Page 597 - A Little Life: A Novel

Pass in the Pyrenees,” Jude had said (this was before either of them had
ever even been to France), “and we’ll walk west. It’ll take weeks! Every
night we’ll stay in these communal pilgrim hostels I’ve read about and

we’ll survive on black bread with caraway seeds and yogurt and
cucumbers.”
“I don’t know,” he said, although back then he had thought less of Jude’s
limitations—he was too young at the time, they both were, to truly believe
that Jude might have limitations—and more of himself. “That sounds kind
of exhausting, Judy.”
“Then I’ll carry you,” Jude had said promptly, and Willem had smiled.

“Or we’ll get a donkey, and he’ll carry you. But really, Willem, the point is
to walk the road, not ride it.”
As they grew older, as it became clearer and clearer that this dream of
Jude’s would forever remain simply that, their fantasies of the Camino
became more elaborate. “Here’s the pitch,” Jude would say. “Four strangers
—a Chinese Daoist nun coming to terms with her sexuality; a recently

released British convict who writes poetry; a Kazakhstani former arms
dealer grieving his wife’s death; and a handsome and sensitive but troubled
American college dropout—that’s you, Willem—meet along the Camino
and develop friendships of a lifetime. You’ll shoot in real time, so the shoot
will only last as long as the walk does. And you’ll have to walk the entire
time.”
By this time, he would always be laughing. “What happens in the end?”

he asked.
“The Daoist nun ends up falling in love with an ex–Israeli Army officer
she meets along the way, and the two of them return to Tel Aviv to open a
lesbian bar called Radclyffe’s. The convict and the arms dealer end up
together. And your character will meet some virginal but, it turns out,
secretly slutty Swedish girl along the route and open a high-end B&B in the

Pyrenees, and every year, the original group will gather there for a reunion.”
“What’s the movie called?” he asked, grinning.
Jude thought. “Santiago Blues,” he said, and Willem laughed again.
Ever since, they had referred in passing to Santiago Blues, whose cast
morphed to accommodate him as he grew older, but whose premise and
location never did. “How’s the script?” Jude would ask him whenever
something new came in, and he would sigh. “Okay,” he would say. “Not

Santiago Blues good, but okay.”