Sinning Across Spain

by Ailsa Piper

  I took out my journal and wrote, trying to comprehend what had made my heart crack open. It wasn’t food poisoning. I’d had only coffee after a breakfast of bread, cheese and fruit. Was it the church? A response to the desecration of a sacred place?

  More often than not, the sacred places I’d encountered were full of images that only spoke to me of suffering. I could see the power of those symbols and the history of the places, but I was beginning to think that my sacredness would never be found in them. When I finished the Camino Francés, I’d watched other pilgrims arrive in Santiago, some dazed and overawed, some dancing and partying, some shouting, some praying, some silent. All footsore.

  I was glad for those who stood in front of the cathedral and experienced completion. I was also glad for those who found meaning inside the cathedral. But nothing happened for me. Mostly I was confused and numbed by the ‘showbiz’ aspect of the rituals. I left thinking I had failed. Clearly there was something wrong with me. Something missing. I was doomed to be an onlooker in the world of the spirit.

  I realised in Bar Jesus on a dripping Sunday, with football blaring from the TV and my pot of tea fogging the window, why the Santiago cathedral bell never resonated for me. It said, ‘In here. Come in here. This is the place to be forgiven.’

  I prefer bells that say ‘Maybe … maybe … maybe you’ll sit and reflect awhile …’

  I believe in personal accountability, and betterment via example, I wrote. And I believe in possibility over certainty.

  Even using the word ‘believe’ felt too certain.

  Not that I wasn’t grateful to ‘sacred places’, or respectful of those who found meaning in churches, temples and mosques. The Catholic Church had given me rich and potent stories, and rules against which I could measure my life. It had given me the camino.

  I questioned myself about my roadside meltdown. I had left something behind out there near the Río Tera. Was it faith?

  No. No it wasn’t. I still believed.

  In the possibility of union and peace. In kindness and in our longing to express that kindness. In goodness. Pure and simple.

  What I decided I had left behind was the hunger for a particular kind of faith.

  My faith may not fit in cathedrals, or dwell in temples, or nest in mosques, I wrote. But it is no less meaningful for that.

  I could learn from the teachings of the enlightened, from people who believed and from those who believed only in the here and now–—just as I had always learned from poets. All had something to offer me. But for now, the road was my instructor. It was both benevolent and ruthless, but it sure could teach.

  I sipped tea and looked at the tile by my side.

  Sin little rather than confess much.

  It wasn’t that I needed more churches or chanting, but rather a stronger heart; one that could withstand self-scrutiny and help my mind to make better choices.

  My heart seemed to function optimally in ordinary places, and if my lived experience was any guide, clarity could mostly be found where silence prevailed: dung-laden paddocks, barren plains, forests, mountains and places where the hush of humility had fallen.

  They are my churches, I wrote, where I see the possibility of who I can be. As Will Shakespeare said, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

  Perhaps I had found a way. It was dirt and often rocky. Sometimes it was wet and treacherous. But I didn’t need talismans or bishops. I just had to turn up and be ready to meet myself.

  Who knew I would find answers in Bar Jesus! I wrote.

  I began another sentence, documenting what had happened in the lead-up to the meltdown.

  I walked, I wrote.

  I looked at the words. Looked again. I placed a full stop after them.

  I walked.

  That was enough.

  I closed the journal and got ready to go back out into the rain.

  It wasn’t easier. The rain still fell and the asphalt still bit, but my heart chugged along. My wet feet were in wet socks in wet shoes, with wet plastics over wet trousers and wet jumper. De nada. It’s nothing. Walk on.

  I was nigh drowned when I arrived in Rionegro del Puente, five saturated kilometres later. At the new albergue, the walking village was settling in for a fiesta out of the weather. I stopped, de-booted, considered, re-booted and left. The roadside meltdown had left me raw. I didn’t want to be a party pooper, so rain triumphed over company.

  The N-631 was a puddled ribbon of bitumen with a headwind rippling its surface. This was my church! Six slogging kilometres later, a four-wheel drive pulled over to ask why I was not on the camino.

