Having had a cigarette outside the Hotel Burguette where Hemingway had signed the piano, Llewellyn felt a vague affection for the writer whose books he’d never read, and was wandering around the Plaza de Toros where he’d heard there was a statue of the American. He’d walked twelve miles into the city that day and couldn’t believe that it had felt so easy. He even felt quite jaunty and wanted a glass of wine and a roll-up to celebrate. Hemingway forgotten, he ambled away from the bullring towards the centre, and the first person he saw as he walked into the Plaza del Castillo was the young German boy. He was casually wandering under the colonnades surrounding the huge square, skirting the bar tables and looking into the shop windows. He disappeared through the crowd and down a side street as Llewellyn crossed towards him. The next person he saw was his father. He was walking with the same energy that had attracted Llewellyn from the first time that he’d seen him on the mountain road up from Roncesvalles.
“Have you seen a boy?” he asked Llewellyn.
“Your son?”
“You think I would have a son like Willi? I am not so stupid.”
“Who is he then?”
“Have you seen him, please?”
Llewellyn pointed to the side street, “About two minutes ago.”
“Thank you. I am Heinrich by the way.” He offered his hand.
“Llewellyn.”
Heinrich went after the boy. The third person Llewellyn was to see turned out to be who his friend Robert later described as his nemesis, and then changed his mind. “Maybe you inspired him? Or was it the other way round? Difficult to say isn’t it?”
At the moment this man whose name was Werner Schmidt was hidden from Llewellyn’s view by the antics of a crazy impromptu band. There were about twenty of them capering and prancing around two drummers as they processed around the square in a loose mob. All young men, they wore green felt hats resembling the narrow brimmed trilbies worn in the Alps usually with a feather tucked into the headband. These were their only uniform. They were all drunk and playing a variety of brass horns, bugles and trumpets in what Llewellyn took to be a traditional Spanish style – although he wasn’t too sure that they were all playing the same tune. A couple of them lunged at anyone foolish enough to get too close, like Llewellyn, and whipped off their green hats asking loudly for donations and cheering when they received any. Several tourists felt too embarrassed to refuse. Llewellyn took a step back and offered only his most disarming smile. He didn’t have any money to spare and there was something about their aggression he didn’t like. He knew anyway that the collection was going to be drunk in the next bar, and whilst he didn’t begrudge anyone a drink, he couldn’t afford a round for the band.
They didn’t seem to notice his reticence, doubts, or lack of a coin and passed on. Then he was surprised to see following them, the three Italian actors who had been performing their version of the crucifixion outside the bar in Roncavalles. They were wearing old orange and red baggy clothes; the tallest wore a pilot’s helmet and played the ukulele, the shortest sported a battered straw hat and was spitting into a flute, and the woman, bareheaded, was beating the time on a tambourine. They were playing a different tune to the green hats, and were much better too. If they’d passed a hat, which they didn’t, Llewellyn would have dropped a euro into it. They were mimicking the other band seemingly entirely for their own enjoyment. The flute player gave Llewellyn a smile and a nod as they passed.
It was then that he saw Werner Schmidt. He was sitting on the ground leaning on his backpack propped against a pillar of the colonnade. He was thin and muscular, had white blond hair, tightly curled, and piercing small blue eyes. Even half-lying down it was obvious that he was tall. Leaning on the pillar next to him was a long knotty pilgrim’s staff which he’d obviously cut down from a tree, making Llewellyn’s shop-bought version look amateurish. He wore high leather boots and even at this distance gave off an undeniable air of danger. The way he lay sprawled, seemed to invite a challenge he would be happy to meet. Sitting next to him was a younger man with long hair and a miniature guitar. The whole world suddenly seems to be made up of musicians, thought Llewellyn. He could see immediately that they were smoking a joint.
He began to walk towards them, not to share the dope, although it would have been welcome after a long day’s walk; it was something about the man that drew him on. As he got closer he caught his eye and immediately knew what it was. The man was full of a cold fury. Most people on noticing such a look would have walked the other way, but for Llewellyn fury meant energy, and energy meant life. He kept walking. Maybe it was because the rage was the hard-focussed opposite to his own confused centre that he was attracted to it. He also knew that although it might temporarily threaten it always ultimately passed him by. In his experience the angry were more likely to confide in him than attack. Robert had said, it was the female in him.
He stood over the two of them and said, “Buon Camino.”
“You don’t have to stand. Sit.” The man said. “I am Werner. This is Fabian. Sit.”
Llewellyn sat as Fabian stubbed out the joint on the paving stone.
“Sorry,” he said, “It’s finished.” He had a French accent though it was difficult to tell because he also had a heavy cold. Unlike Werner he was short and heavy with a round, sad, innocent face and a much readier smile. Llewellyn immediately thought he was more likeable and less interesting than his companion.
“Are you German?” Llewellyn asked Werner.
“I am from Wien. Vienna.” Werner didn’t look at him as he spoke.
Llewellyn introduced himself and offered his hand.
Werner ignored it. “That bloody band is crazy,” he said staring at the green hats. “All day this banging. It gets on my nerves.”
