The Seville Communion (6 page)

Everything has its source, of course. The son of a fisherman who drowned at sea, Lorenzo Quart was taken under the wing of a rough village priest who helped him enter the seminary. A brilliant and conscientious student, to such an extent that his superiors took an interest in his progress, Quart was possessed of that southern clarity of mind that is like a quiet affliction sometimes brought on by the easterly winds and blazing Mediterranean sunsets. One day, as a child, he stood for hours on the breakwater of the port, lashed by wind and rain, while out to sea some helpless fishing boats fought the huge waves. In the distance they looked tiny and pitifully fragile in the mountainous foaming seas, their motors struggling to bring them back to port. One boat had been lost. And when one fishing boat was lost, that meant sons, husbands, brothers, fathers were lost along with it. Women in black with children clinging to their skirts stood by the lighthouse, moving their lips in silent prayer, trying to make out which boat was missing. And when the little boats finally entered the port, the men on board looked to where Lorenzo stood on the breakwater, clasping his mother's hand, and they took off their caps. The rain, the wind, and the waves roared on. No more boats returned. That day, Quart realised that it was no use praying to the sea. And he vowed that no one would ever stand in the rain waiting for him to return to port.

The church door, made of oak and decorated with thick nails, was open. As Quart went inside, a cold breath of air came to meet him, as if he'd just lifted a gravestone. He took off his sunglasses and dipped his fingers in holy water. He felt its coolness as he made the sign of the Cross on his forehead. The gilded altar gleamed gently at the other end of the nave. Half a dozen wooden pews sat facing it. The rest had been piled in a corner to make room for the scaffolding. The place smelled of wax, stale air and the mildew of centuries. The entire church was in gloom, except for the top left-hand corner, lit by a spotlight. Quart looked up at the light and saw a woman on the scaffolding, photographing the leaded windows. "Good morning," she said.

Her hair was grey, but unlike Quart's not prematurely - she must have been well over forty, he thought as she looked down from the scaffolding. Holding on to the metal poles, she climbed nimbly to the ground. She had her hair in a small plait and she wore a polo shirt, jeans covered in plaster, and trainers. From behind she could have been a young girl.

"My name is Quart," he said.

The woman wiped her right hand on her jeans and gave him a firm, brief handshake. Her hand felt rough. "Gris Marsala. I work here."

She had an American accent. Her eyes, edged with lines, were bright and friendly, and her smile was easy and open. She looked him over curiously.

"You're a good-looking priest," she said at last, forthright. Her gaze rested on his dog collar. "We were expecting someone rather different."

"We?"

"Yes. We've all been waiting for the envoy from Rome. An anonymous little man in a cassock, with a briefcase full of missals and crucifixes."

"Who is all?"

"I don't know. All of us." She started counting on her plaster-covered fingers. "Father Priamo Ferro, the parish priest. His assistant, Father Oscar. The archbishop, the mayor, and quite a few others." Quart tensed his mouth. He hadn't realised his mission would be public knowledge. He thought the IEA had informed only the nunciature of Madrid and the archbishop of Seville. The nuncio wouldn't have told anyone, but Quart could well imagine the archbishop, Monsignor Corvo, spreading rumours. Damn His Grace.

"I wasn't expecting such a reception," he said coldly.

The woman shrugged, ignoring his tone. "It's not over you, but the church." She gestured at the scaffolding, the paint on the blackened ceiling coming away between patches of damp. "This church has aroused a lot of strong feeling lately. And nobody in Seville can keep a secret." She leaned towards him slightly and lowered her voice, parodying a confidence. "They say even the Pope is giving the matter his attention."

Dear God. Quart was silent a moment, his gaze on his shoes. Then he looked into the woman's eyes. This was as good a time as any to start untangling some of the threads, he thought. So he moved closer until he was almost touching her shoulder and looked round with theatrical suspicion.

"Who says so?" he whispered.

Her laughter was relaxed, like everything else about her. "The archbishop of Seville, I think," she said. "By the way, he doesn't seem to like you much."

