The Antiquarian (12 page)

It was also plain that their meetings, which were sporadic at first, became more regular over time. Enrique interpreted this as the consolidation of a fluid relationship, once the initial reluctance had been overcome. There was not much said about the reasons for the meetings: brief references to places and people, simple dashes of information that contrasted with the meticulously detailed entries found at the beginning of the text. The architect did not want to risk forgetting the information about the meetings, but he could not afford to explicitly record them either. Extreme discretion seemed to guide it all.

A specific date: May 12, 1401. That day marked an end to the sparse monotony of the entries. With a surge of enthusiasm, Casadevall had written the following words:

We're in the middle of May, the month Hebrews call
Shevat
and the Muslims
Jumada
. A miracle has occurred this month: today they are going to show it to me for the first time! S. told me that today I will attend a different sort of
gahal
from the others. I have asked them so many times I still can't believe they have decided to do it. May God help and enlighten me.

There it was! For the first time he seemed close to his target. Enrique did not stop to wonder about the meaning of the comment, and kept analyzing the text, hoping to find a clue that would take him to the solution of the ever-growing list of enigmas. The next page was rife with odd observations leading up to a categorical, near-dramatic conclusion. Once he had completed the tedious translation of these pages, which he considered key, he carefully reread his work; although he was sure it would be pocked with errors, he thought they could be minimized considering that there was continuity to
the overall meaning. As he went over his work again, his tolerance for surprise increased, to the point that the text seemed unable to shock him anymore. What did it all mean—that whole story and, especially, those lines that were etched in his memory?

Then S. murmured a strange litany in Hebrew, and despite my efforts to understand it, I must admit that I found it impossible. Perhaps he spoke in some unusual dialect, or perhaps it was a magic formula from the beginning of time. He then moved the candelabrum and pressed down on part of the molding that encircled the altar. The place where the seal was descended; the molding governed a mechanism that made it possible to move the Stone. He placed his hands into the hollow and took it out.

What happened next was too incredible to be told in these pages. Everything S. had said was true. The only proof needed was that his name was there, and S. dared pronounce it.

Then came a void, a pause. It seemed as if the architect had thought back on what had happened, or been frightened on reading what he had written. In any event, a space of several lines was left blank, a space that would have corresponded to the end of the story, which, for some reason, had been cut off.

They were right. It is my duty as a Christian, and a man, to hide it forever. I must find the way to hide it and forget what I have seen, what I have held in my hands. May God forgive me, because my sin has been the darkest of them all. May he forgive me, because if I did sin it was to keep others from sinning, and to prevent worse evils from befalling humankind. Fully knowing, I damn myself. May the Lord have mercy on my soul.

Thus ended that part of the text, on which Enrique had focused his efforts over the pervious two days. What could it be? What was Casadevall talking about? “May God forgive me,” he had written. What had he seen and touched with his hands to commit such a horrible sin? It was more than clear that it was an object of great import, but the text did not seem to clarify why. Religious significance? Probably so, but that need to hide it from the view of others “forever” was so strange. And the reference to “his name” did not in itself clarify anything either.

Moved by a growing passion, Enrique continued the partial translation of the text hoping to find a clue that would clarify what it was about, but the next pages only contained notes about the construction process on several buildings. Several master builders active at the time were listed, giving insight into the construction projects underway. The long, detailed list made for a break from the high tension that had emanated from the previous entries. Enrique pondered the reason why the architect would make such an exhaustive list, and settled for the only conclusion possible: he was looking for a place to keep—and more than that, permanently hide—the object in question. The list contained the different possibilities before him. Several of them were marked with numbers following no apparent order. It appeared as if, once he had completed the list, he had randomly chosen the best-suited buildings before coming to a final decision. Enrique pored over the list in the hopes of finding a note, number, or signal of any kind that would allow him to identify the site chosen; but he had to give in to the evidence: nothing seemed to indicate that any one of them had prevailed over the others. The note that concluded the diary offered nothing in the way of clarification, although it did reflect a certainty that was evident to Casadevall, and exasperating to Enrique.

