The Saint from Conxo

Conxo is what’s called a parroquia or parish. It has around five hundred or so residents and is located just on the edge of the famous city of Santiago de Compostela. It might not look like much at first glance, but Conxo has a lot of interesting features. For example, it has a castro, a pre-Roman settlement, which has yet to be excavated. (There is no word for castro in English, if you’re wondering. However, the word is the origin of all the place names in English that end in -chester. Castrum was the Latin word for camp, and the Roman forces built a ton of those around Europe, as we know.)

That is all very well and good, but perhaps not relevant to this story. The petroglyphs in Conxo are worth seeing, though. Most people in the area are more familiar with the old monastery, because, after all, it’s a lot bigger and easier to spot than old carvings on rocks whose purpose has yet to be analyzed. The monastery is from the twelfth century, but there were people in the area at least two hundred years before that. (Well, probably from the time of the stone pictures, right? Too long ago to count.) 

Admittedly, the current Baroque-style building is from the seventeenth century, which makes it pretty recent by local standards. What is relevant to this story, however, is that in the nineteenth century, the monastery became a psychiatric hospital. It is still used for that purpose today, although visitors can get permission to visit the Romanesque cloister without running into patients. Some people prefer religious art to insanity and one cannot blame anybody for their preference for one over the other.

We might also want to include a mention of what is known as the Banquete de Conxo, easily translated as the Banquet of (or at or in) Conxo. That happened in 1856 and was an expression of solidarity among social groups, specifically students and workers, students being part of the upper class. Apparently that gesture against social structures was significant, because Galicians never forgot it and are still talking about it today. (Galicians never forget anything. They carry their memories and everybody else’s around forever.) 

The point here is that boundaries were being breeched, new alliances were formed, and probably some wires were also being crossed by that event. Workers and the elite? Conxo simply seems alive, in a curious, convoluted way, with all those levels of history, from pre-Roman times until the present. Levels that never stray far from the Church, whether we like it or not. Even to indicate somebody’s going to be late for an appointment or gathering in Santiago, people say, Vaiche na misa en Conxo, meaning they’re off at mass in Conxo and won’t be coming for a while yet.

Just one more thing before we can get on with this story, because we seem to have been wandering a bit. The best-known Galician writer, Rosalía de Castro, write her last novel about Conxo, its church and its hospital. It is titled El primer loco, The First Madman, which is an odd title, but the writer knew Conxo was used to house professors and politicians when their behavior was deemed mad. It was a novel about a number of things, but not really about psychiatric patients. In any event, once more Conxo was written into the fabric of local history. This time it was into the literary fabric, and since the novel’s publication in 1881, that’s where Conxo has remained. People know about it. That includes many of the psychiatric patients, who are rightfully proud of their famous hospital/monastery. Some of them feel especially connected to Santiago, which lies just over the main road on the outskirts of the city. After all, it appears Dona Rusuida founded the religious cult there to honor her husband, who had been killed as they were on their way in pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint James. Thus we can hardly blame the patients who feel Saint James is their special advocate, that his city (their city) must be cared for, protected, just as they are in the hospital wards. The medical personnel do not try to dissuade the patients from thinking this, because it calms them and makes them feel a part of society, like the workers who were invited to the banquet in 1856.

Tino o Tolo, who might be called Mad Marty if we wanted to be politically improper, was a patient at the hospital in Conxo. Like others, he was allowed to leave the grounds for a few hours. He wasn’t the only one, and certainly not the first. Another patient had become very well-known around the streets of Santiago, because from inside the haze of his trauma from the civil war period, he went around scrawling maniacal anti-fascism poems everywhere. Some people probably jotted down those poems, but I’m afraid they are lost. The point is that the poeta de Conxo, the mad poet from that parish, was able to write the truth when the rest of the population dared not say anything. There is, of course, a lesson to be learned from that.

These are all things you need to know if you want to understand Tino (we’ll mostly call him Marty, because Tino is the nickname for Martín), the Conxo patient who started waiting for Lavinia one day. He didn’t stand out if you simply saw him walking or sitting. He wasn’t unkempt, perhaps because the psychiatric ward saw to it that he was bathed and had regular shaves and haircuts. Marty was very mild-mannered and it was hard to tell at first what had been the cause for his diagnosis. Not having spoken with any of his doctors, we don’t dare speculate, but when he got an idea in his head, he might respond very strongly and might act out his feelings. He could get very sad or very angry in an instant. People who knew this were loath to spend any time near him and gave him wide berth in the streets. That was sad, but to be expected.

Marty decided he had to go to the Praza do Obradoiro, the biggest square in the city, planning to harm Lavinia. He was furious, because he had overheard a priest speaking with a nun, saying he was worried about the tunnels. We’ve spoken about the tunnels before, and we know there’s probably at least one of them somewhere under a street near the cathedral. After all, Lugo (which also is very historical and has an immense cathedral) has one. The question is whether there are more tunnels or if they are the stuff of the collective imagination. 

Marty didn’t care about how many or even if there were any tunnels; he was just extraordinarily upset that the good priest had seemed so upset. Marty hadn’t heard more than snatches of the conversation, but he knew right away that he would need to make sure the priest had nothing to worry about. If somebody was snooping around the city of Saint James, he, Martín (Tino, Marty) was going to ensure that no harm came of it.

