“And don’t worry about the manuscript. I spend my life surrounded by others just like it. I know their intrinsic value, and I know how to give them the care they deserve. It will come back to you without the slightest damage, I promise.”
“Okay, you can take it.”
“You don’t know how much I appreciate it,” Manolo said, with veiled excitement.
His mission was accomplished. It was unnecessary to stay any longer at Enrique’s. Manolo got up.
“Time I was leaving.”
“Can I give you a lift?” Bety offered.
“No, that’s all right. If you don’t mind, I’ll call a taxi.”
“You don’t need to,” Enrique said without getting up from his chair. “The Vallvidrera taxi stand is just a couple hundred yards down the street, in the square.”
“Great. All right then. I’ll call you as soon as I have any news.”
Enrique waved good-bye. Bety walked him to the door. Enrique heard them talking in the entry hall. Their voices were faint, muffled by the distance. If he concentrated on them, he could have discerned what they were saying, but he wasn’t interested. The front door closed. Manolo left the house carrying with him a chapter of Enrique’s life that he felt had now been closed. Bety came back to Enrique. She spoke again, and he pretended to listen, but he was lost in thought and unable to concentrate on the conversation. Bety, usually so observant, didn’t detect his mood. Or perhaps she did, and, feeling guilty, pretended not to, in order to cautiously skirt her earlier slip of the tongue.
“I’m just picturing Diego with the manuscript in his hands,” she said. “It may have come to him in a stack of papers having to do with the building of the cathedral, to be stored in its archive. He probably spent days with it at hand, but not even opening it for a skim. One day, his eyes fell on the then-old spine of the manuscript. Curious, probably familiar with its author’s character, he decides to take a peek. He starts off: nothing catches his eye. It’s just another text, full of information that may or may not seem interesting. He could have stopped there, but to his misfortune, he didn’t. A quirk of fate makes him turn another page, just one, and suddenly his curiosity soars. The manuscript changes its style and its look, and its objective transforms. He turns a few more pages and bears witness to the birth of a passion that will cause him a future tragedy. Unaware of what awaits him, he nurtures it every waking moment.
“The text gives information, names, lists. Diego starts to investigate. Everything seems right. The events that have to do with building are true, he’s checked them against other sources. The buildings exist, or have existed. Everything looks right, on the surface. Captivated by the mystery, he succumbs to the excitement of discovering something special. He starts to investigate. His job gives him access to papers of all kinds, without arousing any suspicion. He finally discovers something, but we don’t know what. In the meantime, the inquisitors have their eye on him. Someone anonymously reports him; probably a rival in the stark power struggles to rise in the ecclesiastic hierarchy who decided to put a quick end to his career, or maybe someone who spied something odd in his behavior. He might have been caught looking at the forbidden texts present in the index, or its Spanish annex, the Catalogus librorum reprobatorum, beyond the reach of a lowly secretary, however promising. For whatever reason, he’s arrested. But it’s likely that he was warned in advance so as to have time to hide or protect the manuscript. That was common back then.
“As for hiding the manuscript, it could be due to two reasons: aware of his Jewish ancestry, being caught with a dangerous document like that would be equivalent to a guilty sentence; it is also possible that, aware of the mystery we’re now trying to solve, he tried to keep it secret from the inquisitors. And so, he managed to hide it in time by sending it to the Bargués family. He was caught and taken to a dungeon. After a while, he was put on trial. Diego probably hoped for a quick end to the proceedings. He would have known how the Inquisition worked, and that his presence in an auto-da-fé wearing a sanbenito would have been enough to satisfy the inquisitors’ appetite for victims, and provide proof that their presence was vital to the survival of a kingdom of Spain infested with heretics.
“And yet, something goes wrong. There’s an unpredictable turn of events. Maybe the person who reported him has a lot of pull, or maybe his fate was already sealed even if he did confess. Or perhaps the suspicion against him wasn’t only due to the Jewish blood in his veins. He may have been accused of Judaising. Whatever the reason, they torture him. During the torture, he talks. He says something, but we don’t know what. The inquisitors speak among themselves, what they say is off the record. Then they inform La Suprema and move Diego to Toledo. There the torture continues, incredibly, for ten years, until he dies.”
