The Pilgrimage (14 page)

The earth. Legion was the earth and the fruits of the earth the good fruits of the earth
and the bad, but of the earth. His house was in the earth, and there he ruled the earth or
was ruled by it. Agape exploded within me, and I dug my nails into the earth. I screamed,
and the scream was the same as I had heard the first time the dog and I had met. I felt
Legion pass through my body and descend into the earth. Within me was agape, and Legion
did not want to be eaten by the love that con- sumes. This was my will, the will that had
made me fight with my remaining strength against fainting; it was the will of agape
residing in my soul and resisting. My entire body trembled.

Legion plummeted into the earth. I began to vomit, but I felt that it was agape, growing
and exiting through all of my pores. My body continued to tremble, and a

long time later I sensed that Legion had returned to his realm.

I could feel his last vestige pass out through my fin- gers. I sat on the ground, wounded
and exhausted, and looked at the absurd scene in front of me: a dog, bleed- ing and waving
his tail, and a terrified shepherd staring at me.

It must have been something you ate, said the shep- herd, not wanting to believe what he
had seen. But now that youve vomited, you will feel better.

I nodded my head. He thanked me for having con- trolled my dog and went his way down the
road with his sheep.

Petrus appeared but said nothing. He tore off a strip of his shirt and made a tourniquet
for my leg, which was bleeding badly. He told me to check the rest of my body, and I
replied that there was nothing serious.

You look awful, he said, smiling. His good mood seemed to have returned. We cant visit the
Iron Cross with you looking like that. There are probably tourists there, and they would
be frightened.

I didnt pay any attention to him. I got up, brushed off the dust, and saw that I could
walk. Petrus suggested that I do the RAM Breathing Exercise, and he picked up my knapsack.
I did the exercise and returned once again to a sense of harmony with the world. In half
an hour, I would be at the Iron Cross.

And someday, Foncebadon was going to rise from its ruins. Legion had left a lot of power
there.

Petrus was carrying me as we arrived at the Iron Cross; my leg wound prevented me from
walking. When he realized the extent of the damage done by the dog, he decided that I
should rest until the wound had healed enough for us to continue along the Strange Road to
Santiago. Nearby there was a village that provided shel- ter for pilgrims who were
overtaken by nightfall before crossing the mountains, and Petrus found us two rooms in the
home of a blacksmith.

My haven had a small veranda, an architectural fea- ture we hadnt seen previously along
the Road. From it, I could see the range of mountains we would have to cross sooner or
later in order to reach Santiago. I fell into bed and slept until the following day;
although I felt slightly feverish when I awoke, I also felt better.

Petrus brought some water from the fountain that the villagers called the bottomless well,
and he bathed my wounds. In the afternoon, he came to my room with an old woman who lived
nearby. They placed sev- eral different types of herbs on the wounds and lacera- tions,
and the woman made me drink some bitter tea. Petrus insisted that I lick the wounds until
they had

completely closed. I can still remember the sweet, metal- lic flavor of my blood; it
nauseated me, but my guide told me that my saliva was a powerful disinfectant.

The fever returned during the second day. Petrus and the old woman again plied me with the
tea, and they again put the herbs on my wounds. But the fever, although it was not high,
continued. My guide decided to go to a military base nearby to see if he could get some
bandages, since there was no place in the entire village where gauze or adhesive tape was
available.

Several hours later, Petrus returned with the ban- dages. He was accompanied by a young
medical officer, who insisted on knowing where the animal was that had attacked me.

From the type of bite you have, the animal was rabid, he told me.

No, no, I said. I was just playing with him, and it got out of control. I have known the
dog for a long time.

The medical officer was not convinced. He insisted that I take an antirabies vaccine, and
I was forced to let him administer at least one dose or else I would have been transferred
to the base hospital. Afterward, he again asked where the animal was.

In Foncebadon, I answered.

Foncebadon is a city in ruins. There are no dogs there, he said, with an air of having
found out the lie.

I began to moan as though I were in pain, and Petrus led the young officer out of the
room. But he left

everything we would need: clean bandages, adhesive tape, and a styptic compound.

