by Kevin Craig
Bastien and I walk at the back of the pack. Shania stayed with us for a while, but eventually left us to catch up with Manny and Greg.
“We must pick up twigs, Diego,” Bastien says as we make our way through the woods. “This may be the last forest, no? We will need little twigs for the airport.”
“Huh? Why?” I ask. But I don’t wait for an answer as I scan the forest floor for twigs.
“It is no matter now. I show you.”
“How much farther to the airport?”
“You will know. We will come to a marker.” Bastien holds his hand up to the top of my head. “About this tall. Diego tall. It is to show the entrance to the municipality of Santiago. We go from there, and you see where you need these twigs, yes?”
We come to a large cement barrier wall covered in graffiti and artwork. More work of peregrinos. I recognize one of the fancy scripts near the end of the wall and I point to it.
“See that?” I say to Bastien. “Remember yesterday? The one that read Life is Too Short? Same graffiti artist.”
This one says, Remember to Laugh.
“Same advice, no? Same meaning, different words,” he says.
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“We come soon to our monument. You kids, you’ll want… what is it?” He mimes taking a picture. “The selfie?”
“Ha ha. Yeah. Selfie.”
“It comes soon. We run out of forest first. You run up, tell the others to get their twigs, Diego. They will all need them.”
I run ahead a bit.
“Hey, guys. Hold up,” I say.
Manny and Greg turn back, and I catch up, waving my twigs. I tell everyone to start grabbing whatever small sticks they can find because we’ll need them when we get to the airport.
Greg grabs the closest large tree branch he can find and starts waving it in the air. “Air traffic control?” he asks.
“Not quite. Funny.” I hold my twigs up again. “Get your twigs before it’s too late.” Claire, Shania, Troy, and Kei are already kicking through a bit of grass along the side of the path, picking up any twigs they see.
Meagan and Gil, who had been leading the group along with Kei’s sisters, come back to find out what the holdup is.
“What’s up?” Meagan says.
“Bastien says we need twigs for the airport,” I tell her.
“Oh, God,” she says. “Yes. I completely forgot. Sorry, guys. Thank God for Bastien. Come on, Gil. We’ll need to get some too.”
Gil begins to pluck up sticks. Soon, we all have enough. When I look behind me, no Bastien. My heart races.
“Yo, loser,” Shania says. She grabs my head and turns it in the other direction to the path ahead. “He kept walking. He’s right there.”
“Oops. Is it that obvious?”
“Yes.” She takes my hand, and we start to walk.
When we catch up with Bastien, he says, “The marker. It is there.”
And sure enough, it is just ahead of us. Like Bastien said, it’s as tall as me. The closer we get, the more the details jump out at us. One word across the top, like a banner, announces Santiago. The marker has a large scallop shell swinging from a rope, all carved into the cement of the monument. Every inch of its top is covered with rocks and wilted flowers left by peregrinos.
Before we get to it, we all pick up stones. After we take turns carefully setting them atop the others on the marker, we step back and take it in.
“This, this place,” Bastien spreads his arms wide to encompass all the land beyond the marker. “This is the place of Santiago. We have arrived. Soon we will hit the city limits of Santiago de Compostela. I hope you are ready for your life to begin.” He winks at Becky, and she giggles.
“Pictures,” Kei says. “We need pictures. All of us.”
“Excuse me,” Meagan says to a man walking by.
“Buen Camino,” he says. He’s wearing a ball cap that has the NY of the New York Yankees on it. Sweat is pouring off him, and he looks miserable, but tries to change his expression for Meagan.
“Do you think you could take our photo with this monument here? Sorry to bother you.”
“Oh, no trouble. Sorry. Just in my head today. Blisters. Trying to forget them. It’s a head-down, full-speed-ahead day.” His New York accent is strong.
“Hey,” Kei says when he hears the man speak. “A fellow New Yorker. Hi. Sorry about the blisters.”
