by Kevin Craig
And it’s true. Even today, on this impossibly hot day when we’re all sweating buckets under this hot sun, there’s a wind here. It’s only hot air, but still. Definitely a wind.
“Alto de San Roque,” Bastien says. Meagan and Manny and Diego and Gil have already made it to the statue. They stand waiting for us. “That peregrino, he fights the winds of the top of the world, yes?”
We can see all the way across to the mountains in the distance. It looks like we’re even with them. We’re so high. The wind is strongest by the statue.
We all remove our bags. Greg collapses beside the statue and spreads himself flat out in the grass. Claire sits cross-legged beside him. Troy and Kei climb the stairs at the back of the statue and go right up to it to take a bunch of selfies together. They’re building their Camino memories in pictures.
I think of doing the same thing with Diego, but hopefully we will have a life together after the Camino. At least we both live in the same city. Troy and Kei won’t have that option. I lie down in the grass beside Greg while Bastien sits down on the short stone wall beneath the statue and lets out a deep sigh. He’s done. And we’re not even there yet. Poor Bastien.
Diego finally makes his way over to me.
“Hey, you,” he says. He sits between me and Claire and leans down to give me a peck on the cheek. “You okay?”
“Sure. It’s hard, but not so bad. Look at these views.”
“Amazing, right. It’s so dope the way the guy is bent into the wind like that,” he says, pointing up to the statue. “It’s like you can see him fighting against it. Like he’s a real person. Perfect.”
“Yeah,” I say. “The actual wind is part of the statue. Hey, wanna walk together after this?”
“I’d like that, Shan.” He takes his eyes away from the statue and smiles like his face will break, like this is exactly what he wanted.
“Sure, leave poor Manny out of it. I can take a hint.”
“Walk with us, bro,” Greg says. It’s the first sign of life he’s given since flopping on the ground. He doesn’t even open his eyes.
“Thanks, bud. A true friend.”
“Whatever,” Diego says. “Pffffft.”
“Hehe.” Manny laughs and gives Diego a peace sign. “Just kidding.”
“When are we leaving?” Troy says, coming down from the statue. Kei follows close behind him. “We’re ready to go.”
Everyone just looks at Troy. He’s way too perky. I’d hit him but I’m not about to get up off the ground to do it. Too wiped.
Chapter 27 — Troy Sinclair
After the short break at Alto de San Roque, I can’t help but feel sad. It seems stupid to get so emotionally involved with someone. Kei and I took so many selfies at the statue. But looking at them hurts. It only makes me realize how short this relationship is destined to be.
No matter how many likes my new us profile pic gets, he’s going to disappear once we get to Santiago de Compostela. He’ll be this dream that may or may not have happened. This pretty boy who may have been.
It’s depressing as hell.
“Hey. Penny for your thoughts?”
“I was just thinking about us, actually.” I’m walking blindly, holding his hand and flicking through pictures one-handed. I’m putting my faith entirely in him to guide me past any danger zones I don’t see.
“Cute pics, right?” he says. “I changed my profile pic too.”
“I know. You tagged me,” I say. Facebook friends already. It must be love. “My dad’s probably gonna friend you so he can grill you on the importance of safe sex on the Camino.”
“Shut up,” he screams.
“How do you think I feel? I have to live with the man.”
“My dad doesn’t know I’m gay. I don’t think he’d care. He’s pretty liberal, but my sisters don’t want me to tell him. They panic about everything. They feel responsible for him since my mom died. They mother both of us.”
“It sounds nice though. I mean that they try so hard.”
“Yeah. They’re pretty amazing. They just don’t ever turn it off. I can’t believe they allowed me to walk ahead of them. It’s unreal. Even if they did change their itinerary to stay in the same albergue. They don’t usually let me out of their sight.”
I put my phone in my pocket. I stopped looking at pictures a while ago.
“You seem lucky to me,” I say. “My brother and I? We don’t have much in common. I mean, he’s okay. But we’re not as close as we should be. Dad tries, but it doesn’t work if it’s forced. You wouldn’t find us on the Camino together.”
