onday, December 6, 1993

Love is a trap. When it appears, we see only its light, not its shadows.

“Look at the land around here!” he said. “Let's lie down on the ground and feel the planet's heart beating!”

“But I'll get my coat dirty, and it's the only one I have with me.”

We were driving through hills of olive groves. After yesterday's rain in Bilbao, the morning sun made me sleepy. I hadn't brought sunglasses—I hadn't brought anything, since I'd expected to return to Zaragoza two days ago. I'd had to sleep in a shirt he loaned me, and I'd bought a T-shirt at a shop near the hotel in Bilbao so that at least I could wash the one I was wearing.

“You must be sick of seeing me in the same clothes every day,” I said, trying to make a joke about something trivial to see if that would make all this seem real.

“I'm glad you're here.”

He hadn't mentioned love again since he had given me the medal, but he had been in a good mood; he seemed to be eighteen again. Now he walked along beside me bathed in the clear morning light.

“What do you have to do over there?” I asked, pointing toward the peaks of the Pyrenees on the horizon.

“Beyond those mountains lies France,” he answered with a smile.

“I know—I studied geography, too, you know. I'm just curious about why we have to go there.”

He paused, smiling to himself. “So you can take a look at a house you might be interested in.”

“If you're thinking about becoming a real estate agent, forget it. I don't have any money.”

It didn't matter to me whether we visited a village in Navarra or went all the way to France. I just didn't want to spend the holidays in Zaragoza.

You see? I heard my brain say to my heart. You're happy that you've accepted his invitation. You've changed—you just haven't recognized it yet.

No, I hadn't changed at all. I was just relaxing a little.

“Look at the stones on the ground.”

They were rounded, with no sharp edges. They looked like pebbles from the sea. But the sea had never been here in the fields of Navarra.

“The feet of laborers, pilgrims, and explorers smoothed these stones,” he said. “The stones were changed—and the travelers were too.”

“Has traveling taught you all the things you know?”

“No. I learned from the miracles of revelation.”

I didn't understand, but I didn't pursue it. For now, I was content to bask in the beauty of the sun, the fields, and the mountains.

“Where are we going now?” I asked.

“Nowhere. Let's just enjoy the morning, the sun, and the countryside. We have a long trip ahead of us.” He hesitated for a moment and then asked, “Do you still have the medal?”

“Sure, I've kept it,” I said, and began to walk faster. I didn't want to talk about the medal—I didn't want to talk about anything that might ruin the happiness and freedom of our morning together.

A village appeared. Like most medieval cities, it was situated atop a mountain peak; even from a distance, I could see the tower of a church and the ruins of a castle.

“Let's drive to that village,” I suggested.

Although he seemed reluctant, he agreed. I could see a chapel along the road, and I wanted to stop and go in. I didn't pray anymore, but the silence of churches always attracted me.

Don't feel guilty, I was saying to myself. If he's in love, that's his problem. He had asked about the medal. I knew that he was hoping we'd get back to our conversation at the cafe. But I was afraid of hearing something I didn't want to hear. I won't get into it, I won't bring up the subject.

But what if he really did love me? What if he thought that we could transform this love into something deeper?

Ridiculous, I thought to myself. There's nothing deeper than love. In fairy tales, the princesses kiss the frogs, and the frogs become princes. In real life, the princesses kiss princes, and the princes turn into frogs.

After driving for another half hour, we reached the chapel. An old man was seated on the steps. He was the first person we'd seen since our drive began.

It was the end of fall, and, in keeping with tradition, the fields had been returned once more to the Lord, who would fertilize the land with his blessings and allow human beings to harvest his sustenance by the sweat of their brows.

“Hello,” he said to the man.

“How are you?”

“What is the name of this village?”

“San Martín de Unx.”

“Unx?” I said. “It sounds like the name of a gnome.”

The old man didn't understand the joke. Disappointed, I walked toward the entrance to the chapel.

“You can't go in,” warned the old man. “It closed at noon. If you like, you can come back at four this afternoon.”

