‘Praise the Lord. So you are Friar Miquel de Susqueda.’
‘Brother Julià is my name. I’m Brother Julià.’
‘Friar Miquel. The Dominican heretic.’
‘Supper is on the table.’
Little Lola had poked her head into the study. Father responded with a silent, peevish gesture as he continued to read aloud the articles of the founding charter, which were incomprehensible on the first reading. As if in response to Little Lola’s demand, ‘Now you read the rest.’
‘But the writing is so strange …’
‘Read,’ said Father, impatient and disappointed at having such a wishy-washy son. And Adrià began to read, in good mediaeval Latin, the words of Abbot Deligat, without completely understanding them and still dreaming about the other story.
‘Well … The name Friar Miquel belongs to my other life. And the Order of Saint Dominic is very far from my thoughts. I’m a new man, different.’ He looked into his eyes, as the father prior had done. ‘What do you want, brother?’
The man with the noble forehead fell to the ground on his knees and gave thanks to God with a brief, silent prayer. When he crossed himself devoutly, the three monks followed suit respectfully. The man stood up.
‘It has taken me years to find you. A Holy Inquisitor ordered your execution for heresy.’
‘You are making a mistake.’
‘Gentlemen, brothers,’ said one of the monks accompanying him, possibly Friar Mateu, very alarmed. ‘We came to collect the key to Burgal and the monastery’s Sacred Chest and to escort Friar Julià to Gerri.’
Friar Julià, suddenly remembering it, handed him the Sacred Chest he was still clinging to.
‘It won’t be necessary to escort him,’ the man with the noble forehead said curtly. And then, addressing Brother Julià, ‘I’m not making a mistake: it is imperative that you know who has condemned you.’
‘My name is Julià de Sau and, as you can see, I am a Benedictine monk.’
‘Friar Nicolau Eimeric condemns you. He ordered me to tell you his name.’
‘You are confused.’
‘He has been dead for some time, Friar Nicolau. But I am still alive and can finally rest my ravaged soul. In God’s name.’
Before the horrified eyes of the two monks from Gerri, the last monk of Burgal, a new, different man, who had achieved spiritual serenity over years of effort, saw the dagger’s glimmer just before it was sunk into his chest in the increasingly uncertain clarity of the weak sun on that winter’s day. He had to swallow the old grudge in a single gulp. And, following the holy order, the noble knight, with the same dagger, cut off his tongue and put it inside an ivory box which was immediately dyed red. And in a strong, decisive voice, as he cleaned the iron blade with dried walnut leaves, he addressed the two frightened monks:
‘This man has no right to sacred ground.’
He looked around him. Coldly. He pointed to the plot beyond the cloister.
‘There. And without a cross. It is the Lord’s will.’
Seeing that the two monks remained immobile, frozen with fear, the man with the noble forehead stood in front of them, practically stepping on Friar Julià’s inert body, and shouted contemptuously, ‘Bury this carrion!’
And Father, after reading Abbot Deligat’s signature, folded it up carefully and said touching a vellum like this makes you imagine the period. Don’t you think?
The inevitable consequence was me touching the parchment, now with five anxious fingers. Father’s hard smack to the back of my neck was painful and very humiliating. As I struggled not to release a single tear, Father, indifferent, put the loupe aside and stored the manuscript in the safe.
‘Come on, supper time,’ he said, instead of sealing a pact with a son who knew how to read mediaeval Latin. Before reaching the dining room I had already had to wipe away two furtive tears.
6
Being born into that family had indeed been an unforgivable mistake. And the worst had yet to happen.
‘Well, I liked Herr Romeu.’
Thinking that I was asleep, they were speaking a bit too loudly.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Obviously. I’m useless. And a drudge!’
‘I’m the one who makes sacrifices for Adrià!’
‘And what do I do?’ Mother’s sarcastic, hurt voice, and then, lowering her tone, ‘And don’t shout.’
‘You’re the one shouting!’
‘Don’t I make sacrifices for the boy? Huh?’
Thick, solid silence. Father’s brain cells scrambling to think.
‘Of course, you do too.’
‘Well, thanks for admitting it.’
‘But that doesn’t mean that you’re right.’
I picked up Sheriff Carson because I sensed that I’d need some psychological support. I even called Black Eagle over just in case. And, without the slightest rustle, I opened the door to my room just a sliver. It wasn’t the moment to make a dangerous excursion to the kitchen for a glass. Now I could hear them much better. Black Eagle congratulated me on the idea. Sheriff Carson was silent and chewed on what I thought was gum but turned out to be tobacco.
‘Fine, he’ll study violin, fine.’
‘You make it sound like you’re doing me a huge favour.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Fine, he’ll study violin, fine.’ I’ll admit that my mother’s imitation of Father was quite an exaggeration. But I liked it.
‘Well, if you’re going to act like that, forget the violin and have him devote his time to serious things.’
‘If you take away the boy’s violin, you’ll hear it from me.’
‘Don’t threaten me.’
‘Don’t you, either.’
Silence. Carson spat on the floor and I made a mute gesture to scold him.
‘The boy has to study real things.’
‘And what are real things?’
‘Latin, Greek, history, German and French. To start with.’
‘The boy is only eleven years old, Fèlix!’
Eleven years old. I think that earlier I said eight or nine; time slips away from me in these pages too. Luckily Mother was keeping track. Do you know what happens? I don’t have the time or the desire to correct all this; I write hurriedly, like when I was young, when everything I wrote I wrote hurriedly. But my urgency now is very different. Which doesn’t mean I write quickly. And Mother repeated: ‘The boy is eleven years old and already studies French at school.’
‘“J’ai perdu la plume dans le jardin de ma tante” isn’t French.’
‘What is it? Hebrew?’
‘He has to be able to read Racine.’
‘My God.’
‘God doesn’t exist. And he could be much better at Latin. I mean, he’s studying with the Jesuits!’
That affected me more directly. Neither Black Eagle nor Sheriff Carson said a peep. They had never gone to the Jesuit school on Casp Street. I didn’t know if it was bad or good. But, according to Father, they weren’t teaching me Latin well. He was right: we were working on the second declension and it was a total bore, because the other children didn’t even understand the concept behind the genitive and the dative.
‘Oh, now you want to pull him out of there?’
‘What do you think about the French Lyceum?’
‘No: the boy will stay at Casp. Fèlix, he’s just a child! We can’t be moving him from place to place as if he were your brother’s livestock.’
‘OK, forget I mentioned it. We always end up doing what you say,’ lied Father.
‘And sport?’
‘None of that. They have plenty of playground breaks at the Jesuits’, don’t they?’
‘And music.’
‘Fine, fine. But the priorities come first. Adrià will be a great scholar and that’s that. And I will find a substitute for Casals.’