The Crossway Page 2

  Two beds ran the length of the infirmary. One of them looked like an operating table, its head fixed at an angle. The other bed had a rubber mattress, elastic-edged sheets and a Quick & Flupke duvet cover. Garlands of tinsel hung from the shelves, and the whole room had the greenish tang of antiseptic mixed with floor polish. A shower two-thirds the size of a normal unit stood at one end, its panels not glass but tinted plastic. When I tried to wash, I banged my elbows and shins.

  An hour later Fr Robert was back. Dinner time.

  The priests lived in an apartment off the entrance hall. Two more were waiting for me in the kitchen. Fr Joseph was a shy man with a shy smile, bending over the oven in a blue apron. Fr Jean was a small, stubbed figure with a yawning mouth, who sat at the table discussing which of the school’s students would go to seminary, how well Arras were performing in the local football league, and what day the baby Jesus was circumcised. When I asked about the menu for the evening, Fr Joseph placed a tray in the middle of the table, its contents hidden under a drying-up cloth. Then Fr Jean drummed on the tabletop and Fr Joseph whipped the cloth away, revealing a basket of bread, a bowl of oil, and four pots of tapenade – green olive, black olive, aubergine and chickpea.

  ‘Caviar!’ said Fr Joseph.

  ‘Caviar for the peasants,’ said Fr Robert.

  ‘For the priests,’ said Fr Jean. ‘For the pilgrim.’

  Once Fr Jean had recited grace, we all sat. My hosts kept passing the tapenade round the table, each priest trying to serve himself after the rest. When everyone was eating, Fr Robert said, ‘Like the Last Supper, no?’ I asked what he meant, and he explained that this weekend was the end of the Christmas holidays. Lessons began on Monday.

  And what subject did Fr Robert teach?

  ‘Anything. Whatever you want.’

  Fr Joseph pinched his lips into a pained smile. ‘You understand if I say teaching is not Fr Robert’s vocation.’

  ‘My penance,’ said Fr Robert, making a snorting noise to show that he was joking. ‘This school is my exile.’

  Fr Jean wanted to know how long I had been walking. I told him I had started on Tuesday. And what route would I walk across France? I listed the cities I could remember: Arras, Reims, Châlons-en-Champagne, Besançon, Pontarlier, and then over the border to Switzerland.

  He nodded. ‘And you walk to Rome?’

  ‘To Jerusalem!’ said Fr Robert.

  Fr Joseph clapped his hands and began asking questions. No, I wasn’t a student. No, not an academic. Not studying to be a priest, not training to be a missionary, not walking to find my faith. Yes, this was my first pilgrimage. No, never before. Not Santiago. Not Assisi. No, not even Lourdes. With each answer Fr Joseph looked more and more embarrassed. Eventually he asked: ‘But why are you walking?’ I told him that, although I was raised an Anglican, as a teenager I stopped believing, and now I had little idea what faith felt like. But I thought the best way to learn about religion was by taking part in a ritual. And, if I walked to Jerusalem, I would also learn about the Christians living along the route. It was a speech I had written down in French and learnt by heart on the ferry from Dover. The priests’ responses were a frown (Fr Robert), a yawn (Fr Jean) and a nervous grin (Fr Joseph).

  ‘And how will you walk in winter?’ Fr Robert asked.

  I shook my head, confused.

  ‘If there is nowhere to stay?’

  ‘I have a tent and a sleeping bag—’

  ‘Or you lose your way?’

  ‘And I have maps from here to Italy.’

  ‘The Alps!’ cried Fr Jean.

  ‘I go over the Alps,’ I replied, becoming more and more flustered. ‘At the Great Saint Bernard Pass.’

  Fr Robert was still frowning. ‘In the snow? You will climb two thousand, three thousand metres in the snow?’

  ‘I can wear snow shoes.’

  Fr Robert made another snorting noise. Fr Jean added his own barking laugh.

  ‘Your first time?’ Fr Joseph asked again. ‘Your first pilgrimage?’

  I went to bed early, but could not sleep, the rubber mattress yelping whenever I turned and Fr Robert’s questions nagging in my mind. I had expected bad weather – my rucksack was fat with waterproofs and thermals – but never thought snow might make the pilgrimage impossible.

