On the way to a half-important, half-expendable evening appointment in Madrid, I passed a long line of people. Then it occurred to me again: On the first Friday of the month there are those who want to ask the Christ of Medinaceli for something. The worst is on the first Friday in March, when the queue stretches all the way to the Ministry of Health and people are standing in line even longer than for the Christmas lottery. The street on which the basilica with the life-size figure of Christ from the seventeenth century is located is appropriately called Calle de Jesús. I skipped the evening appointment and got in line. Why? No idea. Sometimes you do strange things. Immediately more people came and stood around. "Have you been here before?" I ask the blonde woman immediately behind me.“No,” she replies. Then: "I went to the doctor this afternoon and got a diagnosis." Pause. "That's why." I am speechless, and because I can't think of anything better, I nod like a horse. The woman's face can hardly be made out, she is wearing a mask.

At that moment, a young man with a trolley pushes his way past our queue on the narrow sidewalk and terrifies the finely dressed old lady in front of me.

He apologizes loudly, as if someone else was to blame, and rushes on.

“Something like that!” Calls the old lady after him.

"I almost fell!" The young man comes back and says: "I apologized, shit again!" The lady seems to have expected the curse.

But the young man is already gone.

The old lady looks at me.

“What he thinks,” she says, but her anger is hardly glowing anymore, she has more important things on her mind.

It's always worth it

We talk a little. The lady comes to the basilica every Friday and stands in line for three hours if she has to. “There is always something,” she says, “to ask for.” Once it was until one at night before it was her turn. “Do you really think”, I ask, “that it is worth it?” The lady says: “Definitely! It's always worth it. ”We need almost an hour to reach the portal, pass the main nave inside and climb the stairs to the first floor. Above the believers are admitted individually, they cross themselves and are allowed to stand for a few seconds in front of the Christ of Medinaceli. Then they have to resign.

Just before it's my turn, it occurs to me that I have no concern at all.

Or so many that a few seconds before the Christ of Medinaceli is not enough.

I look at his soft, sad eyes and the tied hands.

"Clarity," I mumble under the mask.

"I ask you for clarity."