Wait For Me, Wait For Me...

Lots of things happen in a waiting room, because, well, there are many reasons for waiting and many people who have to wait. Some people are better at that than others. Waiting, that is. This is a story that didn’t happen in a waiting room. It happened in The Waiting Room, or as it is called in the local language, A Sala de Espera...

A group of friends had gotten together at the Sala and were waiting for one or two more to arrive. It was Friday night and everybody was happy the work week was over. You could see it immediately in the relaxed postures, the lilt of voices, the toasts to a great weekend. Still, serious conversation managed to make its way to the tables, even as glistening faces were reflected in the mirrors along the side wall and there was the occasional thump of a fist on an oak table. 

The night was young. There was lots of time to be waiting, in A Sala de Espera.

Daniel Campo had just walked in with his friend, Vítor Moure. Vítor had come from Noia that day and was planning to spend the night at his friend’s apartment. They had gone to college together and both had majored in History. Vítor, however, had worked more with cultural associations that wanted to preserve the dolmens, petroglyphs, and other prehistoric sites in Galicia. Daniel, in comparison, was very tied to his Santiago.

Sabela Liste waved at the two men when they came in, and pointed to the table where she was sitting with three others: Elisa Senén, Marta Briones, and Dany Souto. It wasn’t because they kind of shared a name, but Daniel didn’t like Dany very much. On her part, the feeling was mutual. The two were always cordial when they crossed paths, but one of them was hard around the edges and the other was too easy-going, to the point where easy-going looked suspicious.

Somebody suggested they play a game, and there were a couple of grimaces, because it sounded like something children would do. Maybe the suggestion had its basis in the extra glass of ribeiro wine the person making the suggestion had drunk. Still, thinking about it a bit, the idea wasn’t all that silly. 

“Everybody choose a place you would be happy to wait in for a long time, by yourself. Say, twenty-four hours - enough time to get hungry or sleepy, maybe even lonely. Where would that place be? Then we all try to guess this ‘happy place’ (somebody chuckled at this term) of each person.”

The game was simple enough, and the group was, after all, in A sala de espera, so why not imagine other great waiting places?

Dany wanted to start. Nobody even came close to guessing her spot. Somebody jokingly suggested Pelamios, but that wasn’t a good suggestion, because Dany disliked her apartment in that neighborhood, which was fairly close to campus, and was desperately looking for another one. Somebody else suggested Pico Sacro, the mountain not too far out of town. Dany took offense, because she often took offense at things. She flicked her dark bangs out of her eyes - inwardly cursing her straight hair - and spoke:

“Well, I’d gladly spend the time up by the Berenguela, the bell tower. That way I could watch all the people down below and even keep an eye out for trouble-makers.”

It was an odd idea, hanging out there, but nobody said anything. What was not odd was Dany’s grumpy attitude. She seemed not to like a lot of people, although she wasn’t a mean person. Maybe she had a lot on her mind. Her friends tended to give her the benefit of the doubt. They offered to provide her with an umbrella in case it happened to rain during her wait. That, at least, brought a smile to her face.

Marta decided to go next. She’d been seeing Matías, the architect who lives on Pombal Street. She was attempting to lighten the mood after Dany, and chose the Prado Museum in Madrid as her ‘happy place’. That was a mistake, because everybody knew she was an art historian and automatically assumed she would want to wait in a museum. The only thing was that her companions suggested different museums - the Louvre, the Guggenheim, the Gulbenkian - and none had actually thought of the Prado. She didn’t like that city at all, but one thing, as she pointed out to them, was the city and a whole different thing was the amazing museum.

The third member of the group to get everybody guessing was Elisa. The influence of her grandfather, who was a priest, was always evident. That was definitely the oddest thing about her, because otherwise she never stood out in a crowd. Brown hair and eyes, average height, average clothes, quiet. She was a little embarrassed about her family line, both because she was in fact religious and because her grandfather was a priest. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Of course nobody gave it a second thought, but Elisa did. She was like that.

