The Antiquarian (33 page)

“Are you sure?”

Bety watched them looking at each other in silence, each lost in their own cryptic thoughts. Her presence seemed to have faded, lost in the midst of a contest of unknown motives. She didn't know Manolo well enough, and she didn't understand Enrique's resolution. It made her feel alien to the conversation, a spectator physically present but intellectually absent, incapable of intervening in an incomprehensible duel.

“Yes,” Enrique answered. “How long will it take you to translate the notes?”

“A couple of days at the most, I suppose.”

Bety handed him several sheets of paper that made up a list of the notes.

“The translation itself won't be difficult. It's made up of two clearly distinct parts: one contains the observations on certain paragraphs, the other lists the abbreviations. I can translate them partially, but I can only be sure once I've studied the original text in depth.”

“Why only partially?”

“Because they're not the typical abbreviations you'd use to write faster. They're deliberately cryptic. Even more than Casadevall, Diego de Siurana didn't want to disclose what he knew about whatever it was.”

“The mystery lives on,” Bety said. “The clues reveal parts, without showing its entirety. But I think that Manolo's translation can help us locate the object, whatever it is.”

How odd,
thought Enrique. He was watching her with a skeptical grin that she chose to ignore. Days before, she had wanted to take the story of the manuscript to the police. Now that Artur's killer was in jail and the Casadevall manuscript had lost its aura of danger, she too had given in to the ambition to know, or possess … or both. And it had happened now, when he had lost interest not only in the manuscript but in anything related to the past. Amazed, he observed in himself the estrangement caused by disappointment. How distant were the affections and desires that had been cardinal until now. In the meantime, Bety kept on with enthusiasm that was restrained but impossible to conceal. Fine. He would carry on, even though he had gotten out from under the spell of the mystery itself.

“… in fact, the rest is of little interest,” Bety was saying. “The main part could lead us to the object itself, but personally I think the key is in the final list of the manuscript. That's where we find the most interesting notes.”

“I want to read them, and in fact, I will later—the whole manuscript. But tell me what conclusions you've reached on both parts.”

Bety and Manolo looked at each other doubtfully. He took the initiative.

“What conclusions we have aren't relevant. We don't know, and in fact I doubt we'll ever know, how the manuscript fell into Diego's hands. Nor do we know how it reached the Bergués family. Sheer chance put it in ours.”

“The notes on the first part of the manuscript are the ones that Manolo has been able to transcribe with the most accuracy.” Bety took over. “They're clear. They begin on an indeterminate date, but definitely before February 1612, the date when the Inquisition began its case against Diego. We drew the following conclusions: first, Diego was only interested in matters related with S.; second, starting from the pages that reveal the enigma, the ones with the most notes, Diego began an encrypted sort of writing meant to hide information; and third, Diego checked the final list building by building. Next to the buildings on the list are what we believe to be the initials of the dates when he made his rounds. The final note of the manuscript is ‘LLO. SI. D.,' which according to Manolo is
Lloat Sigui Déu
, or ‘Praise Be to God' in Catalan. We think the praise reveals his happiness at having found the site. And fourth, the site must be marked by a symbol we're unaware of, as can be deduced from this note,” she said, showing it to Enrique.

“Sounds reasonable,” conceded Enrique. “What about the rest of the notes?”

“As I've said, and despite Bety's groundwork, I'd rather study the original to be able to associate them with it. Bety has—correctly, I might add—been unwilling to let me take it without your permission. But if you let me keep it over a few days, I'll be able to figure out everything the notes are hiding.”

Enrique nodded. He was curious as to whether Manolo would be able to properly interpret the meaning of the abbreviations. Manolo perfectly gauged another train of thought behind Enrique's offering.

“And don't worry about the manuscript. I spend my life surrounded by others just like it. I know their intrinsic value, and I know how to give them the care they deserve. It will come back to you without the slightest damage, I promise.”

“Okay, you can take it.”

“You don't know how much I appreciate it,” Manolo said, with veiled excitement.