“Oh, hi. Lots of them out here. New Yorkers, I mean. But blisters too, I guess.” He laughs. “Rodger. Manhattan.”
“Kei. My sisters Becky and Mia. Piermont.”
“Across the Hudson. Know it well.”
“Nice.”
“Come on then, let’s get you all together and get this shot done.” We all scramble to gather around the monument. After he takes a few shots, he hands Meagan’s phone back and wishes us all a Buen Camino. We return the greeting before he’s off on the path, walking away from us.
We take selfies and various group shots. I’m in one with the boys, and we’re all pretending to be holding guns, all badass. And one with Shania and one with Bastien and one with both of them. As I’m about to give up the monument for someone else to have a turn, Greg steps up.
“Do you mind, bro?”
“Not at all, come on in,” I say. We both snap our own shots and put away our phones. “Let’s go.”
The twelve of us are soon on our way, walking in mini groups but staying close together.
“The fence, the fence,” Bastien says a few minutes later. I turn to my left and see the chain link fence just off the path. And intertwined in its links are an endless array of mini crosses made of twigs. The path moves closer to the fence and soon we are directly beside it.
“We have arrived. The airport. It lies beyond the fence.”
A lump rises in my throat at the sight of all the crosses. Some are simple twigs stuck in the links in such ways that they form crosses. Others have decorations hanging from them and still others are wrapped in strips of bright cloth. There are even crosses on chains, store-bought ones, and wooden homemade ones on twine.
All I can think of is my abuelita and how much she would have loved this sight. Instead of forming a cross of my own with my twigs, I stop and caress a few of the ones already woven into the fence. I look around and everyone is busy building crosses and fitting them into the links. It feels so ceremonial.
“Diego,” Bastien says. “You make one.” I look at my twigs. They’ve lost their meaning to me. “Here, here.”
Bastien takes them from me and removes a small spool of thread from a side pocket in his backpack. He waves it about and says, “String,” to everyone present. Those who want it come running. Greg’s cross is already fixed in the links of the fence.
Bastien crosses my twigs and pinches them between his thumb and forefinger. “Here, hold them like this.” He passes them and takes a length of string and wraps it round and round the cross between my fingers, weaving it round and through the spaces. When he’s done, he says, “Tada.”
Sure enough, I have an intact cross in my hand. I walk along the fence and look for the perfect place to leave my cross for my gran. When I decide where to leave it, I bring it to my lips and kiss it before I weave it into the fence.
“Almost there, kiddos,” Gil says after everyone winds down at the fence. “Next stop Santiago.”
“Not quite, Gil,” Bastien says. “The monument first. The pilgrims overlooking the view of the city. Come, come.”
We keep walking along the fence to a small wooded area.
“Some of our last trees,” Bastien says. “Soon, a highway. More hills. Lots to climb before Santiago. And then the monument.”
I walk with Shania, and we hold hands. Bastien walks behind us, alone. The ever present click of his walking stick is soothing. I’m going to miss it wh
en this is over. I sometimes hear it in my sleep.
Chapter 41 — Shania Reynolds
Friday, July 12th – Day 14 – This Is It.
I’m not even going to write anything today. I can’t hold on. The excitement that follows every step of this last day is only darkened by the absolute certainty that this amazing journey is going to end. We did this. And it was incredible. I have a movie to watch when I get home. But I know our journey is going to be so much greater than anything that could ever possibly go down in one day in a school library. We’re the Camino Club. We’re the real shit. I know, GILBERT!!! Words. Yep.
“Look. There,” Bastien says, after we’ve been walking for some time in silence. We’ve been doing a lot of trudging. Uphill, downhill. The more they talk about how close we are, the less I believe them. It feels like the never-ending walk today.
I follow Bastien’s finger and see a large group of people milling about a huge monument. I recognize it from the guidebook. “Monte do Gozo,” Bastien says. “We are near Compostela now. An hour, maybe?”