The door was open and I could look inside, although it was so bright out that I couldn't see clearly.

“Just for a minute?” I asked. “I'd like to say a prayer.”

“I'm very sorry. It's already closed.”

He was listening to my conversation with the old man but didn't say anything.

“All right, then, let's leave,” I said. “There's no point in arguing.”

He continued to look at me, his gaze empty, distant. “Don't you want to see the chapel?” he asked.

I could see he didn't approve of my decision. He thinks I'm weak, cowardly, unable to fight for what I want. Even without a kiss, the princess is transformed into a frog.

“Remember yesterday?” I said. “You ended our conversation in the bar because you didn't want to argue with me. Now when I do the same thing, you criticize me.”

The old man watched our discussion impassively. He was probably happy that something was actually happening, there in a place where all the mornings, all the afternoons, and all the nights were the same.

“The door to the church is open,” he said, speaking to the old man. “If you want some money, we can give you some. But she wants to see the church.”

“It's too late.”

“Fine. We'll go in anyway.” He took my arm and we went in.

My heart was pounding. The old man could get nasty, call the police, ruin the trip.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because you wanted to see the chapel.”

I was so nervous I couldn't even focus on what was inside. The argument—and my attitude—had ruined our perfect morning.

I listened carefully for any sounds from outside. The old man might call the village police, I thought. Trespassers in the chapel! Thieves! They're breaking the law! The old man had said the chapel was closed, that visiting hours were over. He's a poor old man, unable to keep us from going in. And the police will he tough on us because we offended a feeble old man.

I stayed inside the chapel just long enough to show that I'd really wanted to see it. As soon as enough time had passed for an imaginary Ave Maria, I said, “Let's go.”

“Don't be frightened, Pilar. Don't just fall into playing a role.”

I didn't want my problem with the old man to become a problem with him, so I tried to stay calm. “I don't know what you mean by 'playing a role.'”

“Some people always have to be doing battle with someone, sometimes even with themselves, battling with their own lives. So they begin to create a kind of play in their head, and they write the script based on their frustrations.”

“I know a lot of people like that. I know just what you mean.”

“But the worst part is that they cannot present the play by themselves,” he continued. "So they begin to invite other actors to join in.

"That's what that fellow outside was doing. He wanted revenge for something, and he chose us to play a part. If we had accepted his restrictions, we'd be regretting it. We would have been defeated. We would have agreed to participate in his miserable life and in his frustrations.

“The man's aggression was easy to see, so it was easy for us to refuse the role he wanted us to play. But other people also 'invite' us to behave like victims, when they complain about the unfairness of life, for example, and ask us to agree, to offer advice, to participate.”

He looked into my eyes. “Be careful. When you join in that game, you always wind up losing.”

He was right. But I still wasn't happy about being inside the chapel. “OK, but I've already said my prayer. I've done what I wanted to do. Let's go.”

The contrast between the darkness inside the chapel and the strong sunlight blinded me for a few moments. When my eyes adjusted, I saw that the old man was no longer there.

“Let's have some lunch,” he said, walking in the direction of the village.

I drank two glasses of wine at lunch. I'd never done that in my life.

He was speaking to the waiter, who told him that there were several Roman ruins in the area. I was trying to listen to their conversation, but I was having trouble stifling my bad mood.

The princess had turned into a frog. So what? Who do I have to prove anything to? I wasn't looking for anything—not for a man and certainly not for love.

I knew it, I said to myself. 1 knew he was going to turn my world upside down. My brain warned me, but my heart didn't want to take its advice.

I've paid a considerable price for the little I have gained. I've been forced to deny myself many things I've wanted, to abandon so many roads that were open to me. I've sacrificed my dreams in the name of a larger dream—a peaceful soul. I didn't want to give up that peace.

“You're tense,” he said, breaking off his conversation with the waiter.

“Yes, I am. I think that old man went for the police. I think this is a small place, and they know where we are. I think this boldness of yours about having lunch here could wind up ruining our holiday.”