  As I lay in the infirmary, I watched headlights from the road outside spilling between the curtains and illuminating the bookshelf above my head. I spotted a pocket catechism, a cartoon account of the lives of the saints, a solve-it-yourself mystery set in Venice and a pamphlet about sex called Jésus et son corps. On the shelf below there was a crèche, the ox and ass replaced by a toy safari. Two lions, three antelope and a carved elephant crowded the manger. A few strands of tinsel had fallen onto the crèche like straw upon the stable floor, made golden that night of a miracle. Cradled by this Christmas scene, my worries began to calm.

  Next morning was Epiphany. Mass was held in the school chapel, an A-frame building with cream-coloured hangings. The priests wore chasubles of white brocade, the choristers wore surplices of white silk, and the altar was decorated with winter roses, arranged by an elderly woman wearing a veil of white lace.

  It was my first Sunday in church for six or seven years. The rest of the congregation – families from local villages – knew when to stand, when to kneel and when to run a thumb down their face like a thread of oil, a stitch over the forehead, the lips, the heart. Though I copied as best I could, I was often out of sequence. The Latin liturgy was new to me, likewise the hymns and prayers, but I recognized the Gospel reading: a passage from Matthew telling the story of three wise men, a star shining in the east, a child born in Bethlehem, and gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

  Fr Jean gave the homily. He talked about eating too much at Christmas and drinking too much at New Year. And he talked about his resolutions: to pray more, telephone his sister more, and go jogging twice a week.

  Then he talked about the three wise men. ‘St Melchior, St Gaspar and St Balthazar. From all the Orient – from India, from Persia, from Arabia. Travelling thousands of kilometres in the winter just to visit a baby.’ Fr Jean looked towards me, his expression almost benign. ‘The first pilgrims to visit Our Lord.’

  After mass the priests sold cakes in the church foyer. Earlier that morning the baker had delivered eighty-four galettes des rois to the school gates, and now they were stacked in tray racks, the whole congregation queuing to buy one. The queue kept stalling as each customer swapped gossip with a favourite priest. With Fr Robert, who boxed the cakes in a single sweeping motion; or Fr Joseph, who bent over a ledger and copied out receipts; or Fr Jean, who circled the hall with a sack, collecting the chocolate and sweets that every family had brought as a gift.

  When I returned to the infirmary, sunshine filled the room, colouring the plastic shower panes and blazing off the tinsel. I stripped the rubber mattress and folded the cartoon blanket before packing my rucksack and locking the door behind me.

  It was almost eleven. Fr Joseph was sitting in his office, counting the money from the sale. The sack of treats bulged at his feet, and when I knocked he dipped his fingers into the sack, removing a handful of sweets. ‘Please,’ he said, gesturing for me to take them. ‘The women of a certain age, they think we have no fun. Christmas, Easter, always the same: Have them, Fr Joseph! They tempt me, Fr Joseph! They’re the devil, Fr Joseph! We give them to our students, and they eat and eat until they are sick.’ Thanking him, I wondered whether this much kindness was waiting for me at every stop. If so, I had no need to fear the winter.

  Fr Robert was tidying the hall with the help of some choristers. One boy wrapped decorations in bubble wrap, while another stuffed paper chains into green Galeries Lafayette bags. A third boy lifted the Christmas tree onto the priest’s shoulder. ‘The next time maybe I walk with you, eh?’ Fr Robert shouted as he carried the tree away, leaving a trail of dead needles behind him.

  Fr Jean was dismantling the nativity scene on the l
awn. When I said goodbye, he raised two fingers to my face – up and down, left and right – quivering the shape of a cross. Then he went back to work, laying the statues of the wise men in wooden crates. He worked with such patience, such care, as though the statues were made from ceramic, or glass, or he was holding the relics of the saints themselves.

  A week later the weather turned. It was Sunday again, my last evening in Reims. I had spent the weekend at a convent near the city limits, an orange-brick building that resembled a fitness centre. All afternoon the earth gave off a cool, aching odour, and around seven the first flakes fell. That night I sat by my window and watched the snow coming down like stars dropping from the sky. Next day I walked out into the cold.