The story was not uninteresting and Enrique knew it. Imagining was a creative exercise he knew well, just as he knew the level of freedom that a narrator can reach when enlightened by muses who show the way down the broad path that a story takes. Bety was not given to imaginative excesses, but she was clearly under the spell of the connection between Casadevall and Diego de Siurana, telling the story as if she held a personal stake in it. He got up and made a beeline to Artur’s wet bar. Without ever overindulging, Artur appreciated fine spirits and was likely to treat himself to an occasional glass of well-aged brandy or sipping whiskey. He poured himself a drink in a large glass and went back to his chair in the study. Surprised, Bety stopped talking. After so many years of living together, she had never seen Enrique do anything of the kind. He made a half-hearted attempt to play normal, and she went back into her story with her earlier enthusiasm. She spoke on and on, but the sounds still seemed distant, empty. He nodded whenever they made eye contact, as if he were following what she said with interest, but his soul was absent, far from that place, fighting a battle lost before it began against an invincible enemy: oblivion.
PART TWO
The Casadevall Manuscript
The time had come. Bety’s translation rested against his knees. He was lying in bed, under a sheet and bedspread. Perhaps reading would help him get to sleep. But that initial idea, intended to convince himself for the umpteenth time of his lack of interest in the enigma, proved to be wrong. Casadevall’s notes turned out to be a book he couldn’t put down.
True, the first pages were little more than an account of the tasks, errands, and reminders typical of a master builder’s work. But fifteen pages on, quite abruptly, the diary began. In the original manuscript, the writer’s pen had shot upward in midsentence, leaving an ink stain on the page, most likely where the nib had broken. A long blank space followed the stain. And then the Casadevall manuscript began.
I am exhausted … Life, which I once so loved, life that generously surrounds me with its gifts, struggles untiringly in this vibrant city, and imbues us all with that zeal, that yearning, that desire, now seems destined to spurn me, ignore me, removing me from the bedazzling whirl of a boundless world in constant expansion, where the work of our Lord is manifested at every instant, in every place, in every intention. Yes, this wondrous life, the life that the Creator of us all breathed into every body and gave judgment and soul, now, when I thought I had suffered everything a man could suffer, having reached, if not peace, at least a certain harmony, has chastised me yet again. Eulàlia, my daughter, has fallen ill, and my experience tells me that perhaps in her I see anew the signs that once chastised my wife, Leonor, and our children Josep and Lluisa.
It all began this morning. Today has been a most difficult day: the raig triat stones from the Montjuïc quarry on which we were to seat the second bearing arcade of the fourth rib of the fourth vault, where the Annunciation is represented, did not arrive in time to be laid early in the morning, due, it would seem, to a conflict of competencies, for the construction and reinforcement of a new wooden watchtower, set just in from the beach. As certain pirate ships have of late become a presence all too real and the bonfires of the Montgat watchtower have
been lit twice in the past months to alert us to the approach of these seaborne scavengers, priority has been given to the completion of a sort of wall meant to seal off the seafront, to ensure proper defense of the city.
And if that were not enough, on this day we were preparing to raise the Honorata, a bell famous in this city even before ringing a single peal, as the funds needed to cast it were raised through a collection among the citizens.
November 27, 1393. Today is a holy day. The day after tomorrow, our dear bishop will bless the bell, which is to be hung under the roof of Sant Iu tower, and from there it will eternally remind the Barcelonese of the time of day, as it marks the hours and quarters. Thus, they will never forget that worldly matters are begat by the Divine, and nothing has any meaning without the latter.