I've done everything I could. In the end, assisted and guided by love and good judgment, I have found in the Kingdom of God the only logical place that our Lord has deemed fit to show me.

Confounding matters, most of the buildings listed were at least five hundred years old, and the city, though its historical center was more or less intact, had changed enough to make the diary's references to streets and buildings useless to locate many of them. Nowadays, five-hundred-year-old buildings were in the minority, as much in Barcelona as in any other city in the world. That made the few that persisted in their fight against time easy to find, and Enrique knew where nearly all of them were. But that wasn't enough. Enrique had come to a dead end. He had a vast knowledge of the city—Artur had seen to that ever since he was a boy—but it was not unlimited knowledge. Without help, it would be impossible not only to find the object, but even to identify the sites where it could have been hidden. Only the combination of his encyclopedic knowledge, his deep love for his city, and his unmatched acumen as a historian had allowed Artur to determine where “it” must have been hidden, and Enrique simply didn't know enough to crack the code.

For the third time in his life, he felt defeated. The first was when he'd been told of his parents' death; he was old enough to fully understand it, but too young to soon forget it. The second time was when Bety had announced—with the stark absence of emotion that comes from an irrevocable decision—that she was leaving him. Even the knowledge that it was the only possible ending to their relationship did not ready him for such news, and he couldn't help feeling devastated. It took him time to accept the new situation, but his personality, then outgoing and jovial, saw him through. And now, still reeling from the murder of the person he loved the most, sitting before the clue that
would tell why he had been killed, he felt incapable of solving the puzzle. Beyond that, he felt he was close to, but had no idea how to unmask, his father's killer.

He rallied his energies to eliminate the rage and powerlessness, and to empty his mind and think more clearly. Blinded by frustration at his inability to make progress, he would not have been capable of reaching the only possible conclusion: he needed help, and he knew who could give it to him. He took his phone book out of the duffel bag and looked up some numbers. He dialed the number for Carlos Hidalgo's home phone, but got no answer. He tried his work number. After the fourth ring, an answering machine came on. The same thing happened with his cell phone. He didn't leave any messages; if Carlos was not at home or in his office, Enrique knew just where to find him. He left the house after collecting
The Practice of Christian Perfection
and all of his notes. After nestling it all in a broad jacket pocket, he got into the car.

He descended the winding Vallvidrera Highway slowly, delighting in the views of Barcelona—his Barcelona—and was beset by an overpowering wave of nostalgia. Lost in the evocations of a time that now seemed distant to him, it was not long before he found himself in the midst of the city's dense traffic. His thoughts meandered down strange, uncontrollable tracks as he drove. Artur should not have died; he was a good, noble, and honest man. All he had wanted was to live surrounded by his antiques, and he had taken in a poor orphan as if he were his own son. He could have lived on a desert island, been a new Robinson Crusoe, never needing anyone around him, because no one was as self-sufficient as he. And Artur had taken time to give love, friendship, tenderness, and anything else that was needed to a lonely child. Now he was dead, sealed away in a cold vault. Why did he have to die?

He began to drive aggressively, in true reflection of his mood. He accelerated down Balmes Street, weaving in and out of the many vehicles traveling it at that hour. He had
to brake hard when a traffic light suddenly changed color. Surrounded by several astonished drivers, he became aware of how they were staring at him: in confusion, anger, even fear. But he paid no mind. He couldn't have cared less about what they thought. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down, acknowledging that he was out of control, possessed by an aggressive version of himself that reared its head from time to time, taking over everything. It was the distorted version of his personality that he hated so much. He needed to calm down.

A honk let him know that the light had turned green. He drove on, his mind blank, trying not to think about anything. Ten minutes later, he parked his car in the Olympic Harbor. The cool evening breeze made him realize how wet his cheeks were. He took some tissues out of the glove compartment and wiped off his face. Once he settled down, he walked toward the berthing area. A small light mounted on the deck of one the boats confirmed his intuition.

