait for the traders. The problem is that not all the cargoes belong to Jews; part of them are owned by Christians.”

“Why not unload them then?”

“The cost of transporting the Christians’ merchandise would go up.”

The magistrate spread his hands in a gesture of frustration. “Then put all the Jews’ merchandise on some ships, and the Christians’ goods on others,” he suggested finally.

Arnau shook his head.

“That’s impossible. Not all the ships are headed for the same destination. You know the sailing season is short. If the ships cannot leave, all our trade will be held up. They will not be back in time, and so will miss some journeys. That will push the price of everything up again. We will all lose money.” “You included,” thought Arnau. “On top of which, it’s dangerous for ships to wait too long in Barcelona: if a storm blows up ...”

“So what do you suggest?”

“That you set them all free. That you order the friars to stop searching their homes. That you give them back their belongings, that... ,” thought Arnau. “Impose a fine on the whole Jewish community,” was what he said.

“The people are demanding the guilty be punished, and the infante has promised to find them. The profanation of a host—”

“The profanation of a host,” Arnau interrupted him, “whether or not the bleeding host appeared, will of course be more expensive than any other kind of crime.” Why bother to argue? The Jews had been judged and condemned. The magistrate wrinkled his brow. “Why not make the attempt? If we succeed, it will be the Jews and only them who pay. If not, it’s going to be a bad year for trade, and all of us will lose.”

SURROUNDED BY WORKMEN, noise, and dust, Arnau looked up at the keystone that topped the second of the four vaults above Santa Maria’s central nave, the latest completed. On the end of the keystone was an image of the Annunciation, with the Virgin dressed in a red cape edged with gold, kneeling as the angel brought her the news that she was to give birth. Arnau’s attention was caught by the bright reds, blues, and especially the golden hues of the delicate scene. The magistrate had considered Arnau’s arguments and finally yielded.

Twenty-five thousand shillings and fifteen guilty men! That was the answer the magistrate gave Arnau the next day after he had consulted with the infante Don Juan’s court.

“Fifteen culprits? You want to execute fifteen people because of the ravings of four madmen?”

The magistrate thumped the table. “Those madmen belong to the holy Catholic Church.”

“You know it’s an impossible demand,” said Arnau.

The two men stared at each other.

“No culprits,” Arnau insisted.

“That’s not possible. The infante—”

“No culprits! Twenty-five thousand shillings is a fortune.”

Arnau left the magistrate’s palace not knowing where to go. What could he say to Hasdai? That fifteen Jews had to die? Yet he could not get out of his mind the image of those five thousand people packed into the synagogue with no water or food ...

“When will I have my answer?” he had asked the magistrate.

“The infante is out hunting.”

Hunting! Five thousand people were shut up on his orders, and he had gone hunting. It could not have been more than three hours by horse from Barcelona to Gerona, where the infante, duke of Gerona and Cervera, had his lands, but Arnau had to wait until late the following afternoon to be summoned again by the magistrate.

“Thirty-five thousand shillings and five culprits.”

Ten Jews for ten thousand shillings. “Perhaps that’s the price of a man,” thought Arnau.

“Forty thousand, and no culprits.”

“No.”

“I’ll appeal to the king.”

“You know that the king has enough problems with the war against Castille without looking for more with his son. That was why he named him his lieutenant.”

“Forty-five thousand, but no one guilty.”

“No, Arnau, no ...”

“Ask him!” Arnau exploded. “I beg you,” he added apologetically.

WHEN HE WAS still several yards from it, Arnau was hit by the stench from the synagogue. The streets of the Jewry looked still more wretched than before: furniture and possessions were strewn everywhere. From inside the houses came the sounds of the friars demolishing walls and floors in their search for the body of Christ. When Arnau saw Hasdai, he had to struggle to keep his composure. Hasdai was accompanied by two rabbis and two leaders of the community. Arnau’s eyes were stinging. Could it be from the acid fumes of urine coming from inside the synagogue, or simply because of the news he had to give them?

For a few moments, to a background noise of groans and wails, Arnau watched as the others tried to get fresh air into their lungs: what could it be like inside? All of them cast anxious glances at the streets around them; for a while they seemed to hold their breath.

“They want culprits,” Arnau told him when the five men had recovered. “We started with fifteen. Now it’s down to five, and I hope that—”

“We can’t wait, Arnau Estanyol,” one of the rabbis interrupted him. “One old man has died today; he was sick, and our doctors could do nothing for him, not even moisten his lips. And we are not allowed to bury him. Do you know what that means?” Arnau nodded. “Tomorrow, the stink of his decomposing body will be added to—”

“Inside the synagogue,” Hasdai said, “we have no room to move. No one ... no one can even get up to relieve themselves. The nursing mothers have no more milk: they have suckled their own babies and tried to feed the other infants. If we have to wait many more days, five culprits will be nothing.”

“Plus forty-five thousand shillings,” Arnau pointed out.

“What do we care about money when we could all die?” the other rabbi added.

“Well?” asked Arnau.

“You have to try, Arnau,” Hasdai begged him.

Ten thousand more shillings speeded up the infante’s reply ... or perhaps he never even got the message. Arnau was summoned the next morning. Three culprits.

“They are men!” Arnau said accusingly to the magistrate.

“They are Jews, Arnau. Only Jews. Heretics who belong to the crown. Without the king’s favor they would already be dead, and the king has decided that three of them have to pay for the profanation of the host. The people demand it.”

“Since when has the king been so concerned about his people?” thought Arnau.

“Besides,” the magistrate insisted, “it will mean that our seafarers’ problems are solved.”

The old man’s body, the mothers’ dried-up breasts, the weeping children, the wailing and the stench: Arnau nodded in agreement. The magistrate leaned back in his chair.