In the conversation he’d overheard, Marty had caught a name that of course he didn’t recognize, but he knew it didn’t belong to anybody who lived in the city. It’s very easy to identify people who are merely visitors, because they spend too much time looking at their surroundings, of course. The locals are used to the streets and shops and go nicely about their business. However, this Lavinia person with a last name he’d never heard before sounded like a particularly dangerous individual. He made up his mind to stop her, any way he could. He could find something to hurt her, make her afraid and make her go away, because after all, she was from away.

Where to go to make sure he could hurt her, making Father Ramón the Priest proud of him, grateful, even? He needed the priest to know how much he, Tino o Tolo, Mad Marty, cared. Marty admitted then, even if not consciously aware of this thought, that he would have wanted to be a priest. No, he wanted to be a priest. Maybe he would be a priest. He loved priests.

Suddenly, it was all clear to Mad Marty: he definitely would wait on the Obradoiro, and specifically on the steps by the Pazo, the palace of the famous Diego Xelmírez, who had done so many marvelous things for the city somewhere around the twelfth century. (He wasn’t sure of the exact dates, but knew where he could find out.) You see, Marty also admired historical priests and thought that if a kid from Catoira had been able to become a bishop and later an archbishop, well he, Marty/Tino could, too. (Although he wasn’t quite sure if he was from the little town of Catoira because the only residence he remembered was Conxo’s hospital.) 

The Obradoiro was right in front of the cathedral and got its name (which meant workshop) because for decades many stonemasons had worked there, cutting the stone for the temple. Temple, such a beautiful word. Marty thought it was a lot more sophisticated than church, although he didn’t know English so he called it igrexa. He was partial to big religious buildings because he knew his hospital was set in a former monastery. That made it special. Lots of people walked around the Obradoiro Square, so it might be noisy. (Good cover if his attack on the foreigner turned out to be noisy.) Tourists’ voices, music, that trolley thing that picked people up for tours and dropped them off in front of the cathedral (a little disrespectful). All were things that would help him do what he had to do and get away before he was spotted. Very clever plan.

Clearly it was Marty’s lucky day. He’d nailed it. There she was, walking along, acting like she was doing no harm to Santiago and its priests. She had no conscience, no respect for the Church. She probably wasn’t even a believer. But it was his lucky day, there she was, and, incredibly, off to his right a gaiteiro, a bagpipe player had begun his concert under the archway. The space really made sound echo, which was part of Mad Marty’s plan.

He felt in his pocket for what he’d decided to use as a weapon. It was metal, which he thought would be more effective than a stick. At the same time, anything too heavy would be likely to weigh down his baggy, ill-fitting trousers. That would be disastrous. Yes, the horseshoe was there, his fingers confirmed. It wouldn’t be long now.

Lavinia drew near. At first Marty thought she was going into the Hostal dos Reis Católicos, the fancy hotel on one side of the Obradoiro. No, he was mistaken. Was she going to go up the steps where the echo of the gaita player was? No, she kept on straight ahead, past the Facultade de Medicina, the Medical School. Marty didn’t want her going there. He needed to act fast to show Father Ramón what he could do, that he was brave and ready to save Santiago from the foreign invader. Not invaders, just one invader, but the point was that he was brave and she was an invader.

Tino/Marty wondered momentarily where the good priest was at that moment and thought it would be nice if he could see the good deed about to unfold. He thought if he could find the nun who’d been having the conversation with Father about the tunnels, maybe she’d know where he was. Except he, Tino, had no idea who the nun was. (They all looked alike in their habits.) Marty didn’t know, either. Carry on!

Once Mad Marty had been in the great cathedral that stood tall, imposing, just a few feet away from where he was. That’s why he knew about the statue of Santiago Matamoros on his white horse and remembered vividly the way the saint had his weapon brandished high in the air while heads rolled at his feet. He thought it would be a perfect pose for him to use as well, and went toward the female invader (who could have been an Amazon, so she’d be armed and dangerous, a foe to be reckoned with). His right arm was raised to the sky and he called out (discretely, but he did call out), the same way the great saint was said to have done while leading the Christians into battle: Santiago y cierra, España! Get out, everybody! We’re kicking you out because we’re Christians and you’re not! Bye-bye!

Marty was pleased to remember all that history as he lunged toward Lavinia. Because he did it a bit clumsily, however, his target saw him coming. She definitely was not distracted by the bagpipe music. That was why she had enough time to put up her right arm to defend herself, although it meant her left shoulder was vulnerable. She tried to twist out of his grip, but Marty was taller and sturdier, especially sturdier. His raised hand came down on her left shoulder and Lavinia felt intense pain spike through her. She cried out and people rushed to help her. Mad Marty was sitting beside her, crying, his head wobbling from side to side. In a moment he knew he was going to have one of his attacks and it would be back to the hospital in Conxo. Beautiful monastery, built in the 1100s, home to a religious community, then to psychiatric patients. But he didn’t want to go just yet. He hadn’t really saved Santiago from the invader (singular, not plural), but he had to get an answer to the question and was determined to get Lavinia to give him a straight answer:

Why was she upsetting priests so much? Why did she hate Santiago so much that she would attack it and destroy its tunnels? Or maybe just carry the tunnels off somewhere? It didn’t matter what she did with them because they weren’t hers. It would still wreck things.