Llewellyn didn’t know quite what to say to him. It was often like this with Werner. He made statements, not conversation. And as Llewellyn was to discover the band wasn’t the only thing that Werner was to describe as crazy. According to him almost everything was. They sat in silence for a while. Llewellyn had the feeling that the joint they’d just finished wasn’t the first. There were quite a few pilgrims wandering around the square. Llewellyn felt a kinship with them; they’d all walked the sixty or so kilometres from St Jean too.
Julia suddenly appeared, “Hi guys. How you doing Llewellyn?”
Oskar had introduced them in Roncesvalles and he was quite flattered that the lovely Australian had remembered his name. Werner asked her to sit down. She took a step back. It was a very clear rejection. There was something inviolable about Julia, always joyous, always alone. And she didn’t want to be with them. Werner noticed it too. His eyes clouded as he turned away.
“You going to the municipal?” asked Julia.
“Everybody is,” Fabian was looking up at her with undisguised interest. “I am Fabian.” He held out his hand.
She took it but kept her distance. “You got a cold?”
“Don’t worry. No-one catch it.”
“Don’t come near me.”
“If you sit down I play you my guitar.”
“Could be tempted but I've got to go and buy my dinner. See you later.” And she was gone.
“Maybe I sing anyway,” said Fabian and he plucked at the guitar.
“Go to the municipal. That’s where she is,” said Werner.
“Non,” said Fabian. “I walk again. I like to walk in the sunset.”
“Slow down. What is to hurry?” said Werner. It was the first of many times that Llewellyn was to hear him say it. “Anyway, you like her. I can see it.”
“OK, I go to the albergue.” Fabian grinned. He got up and walked across the square. Llewellyn wasn’t sure if it was to get away from Werner or go after Julia.
“He wastes his time,” said Werner.
“Everyone tries,” said Llewellyn.
“Do you?”
“No.” Llewellyn watched as Julia disappeared into the growing darkness followed by Fabian. He knew he didn’t have a hope.
“I think it’s time you and me took some drink,” said Werner.
They found a small bar round the corner. Werner hadn’t seemed particular and Llewellyn as usual didn’t mind where he went. He asked for a vino tinto and Werner bought a bottle. They went through to the back and sat at a table facing the door. The lighting was low. The bar itself, closer to the street, was brighter. They drank and watched as men and women came in, leant against the bar, took a coffee or a beer, had a chat to the barman, or read a newspaper, and went out again. They both drank quickly.
Werner poured his second glass and said, “Everybody is insane. You look in their heads and there is what they don’t admit. Everybody. No-one is different.” He nodded towards the bar. “They all have total universe in here,” he tapped his head. “Every man, every woman. Millions of universe on the street pass by and knocking each other. Everybody smiles and no-one understand anything, because inside is secret. Each universe secret. Look in your head. You want to tell me what you’re thinking? Everything? All the time? Every second?”
Llewellyn didn’t. Ninety-nine percent of his conscious mind was a hopeless jumble and he’d only be left with a helpless grin if anyone should be able to peer in. In fact the remaining one percent wasn’t too clear either. He emptied his glass and poured another. He thought maybe it wasn’t too wise to be sitting in the back of a dark bar getting pissed with this obviously mad Austrian, but in a way he didn’t quite understand, there was something comforting about it. People like Werner were troubled and perhaps ultimately unknowable. Like he was perhaps, which is why he liked them. And as for this infinite number of universes colliding on any street. Well, he couldn’t agree more.
“You open it,” Werner tapped his head again, “You find trouble.”
At that moment two pilgrims with heavy packs passed by on the street, came back, looked into the bar and came in. They ordered a beer.
“You see them on the Path. You think, nice people, very friendly, give you a drink, give you food. Open their heads you see, crazy. Even more on the Path. Path makes it all come up. You hide it, still there. You smile, still there. What you see on top just a picture. We agree on ten things so we can live. Don’t kill, you know, don’t steal, love mother, be friends,” he counted them off on his fingers and then seemed to get bored with his own list. “Under it scheisse. Under it, pain. Under it, why they come on the Path.” He stopped and drank. “I know. I walk for three months.”
“Three months?” Llewellyn was amazed. “From St Jean?”
“From Wien.”
“How far is that?
“Three months.”
Werner went up to the bar and ordered another bottle. He didn’t ask Llewellyn for any money, which Llewellyn wasn’t unhappy about. “Don’t you think there’s some good things in these universes?” he asked when Werner got back.
“Ja. Many,” the Austrian poured. “Problem to know which one good, which one not so good. So we go crazy because we don’t know the answer.” He drank.
“Oh,” said Llewellyn. He drank too and waited.
“So I tell you. I was architect,” said Werner. “Sure, look. I look like an architect?” He put on his hat, an old brown trilby like Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The front brim snapped down over his nose emphasised his eyes, which glittered and were frightening. He took hold of his pilgrim staff which was leaning against the wall by the table and stood, tall, angular, his head thrust forward as if peering into some distant horizon. Llewellyn hadn’t realised how good looking he was.
“I look like an architect?”
Llewellyn laughed, “No.”