His mission was accomplished. It was unnecessary to stay any longer at Enrique's. Manolo got up.

“Time I was leaving.”

“Can I give you a lift?” Bety offered.

“No, that's all right. If you don't mind, I'll call a taxi.”

“You don't need to,” Enrique said without getting up from his chair. “The Vallvidrera taxi stand is just a couple hundred yards down the street, in the square.”

“Great. All right then. I'll call you as soon as I have any news.”

Enrique waved good-bye. Bety walked him to the door. Enrique heard them talking in the entry hall. Their voices were faint, muffled by the distance. If he concentrated on them, he could have discerned what they were saying, but he wasn't interested. The front door closed. Manolo left the house carrying with him a chapter of Enrique's life that he felt had now been closed. Bety came back to Enrique. She spoke again, and he pretended to listen, but he was lost in thought and unable to concentrate on the conversation. Bety, usually so observant, didn't detect his mood. Or perhaps she did, and, feeling guilty, pretended not to, in order to cautiously skirt her earlier slip of the tongue.

“I'm just picturing Diego with the manuscript in his hands,” she said. “It may have come to him in a stack of papers having to do with the building of the cathedral, to be stored in its archive. He probably spent days with it at hand, but not even opening it for a skim. One day, his eyes fell on the then-old spine of the manuscript. Curious, probably familiar with its author's character, he decides to take a peek. He starts off: nothing catches his eye. It's just another text, full of information that may or may not seem interesting. He could have stopped there, but to his misfortune, he didn't. A quirk of fate
makes him turn another page, just one, and suddenly his curiosity soars. The manuscript changes its style and its look, and its objective transforms. He turns a few more pages and bears witness to the birth of a passion that will cause him a future tragedy. Unaware of what awaits him, he nurtures it every waking moment.

“The text gives information, names, lists. Diego starts to investigate. Everything seems right. The events that have to do with building are true, he's checked them against other sources. The buildings exist, or have existed. Everything looks right, on the surface. Captivated by the mystery, he succumbs to the excitement of discovering something special. He starts to investigate. His job gives him access to papers of all kinds, without arousing any suspicion. He finally discovers something, but we don't know what. In the meantime, the inquisitors have their eye on him. Someone anonymously reports him; probably a rival in the stark power struggles to rise in the ecclesiastic hierarchy who decided to put a quick end to his career, or maybe someone who spied something odd in his behavior. He might have been caught looking at the forbidden texts present in the index, or its Spanish annex, the
Catalogus librorum reprobatorum
, beyond the reach of a lowly secretary, however promising. For whatever reason, he's arrested. But it's likely that he was warned in advance so as to have time to hide or protect the manuscript. That was common back then.

“As for hiding the manuscript, it could be due to two reasons: aware of his Jewish ancestry, being caught with a dangerous document like that would be equivalent to a guilty sentence; it is also possible that, aware of the mystery we're now trying to solve, he tried to keep it secret from the inquisitors. And so, he managed to hide it in time by sending it to the Bargués family. He was caught and taken to a dungeon. After a while, he was put on trial. Diego probably hoped for a quick end to the proceedings. He would have known how the Inquisition worked, and that his presence in an auto-da-fé wearing
a sanbenito would have been enough to satisfy the inquisitors' appetite for victims, and provide proof that their presence was vital to the survival of a kingdom of Spain infested with heretics.

“And yet, something goes wrong. There's an unpredictable turn of events. Maybe the person who reported him has a lot of pull, or maybe his fate was already sealed even if he did confess. Or perhaps the suspicion against him wasn't only due to the Jewish blood in his veins. He may have been accused of Judaising. Whatever the reason, they torture him. During the torture, he talks. He says something, but we don't know what. The inquisitors speak among themselves, what they say is off the record. Then they inform
La Suprema
and move Diego to Toledo. There the torture continues, incredibly, for ten years, until he dies.”

