Sinning Across Spain

by Ailsa Piper

  The rain had stopped and sun released the neroli scent. That, combined with humidity, spices and the tumble of red and pink geraniums, made sightseeing irresistible, so I set out to explore the streets of the Jewish quarter—La Judería—a maze of narrow, winding lanes.

  In the Middle Ages Córdoba was a centre of science and intellectualism and the wealthiest city in Western Europe. The Jewish population was established there in Roman times and there are remains of a synagogue that dates from 1315. Now a tourist attraction, it contains fragments of its past life: teachings, frescoes and tiles. On its south wall was a psalm: I will sing unto the Lord because he hath dealt bountifully with me.

  The Jews were expelled in 1492 by Ferdinand and Isabella.

  Nearby, a statue honours Maimonides, the Jewish philosopher, born in Córdoba in 1125. He wrote much about charity in its different forms, famously saying: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

  A stone’s throw from him is a statue of Seneca, another son of Córdoba, who went on to become tutor to Nero. He wrote: I do not distinguish by the eye, but by the mind, which is the proper judge.

  Córdoba’s history of tolerance and its intellectual and civic achievements overwhelmed me. Yes, they were lost to prejudice and violence, but when I hear the name, I’m reminded of the possibility of something remarkable: peaceful co-existence.

  I wandered. I pondered.

  Above me, a woman shrieked. A passerby whispered, ‘Scandoloso.’ Looking up, I saw no trace of scandal, only potted geraniums and lines of verse.

  I’d lucked in on a festival of poetry. Banners hung from balconies, bearing snippets of poems by Miguel Hernández, who must have written many of the words over my head as he languished in jail, sentenced for anti-fascist sentiments. Wherever I looked I saw heart and soul—corazón y alma; earth and sky—tierra y cielo; love and flowers—amor y flores. His verses fluttered free in the breeze.

  In an Arabic salon de thé, tiled tabletops were piled with copper bowls of flowers, fruit, Turkish cakes and sweetmeats. A fountain tinkled amid palms, ferns, orchids and mirrors. I ordered a peach tea and two almond cakes, and opened my journal to copy a quote from the wall:

  Amor es mi credo y mi fe. Love is my creed and my faith.

  I looked up, and there was Herr T.

  He perched on the edge of a child-sized chair, ordered tea and clicked a photo. We talked about the city sights. He told me he too had been at Mass that morning and had seen me there. Then he began to sob.

  I put an arm around him and waited, afraid of what had happened. His shoulders shook, tears fell, and he tried to apologise. I hugged him and that made him cry more. He avoided my gaze, opened his mouth and then closed it. He sipped tea. And finally, he spoke.

  He said how empty he had found the Mass, how the priests lacked spirit, how broken he felt. He said that our conversations of the previous days had made him question his faith. He whispered that this ‘breaking’ frightened him. Previous caminos had never made him feel like this, he said.

  ‘I am so afraid,’ he repeated.

  I suggested that perhaps it was fatigue, after the long walking stages, or an excess of solitude. Maybe he should consider staying on a day or two to gather strength, or take a bus to Mérida and join the Via de la Plata, where there would be other walkers and a convivial pilgrim community.

  No. He would continue this road he had begun. This is the experience he must complete. He gripped my hand. Perhaps we could leave together tomorrow morning?

  I nodded. Yes. Of course.

  We finished our tea, and he returned to the hotel to rest. I left the ancient part of town for the ‘real’ world of post offices and supermarkets, and to put some distance between the two of us. I was in my own turmoil after our meeting.

  I had a load of sins, and my physical and mental health to consider. I didn’t want to nurse anyone else down the road. Selfishness surged as I bought candied fruit, stamps and a phone card. I texted Leonardo and Ricardo to ask their surnames and address, then bought them a card, handmade by a man called Fernando, who asked me to make a prayer for him in Santiago.

  Santiago de Compostela.

  That impossible destination, still over a thousand kilometres away.

  One of my sinners emailed a question about ‘simony’, which he described as the sin of asking another to take your penance. Was I enabling sin? I googled the word and found a host of answers.

