Finding the Cost of Freedom

A refugee finds his way in Berlin

I am in a sidewalk cafe in Avilés, in Asturias, in the northwest of Spain. It’s late September, so it’s time for another El Camino de Santiago. It will be my fifth, during which I will finish El Camino Norte, most of which I did two years ago, but then branched off to try the Camino Primitivo.

It’s a short section, only 280 kilometers (175 miles), my shortest yet. But my goal this year is not to walk, but to work: It’s time to finally finish Act I of the musical. For real. I have three weeks.

But since I'm just starting to walk today – assuming this area’s legendarily frequent and fierce rain lets up soon (it is now driving me inside as it whips up under the awning, so we’ll see) – I decided to post once more about Berlin. It’s a piece I wrote as part of a proposed project I meant to start while living there – so many projects! – but I never quite got around to doing it, in part since my time there was so…part-time.

The idea was to profile some of the Einwanderer – immigrants, or, lit…