"Then someone, seeing what was happening in a neighboring tribe, decided to avoid the same thing happening in his. He invented a story according to which the gods forbade men to make love indiscriminately with any of the women in a tribe. They could only make love with one or, at most, two. Some men were impotent, some women were sterile, some members of the tribe, for perfectly natural reasons, thus had no children at all, but no one was allowed to change partners.
"They all believed the story because the person who told it to them was speaking in the name of the gods. He must have been different in some way: he perhaps had a deformity, an illness that caused convulsions, or some special gift, something, at any rate, that marked him out from the others, because that is how the first leaders emerged. In a few years, the tribe grew stronger, with just the right number of men needed to feed everyone, with enough women capable of reproducing and enough children to replace the hunters and reproducers. Do you know what gives a woman most pleasure within marriage?"
"Sex."
"No, making food. Watching her man eat. That is a woman's moment of glory, because she spends all day thinking about supper. And the reason must lie in that story hidden in the past--in hunger, the threat of extinction, and the path to survival."
"Do you regret not having had any children?"
"It didn't happen, did it? How can I regret something that didn't happen?"
"Do you think that would have changed our marriage?"
"How can I possibly know? I look at my friends, both male and female. Are they any happier because they have children? Some are, some aren't. And if they are happy with their children that doesn't make their relationship either better or worse. They still think they have the right to control each other. They still think that the promise to live happily ever after must be kept, even at the cost of daily unhappiness."
"War isn't good for you, Esther. It brings you into contact with a very different reality from the one we experience here. I know I'll die one day, but that just makes me live each day as if it were a miracle. It doesn't make me think obsessively about love, happiness, sex, food, and marriage."
"War doesn't leave me time to think. I simply am, full stop. Whenever it occurs to me that, at any moment, I could be hit by a stray bullet, I just think: 'Good, at least I don't have to worry about what will happen to my child.' But I think too: 'What a shame, I'm going to die and nothing will be left of me. I am only capable of losing a life, not bringing a life into the world.'"
"Do you think there's something wrong with our relationship? I only ask because I get the feeling sometimes that you want to tell me something, but that you keep stopping yourself."
"Yes, there is something wrong. We feel obliged to be happy together. You think you owe me everything that you are, and I feel privileged to have a man like you at my side."
"I have a wife whom I love, but I don't always remember that and find myself asking: 'What's wrong with me?'"
"It's good that you're able to recognize that, but I don't think there's anything wrong with you, or with me, because I ask myself the same question. What's wrong is the way in which we show our love now. If we were to accept that this creates problems, we could live with those problems and be happy. It would be a constant battle, but it would at least keep us active, alive and cheerful, with many universes to conquer; the trouble is we're heading toward a point where things are becoming too comfortable, where love stops creating problems and confrontations and becomes instead merely a solution."
"What's wrong with that?"
"Everything. I can no longer feel the energy of love, what people call passion, flowing through my flesh and through my soul."
"But something is left."
"Left? Does every marriage have to end like this, with passion giving way to something people call 'a mature relationship'? I need you. I miss you. Sometimes I'm jealous. I like thinking about what to give you for supper, even though sometimes you don't even notice what you're eating. But there's a lack of joy."
"No, there isn't. Whenever you're far away, I wish you were near. I imagine the conversations we'll have when you or I come back from a trip. I phone you to make sure everything's all right. I need to hear your voice every day. I'm still passionate about you, I can guarantee you that."
"It's the same with me, but what happens when we're together? We argue, we quarrel over nothing, one of us wants to change the other, to impose his or her view of reality. You demand things of me that make no sense at all, and I do the same. Sometimes, in the silence of our hearts, we say to ourselves: 'How good it would be to be free, to have no commitments.'"
"You're right. And at moments like that, I feel lost, because I know that I'm with the woman I want to be with."
"And I'm with the man I always wanted to have by my side."
"Do you think that could change?"
"As I get older, and fewer men look at me, I find myself thinking: 'Just leave things as they are.' I'm sure I can happily deceive myself for the rest of my life. And yet, whenever I go off to cover a war, I see that a greater love exists, much greater than the hatred that makes men kill each other. And then, and only then, do I think I can change things."
"But you can't be constantly covering wars."
"Nor can I live constantly in the sort of peace that I find with you. It's destroying the one important thing I have: my relationship with you, even if the intensity of my love remains undiminished."
"Millions of people the world over are thinking the same thing right now, they resist fiercely and allow those moments of depression to pass. They withstand one, two, three crises and, finally, find peace."
"You know that isn't how it is. Otherwise you wouldn't have written the books you've written."
I had arranged to meet the American actor-director for lunch at Roberto's pizzeria. I needed to go back there as soon as possible in order to dispel any bad impression I might have made. Before I left, I told the maid and the caretaker of the apartment building that if I was not back in time and a young man with Mongolian features should deliver a package for me, they must take him up to my apartment, ask him to wait in the living room, and give him anything he needed. If, for some reason, the young man could not wait, then they should ask him to leave the package with one of them.