  I had missed an arrow in the rain.

  Carlos, a cigar-smoking Andalucían, told me I was a kilometre or two short of the albergue-town of Mombuey; that he would take me there, to his bar of choice, and I could buy him a coffee. I got in. En route, he said how difficult it was for a southerner in the north, where people are more serious. He missed the south’s no pasa nada attitude. It had been days since I’d heard my amigo’s phrase. Things had begun to matter.

  In Mombuey, there was hot coffee and an empanada, but no bed. Not at the albergue or the hostal or the closed hotel. The next room was in Palacios de Sanabria, twelve kilometres down the road.

  Joan and Lucy arrived, bedraggled but smiling, a welcome taste of Australia. They were followed by a Spaniard with a limp and a tanned Austrian. We were all bedless. There was nothing for it but to make for Palacios.

  Carlos told me to ring Hostal Teresa. The owner told me she had five beds left.

  Meant to be.

  A taxi arrived, driven by a man named Santiago. Meant to be.

  We arrived at a two-storey whitewashed building. My phone beeped. Il Capitano, saying he and his Soldato would be in Puebla de Sanabria the next night. I texted back, saying I would see them, as I was in Palacios. He texted back to say he was too. I opened the door to discover they were sleeping across the hall. Meant to be!

  Mirth, hugs, a torrent of Italian. Both had added beards to their moustaches since I last saw them. They would shave in Santiago, they said.

  To the bar we went for televised bullfights, porcini mushrooms, weather and stories.

  Back to the hostal for stracciatella, goat ragù, roast pork, potatoes, salad, bread, wine, bananas. Three hours earlier, Teresa had only two Italians to feed. Had she intended to give them all that food?

  I bedded down with Joan and Lucy. A hush never feels deeper than when a wind rages outside. My heart was a reliable metronome as my eyes closed.

  Next morning at the bar, Ana Balen Rey told us there would be snow!

  Il Soldato handed me his gloves, which I took to be my orders to walk with them. I gulped down my coffee and toast, and followed.

  More rain. More puddles. And mountains dressed in muted grey with pink heather highlights. From the primary colours of the meseta to the pastels of the peaks, Castilla y Léon had it all. And we were preparing to leave it.

  My Italians walked like locomotives. We sang, we marched, we laughed. Much of the time I was unable to understand them, so rapid was the chat, but the instructions were clear. Up and on. Forward and fast. Take no prisoners, only an Aussie pilgrim.

  We trooped into Puebla de Sanabria and up a million stairs to the castle. Leaning against 500-year-old walls and looking out over the swathe of countryside we’d walked, my heart and legs pumped fire. In front of me was a quilt of grey. Granite houses. Slate sky. Charcoal road. Dove mist.

  To my left stood the grey-haired Soldato, surveying the vista like an Easter Island statue. To my right, il Capitano, bubbling like a child on a sugar high, pointing out landmarks and congratulating us on moving fast. We could press on, he said, and get ahead of schedule.

  Puebla de Sanabria has a storybook heart. The castle is a Cinderella fantasy, and the historic centre is cobbled with flagstones. Balconies tum
ble with flowers and cats doze under stone lintels. We managed to convince il Capitano to lunch in a restaurant where candles gleamed against copper. We shopped for gloves and a warm top for me, made from some mystery synthetic that acted as a wearable heater, but there was a movement order for our garrison and we were off.

  We were three. A difficult number, but somehow, with them, easy.

  Through industrial estates, past milking cows and abandoned houses, I walked with the old soldier as il Capitano made phone calls and consulted his GPS. Il Soldato spoke of his regrets about having been a stern parent. Severe. Expectations are cruel, he said, and they were his sin.

  His word, not mine.

  He was as economical a talker as he was a walker, travelling lightly across the earth, a legacy of his years living in mountains. He liked silence, he said. And people with whom he could achieve it.

