Navel gazing
Michael McMahon
pre-storm breezes begin to blow across the plaza below Burgos cathedral. Menus on the pavement café tables topple over. Hats are held, and fleeces are put on. The dozen or so teenies that are bopping their way along the pavement tug at their cropped T-shirts in an attempt to shield their turns from the wind. They giggle as if tickled by it. It drops, and they form a line to perform a step-perfect pop video dance. I can't catch the words that they are singing, but the turn ends in an unmistakable shout: 'Viva el Principe!' Spain has just watched Crown Prince Felipe marry a beautiful bride on television, and this is-this-really-happening happiness has spilled over into the streets.
Ten yards from my table, a Jehovah's Witness hands out pamphlets to tourists as they join the queue for tickets to the cathedral's treasure-house. A young man takes one in mid-stride, glances at it, spins round and gives it back. The incident is watched by a bald man with round glasses who is standing on the cathedral steps and fiddling with a rosary. His lips move to silent Paters and Ayes, but his eyes follow the comings and goings on the square. I watch him watch the Witness take two steps to the left and hold out a flyer to a young man in a baseball cap, and then three steps to the right to offer it to an old woman with a stoop. Both veer away from him as they pass. A silverhaired cleric with a silver-topped pen in his breast pocket shimmers past the Witness unswervingly.
Young men in sharp suits cross the square and gather at the west door for a less than royal wedding. Their footballers' wives wear off-the-shoulder ball gowns, and lift their hems to rustle up the stone steps. The men walk stiffly in their fully buttoned-up jackets, and they all look selfconscious, as if everyone in the square is looking at them. The rosary man certainly is. His eyes have glazed over, and his jaw has dropped. He doesn't seem to realise that he is staring. Between us, the trackless tourist train blows its whistle, and T-shirted and short-trousered sightseers climb aboard. Behind me, a handicapped boy announces his arrival in the plaza with an asthmatic bark.
More midriffs — older ones — pass at just above tabletop height. Neatly turned navels stare knottily at me over my beer, and I stare back. A shadow rolls across the plaza rapidly, dragging cold air behind it. Everybody looks up — to see a large clot of cloud move across the sun, It passes, and the pierced pinnacles that extend every vertical line of the cathedral are once again cutting through blue. But not for long now. More clouds are merging their ragged edges above the roofs to the north of the square. I reach down and feel for my raincoat in my rucksack. It's right at the top, where I can get it quickly if I need it.
The wedding party has grown to a couple of dozen, and a handful have lit cigarettes. I remember that there is one MoMecristo No. 4 left in the packet in my waistcoat pocket. Every pilgrim on the way to Santiago has his little luxury, and mine is a daily cigar. I cut it and strike a match, but the wind blows it immediately out. Three men at the neighbouring table turn up their collars and take their glasses indoors. A man walks by wearing an anorak. Somewhere in the streets beyond the plaza, the tourist train lets out a whistle.
An oriental woman shuffles in through the Santa Maria gate tower, stops a few yards in front of me, raises a video camera and sweeps up the square through its lens. I follow its movement as it pans up the steps to take in the wedding party, left to the mediaeval gateway through which she has entered, and right to rake in the queuing and milling crowds — with a little extra jerk to include the rosary man who is watching them, his lips moving again as he retells his beads. When she pans up to follow the spires that point skyward, my eye is held by the filigree stonework. It seems to weave in and out of the blue like an embroiderer's needle.
In the far corner of the square a still photograph is being taken — of a middleaged German-looking pilgrim who has arranged himself symmetrically beside a lifesize bronze peregrino that sits at one end of a park bench. Each holds a tall pilgrim's staff; the statue in its right hand, the man in his left. He grins as he calls instructions to the stranger to whom he has handed his camera. Another cloud, another gust of wind, and it is clear that the sun will soon be gone. I pull my own digital camera from its holster, set it to automatic, point it at the tower and the spires and press the button. A cloud rushes into the sky I have just photographed, hiding the sun and making it easier to see what I have captured on the screen. It is like the top tier of a great gothic wedding cake.
A few seconds later, and the last patch of sky has been painted out in a big grey brushstroke. The wind gets up, and a shiver runs down the crowd queuing for tickets. I call for my bill. As I count out the coins on to the table, two trim waists pass by within touching distance. The nearer one belongs to a neat-featured blonde with long, fair hair; below it, her long and fair legs. Given time, I could count the goosebumps on her belly, which stretches from the half-shirt that covers her bust to the wide leather belt that sits below her hips. The other waist is modestly covered, showing only a sliver of flesh between trouser and top, but a yard from my table its owner lifts and lowers an arm and a bellybutton winks at me. I offer it a smile in return. When the girls have passed, I get up from my table, repacket my cigar, and take a last look around the fast-emptying square. The queue has gone, but the rosary man is still standing and still staring. The person he is staring at is me.
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