Werner laughed too and sat again. “I design kindergarten in Stockholm. It’s good. Go and see it. And a church in Warsawa, Catolic church. Beautiful.” He stopped for a second looking down at the table. “I work for Foster once. You know him?”
Llewellyn had vaguely heard of him and nodded.
“I was in London. It’s a bloody good place. Maybe I got married, but I didn’t. I go home. In Vienna I was big architect. Famous.” He spat the word contemptuously then leant forward on the table. “Listen, I had three big works. All paid. Maybe I was very rich. Biggest architect in Austria.” He listed again on his fingers, “Another school. For three thousand student. A building for the city government, the best design I have done. And a house for a rich man, design like Courbousier, you know him? You don’t know anything. Three commission. I work, I work, no women, no wine,” he lifted his glass. “Work twenty hours a day. Thirty people in my office.” He drank, then spat a piece of tobacco out of his mouth. “Four months ago, comes one day. No money for the school. Cancel. No money for the office. Cancel. The rich man calls me. He go to live in America. One day. Everything gone. All the plan was finished. One day, you understand? Five hours, from everything to nothing. From biggest to nothing. How can you believe this? I tell thirty people go home. Seven o’clock I go home.” He looked at Llewellyn. He still had the hat on, his eyes burned. “What happened? God tell me something?” Llewellyn could see it was a real question. “God tell me, Werner you are wrong? How should I know? Eight o’clock I pick up a bag and walk out the door.”
“And you’ve been walking ever since?”
“I wanted to kill. I wanted to kill anyone. I kill my mother. Anyone.”
He picked up the empty bottle and went to the bar. Llewellyn watched him as he paid for more wine, his head bent forward looking at the barman with an unwavering stare, and had no doubt that Werner had told him the truth. And that he was capable of doing what he said. Werner came back and filled their glasses, standing over the table.
“You still want to kill someone?”
“Not so much.” Werner smiled. “Don’t worry.”
“What happened to the thirty people?”
“I walk. I don’t care.”
“What will you do when you get to Santiago?”
“I don’t know.” He sat down again and drank. He didn’t seem inclined to continue.
“Where’d you get your staff?”
“I cut it from a bloody tree.”
“I wish I had.”
“Why don’t you?”
“No, I’m going to keep this one. I got used to it, see? I’m going to decorate it.”
“You an artist?
Llewellyn laughed. “Depends what you mean.”
“Answer the question.” Werner glared at him.
“I’ll show you.” Llewellyn took an iPod from his top pocket. “I photographed them, see?” He fiddled with the iPod and scrolled up the first picture. He showed it to Werner. It was a seascape with a fishing smack hardly visible in the spray and foam.
“You do this?”
Llewellyn smiled and took a drag on his cigarette. Werner scrolled on through the photographs, studying them intently.
“Why did you bring them with you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You are brilliant,” said Werner. “You are like Turner. Don’t tell me you don’t know him.”
Llewellyn laughed, “Oh I know him.”
“I mean it,” Werner was very serious, “These are Turner.”
Llewellyn was flattered. “Too small for you to say.”
“I’m going to call you Turner.”
“Lew will do.”
Werner pointed at him with the iPod. “Why do you bring these with you. It’s important.”
“Is it?” Llewellyn suddenly felt a little frightened and didn’t know why.
“Because you think you are Turner and you are too scared to admit it.”
Now Llewellyn knew why he’d met Werner. He smiled to himself. He always got it right, didn’t he? They finished the bottle and Werner bought two more, never once asking Llewellyn for money. It was nearly one on the morning before they left the bar, long past the hope of any albergue. They hefted their packs and stumbled, laughing most of the way, a half mile to a park where they lay down and slept, side by side. The next day they were back on the Path, walking together.
AN M-Y BOOKS EBOOK
THE PATH
© Copyright 2011
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All Rights Reserved
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may be made without written permission.
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A CIP catalogue record for this title is
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ISBN – 9781907556180
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eBook conversion by David Stockman
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THE PATH
by
Malcolm McKay
Camino means I walk in Spanish. The Camino is the way. The Camino de Santiago is the ancient pilgrimage to the remains of Saint James in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostella in the northwest of Spain. It’s the site of the only known relics of an apostle of Christ.
Over the past thirteen hundred years millions of pilgrims have trod the Path, the Way of Saint James. Although the religious purpose of the camino remains a motive for many, it has evolved over the years until now in the Twenty-first century, it is undertaken by men and women of all denominations and none.
They come from all over the world to do the camino. They are of all ages, all types, all professions and occupations. It is regarded by many as a journey of a lifetime for self discovery; perhaps psychological, perhaps spiritual, or maybe purely physical. As it is said on the camino, everybody has their own question to ask.
Karen and Peter had stayed in the same albergue as Julia, but left earlier than her on the penultimate stage up to Arca. The sky was darkening and there was the occasional brush of rain on their coats. They’d begun to talk. He could feel her opening to him. Not too much but at least she seemed happy to walk with him. The camino was winding through more densely populated areas now. They were on side roads passing through small, quiet hamlets every couple of kilometres. Peter thought the landscape was not unlike Wales where he’d done most of his basic training. Galicia had a similar climate.
