León to San Martín del Camino - part 2

One is aware of the juxtaposition between city and country—noise and silence—friendliness and rudeness— Journal Excerpt, May 31, 2006.

The woman running the albergue invited us into the dining area to check us in. Mr. Edelweiss and Co. checked in with somewhat of a fuss due to their language problems. The woman was having a difficult time making heads and tails of their answers and their cross talking in German. I listened to what she was saying so that I could hopefully not cause problems when it was my turn. When I stepped up to table, Mr. Edelweiss and Co. stood nearby as if waiting for me. When the woman started to ask me questions, they started answering for me. Then she asked me if I wanted a private room or not. I didn't understand her at first because it was inconceivable to me that an albergue for pilgrims would have such a thing. I said yes thinking that she wanted to know if I was traveling alone. Mr. Edelweiss and Co. blurted out loud comments of surprise, and began to ask me if I really wanted a private room and why. The woman had no idea what to do. I was getting frustrated and embarrassed. I had to tell Mr. Edelweiss and Co. that I could manage on my own, and to please let me speak for myself. They accepted that and walked out of the room and on to the sleeping areas. I let out a long sigh of exasperation, looked at the Spanish woman, and shook my head. She smiled at me. I tried to tell her I was sorry. We started again from the top and calmly got things sorted out. I didn't take the private room, although perhaps I should have. It was something I simply couldn't fathom after being in so many rooms with so many pilgrims stacked neatly, night after night, like Tupperware in bunk beds. Private room? What are you kidding? You mean I could shut a door and not have people shuffling by all night? No snoring too? What? If a little green Martian had walked in and offered me a cup of tea it would have been more believable. I chose the standard pilgrim option and the pilgrim dinner and hauled my things to the sleeping areas. I found where Mr. Edelweiss and Co. were sleeping, turned around silently before they could see me, and walked back to the other room. It wasn't out of meanness. I knew that Mr. Edelweiss snored, and from a logical standpoint it seemed silly to knowingly put myself next to a snorer when I could hope for a miracle somewhere else. It also dawned on me that although I no longer had Marc and Xavier as a problem, I now had a new one regardless how nice and caring and fatherly they were. I knew the time had arrived for me to tell them to go their own way the next morning and no longer wait for me.

The albergue, which seemed to be rather new, was in fact very nice. There were two rooms in which to sleep, which accommodated roughly 10-15 pilgrims each, separated by the showers, the restrooms, and the private rooms. The private rooms were no false translation; they were in fact, private rooms with walls that went up to the ceiling, complete with a door one could shut. I have a very strong memory of the shiny doorknob leading to one of the private rooms whose door was cracked slightly open. It was like a crystal ball, beckoning me to come and try it, to turn it, to stand on the other side of it, and once the door was closed and the knob turned again, to fall into its private sphere of neverending rest and silence. Instead, I retreated to the first sleeping room and chose a bunk against the wall in a corner again, away from the bathrooms, the window, and the immediate area of the door. The room was rather dark as the one window was small, high up, and at the other far end. That was good news for trying to take a siesta. In that moment, there was also nearly no one there. No one except someone that I recognized. It was Jacques, the Frenchman with the very bad eczema that had been sleeping in a lower bunk on my very first day on the Camino when I arrived in St.Jean Pied de Port. I had had a short, confusing conversation with him in Grañon just before I found that mysterious and magical anise cookie in the same village, had slept in the same room with him in Redecilla because Marc and Xavier had thrown him out of their room for that very reason (before I met them), and Marc and Xavier had stopped and spoke with him in my presence back when Thiery was pulling Claire by his walking pole a small distance on the way in front of us. That seemed like ages ago, and yet, here he was again and here I was again. I unpacked my things and headed to the shower, which I distinctly remember being an interesting contest of turning the water on and off in just the nick of time because the shower drain kept filling up and threatening to overflow into the bathroom. After the shower fun, I completed the rituals of laundry, eating some food, and now religiously taking my meds. Because the beds had really nice blankets and because I saw that another pilgrim had done the same, I turned my sleeping bag inside out and hung it outside in the sun to air out. It had begun to reek from all the night sweats in the hot albergues.

Seeing Jacques the Frenchman pricked my memory. I thought back to my first day on the Camino, and I thought again how odd it was that one repeatedly crossed paths with people in the albergues without seeing them at all while on the road walking. And where was Renate now? How was she? I felt she was more than ok, but I would have very much liked to see her again on the road. And Anna from Hungary? Did she make it over the Pyrenees? I got onto my bed, got under one of the very nice blankets, inserted my ear plugs, and in the quiet, thought a bit more about all these things. I unwrapped a small corner of the hurtful package stuffed inside of me from Marc and Xavier, successfully pushed it away again, and then crashed.

I had slept so hard that when I woke up I was quite disoriented. It took me a few minutes to realize where I was. It was like waking up after a full anaesthesia. I decided to go sit in the warmth of the sun under my hat and write in my journal for a while. When I walked out into the hallway I heard a familiar voice. It was Marc coming out of the other sleeping room. He was talking to Jacques. When he saw me we said hello to each other and he asked me how my illness was. The conversation was strained, rather formal, and very short. I can't say that I was so happy to see him. I did think at first that maybe he was staying at the albergue too, and that maybe he was going to give me an explanation as to what had happened in León, but he only said he and Xavier were staying at the municipal albergue and that he was only there to look for some other people. I didn't know whether or not to believe him, but I thought more of what I had said to myself in León and decided not to pursue the conversation further. We wished each other well and I went on outside to the white plastic table and chair to write. It was difficult. I hadn't been prepared to see Marc standing there in the hallway. I was very glad that he and Xavier were staying at the other albergue. I heard Marc talk to some other pilgrims and then heard the silence when he left. The coldness of our interchange seemed so unnatural in comparison to everything preceding that afternoon in León. It doubly hurt to hear him talking so openly and warmly to complete strangers. My package of hurt surfaced up into my heart and threatened to unraveled completely.