  It was paying for holy offices or sacraments. It was trafficking in money for ‘spiritual things’. It was the buying or selling of ecclesiastical pardons or offices.

  Was I a sinner by carrying sin?

  Was the Church a sinner when it sold pardons and relics?

  Walking through the darkening streets, I examined my intentions. I knew I wasn’t undertaking the walk for any ulterior motive, though I still couldn’t answer for myself exactly why I was doing it. There are many more pleasurable ways to spend the days than walking thirty kilometres with a pack, only to sleep in lodgings that are worse than a boarding school dorm. There are far less painful things to do than meditate on transgression and failure all day long, particularly your own. Whatever I was doing, I decided it wasn’t sinful. It was too difficult and demanding.

  Why, then, did I want to continue?

  Well, I was following an intuition. Maybe even, if I dared use the word, a vocation. And I was doing a job, keeping faith with my sinners, who believed in me, even those who didn’t believe in absolution from the Catholic Church. I did notice that I hadn’t confessed my sins to them in my email report card and wondered if that was pride again, but I decided my sins were not the point. I was in service, and whatever the purpose of confession might be, it was not meant to be mutual. I was paid to receive and carry.

  My musing led me to a courtyard, where I sat with spiced vegetable soup and a vino tinto, to compose words in fractured Spanglish for the card to my Barcelona angels. Tomorrow I walk again, I wrote. I have a companion on the road. He is a kind man. I walk with you, too. In my heart.

  A bell rang out. And another. Different pitches.

  I thought of Domingo.

  I wondered if the bell in the ochre steeple in El Ganso was tolling. How many times had it rung out for Domingo’s clan? How many more times would it call to them? Christenings, weddings, funerals. Rosaries, communions, novenas. All of the village, turning up. Day in, day out. Year in, year out.

  Rewards flow from that. Belonging and connection. Deep communion.

  Pilgrimage is faith in motion, I wrote in my journal. You just keep turning up. Whether you want to or not. Whether it is the way you pictured it, or not. Keep walking, and the spirit flies, even if you don’t know where. Keep turning up.

  In the perfumed night air, as bells tolled, I gathered myself for the days ahead.

  Faith, sins and simony would have to wait.

  I had a mochila to pack for the road to Mérida.

  12

  Weathering Storms

  In the morning dark, I was cold and crotchety. I didn’t want to be meeting up with Herr Theologie, travelling together and making plans. I did not want to be responsible to or for anyone else, or to do their crying.

  This from the sin-carrier!

  I thought of my sinner’s impatience and frustration with her elderly parents.

  But this is different.

  I thought of the two people who had asked me to carry selfishness.

  But this is different.

  I thought of all the variants of anger, and knew I was on dangerous ground.

  I thought of the sinner who had acted on lust, and knew that at least was not a possibility.

  Then, when Herr T asked if I was certain I did not mind his company, I told a big fat white lie and said it was fine.

  The streets were shiny and slick aft
er rain. We sat on an icy metal bench waiting for a bus to take us through Córdoba’s suburbs. Herr T had found a brace for his knee and was optimistic it would hold. That’s what he said, just before he dropped his head into his hands. I couldn’t tell if he was crying. He was backlit against an illuminated mascara advertisement. An airbrushed movie star smirked down at us, her impossibly white teeth just above Herr T’s huddled form, making his sadness seem inappropriate. Unseemly.

  I wanted to get off the bus before I even got on. What I needed was a dose of patience, the Contrary Virtue to anger.

  Contrary. That was me.

  The bus travelled past one-euro shops, smokestacks, raincoated shift-workers and Caracol Express—a restaurant offering speedy servings of snail. By the time we’d alighted and strapped on our packs, there was light in the sky. I hoped it was a sign.

  Our first coffee stop was over twelve kilometres away. Rain came and went, along with my plastic outer layers. The wind, the wet and the protective clothing made conversation impossible, so we walked apart, which was probably as well for Herr T.

  The trail was soggy and strewn with litter. I sidestepped the skeleton of a goat, its skull flung back, its jaws gaping. I picked up plastic and paper, irritated that the soldiers weren’t detailed to do it.

