"Half an hour at the most."
"Where are we going?"
"To meet with him. And others."
I could see that he didn't want to say any more. Maybe he needed all of his energy for climbing. We walked along in silence--the fog had by now disappeared almost completely, and the yellow disk of the sun was coming into view.
For the first time I had a view of the entire valley; there was a river running through it, some scattered villages, and Saint-Savin, looking as though it were pasted against the slope of the mountain. I could make out the tower of the church, a cemetery I had not noticed before, and the medieval houses looking down on the river.
A bit below us, at a point we had already passed, a shepherd was tending his flock of sheep.
"I'm tired," the padre said. "Let's stop for a while."
We brushed the snow from the top of a boulder and rested against it. He was perspiring--and his feet must have been frozen.
"May Santiago preserve my strength, because I still want to walk his path one more time," said the padre, turning to me.
I didn't understand his comment, so I decided to change the subject. "There are footsteps in the snow."
"Some are those of hunters. Others are of men and women who want to relive a tradition."
"Which tradition?"
"The same as that of Saint Savin. Retreat from the world, come to these mountains, and contemplate the glory of God."
"Padre, there's something I need to understand. Until yesterday, I was with a man who couldn't choose between the religious life and marriage. Today, I learn that this same man performs miracles."
"We all perform miracles," he said. "Jesus said, 'If our faith is the size of a mustard seed, we will say to the mountain, "Move!" And it will move.'"
"I don't want a lesson in religion, Padre. I'm in love with a man, and I want to know more about him, understand him, help him. I don't care what everyone else can do or can't do."
The padre took a deep breath. He hesitated for a moment and then said, "A scientist who studied monkeys on an island in Indonesia was able to teach a certain one to wash bananas in the river before eating them. Cleansed of sand and dirt, the food was more flavorful. The scientist--who did this only because he was studying the learning capacity of monkeys--did not imagine what would eventually happen. So he was surprised to see that the other monkeys on the island began to imitate the first one.
"And then, one day, when a certain number of monkeys had learned to wash their bananas, the monkeys on all of the other islands in the archipelago began to do the same thing. What was most surprising, though, was that the other monkeys learned to do so without having had any contact with the island wh
ere the experiment had been conducted."
He stopped. "Do you understand?"
"No," I answered.
"There are several similar scientific studies. The most common explanation is that when a certain number of people evolve, the entire human race begins to evolve. We don't know how many people are needed--but we know that's how it works."
"Like the story of the Immaculate Conception," I said. "The vision appeared for the wise men at the Vatican and for the simple farmer."
"The world itself has a soul, and at a certain moment, that soul acts on everyone and everything at the same time."
"A feminine soul."
He laughed, without saying just what he was laughing about.
"By the way, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was not just a Vatican matter," he said. "Eight million people signed a petition to the pope, asking that it be recognized. The signatures came from all over the world."
"Is that the first step, Padre?"
"What do you mean?"
"The first step toward having Our Lady recognized as the incarnation of the feminine face of God? After all, we already accept the fact that Jesus was the incarnation of His masculine side."