Beneath Wandering Stars

by Cowles, Ashlee;

“Well, it’s official. Tonight is going to suck,” Seth mutters as we walk back to the church to set up camp. “Hope your sleeping bag is warm.”

  Seth may be pessimistic (big surprise), but I find the stillness that confronts us in the shade of Iglesia de Santa Maria de Eunate intoxicating. It’s like a protective force field radiates from each and every stone. As the sun dips behind the church’s dome, a golden glow chases gargoyle shadows down its walls and into the fennel fields beyond. My eyes meet Seth’s as we unroll our sleeping bags in the cloister walk. The curious expression on his face tells me he feels it too. An “it” that can’t be explained in words.

  That farmer was right. This is a special place.

  We explore the enchanted grounds without speaking. I stop in front of the arched entryway to stage a photo from an angle that makes it seem like G.I. Lucas is proportional to the chapel, but I need Seth to hold him in place. “Seth! Can you come here for a sec?”

  No answer. I lower the camera and glance around, but Seth is nowhere in sight. Cold sweat drips down my back. This place is magical, but it isn’t somewhere I want to hang around by myself at dusk. The air seems thinner and I don’t feel entirely safe.

  Maybe sacred things are never entirely safe.

  “Seth?”

  Nothing. The silence turns stifling as it presses in on my ribcage.

  “Seth?” I call out again.

  “Over here.”

  Thank God. My heart thuds in my chest like a bass drum, but I manage to jog to the other side of the sanctuary without passing out. Seth stands in front of a grassy plot along the churchyard’s outer wall, staring at a row of unadorned headstones.

  “These are graves of medieval pilgrims who didn’t make it to Santiago. They died along the way,” Seth explains in a reflective tone.

  “It’s weird to think there was a time that could actually happen.” A gust of charcoal caresses my face, and I zip up my windbreaker as the coolness of nightfall descends. “I can’t imagine going on a journey without any guarantee you’d live to see the next day, let alone reach your final destination.”

  “It isn’t that hard to imagine.”

  Seth’s solemn voice stabs me in the chest. I’d forgotten that the whisper of mortality, the uncertainty of ever seeing home again, is something soldiers experience on a daily basis. Yet sooner or later, the journey ends and we’re all buried in the ground, just like these pilgrims. Sooner or later, we all find ourselves in a state of helpless surrender, just like Lucas.

  “Not yet, Gabi.” Seth, reading my mind, rests a hand on my shoulder. The extra weight makes my sore muscles relax beneath his fingertips. This is the first time Seth has ever touched me on purpose—except for that one time he bandaged my feet—but it feels normal, like he does it all the time. “Lucas isn’t there yet. And he isn’t going to be.”

  My arms twist around my waist as I bite down on my lower lip. I can’t cry for Lucas because once I start, I won’t be able to stop. I pour my grief into my pain instead—into my tired feet and throbbing joints. That kind of suffering I can manage, but as soon as my heart breaks open for Lucas, all self-control will be lost. The only way to keep walking is to make my heart as callused as my heels. Seth squeezes my shoulder, which tells me this is something he knows all too well.

  “We should go,” I say once the initial heat of his touch cools. “We don’t want to be late for dinner.”

  Seth’s gaze drifts from the neat rows of corn to the untamed hills in the distance. “I get the feeling that in a place like this, being late isn’t really a possibility.”

  Chapter 11

  Seth is right. You can’t be late to your own party, and that’s exactly what this feels like. We enter the dining room and every pilgrim at the table raises his or her glass, cheering like they’ve been waiting for us the entire evening.

  The place looks like a madrigal banquet or the wedding feast at a Renaissance festival. Arched ceilings float above thick stone walls, creating an open space illuminated by candlelight. Fat pillar candles, thin taper candles, and every size in between line the perimeter of the room. Something smells incredible, but it isn’t food. That’s when I notice the sprigs of dried herbs and wildflowers bundled with twine decorating the long table, which is set with wine glasses and terra cotta jugs filled with Spain’s fruit of the vine.

  “Um, I’m pretty sure we just time traveled. To the year 1492,” I whisper as we stand there smiling awkwardly, taking in the pilgrim faces seated among the flickering shadows.

