Page 23 of Every Step She Takes
Mal has tied a bandanna around her neck for sun protection and has a trucker hat shoved over her blue mullet. Her browneyes are hidden behind a pair of sunglasses, and her coat and gray T-shirt have both disappeared to reveal a men’s tank top that shows off her tanned, muscular arms and a sprawling tattoo across her sternum. She looks like she belongs on the Camino. Even her hiking pants are the zip-off kind that turn into shorts, and although I find this fashion choice offensive on many levels, I can’t argue with the practicality. According to my phone, it’s only eighty degrees, but in black yoga pants, with this backpack causing a waterfall of sweat to flow down my spine, it feels like the surface of the sun.
At this point, there’s nowhere I’m not sweating, but Mal’s toned calves appear to beglistening. I watch her take long, easy strides like this is a leisurely stroll through the park.
My heart bangs wildly inside my chest. Because I’m overexerting myself, obviously.
I tear my gaze away from Mal and the others, and let my eyes wander to the river on my left. The small cloud puffs patterned across the sky seem to glow in the afternoon sun, and they’re perfectly mirrored across the smooth surface of the water. It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, like a postcard my sister would send me.
When the woman in front of me stops to take another picture, I pull out my phone and do the same. On the other side of the river, there are green hills dotted with a strange harmony of baroque, Romanesque, and neoclassical buildings that make me think of Nan. If she were here, she’d be pointing out the architectural features of every church, every house, and she’d be able to tell me what the inside would’ve looked like in centuries past. She’d know where the marble was imported from and how the rugs were made and what wallpaper designs were in style back then. Unexpected grief reverberates through me.
I wish Nan was here. I wish we’d visited places like this when she was alive, experiencedrealhistory instead of simply collecting relics from the past in a dark store.
Eventually the river widens and the rocky terrain along the path shifts to sand. We reach the beach, and the ancient buildings of Porto give way to the more modern architecture of suburban Matosinhos. Even through the agonizing sensations in my neck and shoulders, I feel a small sense of pride at surviving our first day.
Up ahead, the group comes to a stop alongside Inez, who has paused in front of a statue. Or, more accurately, five statues: stone carvings of women facing toward the sea with their arms outstretched, their expressions twisted in anguish. There’s something exquisitely sad about the artwork, about those five figures, one collapsed directly onto the sand.
“Monumento Tragédia no Mar,” Inez says as we all stand there in silence, staring at this personification of devastation. “There was a shipwreck here in Matosinhos in 1947 that killed over 150 fishermen at sea. This commemorates that loss.”
I study this master class in grief, the physicality of it. When Nan died, there wasn’t any time to scream at the heavens like these statues. I had midterms. I had a mom who was imploding under the weight of her own loss, and a fourteen-year-old sister who needed someone to show her that everything was going to be okay. I’d just inherited a business and a house and the dreams of the person I loved most in the world. There wasn’t time for anything.
But right now, I feel like I could stand in front of these statues forever, basking in the bravery of their open grief.
Mal turns her back on the statues first, and one by one, the rest of us follow, leaving behind the display of mourning.
Before we check into our hostel for the night, Inez leads the group to a restaurant with a giant sign advertising its “pilgrim menu” and boasting the fact that they’re open for an early dinner.A host guides the group to a patio with long banquet tables, and everyone else comments on the charming pergola and the outdoor fireplace, but I only have eyes for the carafes of ice water waiting for us.
I pour myself a glass and gulp it down before everyone else even sits, since it takes a while to finagle eight hiking packs around the table. The woman with the camera chooses the spot on the bench next to me, and I can’t even hyperfixate on how pungent I must smell because I’m busy refilling my glass, allowing the water to slowly bring me back to life.
When I finally look up and see all the unfamiliar faces lined up and down the wooden table, I’m overwhelmed by the sudden, mounting social pressure and the growing anxiety that I always feel in situations like this, when I don’t know what to say or what to do. So, I find the one familiar face: Mal’s, with its staggering widow’s peak and its Cupid’s-bow mouth. She ended up directly across from me in the musical chairs of choosing dinner seats.
“Welcome to Matosinhos!” Inez announces from the head of the table. “This will be dinner for tonight. I’m sorry it’s so early.”
It’s six o’clock, but okay.
“We have an early morning tomorrow, and a long day of walking to Vila do Conde, so make sure you fill up tonight.”
A menu appears in front of me on a shabby piece of paper, the offerings broken into three categories: first plate, second plate, and dessert. Even though it’s in English, I’m still confused. I would ask Mal how it works, but she seems to be avoiding my gaze, so when the server arrives beside me, I wait for camera woman to order first, then say, “I’ll have the same,” without the slightest clue what I’ll be eating.
Minutes later, the server returns with several bottles of wine for the table, along with giant baskets of bread. The last thing I need after being awake for thirty-six hours is more wine, but thebread is another story. I grab a plain white dinner roll and marvel at how it could possibly be the best thing I’ve ever consumed.
“Let’s start with a toast!” Inez holds up a glass of red wine, and the rest of the table does the same, except Mr. Indecent Shorts, who is busy doing quad stretches next to the table.
“To the journey!” Inez declares. “Saúde!”
“Saúde!” everyone echoes, and I fumble for my water glass to join in on the cheers.
“When I talk about the Camino with people who are unfamiliar with it,” Inez monologues, “most people assume it’s one path that leads you to Santiago. But the Camino is a dozen different paths all heading in the same direction. You can start in France or Spain or Portugal. You can walk one hundred kilometers or five hundred or a thousand, if you want, and there are different variations along the way. Religious pilgrims would start the journey from their own front door, and whatever path they took—that was their Camino.”
She pauses for a moment to take another sip of her wine, and all seven pairs of eyes stay glued to her, waiting for her to finish. There’s something lovely about the cadence of her voice, something mystical and effortlessly captivating about her. “I love that about the Camino.” She sighs. “Everyone is walking to the same place but getting there in their own way, at their own pace.”
Several murmurs of agreement ripple around the table. Mr. Indecent Shorts even stops stretching for a moment to nod enthusiastically. Inez takes another sip of wine and smiles. “I am blessed to be your guide for this individual journey that we will take together. Now.”
She claps her hands together. “I like to begin each tour with introductions. I am Inez Oliveira, and my pronouns are she/her. I’m a Cancer, originally from São Paulo, but I moved to Europe for university and never left! I’m a trans lesbian, and I live with my wife in Lisboa when I’m not trekking. I’m the founder ofBeatrix Tours, and I’ve done eight different Camino routes a total of sixty-three times. This will be trek sixty-four.”
“Saúde to that!” shouts the older white lady with the blond coif.
“Obrigada.” Inez does a small curtsy. “I would love for each of you to tell us your name, where you’re from, and any other details you want to share. You do not have to disclose anything about your gender or sexuality, if you don’t want to,” she adds. This caveat confuses me even more than the menu, but no one else seems bothered by it. Mal bites off a hunk of bread across from me, looking nonplussed.
I am very plussed. “I do want you to tell us what brought you to the Camino, though,” Inez adds. “In my experience, no one comes to the Camino only to walk. We are all called to the Camino for one reason or another. I was twenty-two when I did my first Camino, and I was not in a good place. I was horribly depressed because I was stuck living as a man. I was called to the Camino so I could escape the societal pressures that were trapping me in a false life.”