“Whatcha talking about up here?” Claire asks, coming up alongside us. “Ooh, look. Another town.”
“Another break, I hope,” Greg says from behind us. He catches up with Claire just as we arrive at the mile marker.
Straight ahead is a sign. Hospital da Condesa K.145.
“One forty-five,” Greg moans, almost crying. “How is that even possible? All that climbing. All that walking. That’s all we did so far today? We’re in The Twilight Zone on some kind of treadmill that keeps changing the scenery while we stay in place. I’m gonna die.”
“You sound like me when we started out.” Shania is quite a bit ahead of us, but anyone within a five-mile radius would have been able to hear Greg’s lament.
When we walk into the town proper, the road is cobbled, and there are short stone walls on either side. The others have stopped just up ahead at the building to the right. They head toward its doors while Gil stands in front of it, waving us inside like an air traffic controller.
“This way, folks,” he says, waving his arms dramatically. “This way. Lunchtime.”
“Thank God and sweet baby Jesus,” Greg says, ripping his backpack off his shoulders. It falls to the ground, and he makes a big show of bending down to pick it up.
Claire gives me this look, and it’s like we’re spiritually connected or something. I laugh.
“No,” she says. “Thank—”
And in unison we both say, “Sweet Creepy Jesus of Cacabelos.”
We laugh hysterically, like pee-our-pants level laughter. Gilbert looks at us suspiciously, but everyone else just looks at us like we’re crazy. We complete the transaction with a high five.
“In you get, all of you. Let’s go, let’s go.” Gilbert finishes his arm-waving and follows us inside.
The others are already sitting at a table.
“What was that Jesus thing all about?” Kei asks me. I pull out my phone to find my Creepy Jesus pics and show him. “Ah. Okay. Yeah, I did not see that. That, I would remember.”
“Washroom?” I say to no one in particular. I’m about to burst. Shania points to the far corner of the café, and I make a run for it.
“I’ll get you a café con leche and a piece of Camino cake,” Kei says.
“Sounds good,” I say, waving as I leave.
Gilbert corrects Kei before the washroom door closes behind me. “Tarta de Santiago, Kei.”
When I come back out, everyone’s staring at Claire’s phone screen and laughing. She’s no doubt showing them Creepy Jesus.
“And how many other times have you guys snuck off on these middle-of-the-night outings without our knowledge,” Gil asks. His voice is stern, like we’re about to head for a month of after-school detention. But his face belies him. His eyes are filled with laughter.
“Just that one time, boss,” Claire says. She unconsciously pulls some Skittles out of her pocket and pops a few. “Unless you count that time we snuck out and went to the rave in Ponferrada on day one. At the castle. So many drugs. Manny even hooked up with a puta.”
“Okay,” Gil says. “You totally had me until the Manny part. Can’t picture that. But bonus points for knowing how to say hooker in Spanish. I’m impressed, Claire. You guys really are learning something on
the Camino.”
We all laugh. Bastien shakes his head and tsk tsks us but he’s also laughing. I’m going to miss these people. And not just Kei. All of them. Even Greg.
“What’s wrong?” Kei asks in the silence that follows the laughter.
“Nothing,” I tell him. “Absolutely nothing.”
“You just looked sad there for a sec.”
“Nostalgic. For this. For this moment. Does that makes sense?”
“Totally,” he says. “Yeah, I get it. I keep missing things as they’re happening out here. Like everything that’s making me happy is also making me sad.”
“Exactly.” I almost shout. I hold a hand over my heart. Bastien smiles. He’s been listening to our conversation. He slowly nods his understanding and puts a hand over his own heart.
“Saudade,” Bastien says. The other conversations at the table die away as the others hear him speak. “It is Portuguese.”
“Seriously, Bastien,” Shania says. “Is there any language you don’t know?”
He smiles but he has something to say. And I for one want to hear it.
“It means nostalgia. Deep, deep in the heart nostalgia. A, how you say, melancholy. For something missing, something absent. Something you want but may never again have. Saudade.”