He twirled his glass of water. Surely he knew that this was not the problem—that I was actually ashamed. Why do we always do this? Why do we notice the speck in our eye but not the mountains, the fields, the olive groves?

“Listen, that's not going to happen,” he said. “The old man has gone home and has already forgotten the whole thing. Trust me.”

That's not why I'm so tense, you idiot.

“Listen to your heart more,” he went on.

“That's just it! I am listening to it,” I said. “And I feel that we should leave. I'm not enjoying this place.”

“You shouldn't drink during the day. It doesn't help anything.”

Up to that point, I'd controlled myself. Now it was time to say what I thought.

“You think you know everything,” I said, “that you know all about magic moments, the inner child… I don't know what you're doing here with me.”

He laughed. “I admire you. And I admire the battle you're waging with your heart.”

“What battle?”

“Never mind,” he said.

But I knew what he was talking about.

“Don't kid yourself,” I said. “We can talk about it if you like. You're mistaken about my feelings.”

He stopped fooling with his glass and looked at me. “No, I'm not mistaken. I know you don't love me.”

This confused me even more.

“But I'm going to fight for your love,” he continued. “There are some things in life that are worth fighting for to the end.”

I was speechless.

“You are worth it,” he said.

I turned away, trying to pretend that I was interested in the restaurant's decor. I had been feeling like a frog, and suddenly I was a princess again.

I want to believe what you're saying, I thought to myself. It won't change anything, but at least I won't feel so weak, so incapable.

“I apologize for my outburst,” I said.

He smiled, signaled to the waiter, and paid the check.

On the way back to the car, I became confused again. Maybe it was the sun—but no, it was autumn, and the sun was weak. Perhaps the old man—but he disappeared a while ago.

All this was so new to me. Life takes us by surprise and orders us to move toward the unknown—even when we don't want to and when we think we don't need to.

I tried to concentrate on the scenery, but I couldn't focus on the olive groves, the village atop the mountain, the chapel with the old man at the gate. All of it was so unfamiliar.

I remembered how much I'd drunk the day before and the song he had sung:

Las tardecitas de Buenos Aires tienen este no sé…?¿Qué sé yo??Viste, salí de tu casa, por Arenales…

Why sing of the nights of Buenos Aires, when we were in Bilbao? I didn't live on a street called Arenales. What had gotten into him?

“What was that song you were singing yesterday?” I asked.

“Balada para un loco” he said. “Why do you ask about it now?”

“I don't know.”

But I had a reason: I knew he'd sung the song as a kind of snare. He'd made me memorize the words, just as I would memorize course work for an examination. He could have sung a song I was familiar with—but he'd chosen one I'd never heard before.

It was a trap. Later, if I heard the song played on the radio or at a club, I'd think of him, of Bilbao, and of a time in my life when autumn turned to spring. I'd recall the excitement, the adventure, and the child who was reborn out of God knows where.

That's what he was thinking. He was wise, experienced; he knew how to woo the woman he wanted.

I'm going crazy, I told myself. I must be an alcoholic, drinking so much two days in a row. He knows all the tricks. He's controlling me. leading me along with his sweetness.

“I admire the battle you are waging with your heart,” he had said at the restaurant.

But he was wrong. Because I had fought with my heart and defeated it long ago. I was certainly not going to become passionate about something that was impossible. I knew my limits; I knew how much suffering I could bear.

“Say something,” I demanded, as we walked back to the car.

“What?”

“Anything. Talk to me.”

So he began to tell me about the visions of the Virgin Mary at Fátima. I don't know why he came up with that, but the story of the three shepherds who had spoken to the Virgin distracted me.

My heart relaxed. Yes, I know my limits, and I know how to stay in control.

We arrived at night in a fog so dense we could hardly see where we were. I could make out only a small plaza, a lamppost, some medieval houses barely illuminated by the yellow light, and a well.

“The fog!” he exclaimed.

I couldn't understand why he was so excited.

“We're in Saint-Savin,” he explained.

The name meant nothing to me. But we were in France, and that in itself thrilled me.

“Why this place?” I asked.

