Marcelo
en el monasterio
Marcelo
in the monastery
Marcelo
in the monastery
First published: july, 2009 TEXT: Juan Sánchez Vargas TRANSLATION: Jennifer Johnson ILLUSTRATIONS: Piedad Andrés González GRAPHIC DESIGN: Jesús Allende Valcuende PUBLISHED BY: Fundación Santa María la Real www.santamarialareal.org PRINTED BY: Gráficas Campher I.S.B.N.: 978-84-89483-60-6 DEPÓSITO LEGAL: P-293-2008
Marcelo
in the monastery
S
kipping rocks in the river is fun but it is much better when you have some friends to play with.
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Summer had finally begun in Marcelo’s village and his cousin Enrique was on his way to spend his holidays there.
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He was really excited because he had planned a special surprise: a visit to the ruins of the monastery. In his village, Aguilar de Campoo, there were some enormous ruins; piles and piles of rocks which meant that something else used to be there like a building, stairs, or in this case, an ancient monastery.
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The ruins of the monastery were older than his grandfather Marcelino, more mysterious than a lightning bug or snail shells, and more fun than having your toes tickled. The ancient monastery was full of surprises: there were rocks with drawings on them, sculptures, parts of doors that were bigger than the biggest ship and shards of coloured glass.
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Without even giving him time to finish his sandwich, Marcelo grabbed Enrique by the arm and took him to the river bank. When they were there he said, ‘Close your eyes because I have a great surprise for you.’ Enrique closed his eyes and followed Marcelo trying not to trip over stones. When they got close to the ruins, he said, ‘Now you can open your eyes. Look!’ When Enrique opened his eyes his sandwich almost fell right out of his mouth. He didn’t know what to say. ‘There are so many treasures and so many great hiding places where no one could find you!’ he cried. ‘What is this place?’ asked Enrique. ‘You’ll have to figure it out on your own.’
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But the question was left in the air like a butterfly’s wings because Marcelo and Enrique began to run through the arches, and climb up the winding staircases until they were exhausted. They ended up resting on the riverbank looking for flat stones to skip in the river. ‘All right, are you going to tell me what this great mountain of stones is?’ ‘Well, a long, long time ago it was a monastery. Let’s play a game I learned at school. I’ll tell you some words and give you some clues and you have to guess what they are.’ Marcelo picked up a stick and started scratching out something in the sand.
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The first thing he drew looked like two circles together. Enrique started to try to figure it out‌
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‘Even though it may look like it, they aren’t two bales of hay,’ Marcelo said.
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‘No, they are not two snails kissing each other either.’
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‘It’s a capital’ ‘A capital is like a story etched in stone like the ones they tell children that don’t know how to read yet. In the past hardly anyone went to school. So not even the older people knew how to read and the capitals told them stories about monsters, plants, and imaginary creatures.’
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Marcelo said as he drew a triangle, ‘Let’s go on to the next one. You’ll get the hang of it soon.’ ‘No, it isn’t a sign but it does indicate a lot of things.’
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‘No, it’s definitely not a Chinaman’s hat.’
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‘It’s a bell cote.’ A bell cote is a triangular stone that rises high above a monastery. It’s the first thing people see so no one gets lost when they are walking on the street. It also has a space to hang bells. Since there wasn’t television or telephones, they rang the bells to call the monks home just like when your mother yells at you to come home when it’s getting late. ‘You are going to love the next riddle,’ Marcelo said as he tried to cheer his cousin on. He drew a square in the sand.
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‘No, it’s not a television, but it can take you places.’
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‘No, it isn’t a book either, but you can read there.’
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‘It’s a cloister. ‘The cloister was like a playground for the monks. The monks prayed and worked. They had a very busy life. And since the monastery was quite a quiet place, the monks took walks around the cloister and took advantage of the chance to chat when they met up with each other. They went around and around as if they were playing tag. Some even read. You could find everyone in the cloister because there was no other way to get from one area to the other without going through it. So anything that happened in the monastery most likely happened in and around the cloister.’
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‘Ok, only a little bit more Enrique.’ ‘No, it’s not you looking at yourself in the mirror.’
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‘And no, it’s not our friend Lola skipping rope.’
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‘It’s an embrasure
arch.’
‘An arch is like a hat for doors and windows. It’s called embrasure because it gets smaller and smaller like the mouth of a trumpet. If you look closely you can see arches all over the monastery. Some of them have figures and others only have stones that are all the same size and fit together like a puzzle.’
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‘All right Enrique, this is your last chance…’ ‘Stop thinking of festivals, it isn’t fireworks.’
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‘Yes, it does look like it but, it isn’t a long-legged spider.’
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‘It’s a vault.’ ‘A vault is like a hat in the centre of the church. It’s an umbrella made of stone, a round roof between the transept and the nave.’ ‘A transept and a nave?’ ‘Yes, a transept and a nave are two rooms that intersect to form the church. The church has the shape of a cross and right in the centre where the two rooms intersect is where the vault is. It was really common to paint or draw on the vault so when the monks were in church and they looked up at the vault it seemed like they were looking at heaven.’
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6 ARAÑA BÓVEDA
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Those impossible riddles sparked Enrique’s interest. But Marcelo seemed to be more interested in running around and playing make believe. From the top of a wall, Marcelo held up a stick with a piece of metal on it and acted like a bell in a bell cote (that triangle that looks like a Chinaman’s hat.) He called Enrique to the cloister. Like miniature monks strolling around the remains of their monastery, Marcelo told Enrique that when the monks came there to live they formed something like a family where everyone called each other brother. Enrique thought that it sounded like a great idea to only have brothers and not have anyone to tell him what to do.
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So, when they were lying on the ground underneath what used to be the vault he became a little disappointed because Marcelo explained that the monks had to follow a lot of rules. They had rules for praying, eating, sleeping, working, and studying and there was also an abbot (sort of like a big brother) that made sure they followed the rules. ‘That’s a shame!’ he sighed as he lied on his back. ‘Look Marcelo, right now we are under the vault, right? That was the one that looked like a long-legged spider.’ ‘Right, but we can’t see any paintings; we can only see the real sky. Did you notice how many stars you can see here in the village?’
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‘It’s true, there are tons of them…but if there are stars out, that means that it is really late.’ ‘We’re lucky our moms don’t have a bell or a bell cote because they would have the whole village looking for us.’ Just like they came, they ran home babbling on and left the silence of the monastery ruins behind. They had a great time the rest of the summer playing there.
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