  Il Capitano appeared, at full throttle. He’d bought a Coke at a vending machine and said he’d beat us to the albergue. Refuelled, he zoomed ahead, his white hair standing out from his head like a cartoon cat.

  Kids alighted from a school bus as we arrived in Requejo. They led us to a private albergue, where il Capitano waited, tapping his feet. We paid twelve euros for a bed, sheets, towels, a stylised shell sello in our passports, and a place to be warm and dry.

  Leonardo called. It was sunny and warm in Barcelona. I told him I was in company with Italians and he said that I would eat well!

  The town was closed. We washed clothes and hung them on heaters as the rain persisted. We flicked between TV stations, searching for news of better weather. There was none. Only images of oil belching into the Gulf of Mexico, the purity of blue water inked black by corporate error. We played with Italian playing cards. I won two of five hands, though I had no idea how. The old soldier napped. Il Capitano and I looked at each other’s photos, comparing our days. We had seen different things in the same places at the same time. A reminder, if I needed it, that there is no one way, no definitive truth.

  We dined late, taking our time, savouring green beans, casserole and flan. Savouring each other. We worked to have conversation. They held chairs for me, poured wine for me, tucked my scarf around me. Il Capitano had his whisky and warm milk, and we returned to the albergue where they had chosen the best bunk for me.

  Angels and saviours, finding good in everything.

  Sacred hearts.

  25

  Return to Galicia

  Into mountains and the dénouement of the third act.

  The act of the spirit.

  A pale sky greeted us. A snow sky, my Italians said. Il Soldato checked I had warm layers and gloves, checked I had coffee, checked I had eaten. He was like my father, a gentleman from another era, and made me rue the times pride made me tell Dad I didn’t need his help. Accepting assistance is not weakness, as I kept on learning.

  Our exhalations made miniature clouds as we climbed past skeletal birches to where vegetation thinned and gorse bushes ruled, then higher to the tundra, where pylons rose from the earth into the sky and an autovía roared above us. The land folded and unfolded. Clouds lay in its deep pockets, stopping the sun’s rays from reaching whole valleys.

  We were at thirteen hundred metres: rarefied air and bone-chillingly cold.

  I’d travelled from winter into spring in Andalucía, through flooded creeks to poppies and mustard flowers. Summer arrived in Extremadura, so I swam with tadpoles and dipped in Grimaldo’s blossom-strewn stream. Autumnal blasts and falling leaves greeted me north of Salamanca. And finally, as though Proserpina had returned to the Underworld, I was entering a wintry kingdom.

  All this in under five weeks.

  Il Capitano announced that so much rain had fallen in the night that the camino’s valley path would be flooded and we must take the high road all the way to Lubián. Twenty kilometres of carretera. His foot soldiers’ faces must have told quite a story but he wouldn’t be swayed. Up we went, air cutting like knives into exposed skin. It was easy to see why.

  Snow.

  There it was. Barely a kilometre to our left. Almost touchable.

  Water gushed on all sides. Creeks where there had been trickles. Rivers where there had been creeks. I thought of Herr Theologie and of our plodding days. I hoped he was not out in the rain. My Italians were years older than him, yet they were like teenagers, sustained by an appetite for laughter and life.

  Il Capitano told me of the walks he planned for the years ahead. Would I join him? He would like to have his libellula with him. His dragonfly. He said it was the right name for me because I flitted from side to side as I walked, stopping, looking, speeding up, turning and dancing. He imitated me and was so accurate I groaned in recognition.

  We sang ‘A Modo Mio’—‘My Way’—into Lubián as the rain stopped. The town was silent, the granite buildings forlorn. At La Casa de Irene, a private albergue, we gulped homemade empañada and hot coffee at Angelus time.

  To walk or to stay?

  Not fancying another long, locked afternoon, we voted to push on. I had become part of a regiment, just like that. We marched out of Castilla y Léon, crossing the border without fanfare.

  Into Galicia.

