JOHN VC

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From Bilbao (see BILBO’S BAGGAGE) we went east along the south side of the Pyrenees, so that we could have the experience of crossing these historic mountains over a historic pass. In this corner of Spain the interior goes quickly from “coastal California” to “central Nevada”, with dry rolling hills, scrubby pines on north slopes, steep-walled dry washes, two lane highways going straight to far horizons, and no people. After three hours, with a passing glance at Pamplona, we hung a left for the Col de Somport - summus portus, the gate at the summit - used by armies and pilgrims alike, from the Visigoths to Napoleon. In no time we had climbed up into snow-draped peaks and huge green meadows. We picked bouquets of alpine flowers as tiny and bright as jewels, and Alicia and Ben ran barefoot across the soft short grass. I imagined barons and dukes and their men at arms trudging up the same canyon to the same narrow pass and camping on the same meadow, where their huge warhorses ate the great grandmothers of the same little flowers. The next pass to ours was Roncesvalles, where brave Roland held back the Moors. As we coasted down the French side towards Pau, we noticed that Lourdes was a short side trip. Alicia and I announced that nothing could keep us from seeing this place. Enid was skittish about such a fortress of Catholic fervor, where Inquisitors might yet lurk, but we would not be turned aside.

Well. It was indeed bizarre, and also profoundly touching. As you all remember from “Song of Bernadette”, Claudette Colbert was a simple country girl who went to get a bucket of water in a grotto and saw a Vision instead. This was only in 1885 or so, but Lourdes swiftly became a Mecca, yes, for devout Catholics because of the miracle cures that are supposed to follow contact with the grotto water. The Michelin Guide says that Lourdes is the second busiest airport in France after Paris. Every structure in the town except for the City Hall, the fire house and the railway station has been converted to a Saint Somebody Hostel, and the steep narrow streets are solid walls of souvenir shops of unsurpassable theo-kitsch. Alicia laid out 20 francs for a fluorescent Holy Water Bottle molded in the form of the Virgin Mary, said ‘twas enough for her. Moseying downhill along the most souvenir-clogged street, we came out into a huge open space. Beyond a tall ornate fence we saw a wide U-shaped parade whose two long legs led, in the distance, to a high-steepled chapel the size of a small cathedral that was backed against a mountainside. A sign next to the open gate announced that this was a place of great holiness and to beware of pick-pockets.

It was late in the day, and we debated whether to stick around for the nightly torchlight procession mentioned in our guidebook. Sounded rather ecclesiastical, and in fact there didn’t seem to be anybody around as we ventured inside the gate. As we walked along the right hand parade, we saw off to the side, through a border of shade trees, an endless gray building with occasional archways, through which we glimpsed nuns in nursing garb and men with odd lederhosen-like harnesses pushing patients in wheelchairs. “A hospice,” I said. “But a quarter of a mile long!” Finally at the chapel, we went up some outside stairs to the top of a wall to get the view. Below us, gathered in a cobblestone plaza, was a small group of people in wheelchairs, all of whom appeared to have cerebral palsy. Then, as we watched, more people in wheelchairs arrived. Some were pushed by family members, but most by a medical sister or by a “horse of God” as I mentally labelled the men in the ornamental harness. And more followed, and yet more. In no time, the crowd of wheelchairs had become a traffic jam, covering the plaza and extending out across the wide drive beyond. Now we were seeing groups of thalidomide people, polio people, multiple sclerosis people, all being sorted into rows. Then began to arrive people lying on gurneys with blankets tucked around them. Out on the roadway groups of pilgrims were assembling with colored neckerchiefs, holding banners announcing “Limerick” or “Louvain” or “Padua”. Looking farther out, we realized that a line was forming that stretched back across a bridge and along the far side of the river, as far as we could see before trees blocked the view. Up in the town, beyond the gate where we had entered, more people were pouring out of the streets from the hotels and hostels. Every pilgrim, or all who were capable, was holding a candle in a folded-paper windshield, and as the sun drifted down behind the mountain the nuns began to light the candles.

From our perch above the head of the procession, as it formed up, we were mesmerized, and silently fought one another for the camera as one extraordinary scene after another came into view. I looked around — we were alone on the top of the wall. In fact we were the only tourists taking pictures at all. This suddenly struck me as a good thing, because of the way tourists blast away with cheap flash cameras at anything they see, including the moon in the sky or mountains 20 miles away. This would have seemed very out of place here, and even our unobtrusive clicking felt uncomfortable despite the fact that nobody paid any attention to it, or us. Why should they? Our presence was so irrelevant compared to what we were seeing. Wherever we looked were family tragedies laid out, like a car crash by the roadside. It was unbearable to imagine that so many people had nothing left but the hope of a miracle. Some of the pushers were quietly weeping. As the procession started to move, with several priests in the lead, we suddenly realized that the first five or six ranks were children, most of them being wheeled by grim-faced parents. There was no way to really understand it, let alone have an opinion or feel guilty about being there; the impact was simply overwhelming.

We stood and watched the river of sad silent people, row on row, going slowly away from us towards the top of the parade, as Latin prayers echoed from loudspeakers on the chapel. Then, as the procession turned and started back on the other leg towards the chapel doors, we realized that we were encircled, with literally thousands of people still across the river who would have to pass slowly by us and up around the parade before we could leave — and it was definitely time to leave. So, taking all our New York nerve in hand, we moved down off the wall and each in turn sidled up to the procession (looking as blank faced as possible) and waited our chance to get between wheel chairs and pace reverently for a while, before sliding into the next lane. I have never felt so conspicuous. No candle, no banner, no neckerchief — no reason to be marching at all. Me in my shorts and sandals and Yankees cap, Alicia in a string halter, Ben in baggy shorts and ragged T shirt, Enid with a big straw hat. The nuns gave us the eye but said nothing, and eventually we eased ourselves out on the far side and slunk back into the darkness from which we came.

I did hear a Lourdes joke. A pious old man from Dublin is brought to Lourdes. His wife pushes his wheelchair into the grotto, but at the moment of benediction the priest sneezes and the holy water splashes all over the ground. “A miracle! A miracle!” shouts the old man. “Lord be praised! The wheelchair has new tires!”