Because it was to be expected that Elisa would find a monastery a comfortable place to wait for twenty-four hours, both she and her friends avoided that choice. Elisa was definitely not an open book. Dany suggested she’d choose a beach in Málaga way to the south. Sabela thought maybe a library and mentioned a couple. For example, the big San Francisco Church up past the cathedral had thousands of books that had been donated by emigrants or brought back from missions by the good friars.

“You’re way off,” smiled Elisa. “My waiting ‘room’ would be Armenteira, where Father Ero fell asleep listening to a bird singing. If he could be there for three hundred years, I imagine I could spend twenty-four hours.”

Everybody nodded. It made sense. And who knew? Maybe the rocks over in that village were softer.

It was Vítor’s turn, and clearly he had struggled to select a waiting place. In his work, it seemed like every place was created for waiting, because the ancient stones, whether carved or arranged in tomb formations, had been waiting forever. Perhaps that was why he chose a hot air balloon. Light, moving, precarious. The complete opposite of the antas and mámoas of his daily work. The group declared his choice to be unacceptable because nobody in a million years could have guessed it.

“A hot air balloon? Where on earth would you find one of those?” asked Marta, who was deathly afraid of heights.

“Oh, you can find anything on the internet,” asserted Vítor. “I could hire somebody and get a bird’s eye view of the world. You know I spend my days looking at dirt and shards of pottery and bent tools.” Everyone agreed that made sense - more or less.

Sabela was the serious one and had made a very serious effort to select a place that fit her, but that would also surprise her friends. The others in the group knew her, but they didn’t know she’d gotten interested in a cooking show and secretly dreamed of opening a restaurant. She didn’t choose a restaurant as her favorite waiting place, but she did choose Froiz grocery store, not too far away from where they were sitting.

“Froiz? Why that grocery store and not a really big one, like El Corte Inglés?” Vítor was mildly surprised. 

“I didn’t want to figure out what bus to take to El Corte Inglés, because I wouldn’t want to drive there and leave my car in the parking garage all night.” There were a couple of snickers, since Sabela didn’t have a car. Spending the night in any grocery store was odd, anyway, but she was thinking about having all the food at her disposal to conjure up dishes. Nobody said she needed an oven or stove in addition to the edible items, and she didn’t say anything about her dream of opening a restaurant.

The last one to go was Daniel. He hadn’t tried to be very original, but ended up choosing the perfect waiting room: a room with a king-sized bed in the Hostal dos Reis Católicos, the historic five-star hotel on one side of the Obradoiro Square. Nobody managed to guess that one, since Daniel never acted like he was attracted to luxurious things. However, they pretty much agreed that he’d found the best spot for waiting. Their guesses of his office, the little shrine of Santa Mariña de Augas Santas, and the Cine Numax were nowhere near as good.

Everybody had participated in the game. It hadn’t taken long, and they were still waiting for Lavinia to arrive. She could get distracted and might arrive later than promised, but this was unusual for her tonight. An hour late? Should they be worried? While they expressed their concern, somebody brought up a recent film, probably because somebody had mentioned the Numax. It had recently played in the tiny little theater and had sold out for every session.

O que arde had been a big success at film festivals and the amazing part was that none of the actors were professionals. They were all villagers, so the movie was a source of local pride. Especially popular was the female lead, who had made the film when she was over eighty. Even the ones who didn’t care for the plot were impressed by the visual strength of what had been oddly translated into English as “Fire Will Come.” Lavinia had pointed that out to them.

Now they wondered again where Lavinia was, but she appeared at that exact moment, saying “I found it!”

What had she found? Nobody knew she was looking for anything, not really. Despite some theories expressed previously by the four women, there was no proof of any sort that she had any plan except to spend her sabbatical in Santiago working on the American photographer from before the Spanish Civil War. Still, Santiago was the city of secrets, and she was a foreigner, so some had lingering doubts as to her intentions.

Looking at some of the faces in the group, Lavinia held her tongue. She didn’t want to say what she’d found. They could just wait until she felt like telling them, and tonight she did not feel like it, not at all.

