"Tell me more about agape," I said.
Petrus answered that agape cannot really be discussed; it has to be lived. That afternoon, if possible, he wanted to show me one of the faces of agape. But in order for this to happen, the universe, as in the business of fishing, would have to collaborate so that everything went well.
"The messenger helps you, but there is one thing that is beyond the messenger's control, beyond his desires, and beyond you, as well."
"What is that?"
"The divine spark. What we call luck."
When the sun had begun to set, we resumed our walking. The Jacobean route passed through some vineyards and fields that were completely deserted at that time of day. We crossed the main road--also deserted--and started again through the woods. In the distance, I could see the Saint Lorenzo peak, the highest point in the kingdom of Castile. I had changed a great deal since I had met Petrus for the first time near Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. Brazil and the business deals that I had been worried about had practically vanished from my mind. The only important thing for me now was my objective. I discussed it every night with Astrain, who was becoming clearer and clearer for me. I was able to see him, seated at my side, any time I tried. I learned that he had a nervous tic in his right eye and that he had the habit of smiling disdainfully every time I repeated something as evidence that I had understood what he was saying. A few weeks earlier--during the first days of the pilgrimage--I had been afraid that I would never complete it. When we had passed through Roncesvalles, I had been very disillusioned about everything to do with the journey. I had wanted to get to Santiago immediately, recover my sword, an
d get back to fighting what Petrus called the good fight.1 But right now, with my connection to civilization severed, what was most important was the sun on my head and the possibility that I might experience agape.
We went down the bank of an arroyo, crossed the dry bed, and had to struggle to climb up the other side. An impressive river must have flowed there once, washing away the bottom in its search for the depths and secrets of the earth. Now the riverbed was so dry that it could be crossed on foot. But the river's major accomplishment, the valley it had created, was still there, and it took a major effort to climb out of it. "Nothing in this life endures," Petrus had said a few hours before.
"Petrus, have you ever been in love?"
The question was a spontaneous one, and I was surprised at my courage. Up until then, I had known only the bare outline of my guide's private life.
"I have known a lot of women, if that is what you mean. And I have really loved each of them. But I experienced agape only with two."
I told him that I had been in love many times but had been worried about whether I could ever become serious with anyone. If I had continued that way, it would have led to a solitary old age, and I had been very fearful of this.
"I don't think you look to love as a means to a comfortable retirement."
It was almost nine o'clock before it began to get dark. The vineyards were behind us, and we were walking through an arid landscape. I looked around and could see in the distance a small hermitage in the rocks, similar to many others we had passed on our pilgrimage. We walked on for a while, and then, detouring from the yellow markers, we approached the small building.
When we were close enough, Petrus called out a name that I didn't understand, and he stopped to listen for an answer. We heard nothing. Petrus called again, but no one answered.
"Let's go, anyway," he said. And we moved forward.
The hermitage consisted of just four whitewashed walls. The door was open--or rather, there really was no door, just a small entry panel, half a meter high, which hung precariously by one hinge. Within, there was a stone fireplace and some basins stacked on the floor. Two of them were filled with wheat and potatoes.
We sat down in the silence. Petrus lit a cigarette and said we should wait. My legs were hurting, but something in that hermitage, rather than calming me, made me feel excited. It would also have frightened me a little if Petrus had not been there.
"Where does whoever lives here sleep?" I asked, just to break the uneasy silence.
"There, where you are sitting," Petrus said, pointing to the bare earth. I said something about moving to another spot, but he told me to stay exactly where I was. The temperature must have been dropping, because I began to feel cold.
We waited for almost an hour. Petrus called out the strange name several more times and then gave up. Just when I expected us to get up and leave, he began to speak.
"Present here is one of the two manifestations of agape," he said, as he stubbed out his third cigarette. "It is not the only one, but it is the purest. Agape is total love. It is the love that consumes the person who experiences it. Whoever knows and experiences agape learns that nothing else in the world is important--just love. This was the kind of love that Jesus felt for humanity, and it was so great that it shook the stars and changed the course of history. His solitary life enabled him to accomplish things that kings, armies, and empires could not.
"During the millennia of Christian civilization, many individuals have been seized by this love that consumes. They had so much to give--and their world demanded so little--that they went out into the deserts and to isolated places, because the love they felt was so great that it transformed them. They became the hermit saints that we know today.
"For you and for me, who experience a different form of agape, this life may seem terrible. But the love that consumes makes everything else--absolutely everything--lose its importance. Those men lived just to be consumed by their love."
Petrus told me that a monk named Alfonso lived there. Petrus had met him on his first pilgrimage to Compostela, as he was picking fruit to eat. His guide, a much more enlightened man than he, was a friend of Alfonso's, and the three of them had together performed the ritual of Agape, the Blue Sphere Exercise. Petrus said that it had been one of the most important experiences of his life and that even today when he performed the exercise, he remembered the hermitage and Alfonso. There was more emotion in his voice than I had ever heard from him.
"Agape is the love that consumes," he repeated, as if that were the phrase that best defined this strange kind of love. "Martin Luther King once said that when Christ spoke of loving one's enemies, he was referring to agape. Because according to him, it was 'impossible to like our enemies, those who were cruel to us, those who tried to make our day-to-day suffering even worse.' But agape is much more than liking. It is a feeling that suffuses, that fills every space in us, and turns our aggression to dust.
"You have learned how to be reborn, how to stop being cruel to yourself, and how to communicate with your messenger. But everything you do from now on and every good result that you take with you from the Road to Santiago will make sense only when you have also experienced the love that consumes."
I reminded Petrus that he had said that there were two forms of agape. And that he probably had not experienced this first form, since he had not become a hermit.
"You're right. You and I and most pilgrims who walk the Road to Santiago, learning the RAM practices, experience agape in its other form: enthusiasm.
"For the ancients, enthusiasm meant trance, or ecstasy--a connection with God. Enthusiasm is agape directed at a particular idea or a specific thing. We have all experienced it. When we love and believe from the bottom of our heart, we feel ourselves to be stronger than anyone in the world, and we feel a serenity that is based on the certainty that nothing can shake our faith. This unusual strength allows us always to make the right decision at the right time, and when we achieve our goal, we are amazed at our own capabilities. Because when we are involved in the good fight, nothing else is important; enthusiasm carries us toward our goal.