“That’s it, Bastien. Yeah,” Kei says. “I get sad thinking how much I’ll miss everything that’s happening. The moment.”
“Much like saudade, yes?” Bastien says. “Maybe not so much in the English. But close. Missingness? My wife, she say… give me a moment.”
He looks into the distance as he recalls his wife’s words. In all this time, I never once heard him mention a wife. Actually, I’m not sure he’s said anything personal about himself.
“Ah, oui,” he says. “My Simone, she say, the love that remains. When the person is gone. Or, maybe, for us now, when the place is gone. When the Camino family is gone. Saudade. The love that remains.”
Everyone is completely silent when Bastien finishes speaking. And not just everyone at our table. Those close by have also been listening. Bastien wipes an errant tear from his eye. He laughs, but it’s a laugh with a deep sense of… of saudade.
“Wow.” It’s Diego who breaks the silence. Tears well in his eyes. “Saudade. Yes.”
“You, my friend. You know, yes?” Bastien says. “Your abuelita, no?”
“Yes,” Diego says. He nods deeply, and Bastien nods with him. When I turn to look at Kei to see if he’s taking in this emotional moment, he’s also nodding. We can all understand the feeling we were reaching to define.
Leave it to Bastien to define it.
“My wife,” he says, mostly to Diego. “She pass. In March. Four months ago. Her heart, it was tired. I am loss without her. Lost. We were together for fifty-three years. Long time, yes? Saudade.”
I want to jump up and hug this sweet man. My heart hurts for him. I look to Kei again, and he puts a hand on my knee under the table and makes this face like his heart just melted away to nothing. Another follower of the Church of Bastien.
“I’m so sorry, Bastien,” Meagan says. And we all offer our belated condolences while Bastien attempts to make light of the moment, even though he has just described in perfect detail how overwhelming what he’s feeling is.
“We go,” he finally says, incapable of receiving any more of our affection.
We gather our mugs and plates and phones and journals and stuff and head to the front of the café.
“Passports, guys,” Meagan says. But she doesn’t have to tell us. It’s automatic now. We already have them out. “Well-trained, children. Well-trained.”
Greg gives her a dirty look. “Who you calling children?”
“Just you children, Greg.”
“Well played, Meags,” he says. He presents his passport to the man behind the counter. The man stamps it and gives it back to Greg with a Buen Camino. One after the other, we all get stamped.
Once we’re finished, we head for the exit and search through the dozens of backpacks for our own, haul them up, and leave the café behind.
Chapter 28 — Diego Nelson
Well, that was more emotional than I thought it would be. That word. It almost killed me. It’s how I’ve been feeling for days. Like something is missing. Like I left my heart somewhere, but I can’t remember where.
Saudade. Yep. Thank the universe for Bastien.
I kind of wish I didn’t cry, though. Now it feels like Shania is mothering me again. She’s holding my hand but like she has to. Not like she wants to. Sometimes I feel like a bird with a broken wing. I just want to see Moms.
“The church here is exactly like the one back in O Cebreiro. Look,” she says.
“Yeah. Sort of. Same roof.” The Galician cross rises out of the top of it. The same one that was on the cake back at the café. I don’t really have anything else to say, though. We keep walking in silence, and I know Shania feels pretty useless. I don’t want her to. It’s just… I’m not sure there’s anything anyone could say or do that will reach me. Maybe they’re not supposed to. Maybe I’m supposed to be sad.
“Where are we even going tonight?” Manny asks, coming out of nowhere from behind us. “Does anyone remember?”
“Um, Fonfría,” Shania says. She’s such a smartass. Queen of Sarcasm. “Literally everyone but you remembers, loser.”
“Oh, yeah,” he replies. “Thanks for breaking it to me gently.”
“Manny, you kill me,” she says. Manny starts talking to her about the music he’s listening to, and I let go of her hand.
“You guys walk. Go ahead, Shan. I’m good.”
“No, no.”
