The Zahir Part 13

"Are you telling me that Esther can't continue with the process of freeing herself from sadness because of me?"

"No, that's not what I meant. I don't believe that one person can blame another, under any circ.u.mstances. All I said was that she has a choice between stopping loving you or making you come to her."

"That's what she's doing."

"I know, but, if it were up to me, we would only go to her when the voice allows us to."

Right, this should be the last you see of the orthopedic collar. I certainly hope so anyway. But, please, avoid making any sudden movements. Your muscles need to get used to working on their own again. By the way, what happened to the girl who made those predictions?"

"What girl? What predictions?"

"Didn't you tell me at the hospital that someone had claimed to hear a voice warning that something was going to happen to you?"

"Oh, it wasn't a girl. And you said you were going to find out about epilepsy for me."

"Yes, I got in touch with a specialist and asked him if he knew of any such cases. His answer surprised me a bit, but let me just remind you that medicine has its mysteries. Do you remember the story I told you about the boy who goes out to buy five apples and returns with two?"

"Yes, and how he might have lost them or given them away, or else they might have turned out to be more expensive than expected, etc. Don't worry, I know there are no absolute answers. But, first, did Joan of Arc suffer from epilepsy?"

"Oddly enough, my friend mentioned her during our conversation. Joan of Arc started hearing voices when she was thirteen. Her statements reveal that she saw lights, which is one of the symptoms of an attack. According to the neurologist, Dr. Lydia Bayne, the warrior-saint's ecstatic experiences were caused by what we now call musicogenic epilepsy, which is provoked by hearing a particular kind of sound or music: in Joan's case, it was the sound of bells. Were you there when the boy had a fit?"

"Yes."

"Was there any music playing?"

"I can't remember. But even if there was, the clatter of cutlery and the buzz of conversation would have drowned it out."

"Did he seem tense?"

"Yes, very."

"That's another thing that can provoke an attack. Epilepsy has been around for longer than you might think. In Mesopotamia, there are remarkably accurate descriptions of what they called 'the falling sickness,' which was followed by convulsions. Ancient people believed that it was caused by demons invading a person's body; only much later on did the Greek Hippocrates relate these convulsions to some dysfunction of the brain.

Even so, epileptics are still the victims of prejudice."

"I'm sure. I was absolutely terrified when it happened."

"You mentioned the word prophecy, and so I asked my friend to concentrate his researches in that area. According to him, most scientists agree that, although a lot of famous people have suffered from epilepsy, the disease itself does not confer greater or lesser powers on anyone. Nevertheless, the more famous epileptics did succeed in persuading other people to see their fits as having a mystical aura."

"Give me an example of some famous epileptics."

"Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Dante...I didn't make a full list, since what you were interested in was the boy's prophecy. What's his name, by the way?""You don't know him, and since you've nearly always got another appointment to go to, perhaps you'd better just finish your explanation."

"All right. Medical scientists who study the Bible are sure that the apostle Paul was an epileptic. They base this on the fact that, on the road to Damascus, he saw a brilliant light near him which caused him to fall to the ground, leaving him temporarily blind and unable to eat or drink for some days. In medical terms, this is known as 'temporal lobe epilepsy.'"

"I don't think the church would agree."

"I'm not even sure that I agree, but that's what the medical literature says. Other epileptics develop their self-destructive side, as was the case with van Gogh. He described his convulsions as 'the storm within.' In Saint-Remy, where he was a patient, one of the nurses saw him having a convulsive seizure."

"At least he managed in his paintings to transform his self-destruction into a reconstruction of the world."

"Some people suspect that Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland in order to describe his own experiences of epilepsy. The story at the beginning of the book, when Alice falls down a black hole, is an experience familiar to most epileptics. During her journey through Wonderland, Alice often sees things flying and she herself feels very light-another very precise description of the effects of an epileptic attack."

"So it would seem epileptics have a propensity for art."

"Not at all, it's just that because artists tend to become famous, art and epilepsy become linked in people's minds. Literature is full of examples of writers with a suspected or confirmed diagnosis of epilepsy: Moliere, Edgar Allan Poe, Flaubert.... Dostoevsky had his first attack when he was nine years old, and said that it brought him moments when he felt utterly at peace with the world as well as moments of terrible depression. Don't take all of this too seriously, and don't go thinking that you might develop epilepsy because of your accident. I haven't come across a single case of epilepsy being caused by colliding with a motorbike."

"As I said, this is someone I actually know."

"Does the boy with the predictions really exist or did you invent all this simply because you think you might have pa.s.sed out when you stepped off the pavement?"

"On the contrary, I hate knowing about illnesses. Whenever I read a medical book, I immediately start to get all the symptoms."

