Cathedral of the Sea

IT WAS CHRISTMAS. The streets of Barcelona were empty: no one would be outside until midnight mass and the sacrifice of a cock. The moon shone on the sea so brightly it seemed that the street they were walking down stretched on forever. The three children stared in wonder at its silver reflection.

“There’ll be no one on the beach tonight,” Margarida reasoned.

“Nobody puts to sea at Christmas,” Guiamon agreed.

The two of them turned to Arnau. He shook his head.

“No one will notice,” Margarida insisted. “We can go and be back very quickly. It’s close by.”

“Coward,” Guiamon hissed.

They ran down to Framenors, the Franciscan convent built on the shore at the far western end of the city wall. When they reached it, the children stared across the beach to the Santa Clara convent, which marked Barcelona’s eastern limit.

“Look!” Guiamon said excitedly. “The city fleet!”

“I’ve never seen the beach like this before,” said Margarida.

Eyes big as saucers, Arnau nodded in agreement.

All the way from Framenors to Santa Clara, the beach was filled with ships of all sizes. There were no buildings to spoil the children’s view of this magnificent sight. Once, when Grau had taken them and their tutor down to the strand to watch one of the ships he had an interest in being loaded or unloaded, he had explained that almost a hundred years earlier King Jaime the Conqueror had forbidden any building on the beach in order to leave it free for boats to be grounded. None of the children had thought any more of what Grau had said: wasn’t it natural for ships to be beached like that? They had always been there.

Grau had looked over at the tutor.

“In the ports of our enemies and trading rivals,” the tutor explained, “none of the boats are left on the beach.”

At that word “enemy” the four children were suddenly all ears.

“It’s true,” Grau went on, finally sure of their interest. “Our enemy Genoa has a wonderful natural harbor protected from the sea. That means they do not need to beach their ships. Our ally, Venice, has a great lagoon reached by narrow canals: their ships are safe there from any storms. The port of Pisa is connected to the sea by the River Arno; even Marseilles has a natural harbor protected from rough seas.

“The Phocian Greeks are known to have used the harbor at Marseilles,” the tutor added.

“You say our enemies have better ports than us?” asked Josep, the eldest. “And yet we defeat them: we’re the lords of the Mediterranean!” he said, repeating the words so often heard from his father. The other children agreed: how was it possible?

Grau turned to their tutor for the explanation.

“Because Barcelona has always had the best sailors. We don’t have a harbor, and yet ...”

“What do you mean, we don’t have a harbor?” protested Genis. “What’s this then?” he said, pointing to the beach.

“This is not a harbor. A harbor needs to be a sheltered place, protected from the open sea, but this...” The tutor waved his hands toward the waves lapping on the shore. “Listen, Barcelona has always been a city of sailors. Many years ago, there was a harbor here, like all the other cities your father mentioned. In Roman times, ships sheltered behind the Mons Taber, which was over there somewhere ... ,” he said, pointing to inside the city walls, “but gradually the land took over from the sea, and the harbor disappeared. Then there was the Comtal harbor, but that has gone too, and so has Jaime the First’s, which was also sheltered by another small natural outcrop, the Puig de les Falsies. Do you know where that is now?”

The four children stared at one another, then turned to Grau. Laughing, he pointed his finger downward, as if trying to hide his gesture from the tutor.

“Here?” all four of them chimed.

“Yes,” replied the tutor, “we’re standing on it. But that one disappeared too ... so Barcelona was left without a harbor, but by then we were a sea-faring city, with the best sailors, and we still are ... even though we have no harbor.”

“Well, then,” Margarida objected, “why is a harbor so important?”

“Your father can explain that better than me,” said the tutor. Grau nodded.

“It’s very, very important, Margarida. Do you see that ship?” He pointed to a galley surrounded by small craft. “If Barcelona had a harbor, we could unload it at a quay without needing all those people to unload the merchandise. Besides, if a sudden storm blew up now, the ship would be in great danger because it is so close to shore. It would have to leave Barcelona.”

“Why?” Margarida wanted to know.

“Because it couldn’t ride out the storm here: it might sink. Why, it’s even made explicit in the Ordinances of the Barcelona Coast. There it stipulates that in case of any storm, ships must seek refuge in either the harbor at Salou or at Tarragona.”

“So we don’t have a harbor,” said Guiamon sorrowfully, as if he had been robbed of something of the utmost importance.