Cathedral of the Sea

Joanet stood next to Arnau and enjoyed studying all the boats decorating the inside of the church. How he would have liked to have one! He wondered if they could really float. They must be able to: otherwise, why would anyone have carved them? He could put one of them at the water’s edge, and then ...

Arnau was staring at the stone figure. What could he say to her? Had the birds taken her his message? He had told them that he loved her. He had told them that time and again.

“My father said that even though she was a Moorish slave, Habiba is with you, but said I was not to tell anyone that, because people say Moors cannot go to heaven,” he murmured. “She was very good to me. She was not to blame for anything. It was Margarida.”

Arnau continued to stare intently at the Virgin. Dozens of candles were lit all around her, making the air quiver.

“Is Habiba with you? If you see her, tell her I love her too. You’re not angry that I love her, are you? Even if she is a Moor.”

Through the darkness and the air wavering round the candles, he was sure he saw the lips of the small stone figure curve into a smile.

“Joanet!” he shouted to his friend.

“What?”

Arnau pointed to the Virgin, but now her lips were ... Perhaps she did not want anyone else to see her smile? Perhaps it was their secret.

“What?” Joanet insisted.

“Nothing, nothing.”

“Have you prayed already?”

They were surprised to find that the priest and Angel were back.

“Yes,” said Arnau.

“I haven’t—” Joanet apologized.

“I know, I know ...,” the priest interrupted him in a kindly fashion, stroking his head. “And you, what did you pray?”

“The Ave Maria,” Arnau replied.

“A wonderful prayer. Let’s go then,” the priest said, accompanying them to the church door.

“Father,” said Arnau once they were all outside, “can we come back?”

The priest smiled at them. “Of course, but I hope that by the time you do, you’ll have taught your brother to pray as well.” Joanet looked serious as the priest tapped him on both cheeks. “Come back whenever you like,” the priest added. “You will always be welcome.”

Angel started off toward the pile of large building stones. Arnau and Joanet followed him.

“Where are you going now?” he asked, turning back to them. The two boys looked at each other and shrugged. “You can’t come into our work area. If the overseer ...”

“The man with the stone?” Arnau butted in.

“No,” laughed Angel. “That was Ramon. He’s a bastaix

.”

Joanet and Arnau both looked at him inquisitively.

“The bastaixos are the laborers of the sea; they carry goods from the beach to the merchants’ warehouses, or the other way round. They load and unload merchandise after the boatmen have brought it to the beach.”

“So they don’t work in Santa Maria?” asked Arnau.

“Yes, they work the hardest.” Angel laughed at their puzzled expressions. “They are poor people. They have little money, but they are among those who are most devoted to the Virgin of the Sea. They cannot contribute any funds to the new church, so their guild has promised they will transport the stones free from the royal quarry at Montjuic to here. They carry them all on their backs,” Angel said, his face showing no emotion. “They travel miles under the loads. Afterward, it takes two of us just to move them.”

Arnau remembered the huge stone that the bastaix had left on the ground.

“Of course they work for the Virgin!” Angel insisted. “More than anyone else. Now go and play,” he said, before continuing on his way.

10

“WHY DO THEY keep building the scaffolding higher and higher?”

Arnau pointed to the rear of Santa Maria church. Angel looked up and, his mouth full of bread and cheese, muttered an explanation neither of them could understand. Joanet burst out laughing, Arnau joined in, and in the end Angel himself could not avoid chuckling along with them, until he choked and the laughter turned into a coughing fit.

Arnau and Joanet went to Santa Maria every day. They entered the church and kneeled down. Urged on by his mother, Joanet had decided to learn to pray, and he repeated the phrases Arnau had taught him over and over again. Then, when the two of them split up, he would race to his mother’s window and tell her all he had prayed that day. Arnau talked to his mother, except when Father Albert (they had found out that was his name) appeared, in which case he joined Joanet in murmuring his devotions.

Whenever they left the church, they would stand some distance away and survey the carpenters, stonemasons, and masons at work on the new building. Afterward they would sit in the square waiting for Angel to have a break and join them to eat his bread and cheese. Father Albert treated them affectionately; the men working on Santa Maria always smiled at them; even the bastaixos, who came by bent under the weight of their stones, would glance over at the two little boys sitting next to the church.

“Why do they keep building the scaffolding higher?” Arnau asked a second time.