“Because the house I want you to see is here,” he answered, laughing. “Also, I promised that I would come back here on the day of the Immaculate Conception.”

“Here?”

“Well, near here.”

He stopped the car. When we stepped out, he took my hand, and we began to walk through the fog.

“This place became a part of my life quite unexpectedly,” he said.

You too? I thought.

“When I first came here, I thought I was lost. But I wasn't—actually, I was just rediscovering it.”

“You talk in riddles sometimes,” I said.

“This is where I realized how much I needed you in my life.”

I looked away; I couldn't understand him. “But what does that have to do with losing your way?”

“Let's find someone who'll rent us a room, because the two hotels in this village are only open during the summer. Then we'll have dinner at a good restaurant—no tension, no fear of the police, no need to think about running back to the car! And when the wine loosens our tongues, we'll talk about many things.”

We both laughed. I already felt more relaxed. During the drive here, I had looked back over the wild things I'd been thinking. And as we crossed over the top of the mountains that separate France from Spain, I'd asked God to cleanse my soul of tension and fear.

I was tired of playing the child and acting the way many of my friends did—the ones who are afraid that love is impossible without even knowing what love is. If I stayed like that, I would miss out on everything good that these few days with him might offer.

Careful, I thought. Watch out for the break in the dam. If that break occurs, nothing in the world will be able to stop it.

“May the Virgin protect us from here on,” he said.

I remained silent.

“Why didn't you say 'amen'?” he asked.

“Because I don't think that's important anymore. There was a time when religion was a part of my life, but that time has passed.”

He turned around and began to walk back to the car. “I still pray,” I went on. “I prayed as we were crossing the Pyrenees. But it's something automatic, and I'm not even sure I still believe in it.”

“Why?”

"Because I've suffered, and God didn't listen to my prayers. Because many times in my life I have tried to love with all my heart, and my love has wound up being trampled or betrayed. If God is love, he should have cared more about my feelings.

“God is love. But the one who understands this best is the Virgin.”

I burst out laughing. When I turned to look at him, I saw that he was serious—this was not a joke.

“The Virgin understands the mystery of total surrender,” he went on. “And having loved and suffered, she freed us from pain. In the same way that Jesus freed us from sin.”

“Jesus was the son of God. They say that the Virgin was merely a woman who happened to receive him into her womb,” I said. I was trying to make up for my laughter and let him know that I respected his faith.

He opened the car door and took out our bags. When I tried to take mine from his hand, he smiled. “Let me carry your bag.” laul

No one's done that for me in a long time, I thought.

We knocked on the door of the first house, but the woman said she didn't rent rooms. At the second door, no one answered. At the third, a kind old man greeted us—but when we looked at the room, there was only a double bed. I turned it down.

“Maybe we should head for a larger city,” I suggested as we left.

“We'll find a room,” he said. “Do you know the exercise of the Other? It's part of a story written a hundred years ago, whose author…”

“Forget the author, and tell me the story,” I interrupted. We were once more walking along the only street in Saint-Savin.

A man runs into an old friend who had somehow never been able to make it in life. “I should give him some money,” he thinks. But instead he learns that his old friend has grown rich and is actually seeking him out to repay the debts he had run up over the years.

They go to a bar they used to frequent together, and the friend buys drinks for everyone there. When they ask him how he became so successful, he answers that until only a jew days ago, he had been living the role of the “Other.”

“What is the Other?” they ask.

“The Other is the one who taught me what I should be like, but not what I am. The Other believes that it is our obligation to spend our entire life thinking about how to get our hands on as much money as possible so that we will not die of hunger when we are old. So we think so much about money and our plans for acquiring it that we discover we are alive only when our days on earth are practically done. And then it's too late.”

“And you? Who are you?”

“I am just like everyone else who listens to their heart: a person who is enchanted by the mystery of life. Who is open to miracles, who experiences joy and enthusiasm for what they do. It's just that the Other, afraid of disappointment, kept me from taking action.”

“But there is suffering in life,” one of the listeners said.