"Let me tell you something, but please don't take it the wrong way. I think this accident did you a lot of good. You seem calmer, less obsessed. A brush with death always helps us to live our lives better; that's what your wife told me when she gave me a bit of bloodstained fabric, which I always carry with me, even though, as a doctor, I see death, close to, every day."

"Did she say why she gave you the cloth?"

"She was very generous in her description of my work. She said that I was capable of combining technique with intuition, discipline with love. She told me that a soldier, before he died, had asked her to take his blood-soaked shirt, cut it into pieces, and share those pieces among people who were genuinely trying to reveal the world as it is. I imagine you, with all your books, must also have a bit of this shirt."

"No, I haven't."

"Do you know why?""I do, or, rather, I'm beginning to find out."

"And since I'm not only your doctor, but your friend, may I give you some advice? If this epileptic boy did tell you that he can foresee the future, then he knows nothing about medicine."

Zagreb, Croatia. 6:30 a.m.

Marie and I are sitting by a frozen fountain. It appears that, this year, spring has decided not to happen; indeed, it looks as if we will jump straight from winter into summer. In the middle of the fountain stands a column with a statue on top.

I have spent the entire afternoon giving interviews and cannot bear to say another word about my new book. The journalists all ask the usual questions: Has my wife read the book (I don't know)? Do I feel I've been unfairly treated by the critics (what?)? Has A Time to Rend and a Time to Sew shocked my readers at all, given that I reveal a great deal about my personal life (a writer can only write about his own life)? Will the book be made into a film (I repeat for the nth time that the film happens in the reader's mind and that I have forbidden the sale of film rights on any of my books)? What do I think about love? Why did I choose to write about love? How can one be happy in love, love, love, love?...

Once the interviews are over, there's the publisher's supper-it's part of the ritual. The table is packed with local worthies who keep interrupting me just as I'm about to put my fork in my mouth, and usually ask the same thing: "Where do you find your inspiration?"

I try to eat, but I must also be pleasant, I must chat, fulfill my role as celebrity, tell a few interesting stories, make a good impression. I know that the publisher is a real hero, because he can never tell whether a book will sell or not; he could be selling bananas or soap instead; it would certainly be easier: they're not vain, they don't have inflated egos, they don't complain if they don't like the publicity campaign or if their book doesn't appear in a particular bookshop.

After supper, it's the usual routine: they want to show me their city's monuments, historic places, fashionable bars. There is always a guide who knows absolutely everything and fills my head with information, and I have to look as if I'm really listening and ask the occasional question just to show interest. I know nearly all the monuments, museums, and historic places of all the many cities I have visited to promote my work-and I can't remember any of them. What I do remember are the unexpected things, the meetings with readers, the bars, perhaps a street I happened to walk down, where I turned a corner and came upon something wonderful.

One day, I'm going to write a travel guide containing only maps and addresses of hotels, and with the rest of the pages blank. That way people will have to make their own itinerary, to discover for themselves restaurants, monuments, and all the magnificent things that every city has, but which are never mentioned because "the history we have been taught" does not include them under the heading Things You Must See.

I've been to Zagreb before. And this fountain doesn't appear in any of the local tourist guides, but it is far more important to me than anything else I saw here-because it is pretty, because I discovered it by chance, and because it is linked to a story in my life.

Many years ago, when I was a young man traveling the world in search of adventure, Isat in this very spot with a Croatian painter who had traveled with me for much of the journey. I was heading off into Turkey and he was going home. We said goodbye here, drank two bottles of wine between us, and talked about everything that had happened while we had been together, about religion, women, music, the price of hotels, drugs. We talked about everything except love, because although there were people we loved, there was no need to talk about it.

After the painter had returned to his house, I met a young woman and we spent three days together and loved each other with great intensity because we both knew that it would not last very long. She helped me to understand the soul of those people and I never forgot her, just as I never forgot the fountain or saying goodbye to my traveling companion.

This was why-after the interviews, the autographs, the supper, the visits to monuments and historic places-I pestered my publishers into bringing me to this fountain. They asked me where it was, and I had no idea, just as I had no idea that Zagreb had so many fountains. After nearly an hour of searching, we finally managed to locate it. I asked for a bottle of wine, we said goodbye to everyone, and Marie and I sat down together in silence, our arms about each other, drinking wine and waiting for the sun to come up.

"You seem to get happier and happier by the day," she says, resting her head on my shoulder.

"That's because I'm trying to forget who I am. Or rather, I don't need to carry the weight of my whole history on my shoulders."

I tell her about Mikhail's conversation with the nomad.

