Cathedral of the Sea

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.