“And there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggle for your dreams than to be defeated without ever even knowing what you're fighting for.”

“That's it?” another listener asked.

"Yes, that's it. When I learned this, I resolved to become the person I had always wanted to be. The Other stood there in the corner of my room, watching me, but I will never let the Other into myself again even though it has already tried to frighten me, warning me that it's risky not to think about the future.

“From the moment that I ousted the Other from my life, the Divine Energy began to perform its miracles.”

In spite of the fact that my friend had long ago expelled the Other from his life, he still wasn't having much luck finding us lodging for the night. But I knew he hadn't told me that story for his own sake—he had told it for mine. He seemed to be talking about my fears, my insecurity, and my unwillingness to see what was wonderful because tomorrow it might disappear and then I would suffer.

The gods throw the dice, and they don't ask whether we want to be in the game or not. They don't care if when you go, you leave behind a lover, a home, a career, or a dream. The gods don't care whether you have it all, whether it seems that your every desire can be met through hard work and persistence. The gods don't want to know about your plans and your hopes. Somewhere they're throwing the dice—and you are chosen. From then on, winning or losing is only a question of luck.

The gods throw the dice, freeing love from its cage. And love can create or destroy—depending on the direction of the wind when it is set free.

For the moment, the wind was blowing in his favor. But the wind is as capricious as the gods—and deep inside myself, I had begun to feel some gusts.

At last, as if fate wanted to show me that the story of the Other was true—and the universe always conspires to help the dreamer—we found a house to stay in, with a room with separate beds. My first move was to bathe, wash my clothes, and put on the shirt I had bought. I felt refreshed, and this made me feel more secure.

After having dinner with the couple who owned the house—the restaurants were also closed during the autumn and winter—he asked for a bottle of wine, promising to replace it the next day. We put on our coats, borrowed two glasses, and went out.

“Let's sit on the edge of the well,” I suggested.

And there we sat, drinking to keep the cold and the tension away.

“It looks like the Other has gotten to you,” I joked. “Your good mood seems to have disappeared.”

He laughed. “I knew we were going to find a room, and we did. The universe always helps us fight for our dreams, no matter how foolish they may be. Our dreams are our own, and only we can know the effort required to keep them alive.”

In the fog, which hung yellow under the glow of the street lamp, we couldn't see even as far as the other side of the plaza.

I took a deep breath. We couldn't avoid the subject any longer.

“We have to talk about love,” I said. “You know how I've been these last few days. If it had been up to me, the subject would never have come up. But ever since you brought it up, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.”

“It's risky, falling in love.”

“I know that,” I answered. "I've been in love before. It's like a narcotic. At first it brings the euphoria of complete surrender. The next day, you want more. You're not addicted yet, but you like the sensation, and you think you can still control things. You think about the person you love for two minutes, and forget them for three hours.

“But then you get used to that person, and you begin to be completely dependent on them. Now you think about him for three hours and forget him for two minutes. If he's not there, you feel like an addict who can't get a fix. And just as addicts steal and humiliate themselves to get what they need, you're willing to do anything for love.”

“What a horrible way to put it,” he said.

It really was a horrible way to put it; my analogy didn't go with the romance of the evening—the wine, the well, and the medieval houses in the plaza. But it was true. If he was going to base so many of his actions on love, he needed to know what the risks were.

“So we should love only those who can stay near us,” I said.

He looked out at the fog. Now he no longer seemed interested in whether we negotiated the dangerous waters of a conversation about love. I was being tough, but there was no other way.

Subject closed, I thought. Our being together for these three days has been enough to change his mind. My pride was a bit wounded, but my heart was relieved. Do I really want this? I asked myself. I realized that I was already beginning to sense the storms brought on by the winds of love. I had already begun to feel the break in the dam.

We drank for some time without bringing up anything serious. We talked about the couple who owned the house and the saint for whom the town had been named. He told me some of the legends about the church across the square, which I could barely see in the fog.

“You're upset,” he said at one point.

