Cathedral of the Sea

“What is an apse?” asked Arnau.

Berenguer smiled and looked round. Some of the group with him seemed as anxious to hear his explanation as the boys were.

“An apse is something like this.” The master builder joined his hands together in an arch. The children were fascinated by his magic hands, and others in the group crowded forward to see. “Well, on top of all the rest,” he said, separating one hand and pointing to the tip of the other first finger, “we put a big stone called the keystone. To do that we first have to raise it to the very highest scaffolding—right up there, can you see?” They all peered up at the sky. “Once that is in place, we’ll build the rib vaults of these arches until they meet the keystone. And that is why we need such tall scaffolding.”

“Why are you doing all that?” Arnau wanted to know. Poor Father Albert gave a start, although by now he was growing used to the boys’ questions and comments. “None of this will be visible from inside the church, because it’s all above the roof.”

Berenguer and a few of the others laughed. Father Albert sighed.

“Of course it will be visible, my boy, because the roof of the present church will gradually disappear as we build the new structure. It will be as though this tiny church were giving birth to another, bigger one.”

Joanet’s obvious disappointment unsettled him. The boy had become accustomed to the small church’s sense of intimacy, to its smell, its darkness, the atmosphere there when he prayed.

“Do you love the Virgin of the Sea?” Berenguer asked him.

Joanet glanced at Arnau. They both nodded.

“Well, when we have finished her new church, the Virgin you love so much will have more light than any other Virgin in the world. She will no longer be in darkness as she is now. She’ll have the most beautiful church you could ever imagine. She won’t be shut in by thick, low walls, but will shine among tall, delicate ones, with slender columns and apses that reach up to the heavens: the perfect place for the Virgin.”

They all looked up at the sky.

“Yes,” Berenguer de Montagut went on, “the Virgin of the Sea’s new church will reach right up there.”

He and his companions set off toward Santa Maria, leaving Father Albert and the boys behind.

“Father,” Arnau asked when the others were out of earshot, “what will happen to the Virgin when they take down the old building, but haven’t finished her new church yet?”

“Do you see those buttresses?” the priest replied, pointing to two of the ones being built as the back part of the ambulatory, behind the main altar. “In between them they are going to construct the first chapel, dedicated to the Lord Jesus. That’s where they will put the Virgin, together with the body of Christ and the sepulcher containing Saint Eulalia’s remains. That way she will come to no harm.”

“Who will look after her?”

“Don’t worry,” said the priest with a smile. “The Virgin will be well looked after. The Jesus chapel belongs to the bastaix guild; they are the ones who will have the key to its railings, and will make sure she is looked after.”

Arnau and Joanet knew the bastaixos well by now. Angel had reeled off their names when a line of them appeared, bowed beneath their enormous stones: Ramon, the first one they had met; Guillem, as hard as the rocks he carried on his back, tanned by the sun and with a face horribly disfigured by an accident, but gentle and affectionate in his dealings with them; another Ramon, known as “Little Ramon” because he was smaller and stockier than the other one; Miquel, a scrawny man who did not look strong enough to carry the huge weights, but who succeeded in doing so by straining all the nerves and tendons in his body until it seemed they might explode; Sebastia, the least friendly or talkative of the group, with his son Bastianet. Then there were Pere, Jaume, and a seemingly endless list of others, all of them men from La Ribera who had committed themselves to carrying the thousands of stones needed for the new church from the royal quarry at La Roca to Santa Maria de la Mar.

Arnau thought of the bastaixos, and the way they gazed at the church as they arrived bent double under the weight of a stone; the way they smiled when they were relieved of their load; the mighty strength of their backs. He was sure they would look after the Virgin.

THE OPERATION BERENGUER de Montagut had told them about took place within the next week.

“Come at first light tomorrow,” Angel had told them. “That’s when we’ll put the keystone in place.”

The two boys made sure they were there. They ran toward the workmen who had gathered at the foot of the scaffolding. Between laborers, bastaixos, and priests, there must have been more than a hundred people present. Even Father Albert had taken off his robe and was dressed like all the rest, with a thick piece of red cloth tied round his waist.

Arnau and Joanet joined the throng, saying hello to some and waving at others.

“Boys,” they heard one of the masons say, “when we start to raise the keystone, I want you to stay well away from here.”

The two boys nodded in agreement.

“Where is the stone?” Joanet asked, looking up at the builder.

They ran over to where he pointed, at the foot of the first and lowest scaffold.

“Good heavens!” they both exclaimed when they saw the huge circular stone on the ground.

Many of the men stared at it as admiringly as they did, but said nothing. They knew how important this day was.

“It weighs more than six tons,” one of them said.

With eyes like saucers, Joaner looked inquiringly at Ramon, the first man they had seen carrying a block of stone.

“No,” he said, reading the boy’s mind. “We didn’t carry this one here.”