I must be sure to repay His Grace's kindness at the first opportunity, Quart thought. The woman watched him mischievously. He was reluctant to be as open as she was, so he just raised his eyebrows with the practised innocence of a Jesuit. He had in fact learned the gesture from a Jesuit, at the seminary.

"You're very well informed. But you shouldn't believe everything you hear."

Gris Marsala laughed. "I don't," she said. "But the rumours amuse me. Anyway, as I said, I work here. I'm the architect in charge of restoring the church." She looked round again and sighed. "Doesn't say much for my skills, docs it? But it's been one long sorry tale of estimates not being approved and money not coming through."

"You're American, aren't you?"

"Yes. I've been working here for two years. I was appointed by the Eurnekian Foundation. It put up a third of the money for the initial restoration project. At first there were three of us working here, two

Spaniards and mc, but the others left . . . The work more or less ground to a halt some time ago." She looked at him to see what effect her next words would have. "And there were the two deaths, of course."

Quart showed no reaction. "You mean the accidents?"

"You could call them that, yes. Accidents." She was still watching him closely and seemed disappointed when he said nothing more. "Have you met the parish priest?"

"Not yet. I arrived only last night. I haven't even seen the archbishop. I wanted to see the church first."

"Well, here it is." She waved her hand, indicating the nave with the high altar at the end, barely visible in the gloom. "Seventeenth-century baroque, with an altarpiece by Duque Cornejo ... A small treasure that's falling to pieces."

"And the headless Virgin at the door?"

"Some citizens of the town chose to celebrate the proclamation of the Second Republic in
1931
in their own special way." She said it kindly, as if deep down she forgave the vandals. Quart wondered how long she'd been in Seville. Definitely quite some time. Her Spanish was perfect and she seemed very much at ease.

"How long have you lived here?"

"Nearly four years. But I visited the city lots of times before I settled. I came on a scholarship and never really left." "Why not?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. It happens to a lot of Americans, particularly young ones. They come here, and then they just can't leave. They stay and scrape a living somehow, playing the guitar or sketching in the squares." She looked thoughtfully at the patch of sunlight on the floor by the door. "There's something about the light here, the colour of the streets, that saps your will. It's almost like an illness."

Quart took a few steps up the nave and stopped. On the left the pulpit with its spiral staircase was half-obscured by scaffolding. The confessional was on the right, in a small chapel that led to the vestry. He ran his hand over one of the wooden pews, blackened with age.

"What do you think of the church?" she asked.

Quart looked up. A barrel vault inset with lunettes rose above the single nave and the short-armed transept. The elliptical dome, surmounted by a blind lantern, was decorated with frescoes that had been almost completely obliterated by smoke from the candles and by fire. Around the edges of a large soot stain he could just make out a few angels, and some bearded prophets covered with patches of damp that made them look like lepers.

"I don't know," he answered. "It's small. Very pretty. Old."

"Three centuries old," she said. Their steps echoed as they walked past the pews towards the high altar. "Where I come from, a three-hundred-year-old building would be a historical jewel that no one could touch. But around here there are lots of places like this falling into ruin. And nobody lifts a finger."

"Maybe there are just too many."

"That sounds strange coming from a priest. Although you don't look much like one." Again she regarded him with amused interest, this time observing the impeccable cut of his lightweight black suit. "If it weren't for your collar and black shirt. . ."

"I've worn a dog collar for twenty years," he interrupted coldly. Then, glancing over her shoulder, "You were telling me about the church and places like it."

She tilted her head, disconcerted, obviously trying to make him out. Quart could tell that despite her self-assurance she was intimidated by the collar. All women were, he thought, young and old. Even the most determined ones lost their confidence when a word or gesture suddenly reminded them he was a priest.

"The church, yes," said Gris Marsala at last. But her thoughts seemed elsewhere. "I don't agree that there are too many places like this. After all, they're part of our collective memory, aren't they?" She wrinkled her nose and tapped a foot on the worn flagstones, as if they were her witnesses. "I'm convinced that every ancient building, picture, or book that's lost or destroyed, leaves us bereft. Impoverished."

Her tone was unexpectedly vehement, bitter. When she saw Quart's surprise, she smiled. "I'm American, it really has nothing to do with me," she said apologetically. "Or maybe it has. It's the heritage of all humanity. We have no right to let it fall into ruins."