Yes, my mind was wandering. I wished I were there with someone who could bring peace to my heart someone with whom I could spend a little time without being afraid that I would lose him the next day. With that reassurance, the time would pass more slowly. We could be silent for a while because we'd know we had the rest of our lives together for conversation. I wouldn't have to worry about serious matters, about difficult decisions and hard words.

We sat there in silence—and that in itself was a sign. For the first time, we had nothing to say, although I only noticed this when he stood up to go find us another bottle of wine.

Silence. Then I heard the sound of his footsteps returning to the well where we'd been sitting for more than an hour, drinking and staring at the fog.

This was the first time we'd been silent for so long. It was not the awkward silence of the trip from Madrid to Bilbao. And not the silence of my fearful heart when we were in the chapel near San Martin de Unx.

This was a silence that spoke for itself. A silence that said we no longer needed to explain things to each other.

The sound of his footsteps halted. He was looking at me—and what he saw must have been beautiful: a woman seated on the edge of a well, on a foggy night, in the light of the street lamp.

The ancient houses, the eleventh-century church, and the silence.

The second bottle of wine was half empty when I decided to speak.

“This morning, I convinced myself that I was an alcoholic. I've been drinking from morning to night. In these past three days, I've drunk more than in the entire past year.”

He reached out and stroked my hair without saying anything. I absorbed his touch without trying to pull away.

“Tell me about your life since I last saw you,” I asked.

“There are no great mysteries to tell. My path is always there, and I do everything I can to follow it in a dignified way.”

“What is your path?”

“The path of someone seeking love.”

He hesitated for a moment, fiddling with the near-empty bottle.

“And love's path is really complicated,” he concluded.

“Because on that path we can go either to heaven or to hell?” I wasn't sure whether he was referring to us or not.

He didn't respond. Perhaps he was still deep in the ocean of silence, but the wine had loosened my tongue again, and I had to speak.

“You said that something here in this city altered your course.”

“Yes, I think it did. I'm still not absolutely sure, and that's why I wanted to bring you here.”

“Is this some kind of test?”

“No. It's a surrender. So that She will help me to make the right decision.”

“Who will?”

“The Virgin.”

The Virgin! I should have known. I was surprised that all his years of travel, of learning, of new horizons hadn't freed him from the Catholicism of his childhood. In at least this respect, my friends and I had come a long way—we no longer lived under the weight of guilt and sin.

“I'm surprised that after all you've been through, you still keep the faith.”

“I haven't kept it. I lost it and recovered it.”

“But a faith in virgins? In impossible things and in fantasies? Haven't you had an active sex life?”

“Well, normal. I've been in love with many women.”

To my surprise, I felt a stab of jealousy. But my inner battle seemed already to have subsided, and I didn't want to start it up again.

“Why is she 'The Virgin? Why isn't She presented to us as a normal woman, like any other?”

He drained the few drops remaining in the bottle and asked if I wanted him to go for another. I said no.

“What I want is an answer from you. Every time we start to speak about certain things, you try to talk about something else.”

"She was normal. She had already had other children. The Bible tells us that Jesus had two brothers. Virginity, as it relates to Jesus, is based on a different thing: Mary initiated a new generation of grace. A new era began. She is the cosmic bride, Earth, which opens to the heavens and allows itself to be fertilized.

“Because of the courage She showed in accepting her destiny, She allowed God to come down to earthand She was transformed into the Great Mother.”

I didn't understand exactly what he was telling me, and he could see that.

“She is the feminine face of God. She has her own divinity.”

He spoke with great emotion; in fact, his words almost sounded forced, as if he felt he was committing a sin.

“A goddess?” I asked.

I waited for him to explain, but he couldn't say anything more. I thought about his Catholicism and about how what he had just said seemed blasphemous.

“Who is the Virgin? What is the Goddess?”

“It's not easy to explain,” he said, clearly growing more and more uncomfortable. “I have some written material with me. If you want, you can read it.”

“I don't want to read right now; I want you to explain it to me,” I insisted.