  The morning was quiet, with the muffled hush of blanket snow. As I moved into the suburbs of Saint-Léonard and Sillery, there was no traffic, nor any footprints on the powdered pavement. I crossed a canal, a river, a motorway and a train track, and then entered the Champagne region, where the hillsides looked like scattered sheets of music. Snow had turned their terraces into pages, strung with wire staves, and every vine was a note and every vineyard a melody. The corners of the pages were not numbered, but stamped with little badges – Lanson, Veuve Clicquot, or the gilded arms of Charles de Cazanove. A path led through the terraces, but it was hidden by snow, and I spent most of the morning tramping down rows of vines. Yet I did not mind. Instead I felt that childish glee at the year’s first snowfall, when everything is padded and thrilling.

  Villages huddled above the vineyards, beside a range of hills called the Montagne de Reims. One of the villages, Verzenay, was home to the miniature mansions of a dozen champagne houses, a concrete lighthouse containing the local champagne museum, and a wooden windmill flying the red-sashed flag of G.H. Mumm.

  I was aiming for Trépail, another village some twenty-four kilometres south-east of Reims. The cathedral office had given me the address of a farm with a room for pilgrims, ringing ahead to find out if I could stay. I could.

  That afternoon I met a boy and a girl making angels in the snow. When I asked for directions, they pointed at the wooded slopes of the Montagne de Reims. A dirt track led into the woods, the ground rising on the right and on the left sinking back towards vineyards. The track ran past oak and ash and dwarf beech with twisted branches – a fairytale forest. On my map it edged the eastern corner of the Montagne de Reims and exited a short distance from Trépail, but the route was criss-crossed by dozens of trails and I quickly lost the original. For a while the air was flushed; then the temperature dipped and the daylight faded. I could not guess the shape of the landscape through the thickening trees. Nor, once the light had dimmed, could I guess my position on the map.

  After an hour in the woods my fingers and toes felt wet, felt sharp. Checking my compass I saw that I was moving west – a quarter-turn off course. Ahead, the ground climbed steadily. Behind, fresh powder covered my footsteps. I was lost, and soon it would be dark. Yet I felt no alarm, only a dismayed acceptance: how easy it was to walk into a crisis.

  I stopped moving. Sat on my rucksack. Listened very hard. The quiet was heavier here, the snow dampening any sound. A minute passed, another minute, and then I heard a noise like static: a car driving on fractured ice.

  Run. Down the sloping hillsides, over the snowcombed bracken, under the twisted beech trees – my rucksack catching on branches, my trousers tearing on brambles. With each pace I grew more and more panicked, at one point tripping and tumbling onto the floor, my mouth filling with peppery snow grit. But I kept running, because I could see the jangle of headlights through the trees and hear the flash of wheels on frozen mud.

  The ground lowered fast and levelled as I stumbled onto the road. Puddles of ice pooled on either side of the tarmac, while the road’s surface looked black and greasy. I was just in time to watch the car I had been chasing speed away, taillights flaring into the distance. Then I was alone again, lungs clawing for breath in the cold night air.

  Seven minutes later a second car set me right for Trépail.

  Spring is the season to walk in. Or summer if you don’t mind the heat. The end of summer, stretching into autumn. There are not enough hours of light in the winter, never mind the weather. Few youth hostels are open, few gîtes d’étape or chambres d’hôte, and none of the campsites. I could not afford hotels, so I went to churches and asked for shelter. Sometimes there was a guestroom attached to the presbytery, or a camp bed in the parish office. Once I was lent a church hall, my fleece folded up for a pillow and my sleeping bag rolled out beside the radiator. If there was no monastery or convent, no presbytery or parish office, a stranger would take me in. The first time, this seemed a miraculous thing. Here’s what happened:

  After the vineyards I walked alongside a canal, Canal latéral à la Marne. The water was high against the towpath, with the clouded shine of tarnished silver. Ash trees grew on the opposite bank, their branches bobbed with mistletoe, and birch trees thin as needles, gathered in thousands and shuttering the sun.

  At teatime I reached Châlons-en-Champagne. The cathedral was closed, but nearby stood a Gothic church built from slush-coloured stone, Notre-Dame-en-Vaux. The church shop sold postcards of nuns, and three women sat behind the counter. One of the women took my hand and started talking very fast. I was young! I was alone! I was travelling in winter! ‘But how will you find Rome in the snow?’ she asked.

