The Lions of Catalunya Read online

  Wrapping him in a rough cloth, she tucked him under her arm and carried him back to the shop. Her father had cleared the rags and hair, and swept the floor, and she stood him in the middle. “Now we can see what we’ve got,” she pronounced. “And I think he’s delicious!”

  Sucio began to smile. His serious little face rarely smiled, and laughing was even rarer – but now the smile broadened into a grin, which became a giggle, and soon he was dancing naked in the bakehouse and laughing. The fat woman gathered him up to her ample bosom, and laughed with him.

  Abruptly she stopped. “Now let’s get sorted out. Come with me.” And taking his hand she led him into the back room of the shop. There was only one room, where she lived with the old man, and it wasn’t very big. Sucio looked around. It was dark, and quite like the small room he lived in with his mother, but this was tidier, and contained all manner of things he’d never seen before. Rugs were neatly piled on a bed, shelves with cooking pots and jars lined one wall, and most surprising for such a humble dwelling, a modest clothes press stood to one side.

  She knelt down and put her hands on his shoulders. “Now listen. They call me Viuda Marta, but you can call me Auntie. This is my father, and you can call him Abuelo, grandfather. He will like that.”

  The boy looked solemnly into Marta’s face. “Auntie” he said. Turning to the old man, he stated seriously, “Abuelo.”

  “Yes, I think he’ll do, father. I really think he’ll do.”

  Shuffling on her knees, Marta went to the clothes press and opened the lid.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” asked her father.

  “Quite sure,” she replied. “God sent this little one to us, I am sure, and tomorrow at Santa Maria, we will thank God for him. But he can’t go naked as a heathen.”

  Turning to Sucio, she explained. “I had a little boy, and a husband. My husband was a good man, and built this baker’s shop. Everyone knew him, Blanxart the Baker! Oh, we were always fat! I was fat and I married a fat man! We would laugh together as we cooked. From nothing, we made a good living together, and we had a little boy. This was a happy bakehouse and we were always busy. My little Jordi played here with Abuelo, and we worked all day, making cakes, and baking for others as well.

  “And then one day my husband got sick and took to his bed here in this room. Little Jordi stayed with him, and watched as he got thinner and thinner. And then Jordi got ill with him, and grandfather and I watched them both fade away and die. I made soup and got all kinds of cures, but none worked. They both just died. I laid Blanxart the Baker and his son Jordi to rest.

  “Grandfather and I waited to see if we would get sick, but we didn’t. And all through the sickness, I kept the oven going. Grandfather had to help with the logs and carrying the flour, and I kept it all going. God knows how I did it, nursing my man and my boy, but I did. God stayed by me, even if he wanted to take my husband and my son. He spared me, and he spared Grandfather. Perhaps this is why – he spared us for you. Yes, we must go to Santa Maria in the morning and thank Him for our blessings.”

  Sucio stood trying to understand all that Marta was saying, and shivers started to run through his naked body.

  “The boy is cold, Marta,” said her father. “Don’t kneel there all day; save the kneeling for the Virgin tomorrow. If you’re giving him the clothes, get him dressed.”

  “You’re right father,” she replied, and leaned into the clothes press. Bringing out Jordi’s clothes, carefully preserved since his death, she presented them to Sucio. “It’s not much, but it’s good stuff and will fit you well.”

  With Sucio dressed in Jordi’s clothes, scrubbed clean, shorn of hair, and even Jordi’s clogs on his feet, he was unrecognisable from the scruffy urchin of the day before.

  A smell of burning started to waft into the little room.

  “Oh God, father! We’ve forgotten Senor Valdes’ pies! Quick, before they burn to glory! He’ll never forgive us!” and rushing from the room, she opened the oven and started to pull out the scorching pies. Left alone, Sucio felt his head, with the strange feeling of the short stubble of hair left from his shearing. He looked down to his clothes, and smoothed them carefully. And he looked at his feet in the clogs, hardly daring to move. Years of going barefoot, even when he was with his mother, had left him unable to imagine walking in clogs, and he was unsure if he could move at all.