He looked around for the wine bottle, but it was empty. Neither of us could remember why we had come to the well in the first place. Something important was in the air—as if what he was saying were part of a miracle.

“Go on,” I urged him.

“Her symbol is water—like the fog all around us. The Goddess uses water as the means to manifest Herself.”

The mist suddenly seemed to take on a life of its own, becoming sacred—even though I still didn't understand what he was trying to say.

"I don't want to talk to you about history. If you want to learn about the history, you can read the books I brought with me. But you should know that this woman—the Goddess, the Virgin Mary, the Shechinah, the Great Mother, Isis, Sofia, slave and mistress—is present in every religion on the face of the earth. She has been forgotten, prohibited, and disguised, but Her cult has continued from millennium to millennium and continues to survive today.

“One of the faces of God is the face of a woman.”

I studied his face. His eyes were gleaming, and he was staring into the fog that enveloped us. I could see that I no longer needed to prompt him.

"She is present in the first chapter of the Bible—when the spirit of God hovered over the waters, and He placed them below and above the stars. It was the mystic marriage of earth and heaven. She is present in the final chapter of the Bible, when

the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!”?And let him who hears say, “Come!”

And let him who thirsts come.?Whoever desires, let him take the?water of life freely."

“Why is water the symbol of the feminine face of God?”

“I don't know. But She normally chooses that medium to manifest Herself. Maybe because She is the source of life; we are generated in water, and for nine months we live in it. Water is the symbol of the power of woman, the power that no man—no matter how enlightened or perfect he may be—can capture.”

He paused for a moment and then began again.

“In every religion and in every tradition, She manifests Herself in one form or another—She always manifests Herself. Since I am a Catholic, I perceive Her as the Virgin Mary.”

He took me by the hand, and in less than five minutes, we had walked out of Saint-Savin. We passed a column by the side of the road that had something strange at the top: it was a cross with an image of the Virgin in the place where Jesus ought to have been.

Now the darkness and the mist completely enveloped us. I began to imagine I was immersed in water, in the maternal womb—where time and thought do not exist. Everything he had been saying to me was beginning to make sense. I remembered the woman at the conference, And then I thought of the girl who had led me to the plaza. She too had said that water was the symbol of the Goddess.

“Twenty kilometers from here there's a grotto,” he was telling me. "On the eleventh of February, 1858, a young girl was baling hay near the grotto with two other children. She was a fragile, asthmatic girl who lived in miserable poverty. On that winter's day, she was afraid of crossing a small stream, because if she got wet she might fall ill. And her parents needed the little money she made as a shepherd.

"A woman dressed in white, with two golden roses on her feet, appeared. The woman treated the child as if she were a princess, asked if she might return to that place a certain number of times, and then vanished. The two other girls, who were entranced by what had happened, quickly spread the story.

"This brought on a long ordeal for the girl. She was imprisoned, and the authorities demanded that she deny the whole story. Others offered her money to get her to ask the apparition for special favors. Within days, her family began to be insulted in the plaza by people who thought that the girl had invented the story in order to get attention.

"The girl, whose name was Bernadette, had no understanding of what she had seen. She referred to the lady who had appeared as 'That,' and her parents, concerned as they were, went to the village priest for assistance. The priest suggested that when the apparition next appeared, Bernadette should ask the woman's name.

"Bernadette did as she was asked, but received only a smile in response. 'That' appeared before her a total of eighteen times and, for the most part, said nothing. During one of her appearances, though, she asked the girl to kiss the ground. Without understanding why, Bernadette did as she was asked. During another visitation, she asked the girl to dig a hole in the floor of the grotto. Bernadette obeyed, and there immediately appeared a hole filled with filthy water, because swine were kept there.

" 'Drink the water,' the woman said.

"The water was so dirty that although Bernadette cupped it in her hands, she threw it away three times, afraid to bring it to her mouth. Finally she did, despite her repugnance. In the place where she had dug, more water began to come forth. A man who was blind in one eye applied several drops of the water to his face and recovered his vision. A woman, desperate because her newborn child appeared to be dying, dipped the child in the spring—on a day when the temperature had fallen below zero. And the child was cured.