  Land of witches and little people, where the Celts left traces of themselves in the haunting music of bagpipes and the stone architecture. It’s called ‘the bathtub of Spain’ with reason. It rains. All year. Moss coats walls and grows like cushions on stone; the air is heavy.

  Right on cue, rain returned.

  We ploughed up inclines and skittered down fast-moving watercourses where sharp rocks lurked, waiting to trip us up. The old soldier was like a rabbit. His feet barely touched the ground. Il Capitano and I brought up the rear, my walking poles keeping me from slithering into mud. Eventually, though, I began to flail.

  My period started, out on the road in the rain. It was the final straw. I had walked over thirty kilometres of up, down, up, down, and I had to stop. I insisted they leave me at Vilavella, ten kilometres past Lubián, at a hostal on the N-525, beside a service station. I said I’d catch them up, but I had nothing left. They took women’s business in their stride, making sure I didn’t need a farmacia, waiting until I had a room, taking tea with me, and then heading back into the rain to make for the big albergue at A Gudiña. In spite of the lowering skies, they were going to do a forty-plus day. They said they felt at home in the mountains. ‘Just as our dragonfly loves the meseta, so we love altitude.’

  In my room, I crumpled. Let’s just call it hormones.

  After my roadside meltdown, I’d thought all collapses were behind me, but mountain-walking in torrential rain with mud underfoot and oestrogen cavorting though the body, undertaken while searching for words in another language, after eight consecutive days without a break, will probably produce a result!

  My journal entry was a litany of misery.

  I was sick of handwashing and smelling rancid, of throbbing feet and aching back, of guarding physical steps and mental state, of roadside rubbish, and of waste, like the multiple layers of packaging on the tampons.

  I was sick of sins. So sick of them. And maybe sick from them. What idiocy was this, to fill the mind and spirit with pain, and hold hands with it across an entire country?

  I wanted to drop my bundle but was afraid I’d never pick it up again, so I went to the bar and sat looking out over petrol pumps to the mountains where windmills twirled, slicing into the passing grey clouds. I texted my husband to tell him not to worry, that I was okay. A text came back asking if he should have been worried. I had forgotten that my world was not his! I really was losing it.

  I watched television, but couldn’t focus on bullfighters, no matter how dazzling their looks and moves. The government had changed in England. The Spanish king had been operated on in Madrid. Emerging from a public hospital, he declared Spain’s health system the pride of the nation. I tried
to imagine a king of England checking into the Royal London on the NHS, but didn’t think it likely. Spain’s movie-star president was in close-up announcing rescue measures for the economy. Still the volcano belched, houses were washed away like toys, and oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. Insurance companies baulked at payouts. These were Acts of God, they said.

  What did they mean? Did insurance companies know something I didn’t?

  I wanted the companies to disclose the god who was their excuse: the one who sent floods to wrench babies from the arms of mothers; the one who rained down locusts to eat crops; the one who shook whole cities until people were pulp under buildings; the one who washed away continents of topsoil where food had grown.

  A wanton god, this god of insurance.

  Outside, the grey stayed. Fog closed in. Niebla.

  I hadn’t had a rest day since Salamanca, nine days earlier. Since then, I’d travelled far under threatening skies and in mucho company. I was numb, aside from a dread that, as I approached Santiago, I was no wiser. I hoped my sinners were faring better. My great fear was always that the walk would prove pointless: that I would make no discoveries, learn nothing, and waste the time and faith of my supporters. Worse, that I might have asked them to own up to painful self-truths, only to return with no offering. The fear that the whole exercise might be empty was too terrible.

  What if there was no point to all this plodding?

  To search for meaning assumes that there is a meaning and that it is findable. But how will we know it? What will it look like?

  I opened my journal and began to make notes. Meaning has begun to sound like the crunch of boots on gravel, but what use is that to anyone else?

  I took a deep breath and tried to slow down. Snail-writing.

  Paso a paso. Step by step.

  That’s my mantra, I wrote. That’s my rosary. That’s the prayer for me.