In this way, the new church began to take shape behind the apse of the old one, which they carefully dismantled in order to be able to use its stones. The La Ribera district did not want to be left without a church, even while the new, magnificent shrine to the Virgin was rising around them. Masses were said as usual, and yet there was a strange atmosphere in the church. Like everyone else, Arnau went in through the lopsided doorway of the tiny Romanesque construction, but once inside, instead of the welcoming gloom that had protected him while he talked to the Virgin, there was now a flood of light from the windows in the new apse. The old church was like a small box contained within another much larger and more beautiful one, a box destined to disappear as the other one grew, a box whose fourth side was taken up by the new, soaring apse that already boasted a roof.
10
HOWEVER, THERE WAS more to Arnau’s life than Santa Maria and giving water to the
So every two or three days Arnau left the workshop at dawn and went with Estranya, the mulatto slave, into the city streets. She walked with splayed legs, her huge body swaying dangerously as she waddled along. As soon as Arnau appeared in the kitchen doorway, she would give him the first things to carry: two baskets of dough they were to take to the ovens in the Calle Ollers Blancs for baking. One basket contained the loaves for Grau and his family: these were made of wheat flour, and became the finest white bread. The other held the loaves for the rest of the household, made from rye, millet, or even beans and chickpeas. When baked, this bread was dark, heavy, and hard.
Once they had handed over the loaves, Estranya and Arnau would leave the potters’ neighborhood and cross the wall into the center of Barcelona. In this first part of their journey, Arnau had no problem following the slave, and even found time to laugh at her swaying body and rippling dark flesh.
“What are you laughing at?” the mulatto had asked him more than once.
At that, Arnau would look into her round, flat face and stifle his smile.
“You want to laugh? Laugh at this then,” she said in Plaza del Blat as she gave him a sack of wheat to carry. “Where’s your smile now?” she would say on the way down La Llet as she loaded him with the milk his cousins were to drink. She would repeat the taunt in the narrow Plaza del Cols, where she bought cabbages, pulses, or other vegetables, and in Plaza de l’Oli, weighing him down with oil, game, or fowl.
After that, struggling under her purchases, Arnau followed the slave all over Barcelona. On the 160 days of abstinence, the mulatto plodded and swayed down to the shore, near Santa Maria. There she fought with the other customers at one of the city’s two official fishmongers (the old and the new) to buy the best dolphin, tuna, sturgeon, or
“Now we’ll get your fish,” she said. It was her turn to smile as she went round the back of the stalls to buy the leftovers. There were as many people here as at the front, but Estranya did not fight to get the best.
Even so, Arnau preferred these days of abstinence to those when Estranya had to go and buy meat, because whereas to purchase the leftovers of fish she simply had to walk round the stall, when she bought meat Arnau had to carry all his packages across half the city.
She bought the meat for Grau and his family from one of the butchers situated outside the slaughterhouses. Like everything else sold in the city, this was fresh, first-class meat: no dead animals were allowed inside Barcelona. Everything that was sold was slaughtered on the spot.
That was why, to get the cheap cuts to feed to the servants and slaves in the household, they had to leave the city by Portaferrisa until they reached the market where carcasses were piled alongside meat of unknown origin. Again it was Estranya’s turn to smile as she bought, and loaded the boy with her new purchases. Then it was back to the baker’s to pick up the bread from the oven, and then to Grau’s house, Estranya still swaying and waddling her way along, Arnau dragging his feet.
ONE MORNING, WHEN Estranya and Arnau were buying meat at the main slaughterhouse by Plaza del Blat, they heard the bells of San Jaume church begin to peal. It was not Sunday or a feast day. Estranya came to a halt, legs spread wide. Someone in the square let out a shout. Arnau could not understand what he was saying, but lots of others soon joined in, and people started running about in all directions. He turned toward Estranya, a question on his lips. He dropped the load. The wheat merchants were all scrambling to dismantle their stalls. People were still rushing to and fro, and the bells of San Jaume were still ringing out over the square. Arnau thought of running there, but... weren’t those the bells of Santa Clara he could hear too? He strained to capture the sound, but at that very moment the bells of San Pere, Framenors, and San Just all started up. All the churches in the city were ringing their bells! Arnau stood stock-still, openmouthed and deafened, watching everyone running all round him.
All of a sudden, he saw Joanet’s face in front of him. His friend was hopping about nervously.
“What’s that?” Arnau asked.
“What does that mean?”
Joanet motioned to him to be quiet, and pointed toward the ancient Mayor gate, beneath the magistrate’s palace.
As Arnau watched, one of the magistrate’s stewards came out. He was dressed for battle, in a silver breastplate and with a broadsword at his side. In his right hand he was carrying the banner of Sant Jordi on a gilded pole: a red cross on a white background. Behind him, another steward who was also in battle dress held aloft the city banner. The two men ran to the center of the square and the stone dividing Barcelona into four quarters. When they reached it, waving their banners, the two men cried out as one:
All the bells were still ringing, and the cry of
Finally, Estranya reacted. She swatted a hand at Arnau to make him move, but he was still entranced by the sight of the two stewards standing in the center of the square, with their shining armor and swords, waving their colorful banners, and ducked under her fist.
“Come with me, Arnau,” Estranya ordered him.
“No,” he said, egged on by Joanet.
