The Wave by Kristen Crusoe (smallest ebook reader txt) 📕

‘Consuela, I apologize for taking your time. Is there a place I can stay tonight? I didn’t make any reservations?’

‘Yes, here is a map, with the albergues noted. You can call ahead, and see which ones still have beds available.’

‘Beds? Do you literally mean a bed, not a room?’

She laughed, her face lighting up. ‘Oh yes, and it may be a couch or rug on the floor. That is the nature of the Camino, my friend.’

Map in hand, Adam walked out, into the cold evening, street lights revealing a city settling in for the night. The Pyrenees stood sentinel in the distance. Shops and markets were closing their doors, while the cafés and bars lit up.

He entered the first café he came to, sitting down heavily in a seat by the window. People strolled through the narrow streets. Most had backpacks and walking poles. The scallop shell hanging from their packs identifying them as pilgrims. Adam marveled at this scene. It’s an entire world apart, he thought. Why would anyone do this unless, like me, they had to?

A young man, dark hair and eyes, came to take his order. Adam wasn’t certain what language to use. The young man pointed to a placard where the specials of the day, as well as standing items were handwritten.

‘Would you like something to drink while you decide, sir?’ he asked in accented English.

‘Please, red wine,’ he said, ‘and a plate of the fish and red bean stew,’ he said, noting this on the specials. As an afterthought, he pulled Clair’s photo out of his jacket pocket. Looking at it himself, seeing it as though for the first time, he felt his heart tighten at the memory of the day it had been taken.

A summer day, late August, foggy and windy as the coast gets, when heat in the valley draws cooler air off the ocean, creating the marine layer. They were sitting on a fallen tree, its roots stretching up in a wild spiral. Her hair, normally tucked into a neat bun or held back with an elastic, was escaping that day, the fog causing it to curl and frizz, like a ring of fire around her face. A face that shone with delight. They’d had their first ultrasound. A boy. She had looked at him, and he caught her, a moment when she had forgotten herself, not Dr Mercer, not Ben’s sister, or her parents’ daughter. Not even Adam Gage’s wife. Just she, Clair, holding their son in her belly.

When the waiter returned with a large glass of deep burgundy, Adam held the photo out.

‘Have you by chance seen this woman?’ he asked, trying to hold his voice steady. It occurred to him that he might be taken as a creep, or predator. ‘She’s my wife and we got separated,’ he hurriedly added.

‘She is very beautiful but no, sir, I have not seen her. I would remember.’

Adam nodded his head, feeling it drop with the weight of disappointment.

‘You can ask Benzozia to help you find her. There is a chapel on the side of the Church of the Assumption, a few kilometers towards the mountains. Light a candle. She will help you.’

Feeling irrationally uplifted, he left the café, his belly full and his mind relaxed after two glasses of the rich wine. He knew he needed to find a place to sleep but his heart pushed him towards the chapel. Never a person of faith, of any kind, except in a fierce negation of anything that might hold him back from making his own choices, he walked with hesitant steps towards this new experience.

‘What the fuck is this?’ he asked himself, as an overwhelming feeling of yearning, for what he didn’t know, overcame him as he entered the nave. A deep longing for his old self and way of life, already far behind him. Nothing to do now except relinquish any final hold on the way things were and be open to surprise. He had stepped across some threshold, here where the pagan met the sacred. Benzozia, Mother Dragon, standing beside a keening Mary, Mother of God. Falling on his knees in the aisle, he held his head in his hands, gasping for breath.

A hand on his shoulder, light yet firm, started him back into breathing. Looking up, he saw an older man, wearing a thick hand-knitted sweater, jeans, and carrying a leather wallet in his hand. The man smiled, his deep blue eyes crinkling at the corners. Adam noticed a small clerical collar peeking out from the thick collar of his sweater.

‘I was just heading out for a meal,’ he said when Adam picked himself up, sitting gingerly on the side of the closest pew. ‘Would you like to join me? Or would you prefer to remain here for a while? I don’t lock the church but it will turn cold in an hour or so.’

‘Yes, I would like to stay, please,’ Adam replied, surprised at his own meekness. He felt like a child again, like with Jet. Was he losing his manhood, everything about himself that had made him what he was? ‘Ah, I was told I would find Benzozia here.’

‘Oh, the superstitions of our locals. But yes, we do have iconography for both our traditional Catholic saints, as well as some for the Basque creation stories. Benzozia, Mother Dragon, is believed to be the protector of lovers, and if you pray to her, offer a candle and some coin, she will help you find your lost lover. Are you looking for a lost love?’ he asked, his face serious.

‘Yes, I am,’ Adam said as he stood, reaching into his pocket for the photo of Clair. ‘Have you seen her, my wife, Clair?’

The priest held out his hand. ‘Martin Lopez,’ he said, reaching for the photo. Adam first shook the offered hand. ‘Adam Gage.’ He handed Father Lopez the photo.

‘I have not seen her. A lovely woman. Why do you think she has come this way?’

‘She