Petrus and the old woman refused to use the com- pound. They bound the wounds with gauze
and herbs instead. This made me happy, because it meant that I would no longer have to
lick the places where the dog had bitten me. During the night, they both knelt at my
bedside and, with their hands placed on my body, prayed aloud for me. I asked Petrus what
he was doing, and he made a vague reference to the divine graces and the Road to Rome. I
wanted him to tell me more, but he said nothing else.

Two days later, I had recuperated completely. That morning, I looked out my window and saw
some sol- diers conducting a search of the houses nearby and of the hills around the
village. I asked one of them what was happening.

There is a rabid dog somewhere around here, he answered.

That afternoon, the blacksmith in whose rooms we were staying came to me and asked that I
leave the town as soon as I was able to travel. The story had spread among the
townspeople, and they were fearful that I would become rabid and transmit the disease to
others. Petrus and the old woman began to argue with the blacksmith, but he was adamant.
At one point, he even asserted that he had seen a trickle of foam at the comer of my mouth
while I was sleeping.

There was no way to convince him that all of us drool a bit in our sleep. That night,
Petrus and the woman prayed incessantly over me, and the next day, limping somewhat, I was
once again on the Strange Road to Santiago.

I asked Petrus if he had been worried about my recovery.

There is an understanding about the Road to Santiago that I have not told you about
before, he said. Once a pilgrimage has begun, the only acceptable excuse for interrupting
it is illness. If you had not been able to recover from your wounds and your fever had
continued, it would have been an omen, telling us that our pilgrimage had to end there.

But he added, with some pride, that his prayers had been answered. And I was certain that
the outcome had been as important for him as it was for me.

The Road was downhill now, and Petrus pointed out that it would be that way for the next
two days. We had returned to our usual schedule, with a siesta every after- noon at the
time when the sun was fiercest. Because of my bandages, Petrus carried my knapsack. We
were no longer in a hurry: the encounter we had been rushing toward was over.

My disposition improved with every hour, and I was quite proud of myself; I had climbed a
waterfall and defeated the demon of the Road. All that remained was the most important
task: to find my sword. I mentioned this to Petrus.

Your victory was beautiful, but you failed in the most critical sense, he said, throwing a
deluge of cold water over me.

What do you mean?

Knowing the right moment for the encounter. I had to hurry us along, setting a pace that
was demanding, and the only thing you could think about was that we were after your sword.
What good is a sword if you dont know where you are going to run into your enemy?

The sword is the instrument of my power, I answered.

You are too preoccupied with your power, he said. The waterfall, the RAM practices, the
dialogues with your messenger they all made you forget that there was your enemy to
vanquish. And forget that you had an impending encounter with him. Before your hand can
wield the sword, you have to discover where your enemy is and how to deal with him. The
sword only strikes a blow, but the hand is already victorious or defeated before the blow
is delivered.

You defeated Legion without your sword. There is a secret in this search, and it is a
secret you have not yet learned. If you do not do so, you will never find what you are
looking for.

I didnt answer him. Every time I began to feel that I was getting close to my objective,
Petrus insisted on reminding me that I was just a simple pilgrim and that there was always
something else I needed in order to

find what I was looking for. The happiness I had been feeling a few minutes before we
began the conversation now disappeared completely.

Once again I was starting out on the Strange Road to Santiago, and I was totally
discouraged. Along the same Road that I was walking, millions of souls had passed during
the past twelve centuries, going to and returning from Santiago de Compostela. In their
case, getting to where they had wanted to go had only been a matter of time. In my case,
the traps set by the Tradition were for- ever placing another obstacle in my path and
creating new tests for me.

I told Petrus that I was growing tired, and we sat down in the shade. There were huge
wooden crosses along the side of the road. Petrus put the two knapsacks on the ground and
spoke again: Our enemy always rep- resents our weaker side. This may be a fear of physical
pain, but it may also be a premature sense of victory or the desire to abandon the fight
because we define it as not being worth the effort.

Our enemy joins the battle only because he knows that he can hurt us and hurt us in
exactly the spot where our pride tells us that we are most invincible. During the fight,
we always try to protect our weak spot, so the enemy strikes at the unguarded side the
side in which we have the most confidence. And we wind up defeated because we allow what
should never be allowed: we let the enemy choose how the battle will be waged.