Karen was teaching him how to meditate, or at least explain the method. “You follow the breath,” she said. “Feel it on the edge of your nostril and let all of your mind focus on it. Think of nothing else.”
“Is that all?”
“Only takes about twenty years to perfect it.” Karen was enjoying talking to him. He was attentive and receptive. Like everybody else she’d had many conversations on the camino – most of them inconsequential – but there was a warmth to this which she liked.
“There’s another meditation,” she said. “It’s called loving kindness. You can do it too if you like.” He nodded. “Think of someone you love. Don’t tell me. Maybe in your family, someone very close to you, someone it’s not difficult to love.”
It’s a sad truth that Peter was thrown by this. His parents were dead. He’d never really thought of his brother as someone he loved, but supposed he did. Gemma was still a problem and it was difficult to tell exactly what he felt about her anymore. Then of course, there was the one he was avoiding, Sam. His feelings in that direction were such a contradictory mix that he could hardly clear a space to know anything. This shocked him. How could he not admit, even to himself, that he loved his son? He did. Of course he did. The deepest love he’d ever felt. He looked down as he walked ashamed of his feelings, or inability to touch them.
“Think of this person,” Karen went on, “Put him or her at the centre of your mind, concentrate, and let all your love for this person come up through you. Oh and I forgot to tell you, you got to relax first. Get in a comfortable place.”
“You can’t do it when you’re walking?”
“No, that’s a different kind of meditation, and there are probably too many distractions. Anyway imagine this person as the centre of a circle. Now he or she is entirely surrounded by your love. You feel nothing but good towards him or her, OK?”
He did. He put Sam there. He had an image of him as a kid running, panting, lunging, chest bursting, to win a relay race in his school sports day, and coming straight to him, his face beaming with pride, ‘Dad, Dad!’ The thought almost brought tears to his eyes. How could he have doubted that?
“Now think of someone else you love and include them in the circle.”
Peter decided on his brother.
“And again allow your feelings, your love to come through you and go into them.”
Her voice was soothing. He put his brother next to Sam in his mind and saw how they had both loved and needed him. And how he hadn’t allowed it. How he’d let Gemma do all the loving for him. Even loving his own brother for him, let alone his son.
She said, “Now think of another person.”
This is getting too difficult, he thought.
“All the time you’re increasing the power of love that you’re creating. Hold them in your mind, love them, love all of them.”
He wanted to give up. He’d soon be into the army and the idea of love permeating the stink, sweat and blasphemy of the barracks was impossible to contemplate.
“It might start getting difficult,” said Karen as if reading his mind.
He thought he’d have to pretend and didn’t want that. He said, “I’m not sure I can do this.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t think of my life in this way.” It sounded lame, was lame, and he knew it.
“What else is there?”
“I don’t know. What I do all day.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re a hard taskmaster.”
“Answer my question.”
“Everything. Everything I am, everything I’ve done. That’s all there is.” He was sounding, and feeling, weaker by the second.
“What did you do it all for?”
How did he answer that? Because it seemed right at the time? Because he needed to earn a living? Because he needed to be the same as everybody else? He said, “I’m not entirely sure why I’ve ever done anything.”
“About time you found out, isn’t it?”
He laughed, but didn’t feel like laughing.
“You want to carry on?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “So find a third person to bring into the circle.”
He decided on Gemma.
“And now a fourth.”
He went back to the army. He thought of Clarkson carrying him home after a drunken night in Aldershot, pulling him away from a regimental dinner where he was about to make a fool of himself. He thought of a hundred other nights with Clarkson. Maybe he loved him? But how could he love a boozing, leathery, foul-mouthed, belligerent and heavy-booted army sergeant? Well, he did. Of course he did. The thought hit him like a punch in the gut. Love and Clarkson weren’t words that you’d usually put in the same sentence but he loved the insane bastard to death. And that’s why he’d been friends with him for years. And the others too. He suddenly realised he felt deeply sorry for all those repressed, buttoned-down, mealy-mouthed arseholes in the officer’s mess, all of whom would probably give their lives for the arsehole standing next to them. Why? They called it camaraderie, loyalty, shoulder to shoulder, the badge, the queen, but the truth is they loved each other; and their embarrassment, their sheer inability to even think those words, let alone say them, somehow made them even more sad – and lovable. And he was one of them. He felt for a second an immense pride that prickled his eyes as he realised he was part of all that, he was included in that love, and it was probably the greatest love he’d ever known.
“You include them all in the circle,” she said. “And keep going. You bring more and more people into it including those you haven’t seen for a long time.”
His thoughts went back to his parents again, his mother passed out on the kitchen table with her head in her arms and spittle running down her cheek, of trying to clean the vomit off her chest with a dishcloth; his father pushing him into that school. He loved them both, and especially her. Ingrid came immediately to mind and he made the connection. He was surprised at how much his feelings could merge and shift from one memory to another. Then he considered the boys at the school; the boys he hated, imitated, became friends with. He realised that they didn’t know what they were doing any more than he did. They came in to the circle too as he walked slowly by Karen’s side. He thought of the women he’d known, of Ingrid again, and looking into the bathroom mirror the morning after the last night he’d seen here and thinking how he and she were so similar.