"Little by little, the word spread, and thousands of people began to come to the place. The girl repeatedly asked the woman her name, but the woman merely smiled.

"Until one day, 'That' turned to Bernadette, and said, 'I am the Immaculate Conception.'

"Satisfied at last, the girl ran to tell the parish priest.

" 'That cannot be,' he said. 'No one can be the tree and the fruit at the same time, my child. Go there, and throw holy water on her.'

“As far as the priest was concerned, only God could have existed from the very beginning—and God, as far as anyone could tell, was a man.”

He paused for a long time.

"Bernadette threw holy water on 'That,' and the apparition smiled tenderly, nothing more.

"On the sixteenth of July, the woman appeared for the last time. Shortly after, Bernadette entered a convent, not knowing that she had changed forever the destiny of that small village near the grotto. The spring continued to flow, and miracles followed, one after the other.

"The story spread, first throughout France and later the world. The city grew and was transformed. Businesses sprang up everywhere. Hotels opened. Bernadette died and was buried in a place far from there, never knowing what had occurred.

"Some people who wanted to put the church in a bad light—and who knew that the Vatican was now acknowledging apparitions—began to invent false miracles that were later unmasked. The church reacted strongly: from a certain date on, it would accept as miracles only those phenomena that passed a rigorous series of examinations performed by medical and scientific commissions.

“But the water still flows, and the cures continue.”

I heard something nearby; it frightened me, but he didn't seem to notice. The fog now had a life and a story of its own. I was thinking about everything he had told me, and I wondered how he knew all of this.

I thought about the feminine face of God. The man at my side had a soul filled with conflict. A short time ago, he had written to me that he wanted to enter a Catholic seminary, yet now he was thinking that God has a feminine face.

He was silent. I still felt as if I were in the womb of the Earth Mother, beyond time and place.

“There were two important things that Bernadette didn't know,” he finally said. “The first was that prior to the arrival of the Christian religion in these parts, these mountains were inhabited by Celts—and the Goddess was their principal object of devotion. Generations and generations had understood the feminine face of God and shared in Her love and Her glory.”

“And the second thing?”

"The second was that a short time before Bernadette experienced her visions, the authorities at the Vatican had met in secret. Virtually no one knew what had occurred at those meetings—and there's no question but that the priest in the small village didn't have the slightest idea. The highest council of the Catholic Church was deciding whether they should ratify the dogma regarding the Immaculate Conception.

“The dogma wound up being ratified, through the papal bull known as Ineffabilis Deus. But the general public never knew exactly what this meant.”

“And what do you have to do with all this?” I asked.

“I am Her disciple. I have learned through Her.” He seemed to be saying that She was the source of all his knowledge.

“You have seen Her?”

“Yes.”

We returned to the plaza and walked toward the church. I saw the well in the lamplight, with the bottle of wine and two glasses on its wall. A couple of sweethearts must have been here, I think. Silent, allowing their hearts to speak to each other. And after their hearts had said all they had to say, they began to share the great mysteries.

I felt that I was facing something quite serious and that I needed to learn everything I could from my experiences. For a few moments, I thought about my studies, about Zaragoza, and about the man I was hoping to find in my lifebut all that seemed far away, clouded by the mists over Saint-Savin.

“Why did you tell me the story of Bernadette?” I asked.

“I don't know why exactly,” he answered, without looking at me directly. “Maybe because we're not too far from Lourdes. Maybe because the day after tomorrow is the day of the Immaculate Conception. Or maybe it was because I wanted to show you that my world is not so solitary and mad as it may appear. There are others who are part of that world, and they believe in what they say.”

“I never said that your world is mad. Maybe it's mine that's crazy. I mean, here I am, spending the most crucial time of my life concentrating on textbooks and courses that won't help me at all to escape from the place I already know too well.”

I sensed that he was relieved that I understood him. I expected him to say something more about the Goddess, but instead he turned to me and said, “Let's get some sleep. We've had a lot to drink.”