“Hill of Joy,” Diego says, with exactly zero joy in his voice. He doesn’t even make an effort to hide his conflicted emotions.
“Yes, oui.”
Manny and Greg break free of the pack. They sprint to see who gets to the monument first. It’s a close race at first, but even from a block back I can see Manny beats Greg by a landslide.
Claire bursts out laughing when Manny starts this insane victory dance. He runs around the bottom of the monument and jumps up to slap his hand against its side. It almost looks like he’s trying to reach the top of its base to pull himself up.
“Please, God,” Gil says. “Don’t let him scale that monument.” He makes a show of closing his eyes and cringing, but Manny has moved on. He heads for the wide-open space just behind the monument that looks down into the small dip of valley beyond.
As we approach the cutoff that heads into the attraction, I let go of Diego’s hand. “Come on,” I shout to Claire as I grab on to her arm and pull her along. “Let’s go see.”
Kei and Troy break free, too, and soon the four of us are in a race of our own. It’s not as high-octane as the first one, though. We all arrive together.
When I look back, Diego is still on the road with the others.
“Diego,” I yell. “Come on. Come see.”
“Nah. I’m good. We’ll get there. I’m pooped.”
“Come, come. There is more to see,” Bastien says to Diego once they arrive. “Come. The church. It is beyond the monument, yes.”
He looks up into the blue sky. “Yes, yes. Clear skies. No cloud. We maybe see the cathedral in the valley.”
We all make our way beyond the monument together.
“Come, come,” Bastien says. “Gather round.”
Oddly enough, it’s not only the eleven of us who come when he calls. Other pilgrims hear the authority in Bastien’s voice and join us at the edge of the hill, by statues of two pilgrims who look off into the distance. The statues hold walking sticks in their left hands. One holds out his hat with his right hand, and the other simply holds out his hand, pointing down into the valley.
When I follow the direction of the statue’s hand, I see them: the spires of the cathedral.
“These men,” Bastien begins, pointing up at the statues. There are no fewer than twenty peregrinos gathered about him now and more making their way over to us. “These peregrinos of The Way. They are the statue of José María Acuña. They stand at this site to show weary pilgrims the last leg of the journey. What all of it is for, no? The cathedral in the distance. The bones of St. James, the apostle of Christ.”
Others leave the monument, drawn to the constellation of Bastien… our snake charmer.
“It is tradition at this place to cry out in rapture at the first sight of what it is we seek. At this place, we also pray for the weariness in our hearts and feet, yes,” Bastien says. “We take off our shoes at the statue of the pilgrims and we feel the earth where generations of peregrinos before us have walked this way.”
Bastien stops talking, sits in the dirt, and removes his shoes and socks. This hits me in the same way his prayer to Diego’s abuelita under the Milky Way hit me. Tears well up, and my vision blurs as they fill my eyes. I look to Diego, and he is also removing his footwear.
I can’t believe what happens next; all these people drop to the ground and remove their shoes and socks. All the while, more pilgrims make their way over to us and sit in the dirt.
As I look around me, I’m guessing there are fifty of us now. When Bastien stands up, he is barefoot. And so are all of his followers, myself included.
“We feel the earth of our forefathers, no?” He walks in little circles around the statues and beyond, and all the barefoot peregrinos follow him. “We remember to be children now. Leave the rest up here on the Monte do Gozo. On the Hill of Joy. Leave your anger, your sadness, your exhaustion, your loss, your jealousy and greed. Leave it all up here in the dirt of our ancestors. We are pilgrims, peregrinos. We must walk into Santiago de Compostela as children, no?”
I’m not the only one crying. We are all mesmerized by Bastien.
“We leave these pilgrim statues behind so that they may continue to tell the others who will come after us. Peregrinos will always come. These statues, they themselves will never arrive. But they will continue to help the others as they flock to the Hill of Joy. They will point the way to the cathedral for all the weary travelers.