  The crisis in the bakehouse averted, Marta and her father came back into the room. “Our routine is all messed today,” she said. “Father find us some breakfast; I must get the shop open; and ….” she hesitated. “Sucio, take this jug to the fountain, and fill it with water for us.”

  “You may never see him or the jug again,” warned father.

  “The Virgin’s brought him to us,” said Marta. “We must have trust in Her as we have trust in the Lord.”

  She handed the jug to Sucio. He stepped out of the clogs, and went through the shop. The day before he had been desperate to find the other urchins from the cathedral, but now he hoped fervently they would not be around. How would he explain what had happened? Surely they would steal the jug, and probably his clothes as well.

  They were nowhere to be seen, and he filled the jug, trying hard to avoid splashing his new clothes. He carried it proudly and quickly back to the shop, and as he walked in, Marta announced to her father, “Trust in our Holy Mother, father, trust in our Holy Mother.” And she crossed herself. Turning to Sucio, she said, “Good boy, and so quick. Go in now to Abuelo and find some breakfast.”

  Sucio watch carefully as the schedule of the day unfurled; he saw the batter to make the little cakes going into the oven; he watched customers coming to buy the cakes; he saw Senor Valdes and other local shop keepers coming to collect the pies and loaves Marta had baked; and he saw people who despite their obvious poverty, were reasonably well fed, were clean and respectable. It was different from the scruffy street where he had lived with his mother; and it was certainly a world away from life around the cathedral walls. Not only was he given some breakfast, but another meal later in the day.

  At the end of the day, Marta told him to get some rest, as in the morning, they would be up early to go to church. He carefully undressed, folding Jordi’s precious clothes, and placed them, with the clogs, on the clothes press. With a coarse blanket, he rolled up on the floor in front of the oven. Tomorrow they were to go to visit God, go into his house! What would he be like, this man who everyone talked about? And would his mysterious mother, the one called Virgin, would she be there?

  It was still dark when Marta woke him, but this time there was no-one else in the room. “Dress quickly, little one,” she said, “We must be on our way.”

  Once ready he stood at the door, peering out into the dark. Sunrise seemed a long way off, and yet others were leaving their homes to hurry, he assumed, to the huge building they called a church. Marta took his hand, “Come on, she whispered, we mustn’t be late.”

  Sucio shook his head, and looked down at his feet, immobilised in the clogs. Quickly he stepped out of the clogs, ran back indoors with them, then smartly returned to Marta, holding out his hand for her to take. She smiled, “OK for now: barefoot. But we can’t let you do it for too long. What will people think if my little boy is running around barefoot?”

  As they hurried through the slum, she continued to talk. “We have to get you a proper name. We can’t call you Sucio – dirty one. It’s not going to be good for the business to have a boy called that. And it’s not true now. Oh I know you certainly were very dirty when I first saw you, but you’re not now. I wondered if you would like to be called Jordi, like my own little boy, but grandfather says that would not be a good idea. After mass, we’ll talk to the priest. He can give a name for you.”

  They hurried through the darkened maze of La Ribera until they reach the wide street the urchins had crossed a few days before. Ahead of them, stood the vast bulk of Santa Maria del Mar.

  For three hundred years, Santa Maria ha
d been the working people’s church. Towering over the surrounding streets and squares, the huge austere mass of Montjuic limestone had been the spiritual home for hundreds and thousands of ordinary folk who lived around it, artisans, shopkeepers and fishermen. True, they had lost Santa Eulalia when her bones had been taken to the Gothic Cathedral, but they still had the simple statute of the virgin, the focus of their devotions.

  Sucio hesitated at the door. Previously, when he was a filthy urchin, the priests had kicked out at him when he tried to go into the cathedral. This time, however, the priest at the door smiled, recognising Marta, and nodded in his direction. Once inside, he was transfixed.

  With its octagonal pillars stretching far overhead, its cavernous spaces of darkness, and the hundreds of flickering candles, Santa Maria del Mar was unlike anything in Sucio’s experience. As he got used to the darkness, Sucio become aware that the vast stone floor of the church was full of kneeling people. Some were coming, some were going, and all were whispering. Who were all these kneeling people? The smell and smoke of incense, mingling with the aroma and faint smoke from candle wax created an extraordinary and dramatic atmosphere, and Sucio clung tightly to Marta’s hand.