But it is yet another riddle of arrangements for me to make: and while the magister operis principalis is away, it is my responsibility to ensure the works underway continue according to plan. My labors have but multiplied on ten different fronts! Because to the problem of the quarry and the raising of Honorata, I must add those of the polychromy of the crypt of Saint Eulàlia, blessed be her name, and the constant discussions that we are in with the bishop on account of it. And let us not forget the problems in the supply of timber for the choir loft. Mysteriously, the oak seems insufficient and has become more expensive, reaching prices so high that the supply has been stopped. Master Jordi Johan y Anglada is exasperated; he has wood-carvers with their chisels and burins ready, but no wood to sink them into.
All is chaos, and on a grand scale; the irony of being in such disorder when the aim of our project is to erect the edifice which must necessarily praise the order of Creation worries me, and can sometimes even make me doubt my own capacity.
All of it, a host of woes that should trouble me, and which I should be taking special measures to solve, has been relegated to a lesser station, and now appears unsubstantial.
I was returning from work when Anna, the governess, told me of my daughter’s condition. She had a fever: not much at first, more in the evening, and a great deal by nightfall. I went to see her in her chamber and asked about her day. She had little to say, as she had spent most of the day in bed and did not feel well at all. I begged her to rest as I examined her. There were no marks or wounds on her body, but when I felt her neck, I found the outlines of inflammations on either side of her throat. God forbid it be that disease so hated, but above all, so feared by all! I could not bear the loss of Eulàlia. I could not stand to see her pass, as I have her mother and siblings. I am worried in the extreme, and I cannot imagine what it would be for our Barcelona to find itself scourged by another Black Death. I do not even think of my obligations to the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Eulàlia, whose martyrdom my daughter was christened after. My daughter, the last of my lineage.
Tonight I will keep vigil. I will pray the Memorare and ask the Blessed Virgin Mary for her intercession.
Day of our Lord November 29, 1393
Yesterday, at six in the evening, Honorata was raised to the cheers of a great multitude.
Our beloved bishop Ramon D’Escaldes blessed the bell before the enraptured assemblage; how adroitly he employs that deep, ponderous voice! The procession left the bishop’s palace flanked by palm bearers and in a much-festive atmosphere that the bishop soon tempered with his oratorical gifts, so that such jubilant spirit was replaced by sincere devotion; so great is his influence on those persons over whom he wields a severe but loving command. I was unable to elude the maneuvers to raise Honorata up to the tower, technically no more difficult than those of any other components of the cathedral; the only difference is that in the latter, only the laborers of the works are present, and on this occasion, the maneuver was done from the outside, surrounded by a crowd that numbered at least two or three thousand onlookers, with all of the risks and dangers that this entailed. I will not describe the difficulties of the raising, as it neither pleases nor preoccupies me, though I will say that, though my body was present and I did give the necessary orders, my mind was absent; it was home with my daughter.
The day before, I scarcely left her side. Her fever had gone down, enough to be considered a good sign, perhaps a grace of Our Lady, who, having heard the Memorare I devoted to her over the long vigil, was gentle and merciful enough to relieve her condition. I have sent for a physician—a real one, not one of those second-rate barbers who the monks taught only to cut and bleed the ill with their razors, and are more impostors than anything else. Old Aimeric is a man of experience. After all, he was a barber in his youth, a rasor et minutor who went from convent to convent shaving the friars’ tonsures and bleeding them when necessary. By the whims of destiny, he ended up becoming one of the few surgeons who entered the College of Saint Cosmas to study medicine in Paris. We have known each other for many years, from before the time his good fortune allowed him to rise and provide services to nobles. Although now his skills are dispensed among the nobility and “honorable citizens” of Barcelona, by virtue of my association with the archbishopric, but especially thanks to the modest friendship that existed between us years ago, I have been able to reach him and he has honored us by coming to see Eulàlia in our home. After listening to her breathe by placing his ear over my daughter’s girlish chest, Aimeric recommended I remain calm, and rest. He does not favor, for now, bleedings or purgatives. He insists that she remain wrapped up, protected from air currents, to avoid any worsening. I could hardly stand to speak to him of my fears, but he must have read them on my countenance, when with a simple gesture I motioned to the lumps on her throat and whispered, “Could it be—”
“It is early yet,” he interrupted. “That the malady affects the lungs is obvious. Inflammation is not extraordinary in such cases. And lastly, have you confessed of late? Remember many ailments befall us because of sins, and once we have cleansed the stains with tears of remorse, they are cured by the Supreme Physician, so says the Gospel.”