“Really,” I kiss her. She turns back to Manny, and they keep talking as they move on at a quicker pace than my dragging, sorry ass is willing to go. I’m probably better off by myself for a bit. No need to pull Shania down with me.
“Wait,” Greg says from somewhere behind me. “Are we actually going downhill? Praise God.”
Dude has lost his juice.
“Not for long,” Meagan says. She is walking ahead with Gil, Bastien, and Claire. Now I get why Greg is behind me. I think he’s doing it again. Shadowing me because I’m alone. Because I’m sad.
After a few more minutes of walking alone, someone comes alongside me, and I assume it’s Greg. But when I look out the corner of my eye, I realize it isn’t. The man has a beard and is wearing what seems to be a Tilley hat. He’s also using two walking sticks, which I can’t believe I didn’t hear.
“Buen Camino,” he says in an Australian accent. He’s wearing a jacket in this heat. He must be nuts. I give him a look, and he says, “Yeah. I know. Getting a lot of those looks. I’m actually hot. I put this on this morning and haven’t stopped to take it off.”
“Buen Camino,” I say. “It’s gotta be almost eighty-five degrees out here. You should be dying in that thing.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Where I come from it’s thirty, but I hear you. I really should put it away. Don’t know why I even brought it. I just started back in Cacabelos. You must be American, then?”
He talks a lot. Dude doesn’t even stop to breathe.
“No, Canada. I was translating the temperature. I thought Australia did Fahrenheit like the States. Oops. Sorry.”
“Yeah, we’re part of the Evil Empire, just like you.” He smiles, transfers one of his walking sticks to the other hand and offers his hand for me to shake. When he takes his hand back, he says, “Bill. From Darwin, Australia.”
“Diego. Toronto. So you just started out? Who you with?”
“All alone. I was on my way to Paris and made a side trip. Always wanted to experience the Camino de Santiago. Better a little bit of it than none. Paris next week and England the following week. Abbey Road. The Beatles. A little trip to relive the glory days. That’ll be my real pi
lgrimage.”
“You don’t look old enough.” There’s gray in his hair, but not a lot. Beatles are more my grandmother’s era than Moms’s.
“There is no old enough, Diego. And no young enough. The Beatles are for everyone.”
“Huh,” I say. “Maybe.”
“Ain’t no maybe about it. I’m forty-eight. They’re my band just as much as my father’s.”
“I kind of dig ‘Yesterday.’ Not trying to be funny, but ‘The Long and Winding Road’ too.”
“Nice one,” Bill says. “I’ve seen enough of that in the past couple of days to last me the rest of my days.”
“My abuelita—my grandmother—played those songs for me. I love them because I loved her.”
Greg comes up alongside us. He gives me a look that says I’m here for you, dude, looking all sympathetic.
“That’s sweet, Diego,” Bill says. “It was nice talking to you. I’m off. Trying to do this thing in less time than it takes. Time to motor on. Onward and upward, right?”
“Buen Camino, Bill,” I say.
“Maybe we’ll see you in Santiago. Who knows? Buen Camino, Diego.” He nods hello to Greg and says “Buen Camino” again.
“Buen Camino,” Greg says. And the stranger from Australia is off. I watch as he passes by Manny and Shania, and then Claire, Bastien, Gil, and Meagan, exchanging Buen Caminos with all.
I look at Greg and he still has that sympathetic look on his face. I pat his shoulder. “I’m okay, dude. Really. I’ll be fine.”
“Just checking, Diego. Good deal. Glad to hear it. I’m here if you need me.”
“Thanks, bud. Appreciate it.”
We’re walking on a sort of laneway now. Rocks and pebbles. My calves are burning, so we must be starting another uphill climb. Here goes.
Sure enough, we’re soon all huffing and puffing. Those ahead have slowed down, so we’re all walking together. We’re all struggling together. Manny and Shania have come back to join me and Greg. I take Shania’s hand, but soon it becomes too hard to hold hands and climb.
“Holy hell,” Troy says. He and Kei are leading the pack up the hill, but he’s losing ground. “I can’t do this.”