  Yes, soldiers.

  For several kilometres, signs advised that I was walking through a Zona Militar. Privates scrubbed rows of tanks, emergency vehicles screamed past with sirens blaring, a marching band paraded, flags raised and lowered, and a garrison of strutting recruits watched me from behind wire fences. I should have felt safe, but all that military hardware made me conscious of how vulnerable I was.

  In El Vacar, the coffee-stop town, I saw not one of the ninety-six residents. Sensible folk, they were all tucked up inside. I peeled off my plastics outside Bar Laura and found Herr T inside. We nursed hot mugs and watched the TV news.

  Dark volcanic ash was blanketing Europe. In Poland they mourned. In Málaga there was unprecedented flooding; and in Madrid, the presidente was grim-faced about budget cuts necessitated by the financial crisis. We slumped in silence.

  Leonardo called.

  Was he hot-wired to my moods? He always rang when I was low, and I always said I was fine. Hearing him, and saying it, I was. Fine.

  I wished Herr T dry walking as he loaded up. I wanted to stay and write. By the time I stepped back outside, the clouds had cleared, and although there was a chill wind a-blowing, the sky was blue.

  The road threw me about. There were hills, which were good; and flooding, which was not. There were mis-directions, which were infuriating; and footprints, which gave hope. There were rocks and washaways, and slushy slopes; lavender and rosemary, and a perfumed musk rose.

  There was a phone call from home, a rare occurrence as friends and family understood that contact could throw me off my emotional course, dragging me back to my other life. They respected the difficulties of staying spiritually upright over long stretches of tricky terrain! Nonetheless, this was special. My husband, sister and best friend were together at dinner, and when I told them my circumstances, they roared with laughter at my fury. They knew that if I was railing I was safe. I knew that if they were laughing, all was well.

  Still, as I slid down the face of a muddy bank, I heard myself shouting.

  ‘Why am I here? I didn’t want to walk another camino. Why? Tell me.’

  Brushing sludge from my pants, I heard a reply.

  ‘It’s called free will, you idiot. No one made you come.’

  No, it wasn’t God speaking. Just me talking to myself. Things really were going downhill.

  Actually, they weren’t. There were climbs ahead. Plenty. And puddles. And mud.

  I straggled into Villaharta to see Herr T plodding towards me, his pack still on and his head down.

  ‘There is no accommodation,’ he said.

  He was making for a motel down on the highway. I decided to go up into the village and sit in a warm bar with the locals before following him.

  Waves and holas met me from all sides, so I decided to try the ayuntamiento. My luck was in. Juan-Claudio stamped my credencial and walked me to the polideportivo (sports centre), where he unlocked my quarters high above the town in splendid isolation. Mine, all mine.

  A changing room next to the basketball court. Concrete floor, wooden benches around the walls, two plastic-covered gym mats for a mattress, two showers, a handbasin, a toilet and the luxury of a row of hooks on the wall.

  I shook Juan-Claudio’s hand too hard, said gracias too often, and removed my sodden boots.

  Standing at my door, I looked over terracotta rooftops to the mountains. No question: a storm was coming. I unpacked my sleeping bag and all my clothing. That concrete floor would not hold warmth. I texted Herr T to tell him I was staying in the village and went out to explore.

  At the bar, I found hot coffee, toast, oil and tomato sauce. Not tomato sauce as we know it in Australia. This was puréed tomatoes from the garden, poured over local oil on freshly made bread, salted to taste. Zero food miles.

  I could have indulged in a glass of snails. Locals lined the bar, downing gastropods by the glassful. The barman told me it was peak season and they were delicious, but I resisted. Between cigars, he also told me the weather for the coming days was very bad. Muy malo. The TV backed him up. Muy muy malo. Very very bad. Tormentas. Lots of rain. Big storms. Rivers rising.

  The next stage was thirty-nine uninterrupted kilometres through forest trails, a day I’d been anticipating as reward for all the walking on carretera—literal translation, highway; pilgrim translation, purgatory. My day in the woods was sounding like it would be a day on the high seas if the barman was right. Agua. Mucha agua.