“Eulàlia goes to mass every Sunday and holy day, and fulfills her every obligation with the Church, as could be no other way.”
“Then do as I say: send for me if her condition worsens.”
I put my hand in my purse, but Aimeric refused again. “Pere, you are a man of the Church. Pray for her. That is enough for me. If she requires any medicines in the future, then we can speak of money.”
A man such as I has frugal needs. I have nothing to spend on, and few debts: the house has been ours for years, and except for the governess and food we eat, I tend not to squander. I always saw to it that Eulàlia wanted for nothing. Such were Leonor’s wishes. And so I have been able to save part of my wages as master builder, and I know I can cover any expense Aimeric demands, up to a certain limit. He is the physician of the nobles, and his treatments are dear. But I would give anything for my daughter to be well!
One week. It has been one week since my last entry into this makeshift diary, where I can vent my conscience and relieve my torment. Eulàlia has worsened. Aimeric’s visits are daily, and I cannot conceal my concern with his observant care. He says, on arriving, that I have nothing to fear, that the humors are evolving normally, but I observe his face and see concentration, and worse, I perceive doubt behind the mask of calm beatitude with which he tries to soothe my fears. The girl coughs frequently, and her sputum is a dark color which ceased to be yellow and turned to green several days ago. It is so thick she cannot expel it and throttles herself when she tries to do so. She sleeps fitfully and eats little, as the inflammation in her throat is now so large it prevents her from taking any sustenance but for thin soup, and even that she eats reluctantly and with great difficulty.
I remember thirteen years ago, in Narbonne, where we had traveled after receiving a petition to collaborate in the works of the cloister, Leonor was the first to feel symptoms much like those of Eulàlia. In those days we lived near the district of the Canons, a short walk from the cathedral, in a small, simple wooden house, with a garden behind i
t, furnished to us by the Cathedral Chapter. The Saints Justus and Pastor Cathedral was in the middle of bitter contention between the civil and ecclesiastic forces of the city. The former wished to conserve the Visigothic wall that crossed partly in front of the cathedral to better the wall’s defenses; to the contrary, the latter chiefly sought to demolish the walls and complete the project of Master D’Arrás. While deliberations were ongoing, which as such degenerated into fierce dispute, the works of the cloister continued their normal course. It was there that my art began to fully develop and my joy at adorning the house of our Lord rivaled that of the joy of seeing my loved ones, my family, growing in number. To see them grow up healthy and happy was my sole recompense, received each evening on returning home to find in its inner order the perfect balance for my mind.
But all was changed that spring night. Leonor lay in the bed, covered with blankets, feverish. Josep, who was seven years old, had given his sister Lluisa her supper. The children appeared in good health in every way, except for Eulàlia, our six-month-old baby, who cried inconsolably. Leonor was too weak to nurse her, and after some brief words, I brought the baby near for her to be nourished with her mother’s milk. Once the babe was asleep, I took her to her crib, and later, put the other two children to bed. Early the next morning, I went to ask an old neighbor woman, Marie, for help, imploring her to care for my family until Leonor recovered from her ailment, to which I attached no special significance then.
I returned from work as always, fatigued but pleased. The works progressed on schedule, there was no scarcity of materials, and payments were timely: everything was functioning with precision. But at the threshold of our house, the worst surprise imaginable awaited. Now, not only Leonor but the little ones Josep and Lluisa were feverish, and they were lying as they customarily slept, together in the same bed. Marie had prepared me a light repast, and proposed I take Eulàlia to a wet nurse who could suckle her regularly. I could care for the other two at night, and she would during the day. I acquiesced, and Marie took Eulàlia to the house of the nurse, a young woman named Anne whose one-year-old daughter had died days before.
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