  “Seriously,” Seth replies. “Maybe the mystique surrounding the Knights Templar is justified. This definitely feels like the gathering of a secret society.”

  After mumbling a few shy hellos, we take our seats next to an Irish woman in her thirties and a young Sudanese man with skin so dark and smooth it’s impossible to tell his age.

  The husband and wife innkeeper team enters the hall carrying gigantic platters covered in grilled asparagus, blood-red tomatoes, and eggplant doused in olive oil. Then come the bowls of figs, olives, and grapes, along with fresh-baked bread and a spectrum of cheeses, starting with mild goat all the way to blue and super stinky. It isn’t that much food given the number of people, but everything is garden-fresh and no matter how many times we pass the trays, nothing runs out.

  “Escargot?” Molly, the Irish woman, hands me a plate of charcoaled grass stalks covered in small snails—shells and all. “I’m told the locals pick these stalks from the side of the road and throw the entire thing on the barbecue. Feeling brave?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  Across the table, Seth cocks his head. He wears an amused smile, like he didn’t expect a girl raised on Hamburger Helper to have the guts to try a glorified slug. Time to show him I’m more adventurous than he thinks. I lift the shriveled snail to my mouth. “When in Rome, right?”

  “That’s the spirit.” Molly’s accent is as warm and lyrical as her laughter.

  All I can say about escargot is thank God for garlic. And bread. Pretty soon it’s passed, the wine is poured, and we dig in.

  “Con pan y vino.” Seth lifts his glass and winks. At me.

  This small gesture warms my insides more than wine ever could. Flustered, I break Seth’s gaze and study our diverse group of dining companions. In addition to the Danish caretakers, Greta and Karl, there’s Molly from Ireland and Sudanese Jean Paul, a middle-aged Czech couple, an Argentinian mother and her ten-year-old son, an elderly South Korean man, and an Italian priest so baby-faced he must have finished seminary yesterday. Two more Americans sit to my right, a guy and a girl. I assume they’re a couple, until the guy gets a little too friendly.

  “Hey there. I’m Dennis from the San Francisco Bay Area.”

  “Uh, hi, Dennis from the Bay Area. I’m Gabi.”

  “So Gabi, where are you from?”

  Seth’s smile shifts into a smirk. He knows without me having to tell him that I hate this question with the intensity of a thousand suns.

  “Texas,” I reply.

  “No, I mean where are you from? Like, originally.”

  Seth rolls his eyes, as if to say here we go.

  “Well, like, I was born in Louisiana.”

  “But before that,” Dennis presses.

  “Uh, before my birth?”

  Dennis laughs. “You have an exotic look. You don’t look American.”

  Oh really? Then by “American” he means someone who looks like him, despite that I’ve sacrificed more for good old ’Merica in seventeen years than he will his entire lifetime. “Uh, my mom is Scottish, maybe a little French, and my dad is originally from Mexico.”

  “Mexico! That’s it. I knew you had to be from south of the border. Texas, duh.” Dennis slaps his forehead, totally oblivious that his lame attempt at flirtation might be offensive if I had thinner skin. “God, I miss Mexican food. You can’t find anything like it over here, which wasn’t what I expected, seeing how folks in both countries speak Spanish. Man, your people sure know ho
w to make a tortilla.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve never been to Mexico, sooo . . . .”

  “What about Mr. Strong and Silent? Where’s he from?” interrupts the young woman sitting across from Dennis. I think she said her name was Natalie, but I can’t remember because I was too busy staring at her face. The girl is a total knockout, but in that very specific way where you’re not quite sure if what you’re looking at is an optical illusion. Most peregrinas on the camino don’t wear much makeup, if any, and this girl has shiny, flat-ironed hair and perfectly manicured nails. “She’s SoCal all the way, baby,” as Brent would say.

  Now, I’m not trying to be catty; it’s just impossible to ignore the sight of a runway model after weeks of smelling like a sock. I should be impressed by what she’s managed to accomplish in a hostel bathroom, but I get the feeling this couple doesn’t stay in albergues often. They seem more like tourists who added a short stint on the camino to their all-inclusive vacation along the Costa del Sol. Maybe they’re nice people and I’m just a judgmental jerk, but something about their posh vibe doesn’t quite fit.