  “Auntie, Auntie” he whispered urgently, “Where is God? It’s so busy in here, I can’t see him.”

  Marta, leant down to him. “He’s all around you, and he’s watching you now. Just be good and he’ll be pleased.” Sucio looked over his shoulder, and pressed himself closer to Marta.

  Marta led him to one of the numerous side chapels. A small group was already gathered there, on their knees, and Marta knelt, indicating to the boy to do the same. He knelt and watched the others nearby. They didn’t seem to be doing much except hold their hands in front of their faces, so he copied, leaving cracks between his fingers to watch what else would happen. After a while, a priest came to the group and went from one to another, blessing them. Sucio cringed, remembering the kickings he had got from other priests, but none came. Instead he felt a slight touch on his forehead and then the priest had gone by.

  At last the worshippers got up and dispersed, leaving Marta and the boy kneeling alone. He went to stand, but Marta pulled him back down. “Wait, little one.”

  He looked from Marta to the priest who was now standing by one of the giant pillars of the church. Marta nodded in the direction of the priest, who came to her and put out his hand. Kissing it, she looked up.

  “Do you need confession, Viuda Marta?” asked the priest, in an unexpectedly warm voice.

  “No,” replied Marta, “but I need some help. Can we go outside and talk?”

  The priest helped her to her feet, and walked ahead of her to the door. Other worshippers were still arriving, and looked strangely at the unusual group: priest, baker, and barefoot boy.

  “Viuda Marta,” said the priest, “Ever since the Lord took your husband and your boy, you have been a good Catholic woman, and I have noticed your piety. I find it odd for you to need help, you who are so calm and well organised.” Smiling the pirest looked down at Sucio. “And who is this little chap?”

  “It’s for him I need help,” began Marta hesitantly, and she told the priest of how she had found Sucio hanging around the bakehouse. She thought it best not to tell the priest that Sucio had stolen a cake, but instead explained how she had decided to take him in as an orphan, and raise him as her own.

  “You are a good woman, Vuida Marta,” said the priest. “But I’m sure you don’t need my help. What can I do?”

  “That’s just it,” said Marta, “He says his name is Sucio.” The priest smiled. “But I can’t call him that. How can I find him a good Christian name?”

  “We must name him for his saint’s day.” replied the priest.

  He doesn’t know how old he is, nor if he has a birthday,” replied Marta with a sigh. “If he did, that would have been easy.”

  “Then we’ll name him for today,” announced the priest. “Today is the twelfth of June, of our Lord’s mercy, in the year 1606. Today shall be his birthday, and I say he shall be five years old this very day. Thus will he have been born on the twelfth of June, 1601, the very day our Lord Pope Clement, recognised the blessed Saint Joan Gonzalez de Castrillo. This boy shall be Joan. And knowing what we do about the Blessed Saint Joan Gonzalez, it is an apt name for a boy saved from the streets in the way you have saved this boy.”

  “I confess I do not know the story of Saint Joan Gonzalez,” said Marta. “Please tell me, and I will explain later to the boy if he does not understand.”

  “Blessed Joan was born in Burgos,” began the priest, “And lived a life of poverty and chastity. He saw Our Lord Jesus in many visions, and Our Lord exhorted him to dedicate his life to the poor.”

  Marta nodded and smiled.

  “One day, the Blessed Joan came upon a crowd of people surrounding a well. ‘My child has fallen down the well,’ cried a woman, ‘and we fear him lost.’ The Blessed Joan knelt in prayer for a miracle to save the boy, and as the villagers watched, a miracle happened. The well filled with water, rising up and rising up, and carrying the boy up with it. At last the water reached the top of the well, and the boy floated unharmed into his mother’s arms. Thus does Our Lord move in mysterious ways. Thanks be to the blessed Virgin.”

  “Thank you my Lord, oh thank you,” cried Marta, bending and kissing the hem of the priest’s surplice. “Joan Blanxart. A good name.”

  The priest smiled. “Come back into the church, and let us give thanks for Blessed Saint Joan Gonzalez.”

