The Impossible Thing
by John McGroarty
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: PART TWO: A week spent in his Pyrenean mountain retreat may have helped a jaded Spanish journalist to cast off his inner demons and become a force for good.
Swearwords: None.
Description: PART TWO: A week spent in his Pyrenean mountain retreat may have helped a jaded Spanish journalist to cast off his inner demons and become a force for good.
The week passed slowly and my spirits continued to rise. We went on a few excursions but mostly spent our time walking in the mountains around Capvern. It was what we loved most of all. Far from the madding crowd. We had long lunches and siestas and at night we watched one of our favourite films. My depression had followed its classic trajectory and my absurd humour had come back. One day we went to Lourdes and it was the most entertaining day I had had in years. It was like a religious Benidorm in the mountains. There were thousands of shops selling holy tack. Little plastic water bottles in the shape of the Virgin Mary; statues of her with arms outstretched, come unto me; with hands clasped in prayer, pleading our case; little celestial paintings of her in the blue sky with those cloudbanks behind; holding the baby Jesus; head bowed sadly in a grotto; sitting on a throne crowned with a starry diadem. The tiny wax museum had all the popes and religious of all the ages. There was a tourist train which whooshed past full of nuns singing some French hymns. Cristina and I felt like two postmodern Martians crash landed in a time before we had even been born. Everyone looked the way our parents did. In sensible shoes and monotone suits and dresses. There were armed soldiers guarding us all. Keeping the maelstrom of the real at bay. At the cinema there was a film about the life of Bernadette. Three showings a day all month the billing said. We had an unfancy lunch and got caught in a summer downpour as we headed for the car. We were soaked through and had to stop at a second hand shop to buy some clothes. We arrived back at the hotel like two nineteen-fifties tinkers. We laughed and laughed. It seemed incredible that such a world inhabited by so many could still exist. We felt like we had passed through some time warp mirror. The next day we drove up to the highest place that man can reach in the mountains. To Bigorre. To the Pic du Midi. We went up in the cable car and defied death. At the summit we marvelled at nature. The god that had replaced the god of Lourdes. While Cristina took photos I wandered round the museum looking at all the old black and white photographs of the climbers and astronomers of the Edwardian age of star discovery. That night we had dinner in a restaurant next to the hotel and walked the dusky streets afterwards warmed by the food and the wine. The streets were deserted. As we passed the church we heard the sound of the human voice raised in song and went in and sat at the back. It was a concert of a choir of six people. They sang beautifully and it was a truly spiritual moment and I almost cried. They sang a haunting version of Nkosi Sikelei iAfrica. The voices expanded and rang off the walls and the ceiling of the little church and out into the mountains and the night. There were only some forty people there. A few couples. One family with children. Many old people alone. I don’t know why but it moved me greatly and I felt real hope. The feeling of rebirth inside me had reached its apex. After the concert we waited to speak to the singers and thank them for such a beautiful concert. They were all nice people and modestly accepted our praise. When we said we were from Barcelona they tried to speak a little Spanish. Our French was better but their pronunciation more precise. We communicated. They told us that the next night there was an open air party in the square and invited us along. It was the summer festival and all the people from miles around would be there. Like a medieval fair with disco music and hipster hamburger stands. Our last night was the following one and it seemed a perfect way to finish the holiday. We had dinner in the hotel and watched the beginnings of the party down in the square. To the left of the plaza there was a cinema which showed old films, but this time we hadn’t gone. And to the right was an open air swimming pool and mini-gym. We had watched every morning a group of tough black Paris teenagers doing their exercises there. They were all really fat and I had cruelly joked that it was le fat camp. To be honest it broke my heart and I hoped they had all found the peace and inner strength that I had in this magical mountainous place. The party went on till the small hours and the disco pumped out a constant supply of seventies and eighties hits. I had the sensation that the place had stood still since then. Cristina and I danced and drank cheap glasses of wine till our heads whirled. About two in the morning the storm that had been threatening all week finally broke and everyone had to rush into the cinema. The finale of the night was to be a few songs sung by the main voice of the singing group and the microphones and amps were hastily set up indoors. The woman who sang was a black woman in her thirties. She said her name was Manon. She sang Khawuleza. Oh, mama, don’t let them get you. Then Mas que Nada with the others and finished with a slow spiritual rendition of Seven Seconds. It was a unique sublime moment in time I will never ever forget. We had drinks with people from the town and they asked us lots of questions about Barcelona and we spoke about politics in Spain and in Europe. They explained how their connection with South Africa had come about when they organized a support group in the eighties during the movement to end apartheid. The whole town was involved. There was a communist mayor and they believed in the humanist values of helping each other and living life in the community. An old man started to speak; he was a little drunk but coherent, truthful: all we do, and all everybody has to do, is to do a good act for someone when they can. I was elated. That was what made the impossible thing possible. That night the planes did not crash in my dreams and all was sweetness and light. The end of the riddle of existence was within me. All I had to do was act. The next day we drove back to Barcelona and I enthused the whole way about how I had seen the light and found the key to the problem of our lives. I ranted on and on about how I had been wasting my life on idiotic stories about celebrities and cheap circus entertainment. Journalism was an entertainment machine and we journos had to take it back. Start the revolution from within. Look for stories that had true human value and build up what had been lost. You know, Cristina, I said, I have never done anything good for anyone. Only thought about myself. I have to do some unselfish act. To help someone. That’s the answer. Just like that old French guy said. Cristina was quiet and concentrated on the road. I fell silent but could feel the burning hope in my heart. After a while, Cristina said, it’s just like in Chinatown, life. Everybody’s speaking and nobody can understand anything. Don’t forget that, Mister Gittes. I smiled internally for I knew that I had crossed some bridge and that she was still on the other side. I am happy that you have got some passion back, she said, but take it easy, eh, for deep down your problem is that you’ve got a messiah syndrome. She laughed. We laughed. Maybe she was right but at that moment I felt better than I had for years. We headed back to Barcelona. I was determined now. I would be like that old guy. Like the people of Capvern. Like the worker in the park. A force for good. What I had wanted all my life.
Continue to Part Three.
Continue to Part Three.
About the Author
John McGroarty was born in Glasgow and now lives in Barcelona, where he works as an English teacher. He has been writing short stories for many years. His long short story, Rainbow, his novel, The Tower, and his two short fiction collections, Everywhere and Homo Sacer, are all McStorytellers publications.
You can read John's full profile at McVoices.
You can read John's full profile at McVoices.