Above all, they must not let him leave without handing over the package!
I caught a taxi and asked to be dropped off on the corner of Boulevard St-Germain and Rue des Sts-Peres. A fine rain was falling, but it was only a few yards to the restaurant, its discreet sign, and Roberto's generous smile, for he sometimes stood outside, smoking a cigarette. A woman with a baby stroller was coming toward me along the narrow pavement, and because there wasn't room for both of us, I stepped off the curb to let her pass.
It was then, in slow motion, that the world gave a giant lurch: the ground became the sky, the sky became the ground; I had time to notice a few architectural details on the top of the building on the corner--I had often walked past before, but had never looked up. I remember the sensation of surprise, the feeling of a wind blowing hard in my ear, and the sound of a dog barking in the distance; then everything went dark.
I was bundled abruptly down a black hole at the end of which was a light. Before I could reach it, however, invisible hands were dragging me roughly back up, and I woke to voices and shouts all around me: it could only have lasted a matter of seconds. I was aware of the taste of blood in my mouth, the smell of wet asphalt, and then I realized that I had had an accident. I was conscious and unconscious at the same time; I tried without success to move; I could make out another person lying on the ground beside me; I could smell that person's smell, her perfume; I imagined it must be the woman who had been pushing her baby along the pavement. Oh, dear God!
Someone came over and tried to help me up; I yelled at them not to touch me, any movement could be dangerous. I had learned during a trivial conversation one trivial night that if I ever injured my neck, any sudden movement could le
ave me permanently paralyzed.
I struggled to remain conscious; I waited for a pain that never came; I tried to move, then thought better of it. I experienced a feeling like cramp, like torpor. I again asked not to be moved. I heard a distant siren and knew then that I could sleep, that I no longer needed to fight to save my life; whether it was won or lost, it was no longer up to me, it was up to the doctors, to the nurses, to fate, to "the thing," to God.
I heard the voice of a child--she told me her name, but I couldn't quite grasp it--telling me to keep calm, promising me that I wouldn't die. I wanted to believe what she said, I begged her to stay by my side, but she vanished; I was aware of someone placing something plastic around my neck, putting a mask over my face, and then I went to sleep again, and this time there were no dreams.
When I regained consciousness, all I could hear was a horrible buzzing in my ears; the rest was silence and utter darkness. Suddenly, I felt everything moving, and I was sure I was being carried along in my coffin, that I was about to be buried alive!
I tried banging on the walls, but I couldn't move a muscle. For what seemed an eternity, I felt as if I were being propelled helplessly forward; then, mustering all my remaining strength, I uttered a scream that echoed around the enclosed space and came back to my own ears, almost deafening me; but I knew that once I had screamed, I was safe, for a light immediately began to appear at my feet: they had realized I wasn't dead!
Light, blessed light--which would save me from that worst of all tortures, suffocation--was gradually illuminating my whole body: they were finally removing the coffin lid. I broke out in a cold sweat, felt the most terrible pain, but was also happy and relieved that they had realized their mistake and that joy could return to the world!
The light finally reached my eyes: a soft hand touched mine, someone with an angelic face was wiping the sweat from my brow.
"Don't worry," said the angelic face, with its golden hair and white robes. "I'm not an angel, you didn't die, and this isn't a coffin, it's just a body scanner, to find out if you suffered any other injuries. There doesn't appear to be anything seriously wrong, but you'll have to stay in for observation."
"No broken bones?"
"Just general abrasions. If I brought you a mirror, you'd be horrified, but the swelling will go down in a few days."
I tried to get up, but she very gently stopped me. Then I felt a terrible pain in my head and groaned.
"You've had an accident; it's only natural that you should be in pain."
"I think you're lying to me," I managed to say. "I'm a grown man, I've had a good life, I can take bad news without panicking. Some blood vessel in my head is about to burst, isn't it?"
Two nurses appeared and put me on a stretcher. I realized that I had an orthopedic collar around my neck.
"Someone told us that you asked not to be moved," said the angel. "Just as well. You'll have to wear this collar for a while, but barring any unforeseen events--because one can never tell what might happen--you'll just have had a nasty shock. You're very lucky."
"How long? I can't stay here."
No one said anything. Marie was waiting for me outside the radiology unit, smiling. The doctors had obviously already told her that my injuries were not, in principle, very serious. She stroked my hair and carefully disguised any shock she might feel at my appearance.
Our small cortege proceeded along the corridor--Marie, the two nurses pushing the stretcher, and the angel in white. The pain in my head was getting worse all the time.
"Nurse, my head..."
"I'm not a nurse. I'm your doctor for the moment. We're waiting for your own doctor to arrive. As for your head, don't worry. When you have an accident, your body closes down all the blood vessels as a defense mechanism, to avoid loss of blood. When it sees that the danger is over, the vessels open up again, the blood starts to flow, and that feels painful, but that's all it is. Anyway, if you like, I can give you something to help you sleep."
