Along Camino de Santiago

Fiction: A backpacker in France encounters the existential over lunch.

Three weeks in, with the hope of sins forgiven, I hiked, occasionally encountering other pilgrims as we weaved the verdant, wooded, hilly paths of Camino de Santiago. With booted feet and hiking shorts, using a stiff staff for balance on rocky patches, I embraced the penance of aching shoulders caused by my weighty backpack where a Saint James’s attribute scallop shell dangled like a tiny sail speeding my journey. The Way of St. James would have been an awfully long way to trek just for exercise. I traveled, town by town, church by church for the spiritual renewal of the experience. 

Not your thing? 

Or do you feel a pang of jealousy?

Squinting into a bright sunset told me that my day’s journey was ending. I was just outside of Cahors, a peninsula-shaped town on the Lot River, where I could find the shelter of a hostel and something to ease my growling stomach. On the trail, I nibbled on French bread and cheese, marveling how even a modest boulangerie or fromagerie were superior to the best shops in Texas. I bounced down a steep, serpentine hill, cut across an asphalt road, and began to traverse the stone-arch Pont Valentré, a medieval fortified bridge that spanned the Lot. On a cobblestone pavement, I’d strolled to the second of the bridge’s tall defense towers, developing a distinctly mellow frame of mind and stopped, taking some moments to be mesmerized by the gently flowing river while wallowing in the subtle breeze, feeling cuddled by the springtime temperature. 

My reverie was broken by a French-accented set of questions coming from a wizened man dressed in a gray suit, white shirt, and blue tie who’d silently come up to my shoulder. His face looked troubled. “Where have you come from? Why are you here? Where are you going?”

I took a moment to decide that he asked philosophical, not personal questions. “That sounds like Paul Gauguin.”

The Frenchman’s somber expression didn’t change. “He attempted suicide once his masterpiece was finished.”

“At the moment, not the mood I’m in.”

“But you’ve experienced struggle?”

I skated past the question. “I’m Vincent.”

“Bergeron. Enchanté.”

I shook his bony hand. “Enchanté.”

“Might I offer you a meal while we explore these questions further?”

My instinct was suspicion. “I’m not gay,” I said.

He showed no surprise. “You mistake my motivation.”

“Which is?”

“You’re weighed down by more than that backpack.”

“I don’t do ‘unburden,’ if that’s what you’re expecting.”

“I know a bistro I’m sure you’ll enjoy.”

I gave him a wry smile. “In my country, we say there’s no free lunch.”

“Do I look like someone who could overpower and rob you?”

“This is your town. I’m sure you have friends.”

He huffed. “You’re being rather dramatic. I won’t insist.” He turned and began to move away.

Sometimes hunger can shove wariness aside. “Wait.”

He hesitated, his back still turned.

“I have to eat.”

“Follow me,” he said. 

Bergeron led me toward the old town. We arrived at Amuse Bouche, a bistro in a renovated multistory medieval merchant’s house. The female owner nodded to Bergeron, and we were led to an outdoor corner table.

He ordered a bottle of local Malbec, fruit of the region’s indigenous terroir, and we toasted a glass while perusing the menu. He told me to order anything I wanted, so I splurged with a salade de chevre chaud and lotte on a bed of risotto. 

“Excellent choice,” Bergeron said and took the same.

When the waiter left, Bergeron asked, “You’re a religious man?”

“I believe in God, but I don’t practice any particular faith.”

“Nonetheless, you’re on a pilgrimage.”

He was attempting to get me to open up, but I deflected. “Why don’t you address the questions you posed to me?”

Bergeron took a thoughtful sip of wine before responding. “Have you ever wondered why you were born now? Why not one hundred years sooner or later? Why didn’t you get a brain like Descartes or the talent to reason of Voltaire?” 

I took his questions as rhetorical.

He continued. “Our existence is random and when we die, it’s over. Many believe God is dead.”

I couldn’t tell if he was asking or making a statement. “Existentialism,” I said.

He shrugged his agreement. “Religion, belief systems rationalize our existence. Nonetheless, our experience on Earth is the only reality. I’m afraid that nothing comes after.”

“Worldly achievement is all. Religious strictions and the afterlife are meaningless.” 

“Christian morality was revenge of the weak against the strong. Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, and all that. But the strong determine their own fates and create values based on self-interest. To appear empathetic, elites virtue signal a fake concern about the disadvantaged, but the weak never win.” 

“A rather cynical viewpoint. Do you consider yourself an elite?”

“Not at all.”

“Don’t you worry how people will respond if they conclude there is no meaning to life? Religion stops people from doing bad things. Some may find refuge in secular ideologies. Populist political demigods might rise in times of uncertainty. Without a God to meet out justice, what happens when earthly laws are inadequate?”

“Elites do what is necessary to achieve their goal. Morality succumbs to the pragmatic. Ordinary justice systems are set aside.” 

Our salads arrived. Melted goat cheese on tiny toasts, lardons, with croutons mixed in a leafy mixture with a vinaigrette dressing. I dug in like it was my last meal.

“I’m just supposed to relax and enjoy my meaningless existence?” I asked.

“Some would argue that existentialism is freeing. There’s no need to anguish over which Freudian childhood trauma derailed you. Trouble and suffering are an intrinsic element of human experience. Women and others needn’t accept the expectations imposed on them by society.”

“What if you’re wrong? God won’t be happy when you see Him.” 

He waved that aside. “The central question in a universe without God: is life worth living? Camus called suicide the existential choice.” 

The lotte fish on a bed of risotto was served. Heaven on Earth.

I asked, “Do you make a practice of convincing pilgrims that the spiritual element of their journey is illusory?”

“I’m hoping you’ll convince me I’m wrong.”

“I can’t prove that God exists, but I’m comforted by that faith.”

“Why are you on a pilgrimage?”

The wine had given me a buzz, lowering my inhibitions, so I responded. “I found it easier to handle life staying anesthetized. Drugs are fun until you fall off the cliff. What I did then traumatized the people I loved. I’ve gotten clean, but they’re gone, and I can’t make amends, so I took this journey.”

“You think God will forgive your sins?”

“Somebody needs to.”

Bergeron nodded. “We find it hard to forgive ourselves.”

He walked me to the hostel, and I thanked him for his hospitality. When we shook hands, I felt I should say something optimistic about God and life, but I stayed silent.

The next morning, before resuming my trek, I headed for Cahor’s cathedral. 

There was a commotion. With my limited French, I understood that a tragedy had occurred. 

Scribbled on the church’s stone wall were the questions, “Where have you come from? Why are you here? Where are you going?”

I didn’t need to squeeze through the crowd to know that Bergeron had thrown himself from the Gothic tower.

I entered the cathedral, knelt, and said a short prayer for his soul—assuming there was a God to hear. At our dinner, I’d stuffed my face, not sensing Bergeron’s cry for help. Worse, I may have said something that pushed him over the edge. Having failed another person, I continued my pilgrimage, my backpack a bit heavier.

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