“Even people you didn’t like too much. Your love is flowing by now; try and include them in it, try not to see their faults, try and understand that they’re like you, like all of us, they struggle, they don’t get it, they lash out, they’ve hurt you, maybe they were hurting themselves. Now get the circle even bigger and include those you hardly know, see them in your mind. After a while you can see that your love is so big, so powerful, it can enfold everyone. And you can...” she stopped and smiled. “You can get to place where you can feel their love being returned to you, and understand that all they are is love, and all you are is love. That’s it. Nothing else.”
Was this all that new age shit that Paul had been going on about? He expected her to laugh at the end of it.
She didn’t laugh. She said, “That’s a very old meditation. Monks have been practising it for hundreds of years to increase the amount of love in the world.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome.”
*
Harry had left Paul behind. He figured there wasn’t much more he could say. Now was the time to let God do his good work. Paul walked slowly, his sticks clipped the road. He noticed a cafe to his right but didn’t want to go in though it looked nice by the river. He didn’t need anything, so what was the point? Maybe that was the point, he didn’t need anything,
He thought about Werner for a while. His confession had been disturbing. But why enter into it if you can’t do anything about it. He could only watch as the man went crazier. Wern needed to stop drinking that was for sure, come to that, so did he. Shift this damn weight from his gut for one thing.
He sighed. There was a bird singing. Autumn leaves. They were falling heavier now. Apparently this country was Celtic, like the Irish and the Scots; they even had bagpipers. He didn’t know why he was thinking these things. He let his mind wander. If he had it he’d give Lew some money. Damned Harry would have him sign over his shirt before he passed the bucks. Good guy though. That praying in the alley had touched him. He’d still got the shit on the knees of his pants. “God, this man is an asshole.” Paul smiled as he remembered Harry’s description of him. He’d bet his prayers got through though. They were entertaining if nothing else. He spoke aloud, “God, am I an asshole?” He looked up. God didn’t seem to want to respond. He felt lonely. Lonelier than he’d ever been. So lonely he stopped until the feeling passed. Get used to it, Paul. It comes and it goes. Everything comes and it goes. Maybe that’s what he’d miss most, a kind of constancy, like his faith was always a road under his feet. Miss most? Is that what he’d thought? Was he seriously thinking of giving up the priesthood? He walked on. There was still a road under him. If he gave it up maybe there’d just be a different road that’s all. The arrow said turn left. He did and came into a wood. The dead leaves were covering the path. He kicked a few away as he walked.
“Papa!”
He stopped and looked to his right. A woman was sitting at a concrete picnic table set back under the trees.
“It’s Eva. Do you remember me?”
“Sure. Nice to see you. Buon Camino.” He continued to walk.
“I have been waiting for you.”
He stopped again, “You have?”
“They told me you were in Arzua.”
“You want to talk to me?”
She nodded and smiled. “Only for a minute.”
One of the problems of being a priest was that you couldn’t say no to things like this. Reluctantly he went under the trees, dropped his pack and sat on a concrete bench across the table from her. Everything was wet.
“Hell,” he got up again.
She gave him her poncho to sit on.
“Aren’t you wet?’ he asked.
“I am sitting on a plastic,” she said. There was a supermarket bag under her.
He sat down again, “How can I help?” The trees were dripping on him. He wasn’t too comfortable.
“I have seen some things.” He nodded. “I think I have seen the Virgin Mary in the trees. And there was an old woman who took me from the mist. She rescue me.”
“So?”
“But she wasn’t there.”
Paul paused. “Tell me about the virgin you saw.”
She told him about the first time; the light in the branches and then the old woman. “And there is a third time,” she said. “It was the Virgin again, she come to me from the trees. It was very clear. She stood by me.”
“You sure it wasn’t someone walking through the wood?”
“No it was her. She had a robe. She touch me on the shoulder.”
“A lot of people see things, Eva.”
“These were real.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because.” She stopped and looked down. “For a long time I have been thinking of making a promise.”
“What kind of promise?”
“To God.”
“Uh-huh,” he leant forward. “Come on, tell me.”
“To a convent.”
“You mean becoming a nun?”
“Oui.”
“It’s quite a step, Eva.”
“I know.”
“I remember you said, or someone said, you were a lawyer.”
“Oui.”
“Pretty rational people.”
“I am,” she said. Then, “I know you don’t do it so quickly.”
“Depends on the order, but there’s usually around three years before you have to take your vows. You know this, I guess.” She smiled. “So you came on the path to ask yourself the big question?” She nodded, very serious now. “And you were hoping to get an answer. You were looking for a sign. So you prayed and prayed and drove yourself half insane and you got yourself a sign. Three of them.” He looked at her and waited.
“Non.”
“Come on, Eva, you’re an intelligent woman. Virgin in the trees. Not on my watch.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It's a common enough phenomenon. People having visions before they make this kind of decision.” He remembered the voice he’d heard in his car before entering the seminary and pushed the thought away. “You may say they are so desperate for an answer that they give themselves one.”