  Crossing herself, and holding the little boy firmly by his hand, Marta followed the priest into the church, where he led her to the chapel of Saint Joan the Baptist. “Saint Joan the Baptist was a gift of God to Our Virgin, and Saint Joan Gonzalez, similarly was a Gift of God. That’s the meaning of the name Joan. And this little boy has been sent by God to bring light into your life Vuida Marta, he is your Gift from God. Kneel and give thanks, and ask the Virgin to grant you mercy to look after this precious soul.”

  Marta remained on her knees for a very long time, and Joan, who once was Sucio, knelt beside her. He was not sure quite what had occurred with the priest, but he knew Marta, his own special Auntie, was happy, and so he was happy too.

  As Marta prayed, Joan looked around at all the extraordinary sights in the enormous church. Suddenly he gasped, as the statute of Saint Joan the Baptist turned into a vibrant glowing red. He could not remain quiet. “Auntie, Auntie! Look, look!” he whispered urgently. Marta raised her head.

  “Praise the Blessed Virgin,” she said, “The sun is rising, and shining on us all.” And she rose to her feet, and little Joan stood with her, and they looked around, and the sun was shining through all the vast spaces of Santa Maria del Mar, beams of coloured light cascading though the stained glass, filling the lofty building. The red light falling on the statue of Saint Joan the Baptist, was one of many beams of coloured light.

  “Come quickly,” Marta said to Joan, “I will show you a miracle.”

  She took his hand and walked rapidly around the apse to the altar steps. The shafts of coloured light filled the buildings in a dramatic and spectacular way. There in front of them was the focus of the whole church, the statue of the Virgin, glowing brilliantly in a golden light from one of the highest windows. “This is the miracle of Our Lady of the Sea,” she whispered to Joan. “See how Our Lady glows. I have seen it many times. She is telling us how much she loves us. Our Lady is giving us her blessing. Now let us hurry home and tell Abuelo the news.”

  Joan Blanxart learned the baker’s trade quickly, and soon was working hard in the bakehouse. Slowly the nightmares of his early years faded. He never saw the other urchins again, and grew to love the kindly woman who had taken such a risk adopting him, and her gentle father. Gradually he took over the chores of the business, and the old man could potter around in the shop, no longer struggling with armfuls of logs, or staggering back from the fountain with water jugs.

  With good regula
r food, the little urchin boy grew taller and stronger, and soon was carrying the main work of the business on his shoulders. Even Marta could start to slow down, letting Joan’s developing muscles take much of the strain. She delighted in the way the boy became a young man, and one day realised that he had become as tall as she.

  He grew into a handsome youth, strong and tall. With no knowledge of his mother or father, Marta could only speculate where his strength and good looks came from. Most Catalan young men of his age had dark, often black hair, but Joan’s hair was unusual and distinctive: he had a full head of luxuriant blond curls, marking him out as different and unusual in La Ribera.

  As he had grown up, he had learned all the alleyways and lanes of La Ribera. He would duck and dive from alley to alley, delivering a cake here, collecting a bag of sugar from there, drawing water from the fountain, carrying a bag of logs on his back as if they weighed nothing, never stopping, rushing through the lanes, always on the move. And at night he continued to sleep on the floor beside the oven, with auntie and grandfather beyond him in the little room they called ‘indoors’.

  One thing, however, remained beyond Marta’s control. As he grew, she had adapted her husband’s clothes for Joan, with much joking about how much fatter the old baker had been; and she would pull out the baker’s clogs, and Joan would smile, and put them on. But as soon as he went out on an errand, the clogs would remain behind. Despite all her best efforts, he continued to go everywhere barefoot. Marta would look at the strong young man, and remember the tiny boy she had adopted. Sleeping on the floor, and running barefoot, these were the legacy of his early years, and they would remain with him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The sixteen-year-old Joan Blanxart was the mainstay of the baker’s business, not only running all the errands for Viuda Marta, but increasingly taking responsibility for the whole operation. Life in the baker’s with Marta taught him all there was know about the trade; and life in La Ribera taught him a great deal more about the world, and the realities of Barcelona.