"Is that why you've stayed in Seville so long?"

"Maybe. At any rate, that's why I'm here now, in this church." She glanced up at the window where she'd been working when Quart arrived. "Did you know, this was one of the last churches built in Spain under the Hapsburgs? The work was officially completed on the first of November,
1700,
while Charles II, the last of his dynasty, lay dying. Next day, the first mass celebrated here was a requiem for the king."

They stood before the high altar. The light fell diagonally from the windows and made the gilding high on the altarpiece gleam gently. Reliefs kept the rest in shadow. Through the scaffolding Quart could make out the central section with the Virgin beneath a wide baldachin, above the tabernacle. He bowed his head briefly before it. In the side sections, separated from the portico by carved columns, were niches containing figures of cherubs and saints.

"It's magnificent," he said with feeling.

"It's slightly more than that."

Gris Marsala moved behind the altar to the foot of the altarpiece. She switched on a light to illuminate it. The gold leaf and gilded wood came to life, and a stream of light poured through exquisitely carved columns, medallions and garlands. Quart admired the way all the different elements blended so harmoniously.

"Magnificent," he repeated, impressed, crossing himself. Then he saw that Gris Marsala was watching him intently, as if she thought it incongruous.

"Haven't you seen a priest cross himself before?" He smiled coldly to hide his embarrassment. "I can't be the first to have done that before this altarpiece."

"I suppose not. But they were a different kind of priest."

"There's only one type of priest," he said quickly. "Are you Catholic?"

"Partly. My great-grandfather was Italian." She looked at him mischievously. "I have a fairly precise understanding of sin, if that's what you mean. But at my age . . ." She-touched her grey hair.

Quart thought he ought to change the subject. "We were discussing the altarpiece," he said. "I said it was magnificent. . ." He looked her in the eye, serious, courteous, distant. "How about starting again?"

Gris Marsala tilted her head as before. An intelligent woman, he thought, but she made him uneasy. His instincts were well honed by his work for the IEA and he sensed a discordant note. Something about her didn't quite add up. He peered at her, hoping for a clue, but there was no way of getting any closer without being more open himself, something he was reluctant to do.

"Please," he added.

She seemed about to smile but didn't. "All right," she said at last. They both turned to the altarpiece. "The sculptor Pedro Duque Corncjo completed it in
1711
.
He was paid two thousand silver
escudos.
And as you say, it's magnificent. All the energy and imagination of the Sevillian baroque are there."

The Virgin was a beautiful polychrome sculpture in wood, almost a metre tall. She wore a blue mantle and held her hands open, palms out. The pedestal was shaped like a crescent moon, and her right foot rested on a serpent.

"She's very lovely," said Quart.

"Sculpted by Juan Martinez Montanes almost a century before the altarpiece ... It belonged to the dukes of El Nuevo Extreme One of the dukes helped to construct the church, and his son donated the sculpture. The tears gave the church its name."

Quart looked more closely. From below he could see tears glistening on the face, crown and mantle.

"They are rather exaggerated."

"Originally they were smaller and made of glass. But now they're pearls. Twenty perfect pearls, brought from America at the end of the last century. The rest of the story lies in the crypt."

"There's a crypt?"

"Yes. There's a concealed entrance over there, to the right of the high altar. It's a kind of private chapel. Several generations of the dukes of El Nuevo Extremo are buried inside. In
1687
,
one of the them, Gaspar Bruner de Lebrija, ceded land from his estate for the church, on condition that a Mass would be said for his soul once a week." She pointed to a niche to the right of the Virgin, containing a figure of a knight kneeling in prayer. "There he is: carved by Duque Cornejo, as was the figure on the left, of the duke's wife . . . He commissioned his favourite architect, Pedro* Romero, also the duke of Medina-Sidonia's favourite architect, to design the building. That's the origin of the family's link with this church. Gaspar Bruner's son Guzman had figures of his parents added, which completed the altar-piece, and the image of the Virgin brought here in
1711.
The family still has links with the church today, although they're diminished. And this has a great deal to do with the conflict." "What conflict?"