EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNALDecember 26, 1998
Lourdes
Leaving Mendialde
We present Madam Aranna with a can of Maple Syrup and a recipe for
pancakes (Crepes Canadiens). She is happy and kisses us. She is so happy she waives
our chauffage bill and then waves us from the driveway with an invitation to return with
our work, but next time also with les petits.
The Lunatic of Lourdes
We’re in the centre of this terraced city, situated on the banks
of the Pau torrent, surrounded by the peaks of the Pyrenees. We wait patiently in a
courtyard for the Tourist Office to open. It’s that quiet period between noon and
three when the only sound emanates from a huddle of boys in saggy pants who take advantage
of the smooth skateboarding surface. Suddenly, there’s a deafening, screaming siren.
It grows louder and louder until a disheveled red hatchback crowned with a flashing blue
light hurtles into view on La Rue de la Grotte. We assume he is the pompier
as he screeches by and disappears down the street. Minutes later the siren again becomes
audible and then deafening. Our Firechief is transporting three happy individuals back in
the direction from which he came. He’s clearing traffic and enemizing pedestrians.
He’s blow-drying dogs and initiating twisters of Christmas tree parts as he barrels
down the thoroughfare with a sonorous wail.
Where are the Hordes of Lourdes?
We’re expecting a great Catholic spectacle, but it’s
December. From Easter to All Saints is the season of pilgrimages, and it is said that not
even Rome, Jerusalem, Santiago de Compostella or Mecca draw the crowds of Lourdes. 5.5
million visit each year, 70,000 of whom are sick or handicapped. Today the streets are
empty. The funicular railway that would take us to the Pic de Jer is still, hanging
halfway up the cable towards the summit. There are 350 hotels in the city. Lourdes is
second only to Paris for providing tourist accommodations in France. The streets are a
literal alphabetized list of hotel names, all of which stand now, unlit, with shutters
closed and blank menu postings.
There are 40,000 beds in Lourdes and not a place to sleep. The Hotel
Angleterre, a stone façade on one of many narrow meandering streets, abuts other
family-run hotels, and stands quietly with its iron railings; doors locked and shutters
shut for the off-season. Dad has recommended the proprietors, and we have anticipated a
friendly welcome. It’s time to pull out the list of hors saisons hotels
provided by the girls at the Tourist Office. We push on and soon I lean on the rattling
doorknob and then the pushbell of a dark and dreary doorway. It’s ghost town quiet.
Doorway after doorway, and there’s no one in at the Inn. Then we open the faceless
door of the Hotel Saint Martin. This is good. The door is not locked. We stand in a
completely mirrored, green, blue and purple carpeted, mod-style lobby with chairs and
stools for very short people and no evidence of refurbishment since High 1963.
Break out the GoGo boots. There’s no one here, of course, and we try the "can
I help you?" riff with loud conversation at the front desk. Minutes pass. No one.
After resting our feet and getting comfortable in the lounge, Rich gets impatient and
phones the hotel from the lobby telephone. An ancient, clanging ring vibrates the room. It
rings and rings and rings. No one. No one is in this hotel. A La The
lights are on but nobody’s home. We’re trudging along the river’s edge and
spot a modern, chain hotel on the other side. The hallway is a cellblock and when we
inspect the room, depressing memories of the QuickPalace, and the Irish Ferries
floor drain and Rich threatens to throw up. In a city of 350 places to sleep we have got
to be able to find something with more character and less price. We pass a small hostel, La
Maria, and then La Barcelona, a Bar-with-Rooms, and ask for one.
"Non". Finally we make our way back towards La Gare in the centre of
town, and find a restaurant/bar hotel called Albret, where the woman at the front
desk asks us what the weather is like in Quebec at this time of year as she is going there
for a snowmobiling holiday. She hears the people in Canada are very nice. Rich goes into
detail about a balaclava and a helmet. There are shutters on our fourth floor window and
when we open them a scene of rooftops and laundry and alleys trunks the rolling,
funicular-trimmed foothills and the illuminated, snowcapped peaks beyond. The Pyrenees lay
before us and we inhale the fading afternoon and its magic light.
The Miracle of Lourdes
Rich and I collect our thoughts at L’Esplanade de Rosaire,
and walk to the Basilique with just a few other visitors and pilgrims. Fresh
bouquets adorn the feet of the Virgin, or rather, a statue of her. The Basilique,
which is built to accommodate 7 000 worshippers, is under typical off-season
refurbishment, with a huge wooden scaffold canopy built for roof repairs. The sun sets and
we join the believers on the bank of the Gave de Pau, at the Grotto where young and
impoverished Bernadette Soubirous (1844-79) crouched one day, collecting firewood, and
experienced the first of 18 visions of the Virgin Mary. On another occasion, Bernadette
scratched into the dirt until a natural spring, never before suspected, gushed and
continues to this day. The Grotto is part of Massabielle Rock, and was not easily
accessible in Bernadette’s time. Now the grotto sits at the edge of a long, paved
promenade, among small shrines and a clothesline of discarded, sooty crutches, under the
great church and surrounded by candle trolleys and electric, flashing prayers, and signage
explaining how one’s prayer will last longer if a candle is lit. Further along,
beside the baths for the sick, is a cement warehouse of purchased candles.
We sit quietly and watch the few who follow one another into the Grotto
and have a word with the statues. There’s a man with a shaky hand and his wife who
lingers at the trolley with the largest candles. These candles are three inches in
diametre and 4 feet high. They burn brightly with large wicks, and balance on the trolley
in small holders, in a design like a tiered wedding cake. Some candles have small pieces
of paper affixed to them with elastic bands. The papers have words. Some candles have
names and dates inscribed. There are families here, a couple with their small children and
the children have candles and smile sweetly when the father snaps a photo. There are nuns,
and other praying, elderly ladies. There is a parade of candle trolleys, all lit, and with
a grave of expired prayers in a wax catch-tray beneath their bases.
The candlelight glows on the solemn, thoughtful faces. Beside the
Grotto is a stone wall with twenty taps where believers fill bottles and drink the water
from Bernadette’s spring.
In daylight the town looks like a regular place. It’s quiet, a man
relieves himself on a wall near the station, and a dog herds cars in the parking lot. Now
we move through the narrow streets, and in darkness Lourdes is a bizarre maze of neon
lights and shuttered hotels and intermittent shops, stacked with rosaries, and plastic
bottles molded into the shape of Mary or Bernadette or Bernadette and Mary, their heads
crowned with the bottle’s cap, the bottle intended for filling at the twenty taps.
Only a small percentage of the shops are open, and still the flashing lights and quantity
of small purchasable items is astounding. Entrepreneurs provision the army of believers
and the suffering, the weak and the hopeful. Hats and postcards and jewelry and chocolates
accompany crucifixes and portraits of Bernadette and Mary and Jesus, and sentimental
objects like a small statue of Bernadette at Mary’s feet at the Grotto, encased in
plexiglass. The inscription reads, "Time passes but the memory lasts…Lourdes".
Lourdes is a miracle of Big Business, and houses over 600 shops, 80% of them selling
religious objects. The resulting high-season turnover is 2.4 million francs.
We digest our experience in our Room With A View. Then The
Lunatic of Lourdes fires up his siren and blasts down the street, returning a few
minutes later in the direction from which he came.