  Her name was Colette. She had brown eyes and coiled brown hair. She let go of my hand and drew a picture in blue biro – a wintery scene with peaks, pines and baubleshaped stars. Underneath she wrote a prayer like a song lyric – No matter how long the route, no matter how hard the journey, etc. Then she popped the prayer into my jacket pocket and zipped the pocket shut.

  When I mentioned I was looking for somewhere to stay, the women started ringing round town. Their calls were answered with polite refusals or the automated apology of a disconnected number. ‘La Maison Diocésaine? . . . L’Auberge de Jeunesse? . . . Camping Municipal? . . . Hôtel Moritz? . . . Presbytère Saint-Jean?’ After ten minutes they were out of places, until Colette had an idea – ‘Tiens! Dr Cuvelette! Rue Garinet!’ – and marched me into the street.

  She led the way through Châlons, telling me how she used to import British cars to France and had once driven – that’s right – a Triumph Stag. Her movements were wound tight, as if trying not to skip, and when we passed a sports shop she darted inside, pouncing on a pair of ice soles. A gift, she repeated, a gift, but I said no, it was too kind, she mustn’t spend money on me. However, I did not ask what became of her business. Nor did I ask about the prayer she zipped into my pocket, whether she heard it at a wedding or a funeral, or taught it to a child, or recited the words in the dead of night when she woke rigid with fear.

  These were the things I never learnt about Colette.

  No. 14 Rue Garinet was a three-storey townhouse with two front doors. Its walls were panelled, each panel painted a different colour, giving the house a nursery feel. Downstairs the rooms were full of shrubs, which Dr Cuvelette moved around in intricate patterns, protecting the plants from phantom draughts. The doctor was a prim, precise man, his hair growing over his ears. When I asked what kind of doctor, he said that he was retired, yet still he worked.

  In the evening Dr Cuvelette cooked two minute steaks for supper. We did not speak during the meal, but listened to a radio report on France’s invasion of Mali. When the main course was done, he brought out the cheese on a tray, but somehow it slipped from his hands and fell to the floor. Then he looked down for a long time, too embarrassed to tidy.

  At nine o’clock we heard a knock at both front doors. Colette was back, carrying a pair of ice soles. ‘I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. How else shall I spend my money?’ she asked.

  This was not a one-off. Night after night strangers would welcome me, feed me and find a place for me to sleep. At first I was surprised by this hospitality, for it seemed like a practice left over from another c
entury, but soon I came to rely on it. Although the temperature stayed near zero, people were kinder in the cold, and I walked with a warm sense of gladness, for it seemed possible to cross an entire country on charity alone.

  From Châlons I left the Champagne region and spent three days hiking on prairie. Each evening the same sort of family took me in. The husbands were farmers with red hands and weathered cheeks. They would spend half an hour making the fire, weighing every piece of kindling in their fingers. When I asked about their jobs, they would answer my questions without looking up. More weather coming, they warned. Coldest January since eighty-five. Their wives were employed by the mairie or the local farmers’ association and wanted to know about my parents, my siblings, asking their names, their ages, where they lived, where they worked. They also wanted to know about my route – Over the Alps? On foot? – and wrote long lists of telephone numbers for me to take: the emergency services, the gendarmerie, the village mayor, the parish priest, a nearby hospital, three or four government offices, and a last number that had something to do with helicopter rescue.

  I would be given a son’s bedroom to sleep in, the wallpaper printed with motorbikes, desert buggies and the logo of the Paris Dakar Rally. There would be teddies at the bottom of the wardrobe and boxes of Lego under the bed. The owner of the room had already grown up and moved out, and that evening his parents would tell me that there were no jobs in the countryside, that the public services were shutting down, and that France was now full of foreigners.

  During the daytime I marched on the plains of southern Marne. In summer this would have been the dullest part of the Via Francigena, but winter turned the acres of crop and forage into an arctic desert. There was no colour in the sky, nor in the bedded fields, nothing but starched sheets of white stretching from track to horizon, shapeless except for the earth’s own contour, like the mound and fold of a human body. Occasionally I noticed a jeep, or an electricity substation, or a spread of farm buildings, but they seemed too small to be real: toy things, crushed by the great expanse of snowflat.