I refused. And as if surfacing from some dark corner of my soul, I remembered the words I had heard the day before:
"The voice says that it will only allow these things to happen when the time is right."
He couldn't have known. It wasn't possible that everything that had happened on the corner of Boulevard St-Germain and Rue des Sts-Peres was the result of some universal conspiracy, of something predetermined by the gods, who, despite being fully occupied in taking care of this precariously balanced planet on the verge of extinction, had all downed tools merely to prevent me from going in search of the Zahir. Mikhail could not possibly have foreseen the future, unless he really had heard a voice and there was a plan and this was all far more important than I imagined.
Everything was beginning to be too much for me: Marie's smiles, the possibility that someone really had heard a voice, the increasingly agonizing pain in my head.
"Doctor, I've changed my mind. I want to sleep. I can't stand the pain."
She said something to one of the nurses pushing the trolley, who went off and returned even before we had reached my room. I felt a prick in my arm and immediately fell asleep.
When I woke up, I wanted to know exactly what had happened; I wanted to know if the woman passing me on the pavement had escaped injury and what had happened to her baby. Marie said that I needed to rest, but, by then, Dr. Louit, my doctor and friend, had arrived and felt that there was no reason not to tell me. I had been knocked down by a motorbike. The body I had seen lying on the ground beside me had been the young male driver. He had been taken to the same hospital and, like me, had escaped with only minor abrasions. The police investigation carried out immediately after the accident made it clear that I had been standing in the middle of the road at the time of the accident, thus putting the motorcyclist's life at risk.
It was, apparently, all my fault, but the motorcyclist had decided not to press charges. Marie had been to see him and talk to him; she had learned that he was an immigrant working illegally and was afraid of having any dealings with the police. He had been discharged twenty-four hours later, because he had been wearing a helmet, which lessened the risk of any damage to the brain.
"Did you say he left twenty-four hours later? Does that mean I've been in here more than a day?"
"You've been in here for three days. When you came out of the body scanner, the doctor here phoned me to ask if she could keep you on sedatives. It seemed to me that you'd been rather tense, irritated, and depressed lately, and so I told her she could."
"So what happens next?"
"Two more days in the hospital and then three weeks with that contraption around your neck; you're through the critical forty-eight-hour period. Of course, part of your body could still rebel against the idea of continuing to behave itself and then we'd have a problem on our hands. But let's face that emergency if and when it arises; there's no point in worrying unnecessarily."
"So, I could still die?"
"As you well know, all of us not only can, but will, die."
"Yes, but could I still die as a result of the accident?"
Dr. Louit paused.
"Yes. There's always the chance that a blood clot could have formed which the machines have failed to pick up and that it could break free at any moment and cause an embolism. There's also the possibility that a cell has gone berserk and is starting to form a cancer."
"You shouldn't say things like that," said Marie.
"We've been friends for five years. He asked me a question and I gave him an answer. And now, if you don't mind, I have to get back to my office. Medicine isn't quite as you think. In the world we live in, if a boy goes out to buy five apples, but arrives home with only two, people would conclude that he had eaten the three missing apples. In my world, there are other possibilities: he could have eaten them, but he could also have been robbed; the money he'd been given might not have been enough to buy the five apples he'd been sent for; he could have lost them on the way home; he could have met someone who was hu
ngry and decided to share the fruit with that person, and so on. In my world, everything is possible and everything is relative."
"What do you know about epilepsy?"
Marie knew at once that I was talking about Mikhail and could not conceal a flicker of displeasure. She said she had to go, there was a film crew waiting.
Dr. Louit, however, having picked up his things ready to leave, stopped to answer my question.
"It's an excess of electrical impulses in one specific area of the brain, which provokes convulsions of greater or lesser severity. There's no definitive study on the subject, but they think attacks may be provoked when the person is under great strain. But don't worry, while epileptic symptoms can appear at any age, epilepsy itself is unlikely to be brought on by colliding with a motorcycle."
"So what causes it?"
"I'm not a specialist, but, if you like, I can find out."
"Yes, if you would. And I have another question too, but please don't go thinking that my brain's been affected by the accident. Is it possible that epileptics can hear voices and have premonitions?"
"Did someone tell you this accident was going to happen?"
"Not exactly, but that's what I took it to mean."
"Look, I can't stay any longer, I'm giving Marie a lift, but I'll see what I can find out about epilepsy for you."
For the two days that Marie was away, and despite the shock of the accident, the Zahir took up its usual space in my life. I knew that if Mikhail had kept his word, there would be an envelope waiting for me at home containing Esther's address; now, however, the thought frightened me.
What if Mikhail was telling the truth about the voice?
I started trying to remember the details of the accident: I had stepped down from the curb, automatically looking to see if anything was coming; I'd seen a car approaching, but it had appeared to be a safe distance away. And yet I had still been hit, possibly by a motorbike that was trying to overtake the car and was outside my field of vision.