  I went to the stationer’s and treated myself to two pens and two postcards. At the grocer’s, I bought dried fruit and nuts for the day to come, and dinner: a tin of tuna, a tomato and capsicum for vitamin C, sheep’s milk cheese and bread. All the food groups.

  Back in my change room, I laid out my purchases. Such bounty.

  Then I opened the door again.

  O wind, a-blowing all day long …

  Wind buffeted me, buffeted storks as they flew home to precarious nests, buffeted antennas, buffeted basketball hoops. It whistled in wires. The sky turned from indigo to purple. Rain fell. I grabbed my washing, brought my boots in and slammed the door.

  O wind that sings so loud a song.

  It was as though I was in an orchestra pit and the wind was tuning up the instruments. Even if I got warm I would never sleep in the cacophony, so I located an elastic bandage given to me by my osteopath, ripped off strips and patched all the holes in the walls. The symphony sounded less like Mars and a little like Venus. More bandage, around the gaps between windows and frames, and the symphony became a solo flute line. Bandage over gaps between door and lintel and the room was a patchwork of beige strips but all was silence.

  Then it hit. Thunder, lightning and sheeting rain.

  It was barely 8 p.m., but day turned prematurely into night. I pulled on every article of clothing I had, wrapped my rain jacket around my head for warmth, rolled up my plastic pants for a pillow, and slept long and deep. Villaharta was one of my happiest nights on the road.

  The next day began with a text from Herr T: he was waiting for me in the bar.

  Damn. We had made no agreement to walk together and I wanted that forest walk to myself, mud or no mud.

  Selfish? Big time. Sinner? Guess so.

  I ripped off the room’s bandaging and opened the door to drizzle and a stork wading on the basketball court. The world was waterlogged and the bar was populated by blokes with smokes, hunkering down. Seeing my mochila, they were appalled.

  No, no, you cannot walk today.

  ‘No pasa nada,’ I said. No worries. I’ll stay put and walk tomorrow.

 
No, no. Tomorrow will be worse. The rivers in the forest are already waist-deep. This rain won’t stop and the rivers will rise. You must take a bus or a car today, because it may be many days before the waters subside.

  What about the road?

  No, no. There would be no visibility. Muy muy peligroso. Very very dangerous.

  What finally convinced me (because I protested and requested second and third opinions) was the uniformed man who said I would risk other people’s lives if they had to come and save me.

  Australians regularly hear of travellers in need of rescue from remote places. We shake our heads and ask how they could have been so stupid as to ignore the advice of locals, to walk out alone into the desert, swim in those floodwaters or ignore signs about crocodiles.

  I told Herr T I would catch a bus to Alcaracejos.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, downing his hot chocolate. ‘I come too.’

  Weatherproofs crinkling and boots sloshing, we made our way downhill, battling to stay vertical. The landscape was blurred, all its edges dripping and dissolving. We sat in chill wind for over two hours, watching busloads disembarking into the motel dining area and trying to believe the barman each time he insisted our bus would come—just another fifteen minutes.

  When it arrived, we each paid our two euros and I claimed a space by a foggy window to peer out at steep oak-wooded slopes, rolling hills dotted with ruins and paths criss-crossing emerald sward.

  And rivers. Honesty demands I report that the landscape streamed with red water. All the mud in the province had turned liquid and was descending. There was a torrent at every turn. Walking those paths would have been lunacy, but still I mourned the lost climbs.

  We got off the bus into more rain, but I was not trekking around to find accommodation when I could be trekking across level country to Hinojosa del Duque. Herr T said he would walk too.

  We set out on a farm track populated with barking dogs and scratching chooks. I hung back to create some distance between us.

  Since Córdoba, Herr T had spoken little. I don’t know if he was embarrassed or afraid to engage in the kind of conversations that might prompt more distress, or if he felt my frustration, but I hadn’t tried to draw him out. I berated myself for my selfishness, telling myself I should be walking with him and wondering if I should have stayed in the motel the previous night to allow him more access to me. I thought of my sinner’s confession to shallowness and how he still carried guilt about his friend’s suicide. Should I be intervening more in Herr T’s internal life?