"It's rather like that with actors," she says. "With each new role, we have to stop being who we are in order to become the character. We tend to end up confused and neurotic. Is it such a good idea to abandon your personal history, do you think?"

"Didn't you say I seemed better?"

"Less egotistical, yes. Although it amused me the way you wouldn't let us rest until you found this fountain, but that goes against what you've just said, since the fountain is part of your past."

"For me, it's a symbol. But I don't carry this fountain around with me, I don't think about it all the time, I don't take photos of it to show my friends, I don't long for the painter or for the young woman I fell in love with. It's really good to come back here again, but if I hadn't come back, it wouldn't make any difference to that initial experience."

"I see what you're saying."

"I'm glad."

"And I'm sad, because it makes me think that you're about to leave. I've known you would ever since we first met, but it's still difficult, because I've got used to being with you."

"That's the problem, we do get used to things."

"It's human too."

"That's why the woman I married became the Zahir. Until I had that accident, I had convinced myself that I could only be happy with her, not because I loved her more than anything and anyone in the world, but because I thought only she could understand me; she knew my likes, my eccentricities, my way of seeing the world. I was grateful for what she had done for me, and I thought she should be grateful for what I had done forher. I was used to seeing the world through her eyes. Do you remember that story about the two firemen who emerge from the fire and one has his face all blackened by smoke?"

She sat up straight. I noticed that her eyes were full of tears.

"Well, that is what the world was like for me," I went on. "A reflection of Esther's beauty. Is that love? Or is that dependency?"

"I don't know. I think love and dependency go hand in hand."

"Possibly. But let's suppose that instead of writing A Time to Rend and a Time to Sew, which is really just a letter to a woman who is far away, I had chosen a different plot, for example, a husband and wife who have been together for ten years. They used to make love every day, now they only make love once a week, but that doesn't really matter because there is also solidarity, mutual support, companionship. He feels sad when he has to have supper alone because she is working late. She hates it when he has to go away, but accepts that it is part of his job. They feel that something is missing, but they are both grown-ups, they are both mature people, and they know how important it is to keep their relationship stable, even if only for the children's sake. They devote more and more time to work and to the children, they think less and less about their marriage. Everything appears to be going really well, and there's certainly no other man or woman in their lives.

"Yet they sense that something is wrong. They can't quite put their finger on the problem. As time pa.s.ses, they grow more and more dependent on each other; they are getting older; any opportunities to make a new life are vanishing fast. They try to keep busy doing reading or embroidery, watching television, seeing friends, but there is always the conversation over supper or after supper. He is easily irritated, she is more silent than usual. They can see that they are growing further and further apart, but cannot understand why. They reach the conclusion that this is what marriage is like, but won't talk to their friends about it; they are the image of the happy couple who support each other and share the same interests. She takes a lover, so does he, but it's never anything serious, of course. What is important, necessary, essential, is to act as if nothing is happening, because it's too late to change."

"I know that story, although I've never experienced it myself. And I think we spend our lives being trained to put up with situations like that."

I take off my coat and climb onto the edge of the fountain. She asks me what I'm doing.

"I'm going to walk over to that column in the middle of the fountain."

"You're mad. It's spring now, the ice will be getting really thin."

"I need to walk over to the column."

I place one foot on the surface, the whole sheet of ice moves, but does not crack. With one eye on the rising sun, I make a kind of wager with G.o.d: if I manage to reach the column and come back without the ice cracking, that will be a sign that I am on the right path, and that his hand is showing me where I should go.

"You'll fall in the water."

"So? The worst that can happen is that I'll get a bit cold, but the hotel isn't far away and I won't have to suffer for long."

I put my other foot on the ice: I am now in the fountain. The ice breaks away from the edges and a little water laps onto the surface of the ice, but the ice does not break. I set off toward the column. It's only about four meters there and back, and all I risk is gettinga very cold bath. However, I mustn't think about what might happen: I've taken the first step and I must continue to the end.

I reach the column, touch it with my hand, hear everything around me creaking, but I'm still on the ice. My first instinct is to run back, but something tells me that if I do that, my steps will become heavier, firmer, and I'll fall into the water. I must walk back slowly, at the same pace.

The sun is rising ahead of me; it dazzles me slightly. I can see only Marie's silhouette and the shapes of the buildings and the trees. The sheet of ice keeps shifting, water spills over onto the surface, but I know-with absolute certainty-that I will reach the edge. I am in communion with the day, with my choices. I know the limits of the frozen water; I know how to deal with it, how to ask for its help, to keep me from falling. I begin to enter a kind of trance, a euphoric state; I am a child again, doing something that is wrong, forbidden, but which gives me enormous pleasure. Wonderful! Crazy pacts with G.o.d, along the lines of "If I manage to do this, then so and so will happen," signs provoked not by anything that comes from outside, but by instinct, by my capacity to forget the old rules and create new situations.

