POLISH PILGRIM
After Viana, most of the crowd is gone. I have the Camino pretty much to myself. Perhaps the others are all staying in Viana, or have sensibly stopped for lunch, something I seldom do. Up ahead, I spot a strange fellow with a weird-looking, dark-blue conical hat, that looks like it might be eastern European, or even Turkish. The hat intrigues me. I have seen its wearer a couple of times earlier today, always approaching younger women and trying to talk animatedly to them. Then, he rockets past me without a word, looking for the next woman on whom to inflict his charms.
This time, the road is empty, so he waits ahead to corner me. Up close, I see that the hat is actually a dark blue felt, and on it are pinned two metal emblems, a half-moon and a star. For a moment I wonder, Are the Shriners having a convention this year in Logroño? Staring at him, I see that he is enveloped in a thick gray sweater, seemingly all wool. Clearly this guy is dressed for northern Scotland, not Spain; he may be touched in the head by the heat.
Standing two feet from me, he points at himself animatedly, saying: “Pole, Pole, Poland!” I should have known, as he is also wearing a scapular with an image of John Paul II, the Polish pope.
He jabs a finger toward my chest as if to say, “You? Where are you from?” Or at least that’s what I think he means.
On reflex, I respond in French: “États Unis.” Not a glimmer of recognition comes from him.
So I try Spanish, since we are actually now in Spain: “Estados Unidos.” Nothing in response.
My last gasp is Italian: “Stati Uniti!” Still nothing comes back.
I try to escape his jab by walking around him, like a pick-and-roll in basketball. But he persists.
I look him in the eye and shout “American!!!” His eyes crease into a smile of comprehension: “U.S.A.” he proclaims with joy. “U.S.A.!”
We have bonded, at least as much as we ever will.
He decides that he wants to walk with me to Logroño. At least, that’s what he does. Side by side we walk, while he jabbers almost nonstop into my ear. Apparently, he is speaking Polish. I do not understand a single word he says. And there is little point in making this into a dialogue, since he cannot understand a word of anything I say, in any language that I know. So, we just walk on, with him filling the air with syllables, like some mad bird pecking at my ear. Despite the annoyance—I would prefer silence—I feel sorry for this fellow. What must it be like to travel a thousand miles from your homeland, do a pilgrimage lasting over a month, and find only a handful of people, if any, who can understand a syllable of what you say? This man is a fountain of words; but in his world on this Camino, he could be a deaf mute.
In Logroño, he pulls off his sweater; I am amazed by its thickness, and the relative slightness of his frame. If that sweater had been on me, I would have dropped dead from the heat. Perhaps he sleeps outside at night, and the sweater doubles as his blanket and sleeping bag. I never find out. The road forks and we part. One day soon, I hope he makes it safely to Santiago, and then home to Poland. If there were prayers in my mouth (there are not), I would ask for this.