“I do not imagine this.”
“How do you know? You know how they research miracles? Boy do they research them. It’s getting so they need empirical proof. You get me? Empirical proof for something...” he stopped, then said it, “For something that doesn’t exist.”
She was shocked. “You are a priest.”
“Yeah, well we all doubt sometimes, Eva. There’s not a man... It’s part of what we are.”
“I believe what I saw.”
“You’ll have to make your own decision, honey. Maybe you just got me at a bad time. Sorry, I can’t help you.” He got up.
“You think I am insane?”
“No. Just trying too hard, that’s all. Sorry.” He picked up his pack. “Don’t mean to be hard on you.” He went back to the path.
“I've waited for you,” she said.
“And I came.”
He walked on, leaving her under the trees.
*
Rhoda and Deena had stayed in a pension in Arzua that night and were on the trail again to Arca. There had forty kilometres left to walk, a stopover in Arca and then Santiago the following day. Rhoda had gone quiet. It had begun with Oskar’s detailed questioning of her past, egged on by Rhoda herself it has to be said. Parts of her life that she hadn’t considered for thirty, forty, or even fifty years were coming to the surface of her mind bringing with them an assortment of feelings long suppressed. All she could do was keep her mouth shut or she might scream, or cry, or laugh.
How many memories can you damn have, she thought. Now released they seemed to go on forever, each inspiring the next. “I must be goddam eternal,” she’d said to Deena.
“Hope so, Ma.”
“You don’t mean it.”
“Anyway you mean infinite.”
“You think I could be dying, Deena?”
“You take your heart pills?”
“You’ll be pleased to see me gone anyway.”
“God, ma, how can you...?”
“OK, OK.” Rhoda was quiet for a moment. “Damn strange Deena, must be this path. You know the other day I had this figure of a man come to my mind. A good looking guy in a sharp suit with a charming smile. I didn’t know who he was. And then, know what? I remembered. It was my first husband. Eduardo! I’d forgotten he was like that when I met him. I’d forgotten how much I loved him, Deena.”
“You’ve had quite a life, Ma.”
“You betcha! That Oskar, you know, he drew it out of me. I never realised. If nothing else, this damn walk has been worth doing just to know that.” Ahead of them on a ridge was a small village. “What’s that up there?”
“Must be Santa Irene.”
“Why don’t we stop for lunch?”
“Sure.”
Deena didn’t feel like listening to any more of it and they walked in silence for a while until they came to a water fountain on the edge of the village.
“Isn’t that the boy?” Rhoda pointed to where Willi was leaning against the circular wall around the other side of the fountain, eating a bar of chocolate.
“Oh hi Willi,” said Deena. The boy gave her one of his quizzical smiles.
“Hey, you see those cows back there?” Rhoda said to Willi, “What were they? Steers?”
Willi didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Ma, a steer isn’t a kind of cow, it’s a young bull.”
“Bull, my ass, they had milk tanks on ’em.”
“I think you mean udders.”
“Yeah, I’m always wrong,” said Rhoda irritated. “And this damn pack, I had enough of it.” She slipped it off and put it by the wall near where Willi was sitting.
“How you doing, Willi?” Deena asked, putting her own bag down.
“OK.” Willi stuffed the rest of the chocolate bar in his mouth.
“See, he speaks English,” said Rhoda sitting on the wall. “You understand, don’t you son?”
“Ich verstehe.”
“What?”
“He says he understands.”
“What I tell you?” Rhoda leant towards the boy and said, “You do whatever the hell you want with your life. Don’t let anyone live it for you. You hear me, and a damn fine life you can have too!”
Willi pulled himself up, “Ja, danke.” He wandered off down the path.
“Why’d you say all that to him?” said Deena, not sure why she was feeling so angry. Had been in fact since the night with Oskar.
“Because it’s what I believe!”
“Alright for some.”
“What’s got into you?”
Deena looked back down the trail. “Isn’t that Julia?”
“If it is,” said Rhoda, not turning, “It won’t be long before we get that French guy playing his damn guitar.”
Julia arrived and sat on the wall without taking her pack off. She was breathing quite heavily.
“You OK?” asked Deena.
“Yeah, thanks. I feel a bit chesty. It’s these decongestants, I think.”
“You sure you’re alright?” Deena leant forward to look into her face. Julia seemed paler than usual.”
“I’m OK, thanks.”
“I don’t want to go into a restaurant, Deena. I’m tired of these damn restaurants.” Rhoda leant forward to feel in her pack. “Isn’t there one of those supermercados around here?”
“What do you want one of those for?”
“Get some ham and cheese. We’ll eat it on the way.” She was searching in one of the pockets of her pack. “Where’s my small money purse?”
“You got your big one?”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“Small one’s only got coins in it.”
“It was in this damn pocket and it’s gone.”
“It’s there somewhere.”
“It’s gone, Deena.” Rhoda looked up. “It’s that damn boy. He took it.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“It was here, Deena! Now it’s gone. He was sitting next to my pack!”
“Ma...”
“Put your hand in, it was near the top. It’s gone. You see anything, Julia?”