I am grateful for having met Mikhail, the epileptic who thinks he can hear voices. I went to his meeting at the restaurant in search of my wife and discovered that I was turning into a pale reflection of myself. Is Esther still important? I think so, for it was her love that changed my life once and which is transforming me now. My history had grown old and was becoming ever heavier to carry, and far too serious for me ever to take risks like walking on ice, making a wager with G.o.d, forcing a sign to appear. I had forgotten that one has to continue walking the road to Santiago, to discard any unnecessary baggage, to keep only what you need in order to live each day, and to allow the energy of love to flow freely, from the outside in and from the inside out.

Another cracking sound, and a fault line appears across the surface, but I know I will make it, because I am light, so light that I could even walk on a cloud and not fall to earth. I am not carrying with me the weight of fame, of stories I have told, of itineraries to follow. I am so transparent that the sun's rays can penetrate my body and illumine my soul. I see that there are still many dark areas inside me, but with perseverance and courage they will gradually be washed away.

Another step, and I remember the envelope on my desk at home. Soon I will open it and, instead of walking on ice, I will set off along the path that leads me to Esther. I will do so not because I want her by my side, for she is free to remain where she is. It is not because I dream day and night of the Zahir; that loving, destructive obsession seems to have vanished. It is not because I am used to my past as it was and pa.s.sionately want to go back to it.

Another step, more sounds of cracking, but safety and the edge of the fountain are close.

I will open the envelope and go and find her because-as Mikhail, the epileptic, the seer, the guru of the Armenian restaurant, says-this story needs to reach its end. When everything has been told and retold countless times, when the places I have visited, the things I have experienced, the steps I have taken because of her are all transformed into distant memories, nothing will remain but pure love. I won't feel as if I owe anything, I won't feel that I need her because only she can understand me, because I'm used to her, because she knows my vices and my virtues, knows that I like to have a slice of toast before I go to bed and to watch the international news when I wake up, that I have to gofor a walk every morning, or that she knows about my collection of books on archery, about the hours spent in front of the computer screen, writing, about how annoyed I get when the maid keeps calling me to tell me the food is on the table.

All that will disappear. What remains will be the love that moves the heavens, the stars, people, flowers, insects, the love that obliges us all to walk across the ice despite the danger, that fills us with joy and with fear, and gives meaning to everything.

I touch the edge of the fountain, a hand reaches out to me, I grab hold of it, and Marie helps to steady me as I step down.

"I'm proud of you. I would never do anything like that."

"Not so long ago, I wouldn't have either; it seems so childish, irresponsible, unnecessary, pointless. But I am being reborn and I need to take new risks."

"The morning light is obviously good for you; you're talking like a wise man."

"No wise man would do what I've just done."

I have to write an important article for a magazine that is one of my major creditors in the Favor Bank. I have hundreds, thousands of ideas in my head, but I don't know which of them merits my effort, my concentration, my blood.

It is not the first time this has happened, but I feel as if I have said everything of importance that I need to say. I feel as if I'm losing my memory and forgetting who I am.

I go over to the window and look out at the street. I try to convince myself that I am professionally fulfilled and have nothing more to prove, that I can justifiably withdraw to a house in the mountains and spend the rest of my life reading, walking, and talking about food and the weather. I tell myself over and over that I have achieved what almost no other writer has achieved-my books have been translated into nearly every written language in the world. Why worry about a mere magazine article, however important the magazine itself might be? Because of the Favor Bank. So I really do need to write something, but what have I got to say to people? Should I tell them that they need to forget all the stories that have been told to them and take more risks?

They'll all say, "I'm an independent being, thank you very much. I'll do as I please."

Should I tell them that they must allow the energy of love to flow more freely?

They'll say, "I feel love already. In fact, I feel more and more love," as if love could be measured the way we measure the distance between two railway tracks, the height of buildings, or the amount of yeast needed to make a loaf of bread.

I return to my desk. The envelope Mikhail left for me is open. I now know where Esther is; I just need to know how to get there. I phone him and tell him about my walk across the ice. He is impressed. I ask him what he's doing tonight, and he says he's going out with his girlfriend, Lucrecia. I suggest taking them both to supper. No, not tonight, but, if I like, I could go out with him and his friends next week.

I tell him that next week I'm giving a talk in the United States. There's no hurry, he says, we can wait two weeks.

"You must have heard a voice telling you to walk on the ice," he says.