Only Daniel really understood, although there was no reason he should understand. He nodded, knowing Lavinia must have a good reason for blurting something out, then retreating, like a frightened turtle. No, that was unfair of him, he realized. She was not a fearful person and nothing in her appearance resembled a turtle. Not her shoulder-length reddish hair, her arched eyebrows, her slight, boyish build, her…

The others, still waiting to hear, were either bored, fearful or suspicious. Lavinia gave them a false explanation, and they knew they’d have to wait before she’d tell them anything. She wished Pilar were there, because Pilar would understand. At that point, Dany brought up their little game and explained how to play it. Lavinia was also going to have to select a waiting place. Her friends expected her to choose one from back in the States, but had no idea where or what sort of place it would be. They waited.

Finally, Vítor urged her to start responding to their guesses. Sabela, Elisa, and Marta nodded their agreement. They’d have to be heading home soon. It was Friday night, but they’d also had long days at work. Daniel said nothing.

The guesses started, but nobody really had any ideas about where to look in the US. Nobody knew the American’s favorite spots there. They couldn’t guess the Old Port in Portland, Maine, or Hill Cumorah with its imposing statue of Angel Moroni in Palmyra, New York. They didn’t know the lovely little Greek restaurant in Boston that served the best avgolemono soup ever.

They tried places like Delphi, thinking how Lavinia was such a scholar of gender issues. (Dany sniffed at this.) They suggested Tintern Abbey or nearby Hay-on-Wye, because she taught library science as well, and every storefront in the little town in Wales was crammed full of books. Lavinia liked the idea of Hay-on-Wye, but admitted she’d passed it over when making her selection.

Finally, after about fifteen minutes, everybody got tired of waiting and asked her to tell them where she would most like to spend twenty-four hours of her life waiting.

“The Hostal dos Reis Católicos,” she said, laughing. With that courtyard, the food, all the history of the place, it’s an easy choice. Plus, it’s a step up from my one-room bedsit.”

Lavinia didn’t understand why they all started laughing, or chucking, or smirking. All except one person, whose head was lowered, but whose forehead was turning beet red. She didn’t ask for an explanation, but suddenly felt uncomfortable. Uncomfortable and uneasy. She rummaged around in her purse for her wallet, pulled out a five-Euro bill to pay for her drink, and stood up to leave, straightening the front of her jacket. The evening chill had set in.

Two minutes later, the server had collected everybody’s money and the group of friends left A Sala de Espera. After the usual flurry of boa noite, boa noite, repeated several times because parting in Galicia, while not a sweet sorrow, is a long process, most members of the group had become invisible. They’d faded into the night. Night, in a medieval city like Santiago, allows people to do that.

Lavinia turned toward her place. She wasn’t frightened - Daniel had been right that she wasn’t fearful, although she didn’t know he thought that, of course. Nevertheless, she was expecting somebody to follow her. Somebody was doing just that, judging from the soft footsteps inching towards her, but out of sight. 

She looked up at the streetlamp, one of the unsung works of art in the city: a wrought iron arm with tiny tendrils of metal shaped like leaves. The arms - there were several - extended out over the passersby. There were fewer at this time of night, but still the old streets weren’t entirely empty. Dripping from, or clinging to, the arms that at night seemed to undulate - they really did, at least to Lavinia - were glowing spheres. How long had they been lighting the paths of pilgrims and lovers?

Lavinia didn’t wait for an answer. She was thinking about what she had found, glad that she had chosen not to reveal it. Some things should not be public. She was also thinking about the footsteps, tapping so lightly over the cobblestones that she knew they certainly couldn’t be the sound of hard soles or heels. It sounded as if the person, or perhaps persons, did not want her to notice them. It was too late. She had.

Past the Café Literarios that overlooked the Quintana dos Mortos - which might or might not have any mortos there any more, depending on which source you believed - it was only about ten more minutes, walking at a fast pace. That meant passing by Cervantes and the Ánimas Church, after which it was fairly open and well-lit. There would still be people out. 

The only hitch was the slope up San Pedro Street and the short - but very dark - lane to Rúa do Medio where Lavinia was staying. Not afraid, not afraid, not afraid.

***

Unfortunately, what happened next is not part of this story, so those who are interested in knowing that will just have to wait.