  Natalie tosses Seth a suggestive smile, so she’s either with Dennis solely for his money, or these people are total swingers. “You, my friend, look like you’re starving. And not for more manchego.” She leans over the table and brushes her fingers across the tattoo stamped on the inside of Seth’s wrist.

  ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς

  I’ve never paid much attention to it, but Natalie is intrigued by the foreign script. Her eyes light up like a cat staring at a shiny object. “What do all those funny letters say?”

  “It’s Greek,” Seth replies, like that should be the end of it. But Natalie keeps staring at him with wide, expectant eyes, so he clears his throat. “It means ‘either with your shield, or on it.’ As in, return from battle with honor, or don’t return at all. Mothers in ancient Sparta supposedly said these words to their sons before they went off to fight.”

  “How sweet.” Natalie frowns and pulls back her hand. “What, did you just return from a war or something?”

  A war? Please tell me that in between her salon visits, this girl at least learned the names of the countries we’ve been fighting in for the past decade. No wonder soldiers feel exiled from people so disconnected from reality. A warrior caste is right.

  Seth stares at his food. “Yeah. Something like that.”

  I push my plate away. The sight of snails coupled with this conversation makes me want to puke. Is this really what it will be like for Seth and Lucas any time they get asked about where they’ve been for the past year? These two Americans should feel like familiar friends, but instead they’re the most foreign of all the pilgrims we’ve encountered so far.

  Dennis revisits an earlier subject in an attempt to fill the uncomfortable lull. “So Gabi, you said your mom’s part Scottish?”

  Okay, I am losing patience quick. “Sure, as in her ancestors came over from Scotland before the United States existed as an official country.”

  Jean Paul and Molly are deep in a conversation that has got to be more interesting than this one, so I shift my body in their direction. Seth shoves a finger in his mouth and pretends to pull the trigger. Believe me, buddy, I would if I could, but that means missing out on dessert and I’ve heard a rumor it’s flan, my favorite. Luckily for Seth, Natalie has a short attention span, and soon she traps the young priest in a discussion of deep spiritual significance. The state of the Italian leather shoe industry, I believe.

  “I’m Scottish, too,” Dennis smacks, his mouth full.

  I resist the urge to stab him, and then myself, with my fork.

  “Really? Man, do your people know how to make a Scotch egg! Let me guess, you play rugby and the bagpipes, right? I bet you love the movie Rob Roy, huh? Why isn’t your hair red? Why don’t you have an accent, laddie?”

  Okay, so I snapped. Lost my mind for a moment. I’m not proud of it, but it happened.

  Dennis’s mouth falls open, proving escargot can look even more disgusting than it does on the plate. He stares at me like I’m the biggest moron he’s ever met in all his urbane travels, then turns his back to me, joining Natalie’s one-sided conversation with the poor Italian priest on da Vinci and his secret code.

  I almost feel bad for blowing up on the guy, but he’s the sort of tourist who gives Americans abroad a bad name. Then again, he and Natalie are out here on the camino when they could be lying on a beach sipping cocktails, so maybe they’re making some effort to expand their narrow little world.

  Seth is cracking up behind his wineglass, his squinty eyes signaling an enthusiastic bravo! I can’t help smiling back, but now I’m flustered and feeling unfit for a cross-cultural exchange. Fortunately, Jean Paul does most of the talking, and before long the entire table falls under his spell. He shares what it was like growing up in Sudan during the civil war. As he speaks, Jean Paul’s hands move in graceful gestures that denote an inner calm I can’t comprehend, given the horrors he’s witnessed.

  “Of all the long walks I’ve done, this pilgrimage is the most peaceful. When I was a boy, I fled the violence in my country by escaping across the border to Kenya, and we had to keep on the lookout for wild animals the entire way.” Jean Paul’s face breaks into a huge smile. “So far I have yet to see a lion or a crocodile on the camino. Although it often sounds like I’m sleeping next to one in the hostels.”

  Everyone laughs, but the fact that Jean Paul is the sole surviving member of his family makes my head spin. Hearing his story stirs up guilt for all the times I complained about having to pack up my room again, or because I was missing a school dance due to a move. Things my dad likes to call “first world problems,” compared to the challenges most of the world faces on a daily basis. You know, things like hunger and disease and violence lying in wait around every corner.

