A few days ago, I arrived at Santiago de Compostela, in northwestern Spain. This is where the tomb of the Apostle St. James the Greater lies. Every time July 25 falls on a Sunday, Catholics celebrate their Jacobean Holy Year. And that is precisely what happens in 2021. I’ve been on pilgrimage here before, and by now, the Camino de Santiago that crosses Europe would normally be packed with pilgrims from all over the world. This year, however, I find closed hostels, bars with the shutters down, and a shuddering silence that hangs over the World Heritage Site that is this old town. There are no tasty vapors wafting from the seafood restaurants, there are no tourists drinking albariño as if it were water, and there is no trace of those blonde central European pilgrims who brighten up the road and provoke waves of sudden conversions as they pass by. Really, there are no pilgrims from anywhere, because the pandemic restrictions are ruining everything. The narrow streets of the small town of Santiago today are hushed by a veil of mystery that seems straight from a Hitchcock movie, only broken on occasion by the exasperated cry of Galician bagpipes.
In the cathedral, gloom and Gregorian. A couple of ladies pray in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, some priests wait in the confessional to attend, in a multitude of languages, the pilgrims who do not arrive, and a madman crosses the main nave talking to himself and gesticulating wildly. Suddenly, he stops in silence in front of the image of the Apostle, where he prays in silence for a few minutes and seems to regain his sanity.
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