Page 598 - A Little Life: A Novel

And then, shortly after that pivotal Thanksgiving, Kit, whom Willem had
at one point told of his and Jude’s interest in the Camino, had sent him a
script with a note that read only “Santiago Blues!” And while it wasn’t

exactly Santiago Blues—thank god, he and Jude agreed, it was far better—
it was in fact set on the Camino, it would in fact be shot partly in real time,
and it did in fact begin in the Pyrenees, at Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, and
ended in Santiago de Compostela. The Stars Over St. James followed two
men, both named Paul, both of whom would be played by the same actor:
the first was a sixteenth-century French monk traveling the route from
Wittenberg on the eve of the Protestant Reformation; the second was a

contemporary-day pastor from a small American town who was beginning
to question his own faith. Aside from a few minor characters, who would
drift in and out of the two Pauls’ lives, his would be the only role.
He gave Jude the script to read, and after he finished, Jude had sighed.
“Brilliant,” he said, sadly. “I wish I could come on this with you, Willem.”
“I wish you could, too,” he said, quietly. He wished Jude had easier

dreams for himself, dreams he could accomplish, dreams Willem could help
him accomplish. But Jude’s dreams were always about movement: they
were about walking impossible distances or traversing impossible terrains.
And although he could walk now, and although he felt less of it than Willem
could remember him feeling for years, he would, they knew, never live a
life without pain. The impossible would remain the impossible.
He had dinner with the Spanish director, Emanuel, who was young but

already highly acclaimed and who, despite the complexity and melancholy
of his script, was buoyant and bright, and kept repeating his astonishment
that he, Willem, was going to be in his film, that it was his dream to work
with him. He, in turn, told Emanuel of Santiago Blues (Emanuel had
laughed when Willem described the plot. “Not bad!” he said, and Willem
had laughed, too. “It’s supposed to be bad!” he corrected Emanuel). He told

him about how Jude had always wanted to walk this path; how humbled he
was that he would get to do it for him.
“Ah,” Emanuel said, teasingly. “I think this is the man for whom you
ruined your career, am I right?”
He had smiled back. “Yes,” he said. “That’s him.”
The days on The Stars Over St. James were very long and, as Jude had
promised, there was lots of walking (and a caravan of slow-moving trailers

instead of donkeys). The cell-phone reception was patchy in parts, and so