“Excuse me sir, this area's off-limits,” said a security guard standing under a palm tree. “Boat owners only.”

“I was heading to pontoon five, to
El Corsario
. I'm a friend of the owner.”

The guard took his time appraising him. Enrique looked normal enough, and it was true that a yacht under that name was berthed on pontoon five, but something about Enrique's face must have struck him wrong; he still had doubts about letting him past. Enrique stared back at him and the guard soon looked away. Though it was obvious that he was not yet over the aggressiveness that had possessed him, the guard, perhaps with the experience of similar binds, decided to avoid a conflict they didn't pay him enough to engage in.

“Okay, go ahead.” He unhooked the chain that blocked the pedestrian access.

Enrique didn't bother to thank him. To him, the watchman was nothing but an insect of the kind he despised, and with whom he was at war that night; a minute bug unworthy of his attention unless it got in the way of his duties. He walked along the pier, leaving the first four pontoons behind. When he reached the fifth, he walked down the steps, and the gentle sway of the sea beneath the floating wood immediately, as if by magic, soothed his mood. The sea—his only companion in the worst of times—had that power over him. Almost at the end of the pontoon, a thirty-three-foot boat rocked on the water. It was berthed with the stern to the pontoon. Enrique put one foot on the mooring bollard and was on the deck with an agile jump. A head poked out of the gangway: the weight of Enrique's body on the deck had moved the boat, alerting its owner to his presence. Momentarily blinded by the difference of light, the boat's captain couldn't make out his visitor. He was about to ask who it was, but stopped just before the words escaped. A smile lit up his suntanned face. He pushed the bangs of his long, thick hair away from his piercing green eyes and slowly came up on deck. He wore sun-bleached clothing, like any true boater who loved the sea beyond fads and social grandstanding. He wasn't tall, perhaps five feet seven, but his limbs were sinewy and strong, tempered by hard sea life.

“Surprised to see you here,” said the yachtsman, “It's been so long I'd almost forgotten what you looked like.”

Enrique approached the gangway, and his host's smile slowly faded. He sat down in the cockpit and stared out toward the mouth of the port, not bothering to answer.

“What's going on?” his old friend Carlos asked, picking up Enrique's inner turmoil in one glance.

He got no answer. Carlos remained cautious, and added nothing else. If Enrique was there it must have been because he needed his help. After so many years of
friendship, and living through so much together, he knew just how his friend acted and felt. They had been buddies since they were teenagers. He waited patiently for Enrique to gather the strength to break his silence and tell him what was bothering him. Finally, after several minutes, Enrique spoke up.

“I'd like to sail a while,” he murmured, his voice cracking and hoarse, a voice that got caught in his throat, as if resisting disclosure of his fears and anxieties.

“Not a bad idea,” answered Carlos in a conciliatory tone, eager to make things easy for him, “It's a beautiful night and a soft west wind is blowing. We'll sail, just like old times. You get the lines, I'll take the wheel.”

Enrique undid the knot that bound the
Corsario
to the small bollard on the pontoon while Carlos turned on the running lights and started the motor. The purr of the diesel engine was barely audible over the din of the numerous bars and restaurants flanking the piers of a marina that had become a hot nightspot. With the ease that comes from experience, Carlos maneuvered the
Corsario
, turning toward the open sea. They passed the mouth of the port. Carlos turned the stern into the wind so that, without a single order given, Enrique could hoist the mainsail. Then he turned off the deck light, cut the motor, and set the jib. The wind, soft but constant, blew the little sailboat with blithe lightness. Having completed the operations necessary for the
Corsario
to sail for hours without further attention, Enrique sat back in the cockpit next to Carlos, who steered nonchalantly with one hand, more intent on his friend's mood than the sailing itself.