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

film, thinking this feeling of triumph would last for ever. How little they knew, she thought, smiling inwardly. Nothing is for ever in this material world, but if we open ourselves, we can find a way through to the place where everything meets. She was here now. Devon’s end of the world. She sat down, laying her pack beside her. How good it felt to take it off. She rolled her aching shoulders, feeling the ever-constant prickle of nerves regenerating in her severed breasts. How funny, she thought. Even as I am dying, my individual cells are continuing to act as though this body of theirs will live for ever. She held in her hand the small red truck. Carried all these miles, days, through every chemo session, under her pillow at night. This truck, holding his tiny handprint, had been her token. Kept her going. Now it can go too. We are here together my love. But not right now. Now, I need a meal and sleep. Walking towards the village, she saw a small café, and heard children’s voices. Entering she found it mostly empty, two women behind the counter, three children riding tricycles, around and around the middle of the room.

Smiling as she entered, she sat, enjoying the sounds of children. The youngest of the two women came over.

‘What would you like? I am sorry for the noise, my children,’ she said, but she smiled broadly.

‘Not a problem for me,’ Clair replied. ‘I enjoy seeing and hearing them. I’ll have an ensalada and tortilla. Gracias.’

The meal was fresh. She could see an older woman cooking behind the short counter. After finishing her simple meal, she walked along the marine boardwalk, until she came to a small building, in which she heard strains of strings, violin, cello, and maybe a viola or perhaps an indigenous instrument. Looking through a window, she saw a middle-aged man, dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and dark gray tie, holding lessons for a class of young people, between the ages of six and maybe fourteen, she thought. She wandered in. On the wall, a sign advertising for a part-time music instructor caught her attention.

‘Hello, I’m Clair Mercer,’ she said to the music tutor after his class had dispersed. ‘I see you’re advertising for help?’

‘Dr Martin De Los Santos,’ he said, bowing from the waist. ‘I am, yes,’ he said in clear accented English. ‘Do you play?’

‘Yes, I play cello. And I know other strings – violin, viola, guitar – well enough to mentor.’

‘Estupendo! How soon can you start?’

* * *

She found a small room to rent monthly, and began her new job. Each morning at eleven, she walked the three kilometers to the music school. First the very young ones, three to five, brought in by grandmothers, dressed in black. Then in the afternoons, the older children, sullen and unwilling. It became her mission in life to inspire them to love music. She found popular sheet music for strings. She played Bob Dylan’s Desire CD so they could hear the electric violin. And it began to work.

Chapter 35

Adam

The cathedral wasn’t what he had been expecting. Something more akin to the great Oz. The square in front was buzzing with youth protesting for a free Galiza. Amazed at this transformation from forests, farms, villages, miles and miles of step by lonely step, he was blinded by the light of so much activity. A hotel stood off to the left. He wanted to spend one night in a bed, luxuriate in a long hot bath. He could snore as much as he needed to without being shushed by a strange voice. Over six weeks on the road, he felt fit. His body taut from the daily walking, his mind calm. People flooded into the cathedral. He held back. What would I have to offer? he wondered. What would I give? Maybe just a look inside. To see the art, the architecture. Remembering his experience in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, he was afraid he had set the gods against him.

It was mass. People gathered in pews, in aisles, standing, kneeling, sitting. A sight he had never imagined captured his vision. The Botafumeiro came swinging across the divide between altar and penitents, casting a thick, pungent scent with its fog of incense. The feeling of being caught up in something far outside of his control overcame him, his legs folding, bringing him down to the kneeler. For the first time, he understood all that Clair had been railing against, and why she wouldn’t give up. And he knew, in his heart, like Clair had always known, that his son still lived, in this moment, here in this place, ringing out through these voices, captured in the incense carrying centuries of human longing, and holding and letting go. He was ready. He just had to find Clair and hold her one more time.

He would keep walking, to the end. If she wasn’t there, at least he would know he had done all he could. And, he had become addicted to this walking. Each day new, opening with possibilities. To keep on had become the purpose. Not to finish.

Chapter 36

Clair

After work one day, she returned to her rock. It was January. Cold, dark. She didn’t feel alone, and she didn’t feel like dying. She sat out on the edge, looking north, towards the Costa da Morte. She fingered the red metal truck in her pocket. A dense fog bank was rolling in, blurring the mussel fishermen’s traps, the boats moored in the harbor. She felt a presence behind her. It didn’t alarm her. Pilgrims came here throughout the year, and locals were here always. This was a place to sit and look out, connect with something so much more than the moments of the day. She felt the person coming closer, recognized the energy. Heat radiated up through her belly, her heart began racing. Stunned, she turned and saw Adam. Silhouetted against the setting sun, his hair, long and unkempt,