“No,” said Julia. She closed her eyes.
“You sure you’re alright?” asked Deena again.
“Yeah, thanks.”
“I’m going after him,” Rhoda had lifted her pack.
“No you are not.”
“I am not having my money stolen, Deena!” She didn’t wait. She hefted her pack on her back as she went off down the road after Willi.
“Oh dammit, dammit!” Deena picked up her pack. “Sorry, Julia.”
“It’s OK,” Julia tried to smile, but there was a pain gripping her chest.
Deena went after her mother. Julia sat for a while. The discomfort eased and the sun came out again. It was getting hot. Her chest felt full and thick. She decided to take her pack off and lifted her arms. Her face creased in pain. She sat very still, hoping she would feel better. She tried to ease the pack off again, then suddenly slipped off the wall and fell forward onto her knees. She was breathing heavily and beginning to cry. She tried to undo her jacket pocket to take out her mobile phone but her hand was numb and her fingers kept slipping from the zip. She fell forward. Now she was on her side on the ground with one pack strap still over her shoulder pulling her down and trapping her left hand. She gasped as she felt another hard, shooting cramp across her chest and hugged herself with her with her right arm as she tried to free her left. The spasm became too much and she curled on the ground. She was breathing very fast. She tried again to get her mobile out of her jacket pocket. She managed the zip but then the phone fell out onto the ground. She picked it up with her right hand and pushed at the buttons with her thumb, then dropped the phone. Her chest felt like it was squeezing tight. She tried to shout, but it was just a hoarse whisper. She picked up the phone and dropped it again. She lay very still looking at it on the ground in front of her. For a second she saw the top of the mountain that she’d dreamt of and heard her mother’s shout. She closed her eyes.
Fabian came to the fountain a couple of minutes later. By the time he got there, Julia was dead.
Paul had walked on his own and he was ten kilometres away from the city. He was worried. Before they’d arrived in Spain Harry had taken into his head to write to the Bishop of Santiago asking if Paul could say a mass in the cathedral. The reply had been inconclusive, depends on schedules, visitors at the time etc., etc. Well what now if the Bishop said yes? If he said a mass he’d have to give a sermon. What would he say? Some half-assed crap that would avoid the point, or would he tell the truth? And what truth was that anyway? If his faith had been rocky before, Julia’s death had been an earthquake. If he was going to be honest about it, he’d stand up there in that cathedral and tell them all there’d been doubts in his mind for as long as he could remember. OK, so he was weak according to Harry. Well, hell, that’s what he was then, weak. How about your soul, Harry had said. He imagined his sermon. ‘I’m here to tell you that the worm of doubt has eaten my soul.’ And what is it, anyway, this soul? Just let me know when you work it out, will you, because I’d like to know; I’m not stupid and I want to use my mind if that’s OK with you.
His anger and his thoughts were tumbling over each other in a rush to get out. He looked around. There was no beauty in his surroundings to help him; no shaded woods, or rippling brooks, or glorious, God-given sunsets. It was a grey day and he was standing in some kind of new-built holiday village. There were long, concrete and glass dormitories running either side of the road. Facilities for leisure everywhere; facilities for fun, dammit. What a shit hole. Why couldn’t we just be happy without all this? It’s not difficult. All we have to do is something good. We all know it already. Even a kid knows it. Do good, be happy. Every day just take a little suffering out of this world, you’ll be happier than you can imagine. What’s God got to do with that?
He realised he was hungry and went into what looked like an administration building which had a huge cafeteria in it. The place was empty. He ordered yet another bocadillo and a beer and sat alone surrounded by gleaming tables and chairs. A priest in a hard, shiny modern world with nowhere to go and nothing much to say, except to hell with it all. Julia’s death had finally tipped him over, he had to admit that. If nothing else he had to be honest now, just for her. The meeting the night before had moved him, not the mass, the meeting, where a bunch of ordinary people he’d grown to know and love were sitting there trying to come to terms with something so unexpected, so arbitrary, so horrible and undeserved, and so damned impossible – with no help from God. He’d said the mass, the bread and wine had become Christ’s body and blood, Christ here with us. It felt meaningless.
He hadn’t slept last night, not for one second. He and Harry had moved down from the privado and they were all there in the municipal. He’d lain awake looking up at the bunk above him; there’d been a couple of snores, probably Stanislav, but not much else, just quiet. Maybe somewhere deep in their collective unconsciousness, after all these weeks on the road, they’d made a pact to co-operate, let their sleep be undisturbed. Perhaps they were all dreaming the same dream, or walking in and out of each other’s, spreading a whisper here, a touch there, soothing everything, flattening it all out to peace in the night. Maybe down there in that subconscious lake we all float on they were slowly, unstoppably, creating Oskar’s perfect world that Peter had told him about. And the next day they’d begin to make it happen without knowing they were doing it. Make it happen? Make what happen? His sour mood returned. Wait for damn death? What was so happy about that? Sweet kid. Dead. She was the key to something, he knew it. He looked round the cafeteria again, up at the doors, hoping someone would come in. A guy brought over his food, then he disappeared too. There wasn’t even anyone behind the bar. He looked up at the sun refracting through the plate glass, creating bright shards of light on the hard wood floor, hurting his eyes as it sparked and dazzled off the legs of the aluminium chairs. And then the thought came to him. Why did it come then? He never knew. He stared at the Formica topped table in front of him, chewed a little on the sandwich, drank the beer as he turned the idea over in his mind, and then got up and left the cafeteria. He followed the concrete road through the holiday village and came to a brow of a hill with a radio mast on it. He stopped. Down below was Santiago. His first view of the city he’d spent a month walking to. It looked like any other big place. But in his mind, it wasn’t; it was the destination for all of them, and if it was nothing other than that it meant it was the end of something, so it must also be the beginning of something else. He took a picture, then stood for a while, just looking. Now he knew what he was going to say in that damn cathedral.