The story was not uninteresting and Enrique knew it. Imagining was a creative exercise he knew well, just as he knew the level of freedom that a narrator can reach when enlightened by muses who show the way down the broad path that a story takes. Bety was not given to imaginative excesses, but she was clearly under the spell of the connection between Casadevall and Diego de Siurana, telling the story as if she held a personal stake in it. He got up and made a beeline to Artur's wet bar. Without ever overindulging, Artur appreciated fine spirits and was likely to treat himself to an occasional glass of well-aged brandy or sipping whiskey. He poured himself a drink in a large glass and went back to his chair in the study. Surprised, Bety stopped talking. After so many years of living together, she had never seen Enrique do anything of the kind. He made a half-hearted attempt to play normal, and she went back into her story with her earlier enthusiasm. She spoke on and on, but the sounds still seemed distant, empty. He nodded whenever they made eye contact, as if he were following what she
said with interest, but his soul was absent, far from that place, fighting a battle lost before it began against an invincible enemy: oblivion.

 

The time had come. Bety's translation rested against his knees. He was lying in bed, under a sheet and bedspread. Perhaps reading would help him get to sleep. But that initial idea, intended to convince himself for the umpteenth time of his lack of interest in the enigma, proved to be wrong. Casadevall's notes turned out to be a book he couldn't put down.

True, the first pages were little more than an account of the tasks, errands, and reminders typical of a master builder's work. But fifteen pages on, quite abruptly, the diary began. In the original manuscript, the writer's pen had shot upward in midsentence, leaving an ink stain on the page, most likely where the nib had broken. A long blank space followed the stain. And then the Casadevall manuscript began.

I am exhausted … Life, which I once so loved, life that generously surrounds me with its gifts, struggles untiringly in this vibrant city, and imbues us all with that zeal, that yearning, that desire, now seems destined to spurn me, ignore me, removing me from the bedazzling whirl of a boundless world in constant expansion, where the work of our Lord is manifested at every instant, in every place, in every intention. Yes, this wondrous life, the life that the Creator of us all breathed into every body and gave judgment and soul, now, when I thought I had suffered everything a man could suffer, having reached, if not peace, at least a certain harmony, has chastised me yet again. Eulàlia, my daughter, has fallen ill, and my experience tells me that perhaps in her I see anew the signs that once chastised my wife, Leonor, and our children Josep and Lluisa.

It all began this morning. Today has been a most difficult day: the
raig triat
stones from the Montjuïc quarry on which we were to seat the second bearing arcade of the fourth rib of the fourth vault, where the Annunciation is represented, did not arrive in time to be laid early in the morning, due, it would seem, to a conflict of competencies, for the construction and reinforcement of a new wooden watchtower,
set just in from the beach. As certain pirate ships have of late become a presence all too real and the bonfires of the Montgat watchtower have been lit twice in the past months to alert us to the approach of these seaborne scavengers, priority has been given to the completion of a sort of wall meant to seal off the seafront, to ensure proper defense of the city.

And if that were not enough, on this day we were preparing to raise the
Honorata
, a bell famous in this city even before ringing a single peal, as the funds needed to cast it were raised through a collection among the citizens.

November 27, 1393. Today is a holy day. The day after tomorrow, our dear bishop will bless the bell, which is to be hung under the roof of Sant Iu tower, and from there it will eternally remind the Barcelonese of the time of day, as it marks the hours and quarters. Thus, they will never forget that worldly matters are begat by the Divine, and nothing has any meaning without the latter.

But it is yet another riddle of arrangements for me to make: and while the
magister operis principalis
is away, it is my responsibility to ensure the works underway continue according to plan. My labors have but multiplied on ten different fronts! Because to the problem of the quarry and the raising of
Honorata
, I must add those of the polychromy of the crypt of Saint Eulàlia, blessed be her name, and the constant discussions that we are in with the bishop on account of it. And let us not forget the problems in the supply of timber for the choir loft. Mysteriously, the oak seems insufficient and has become more expensive, reaching prices so high that the supply has been stopped. Master Jordi Johan y Anglada is exasperated; he has wood-carvers with their chisels and burins ready, but no wood to sink them into.