Everything Petrus was describing had happened during my fight with the dog. Yet I told him
that I could not accept the idea that I had enemies and that I had to do battle with them.
I said that when Petrus had spoken of the good fight, I had thought that he had been talk-
ing about fighting for achievements in ones life.

Thats right, he said. But that is not all the good fight is. Going to war is not a sin. It
is an act of love. The enemy develops us and sharpens us, as the dog did with you.

OK, I understand that. But lets get back to what we were talking about before. Why is it
that you never seem to be satisfied with what I do? I have the impression that you always
think I am going about things the wrong way. And werent you about to tell me the secret of
my sword?

Petrus said that this was something I should have learned before beginning the pilgrimage.
And he went on about the enemy.

Our enemy is part of agape, there to test our grip, our will, and our handling of the
sword. He was placed in our lives and we in his with a purpose. And that pur- pose has
to be met. So to flee from the battle is the worst thing that could happen. It is worse
than losing the fight, because we can always learn something from defeat; if we flee, all
we do is declare that our enemy has won.

I said I was surprised to hear him say that; it amazed me to hear a man who seemed to feel
so close to Jesus talk about violence in this way.

Think about why Jesus needed Judas so, he said. He had to choose an enemy, or his battle
here on earth could not have been glorified.

The wooden crosses along the road testified to how that glory had been achieved: with
blood, treason, and desertion. I got up and said I was ready to move on.

As we walked, I asked him what, in a battle situa- tion, was a persons greatest source of
strength in trying to defeat the enemy.

Your present. We defend ourselves best through what we are doing right now, because that
is where agape and the will to win, through enthusiasm, are.

And theres another thing I want to make very clear: the enemy rarely represents evil. He
is an everyday pres- ence, and it is he that keeps our sword from rusting in its scabbard.

I remembered that once, when we were building a summer house, my wife had decided suddenly
to change the location of one of the rooms. It had been my job to give this disagreeable
news to the builder. I had called him, a man of about seventy years of age, and told him
what I wanted. He had looked at the plan, thought about it, and came up with an even
better solu- tion, using a wall that he had already begun to raise. My wife had loved the
idea.

Maybe it was this that Petrus was trying to describe in a more complicated way: that we
have to use the thrust of what we are doing right now to defeat the enemy.

I told him the story about the builder.

Life always teaches us more than the Road to Santiago does, he answered. But we dont have
much faith in what life teaches us.

There were crosses all along this part of the Jacobean route. They were made of such
massive, heavy wood that the pilgrim who put them there must have had an almost superhuman
strength. A cross had been placed every thirty meters for as far as I could see. I asked
Petrus what their significance was.

An ancient and obsolete instrument of torture, he said.

But why are they here?

They must have been some kind of pledge. How should I know?

We stopped in front of one of them that had toppled over.

Maybe the wood rotted, I said.

Its the same wood as all the others. And none of the others rotted.

Then it must not have been sunk into the earth firmly enough.

Petrus stopped and looked around. He put his knap- sack on the ground and sat down. We had
stopped to rest only a few minutes before, so I couldnt understand what he was doing.
Instinctively, I looked around, expecting to see the dog.

You defeated the dog, he said, knowing what I was thinking. Dont worry about the ghosts of
the dead.

Well, then, why are we stopping?

Petrus made a gesture that told me to be quiet, and I did not say anything for several
minutes. I felt the old fear of the dog and decided to remain standing, hoping Petrus
would say something.

What do you hear? he asked me. Nothing. The silence. We are not smart enough to be able to
listen to the

silence! We are just human beings, and we dont even know how to listen to our own
ramblings. You have never asked me how I knew that Legion was about to arrive. Now I will
tell you how: by listening. The sound began many days before, when we were still in
Astorga. Starting then, I began to move along more quickly, because all the indications
were that we were going to meet up with him in Foncebadon. You heard the same sound as I,
but you were not listening.

Everything is contained in sounds the past, the pre- sent, and the future. The person who
does not know how to listen will never hear the advice that life offers us all the time.
And only the person who listens to the sounds of the moment is able to make the right
decisions.

Petrus bade me sit down and forget about the dog. He said that he was going to teach me
one of the easiest and most important practices of the Road to Santiago.

And he explained the Listening Exercise to me. Do it right now, he said. I began to
perform the exercise. I heard the wind

and a womans voice far in the distance, and at one