  Seth’s subdued voice breaks into the dim space. “Do you mind if I ask why you’re walking the camino, Jean Paul?”

  I snap my head in Seth’s direction. This is the first time he’s actively engaged another pilgrim on purpose. Ever. Pay attention, people!

  “Not at all.” Jean Paul’s glowing face brightens the room. “I’m here because I’m grateful. Grateful to be walking with all of you, grateful to be starting medical school in the United States this fall, grateful that I will be able to return to Sudan one day to help my people. Yes, that is my reason. My pilgrimage is one of gratitude.”

  “I’ll toast to that,” someone shouts from the other end of the table. “Salud.”

  “Salud!” we respond in unison, even the nonconformist Seth.

  Seth chats with Jean Paul right through dessert, which blows my mind since he hates small talk with strangers. But this Sudanese kid has lived and breathed armed conflict for most of his life, so maybe Seth can relate to the rawness of that more than anything else.

  “Attention, pilgrims!” Greta clinks the side of her water glass with a spoon. “After dinner, we’d like to invite you to a time of reflection in the sanctuary—a nightly tradition here at our albergue. Entirely optional, of course, but you are all welcome to experience the serenity of Eunate.”

  Seth and I make eye contact. Normally we’d “peace out” at the mere mention of a touchy-feely group anything, but ditching our hosts after this amazing meal feels rude. Besides, we’re sleeping on the sanctuary’s front stoop anyway.

  After clearing the table, everyone heads outside and walks over to the churchyard. Karl opens the door to the chapel, and we step through a portal to someplace ancient. A thick darkness I can practically feel awaits inside, until Greta hands out white taper candles and the small space fills with a gilded glow. I breathe deeply and taste a thousand years. Beside me in the pew, Seth fidgets with his jacket. I’m a little uncomfortable too, though I don’t know why.

  For a while we just sit there with our flickering lights, surrounded by a silence that echoes across the centuries. I stare up at the octagonal roof, supported by eight arches d
ivided like eight slices of pie. It’s a design more Middle Eastern than European, and stars peek through the skylight holes in each of the eight segments. The ceiling reminds me of the bathhouse postcard Lucas sent us after he experienced his first hammam in Afghanistan.

  Lucas. I remove a tealight from my pocket. As I touch it with my taper candle, Karl’s voice shatters the hushed atmosphere. “Let’s take a moment of silent intention for pilgrims who are sick or suffering, and for those walking on behalf of loved ones who are sick or suffering.”

  Musty earth assaults my nostrils as my gaze falls to the orange dust on the floor, tracked in by the thousands of pilgrims who have passed through this space in search of a silent moment. A still point in an otherwise spinning universe.

  Is that what my fellow wanderers are seeking out here on the camino? A minute with no phone, no Internet, no television? A chance to think about someone they love? Or are they searching for something even deeper? For an ethereal instant that makes skin tingle, for a fleeting whisper that promises there’s something more? Some part of us that goes beyond cell clusters and synapses?

  The space is beautiful. Like all beautiful things, it makes me ache. Maybe because it reminds me of something else. Something I know in my bones, but can’t quite name. The domed altar, the hand-carved pillars, the golden stones—all this beauty stirs up a longing for a place I know, even if I’ve never been there.

  I’m not sure if this hunger for something sacred is real, but I’m certain the feeling will be over in a flash, gone as soon as I step outside and smell the manure sprinkled across these fields—a stark reminder that everything growing this spring will decay in the fall, no matter how delicious it tasted tonight.

  But right now I can’t help thinking this universe is a mystery that wants to be solved; a mystery trapped inside each and every one of us. The clues are all there—layered in the part of us that loves starry skies and sunsets, whispered by the muse who inspires painters and poets, hidden in the fractured piece of us that somehow feels more whole in a room full of strangers from around the globe. I don’t know much, but I know this thing, this mystery, must be behind the desire that stirred millions of pilgrims across the centuries. Why else would people walk hundreds of miles to a place they’ve never seen? What is it that our restless hearts are searching for?