*
Ingrid was, of course, the first to arrive in Santiago. (Or at least she thought she was.) She’d left the Albergue in Arca early and come quickly into the city through its suburbs. The walk she’d had that day had been different from any other. She’d gone quickly as usual, but had then stopped and sat on a bench, or a wall, a fallen tree, and had sometimes remained there for a half an hour, her elbows resting on her knees, looking down at her feet, not knowing quite what she was thinking about. Then she’d get up, walked slowly and gradually picked up pace until she was almost running, then she’d stop again and sit. Stop, start, slow, fast. The walk mirrored her state of mind, uncertain, uneven and broken around the image of Julia she’d seen in Oskar’s camera. Julia. She walked faster. Why Julia? Who was Julia? She didn’t know Julia. Hadn’t talked to her. Too pretty. Walking even faster now. Julia. Little girl Julia. Little girl Ingrid. Please you. Please me. Even faster. Julia dead. No. She pulled up sharply and sat on a wall. Her breathing was fast and shallow. Something in her was shaking. Like it was trying to shake loose. Like it was breaking up. She felt like crying. Didn’t. Didn’t cry. Held it. Looked up at the sun hidden by clouds. Breathed deeply. And again. Pushed herself up. Sat down again. Held her head in her hands. Looked at the ground through her fingers. Some grass in the stones. The shaking was worse. Breathed again and settled herself. Take some time. Take some time. Pushed herself up again and walked. Slowly now. Julia and then Ingrid, one step at a time. Slow now, keep it slow. She felt as if she almost stumbled the last kilometres into Santiago, unsure of who she was or where she’d been.
The city streets were old and narrow. Cobbled stone or renovated with slabs. The buildings either side were grey. She looked up and saw wrought iron balconies, which reminded her of women in bright, flounced dresses, a red rose in black hair, the stamp of flamenco, the old Spain of tall ships and leather. The shops under the balconies were small and old-fashioned and smelled of tobacco, coffee and chorizo. There were churches everywhere, and bells in towers too, though maybe she imagined those. Occasionally she crossed a main road and avoided the tyres on tarmac, the hard hush of traffic that could knock you and hurt. She dodged it the same as she’d have done anywhere, which seemed strange. Wasn’t this supposed to be magic city? Did magic cities have roads and cars? She was dislocated, her mind here, there, nowhere. People passed old or young. It was weird they didn’t acknowledge her, didn’t know what she’d been through, didn’t understand she’d walked eight hundred kilometres to come here. She wanted to shout. Don’t you know what I’ve done, what’s happened to me? They ignored her. Her pale bruised face. Her beating heart. She passed through the Porta do Camino into the old town. The streets even narrower. A huge stone wall to her right. No windows. Then a church, hard and permanent. Someone nudged her shoulder and said sorry in Spanish. She felt squeezed and wanted to cry.
She finally came to the Praza do Obradoiro. It was a broad, deep, stone square in front of the cathedral. There were other pilgrims there with packs on their backs. She didn’t know any of them. She watched them turn in amazement at the sheer joy at having finally arrived. A group of cyclists rode past her, back wheels weighed down with overflowing panniers. One had a small flag with the scallop shell fluttering on the end of a high silver wire. They honked, shouted and rang their bells as they circled round her, she, Ingrid, standing still, pale face beating heart. A party of tourists followed a guide’s raised umbrella; a souvenir seller was shouting. She didn’t know any of it. She dumped her bag on the stone, sat on it and looked up the cathedral. She wasn’t interested in it, but knew for some reason that escaped her that she needed to wait for the others to finish the journey. She watched silently for an hour as pilgrims she didn’t know arrived in the square.
“The Palaccio de Rajoy!”
She looked round. Oskar was standing with his back to her pointing at the building behind. Next to him was Stanislav.
“I think you were contemplating!” He pointed to her left, “The Hostal de los Reyes Catolicas, pilgrim hospital. He said it slowly to Stanislav. Now hotel. Progress. Get the same bed, pay for it instead. Muchas dineros!”
Ingrid noticed vaguely he had no guidebook and must have studied all this.
He pointed to her left, “There convent. No.” He thought about it. “I don’t know. And there.” He looked up at the massive, imposing facade of the cathedral with its two towers soaring up either side of the entrance. “The Catedral Santiago de Compostella.” He inhaled happily.
Stanislav grinned.