I awaken for the first time in years.
At least I think it's been years. I have been asleep for so long, I barely remember what a year is. Or an hour. Or how to think. I barely recognize the sounds that draw me from my deathlike slumber.
The sounds of hammers and chisels.
For a while, as I hear them, I wonder if I am truly awake. I wonder if they are part of a dream.
And I wonder if the last things I remember were part of a dream, too. Civil war in the streets. Bombshells exploding around and inside me. The mobs in my crypt and Gaudí's workshop. Gaudí dragged from his tomb.
No. Not a dream. The longer I think about them, the more sure I am.
And the hammers and chisels are not a dream, either. They ring like bells in the misty morning, loud and clear as the crow of a cock.
If only they would stop, perhaps I could resume my sleep of death...but they do not. Again and again, they chime and clang, driving me further from blissful oblivion.
They are so loud, I realize, because they are so close. No more than a block away, closer than any blacksmith or factory. Someone fixing the street, perhaps, or working on a house or shop in the neighborhood.
Correction. As my senses clear, I realize the chisels are closer than that. Much closer.
I can feel them. They are working on me.
I hear voices, too...rough shouts like those of the men who worked on me long ago. Snarls and laughter both.
And quieter voices among the rough.
Angry at being disturbed, I come fully awake. My senses snap to full attention, as if they had never been dormant...and I sort through the jumble of noise, light, and color that bombards me.
I see workmen all around, on scaffolds and the ground, chipping away at damaged parts of me. Hauling stone and bags of cement. Measuring, marking, and surveying. Repairing the frames of shattered windows and the faces of broken angels.
Sifting through them, I find the quiet voices—the men in suits and overcoats, rolls of white paper in their fists.
They stand in front of me and gaze up at my Nativity façade, speaking earnestly. Pointing and frowning and stroking their chins. Unrolling the paper plans and squinting at them in the sunlight. I know who they are—not by name, but I have spent most of my life among their kind.
I have not seen an architect here since before the war.
The one in the middle, in particular, catches my attention. His back is straight, his shoulders square, his eyes flashing like knives. When he speaks, the other two remain silent and listen with care. He is not the tallest, but he might be the most important.
"The new drawings are not perfect," he says. "See, here...and here...and this?" He jabs a finger at three spots on the plans in front of him. "We need to rework the models."
"No surprise there, Francesc," says the man with the black beard beside him. "It hasn't been easy reconstructing Gaudí's models from a handful of photos and sketches."
The man on the other side of Francesc is bald with a thick white beard. "Don't see why the rioters had to burn every scrap Gaudí left in his workshop."
"Be grateful there were scraps hidden elsewhere," says the man with the black beard. "Be grateful the war's over, and we can stop killing each other and start reconstructing."
"We've done an excellent job of it, so far," says Francesc. "But we must do better. Gaudí would settle for nothing less."
But Gaudí is dead.
As I listen, I wonder why they're doing it. Why bother to try to pick up where they left off?
Don't they realize they can never match Gaudí? The ones who tried after his death and before the war had all his plans and models...and they couldn't match him.
Even if anyone could, their efforts would be for nothing. Another war or riot will come along and tear me down again. I am too big a target. Too strong a symbol. Too strange.
Too grand.
It was the one mistake Gaudí made when he built me. He imagined I would stand forever.
He thought they were ready for me.
These new people, I wish they would leave. I wish I could tell them they are not wanted here.
But as always, I cannot get my point across. I reach out to them, focusing all my will on a single imperative, a screaming thought to make them leave...but they do not flinch. I strain to move, to shrug off a block of stone from the tower above them, hurl it down to crush them.
But I cannot even shrug off a speck of dust.
So I am trapped, as always, at the mercy of the roving spots of warmth. I cannot stop them from having their way with me. My suffering begins again, as the noise and commotion keep me ever from resuming my deathly slumber.
Some things in life never change. Why can't they be the good things for once?
This is what I am thinking when the photographer approaches Francesc.
"Good morning, Señor Quintana." The photographer is a young man with dark, ruffled hair and an undersized suit. "May we have a picture to go with our story on the rebuilding?"
Francesc Quintana sighs and smiles. "I am not one for self-aggrandizement...but this project needs all the support it can get."
Quintana's friends laugh. "Careful, cameraman," says the one with the white beard. "You're creating a monster!"
Directed by the photographer, Quintana stands at the base of one of my towers. He holds the roll of plans in one hand. He rests the other hand against my wall.
The photographer takes a few shots of Quintana looking at the camera. Then a few more of Quintana looking up at me...at which point, he runs out of film.
"Hold that pose just a moment, Señor," says the photographer. "Just till I change my film."
So Quintana is left touching me, gazing up at me, as the photographer fumbles with his film. And this is when it happens.
This is when Quintana surprises me.
He does something that no one else has done since Gaudí. Something I thought no one would ever do again.
"Hello there," he says. "We are going to be great friends, you and I."
That is what he does. He talks to me.
He keeps his voice low, directing his words only to me. "We'll do our best to live up to your master," he says. "Too bad he can't be here to help us."
I am stunned. Finally, after all this time, someone breaks the long silence. Treats me with compassion.
Even if I could speak, I do not think I would know what to say.
"You'll be okay." Quintana pats my wall. "You can trust us."
I could listen to him talk all day. Talk to me.
Unfortunately, the man with the black beard breaks the mood. "What's that you're saying over there, Francesc? Are you talking to the masonry again?"
Everyone laughs, but I don't mind. Because I see.
In spite of everything that has happened, perhaps a future is still possible for me. Though my maker is gone forever, perhaps there are others in this world who might yet be like a father to me.
Perhaps, even, this man.