The Pilgrimage Read Free Page A

depend on
     decisions made by your guide.
    Mme Lourdes took a hat and a cape from the box. They seemed to be very old but well
     preserved. She asked me to stand in the middle of the room, and she began silently to
     pray. Then she placed the cape on my shoulders and the hat on my head. I could see that
     scallop shells had been sewn onto both the hat and the shoulders of the cape. Without
     interrupting her prayers, the old woman seized a shepherds crook from the corner of the
     room and made me take it in my right hand. A small water gourd hung from the crook. There
     I stood: dressed in Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt that read I LOVE NY, cov- ered by the
     medieval garb of the pilgrims to Compostela.
    The old woman approached me and stopped only a foot away. Then, in a kind of trance,
     placing the palms of her hands on my head, she said, May the apostle San Tiago be with
     you, and may he show you the only thing that you need to discover; may you walk neither
     too slowly nor too fast but always according to the laws and the requirements of the Road;
     may you obey the one who is your guide, even though he may issue an order that is
     homicidal, blasphemous, or senseless. You must swear total obedience to your guide.
    I so swore.
    The Spirit of the ancient pilgrims of the Tradition must be with you during your journey.
     The hat will pro- tect you from the sun and from evil thoughts; the cape will protect you
     from the rain and from evil words; the gourd will protect you from enemies and from evil
     deeds. May the blessing of God, of San Tiago, and of the Virgin Mary be with you through
     all of your nights and days. Amen.
    Having said this, she returned to her normal manner; hurriedly and with a bit of
     irritation, she took back the articles of clothing, placed them in the box, and returned
     the crook with the gourd to the corner of the room; then, after teaching me the password,
     she asked me to leave, since my guide was waiting for me two kilometers outside of
     Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.
    He hates band music, she said. But even two kilo- meters away he must have been able to
     hear it; the Pyrenees are an excellent echo chamber.
    Before I left, I asked what I should do with the car, and she said I should leave the keys
     with her; someone would come to pick it up. Then, without another word, she descended the
     stairs and went to the kitchen to inflict more torment on the boy with the sad eyes. I
     opened the trunk of the car, took out my small blue knapsack with my sleeping bag tied to
     it, and placed the image of Our Lady of the Visitation in its most pro- tected corner. I
     put the knapsack on my back and went back to give the keys to Mme Lourdes.
    Leave Pied-de-Port by following this street to the city gates at the end of the wall, she
     told me. And when you get to Santiago de Compostela, say a Hail Mary for me. I have walked
     the Road so many times that now I content myself with reading in other pilgrims eyes the
     excitement that I still feel; I just cant put it into practice anymore because of my age.
     Tell that to San Tiago. And tell him also that any time now I will join him, follow- ing a
     different road thats more direct and less exhaust- ing.
    I left the small city, passing through the wall at the Spanish Gate. In the past, the city
     had been on the pre- ferred route for the Roman invaders, and through that gate had also
     passed the armies of Charlemagne and Napoleon. I walked along, hearing the band music in
     the distance, and suddenly, in the ruins of a village not far from the city, I was
     overwhelmed by emotion, and my eyes filled with tears; there in the ruins, the full impact
     of the fact that I was walking the Strange Road to Santiago finally hit me.
    The view of the Pyrenees surrounding the valley, lit by the morning sun and intensified by
     the sound of the music, gave me the sensation that I was returning to something primitive,
     something that had