“Please, we put back on our socks and shoes and we bless this place. It is sacred in the way it welcomes us and ushers us forward to our Compostela. We must honor this sacredness. As I said, we leave the rest here. We walk to Compostela as children. We laugh, we dance, we skip, we play. My friends, enjoy your last walk. This incredible journey, it will stay with you. It will tell you where to begin your life. Enjoy.”
Bastien turns to the valley below. He stands still beside the statues, and now he becomes the third pilgrim statue. He points into the distance, directly at a cathedral spire.
“We go.” He says. As he drops to the ground to put his socks and shoes back on, a pilgrim near the back of the group starts to clap. I look at Troy and Diego, who are standing beside me. Troy shrugs and begins to clap. Diego joins him. Soon, we are all clapping for the man sitting in the sand looking for all the world like the child he has told us all to become.
Chapter 42 — Troy Sinclair
The walk away from the monument at the Hill of Joy? It may be the biggest moment of magic in this weird and amazing trip filled with magic.
Bastien leads the way, with Diego and Shania on either side of him. Claire, Kei, and I walk directly behind them. She is barefoot. She stuffed her Crocs into her backpack when everyone else put their shoes on.
The weird part is, we now have a couple dozen new pilgrims in our group. Bastien is the Pied Piper of Santiago. I look behind me as we walk the hilly roadway and head down into the valley, and people are scattered all about the road.
It’s up and down for a bit until we reach the highway, where we walk across an overpass.
“Oh my God,” I say. “Would you look at that?”
Diego glances around, trying to find what I’m pointing at. He finally sees the piece of artwork and says, “Cool.”
I grab Kei’s hand, and together we run past Bastien, Shania, and Diego. We need to be first.
“A dancing star,” Kei shouts. “Take my picture; take my picture.”
We reach the star. It’s made of rusted metal and stands as high as Kei. All its arms are slightly curled and it’s askew. This makes it look like it’s dancing, just like Kei said. It’s so simple. It’s seriously the cutest thing ever. Obviously gay Instagram is going to love it. I snap a shot of it. And then some selfie shots of Kei and me hanging from it, hugging it.
As we continue, we come to the
sign that welcomes us to the city proper. Big red letters on a link fence surrounding electrical boxes spell out Santiago de Compostela.
“Oh my God,” Greg says from somewhere behind me. “We’ve made it. Great God almighty, we’ve made it.”
“Drama llama,” Shania says. She laughs.
I stop at the sign, though, and grab Kei up in my arms and squeeze him. I can’t stop kissing him, like this is our goodbye. Like to walk into the city is to leave him behind. This is it.
When we pull away from each other, we both try to speak at once. Then we do the you first; no, you first thing. We burst into laughter even as we’re both doing our best not to cry.
“We will text every day. Message each other. FaceTime. Everything. Not a day goes by,” I say. “Got it?”
“Yes. That’s what I was going to say,” Kei says. “We can do this. Long distance. Okay. Promise?”
“Of course, silly.” I stand against the fence of the Santiago sign and drag him beside me. “Selfie.” We take a few shots. Then Diego makes a gesture for me to hand him my phone.
“Let’s get a good one, boys. With the whole sign in the background,” he says. He takes my phone, steps back a few paces, and goes to snap the pic.
“Wait, wait,” I say. We quickly wipe our tears away. We’re a mess of laughter and tears as we rub at each other’s faces with our shirt fronts. “Okay. Go.”
Diego takes the shot, and I know what my next profile pic is. A picture of us—Kei and Troy—on the first day of our new compromise. The first day of the rest of our lives. Apart, but together. We can do this long distance thing.
Chapter 43 — Diego Nelson
“Oh, Santiago. Santiago, Santiago, Santiago,” Bastien whispers as I step away from Troy and Kei to rejoin him. There are tears in his eyes as he stares solemnly at the Santiago sign. He has his handkerchief out, swiping at his eyes. “How I love this walk. I love this walk, this walk.”
