In the room lit only by the candles, all I could hear was the labored breathing of those who had danced. Gradually, the sound faded, the lights were switched back on, and everything seemed to have returned to normal. Glasses were again filled with beer, wine, water, soft drinks; the children started running about and talking loudly, and soon everyone was chatting as if nothing, absolutely nothing, had happened.
"It's nearly time to close the meeting," said the young woman who had lit the candles. "Alma has one final story."
Alma was the woman playing the cymbal. She spoke with the accent of someone who has lived in the East.
"The master had a buffalo. The animal's widespread horns made him think that if he could manage to sit between them, it would be like sitting on a throne. One day, when the animal was distracted, he climbed up between the horns and did just that. The buffalo, however, immediately lumbered to its feet and threw him off. When his wife saw this, she began to cry.
"'Don't cry,' said the master, once he had recovered. 'I may have suffered, but I also realized my dream.'"
People started leaving. I asked my neighbor what he had felt.
"You should know. You write about it in your books."
I didn't know, but I had to pretend that I did.
"Maybe I do know, but I want to be sure."
He looked at me, unconvinced, and clearly began to doubt that I really was the author he thought he knew.
"I was in touch with the energy of the universe," he replied. "God passed through my soul."
And he left, so as not to have to explain what he had said.
In the empty room there were now only the four actors, the two musicians, and myself. The women went off to the ladies' bathroom, presumably to change their clothes. The men took off their white costumes right there in the room and donned their ordinary clothes. They immediately began putting away the candelabra and the musical instruments in two large cases.
The older man, who had played the drum during the ceremony, started counting the money and putting it into six equal piles. I think it was only then that Mikhail noticed my presence.
"I thought I'd see you here."
"And I imagine you know the reason."
"After I've let the divine energy pass through my body, I know the reason for everything. I know the reason for love and for war. I know why a man searches for the woman he loves."
I again felt as if I were walking along a knife edge. If he knew that I was here because of my Zahir, then he also knew that this was a threat to his relationship with Esther.
"May we talk, like two men of honor fighting for something worthwhile?"
Mikhail seemed to hesitate slightly. I went on:
"I know that I'll emerge bruised and battered, like the master who wanted to sit between the buffalo's horns, but I deserve it. I deserve it because of the pain I inflicted, however unconsciously. I don't believe Esther would have left me if I had respected her love."
"You understand nothing," said Mikhail.
These words irritated me. How could a twenty-five-year-old tell an experienced man who had suffered and been tested by life that he understood nothing? I had to control myself, to humble myself, to do whatever was necessary. I could not go on living with ghosts, I could not allow my whole universe to continue being dominated by the Zahir.
"Maybe I really don't understand, but that's precisely why I'm here--in order to understand. To free myself by understanding what happened."
"You understood everything quite clearly, and then suddenly stopped understanding; at least that's what Esther told me. As happens with all husbands, there came a point when you started to treat your wife as if she were just part of the goods and chattel."
I was tempted to say: "Why didn't she tell me that herself? Why didn't she give me a chance to correct my mistakes and not leave me for a twenty-five-year-old who will only end up treating her just as I did." Some more cautious words emerged from my mouth however.
"I don't think that's true. You've read my book, you came to my book signing because you knew what I felt and wanted to reassure me. My heart is still in pieces: have you ever heard of the Zahir?"
"I was brought up in the Islamic religion, so, yes, I'm familiar with the idea."
"Well, Esther fills up every space in my life. I thought that by writing about my feelings, I would free myself from her presence. Now I love her in a more silent way, but I can't think about anything else. I beg you, please, I'll do anything you want, but I need you to explain to me why she disappeared like that. As you yourself said, I understand nothing."
It was very hard to stand there pleading with my wife's lover to help me understand what had happened. If Mikhail had not come to the book signing, perhaps that moment in the cathedral in Vitoria, where I acknowledged my love for her and out of which I wrote A Time to Rend and a Time to Sew, would have been enough. Fate, however, had other plans, and the mere possibility of being able to see my wife again had upset everything.
"Let's have lunch together," said Mikhail, after a long pause. "You really don't understand anything. But the divine energy that today passed through my body is generous with you."
We arranged to meet the next day. On the way home, I remembered a conversation I had had with Esther three months before she disappeared.
A conversation about divine energy passing through the body.
Their eyes really are different. There's the fear of death in them, of course, but beyond that, there's the idea of sacrifice. Their lives are meaningful because they are ready to offer them up for a cause."
"You're talking about soldiers, are you?"
"Yes, and I'm talking as well about something I find terribly hard to accept, but which I can't pretend I don't see. War is a ritual. A blood ritual, but also a love ritual."
"You're mad."
"Maybe I am. But I've met other war correspondents, too, who go from one country to the next, as if the routine of death were part of their lives. They're not afraid of anything, they face danger the way a soldier does. And all for a news report? I don't think so. They can no longer live without the danger, the adventure, the adrenaline in their blood. One of them, a married man with three children, told me that the place where he feels most at ease is in a war zone, even though he adores his family and talks all the time about his wife and kids."
"I just can't understand it at all. Look, Esther, I don't want to interfere in your life, but I think this experience will end up doing you real harm."
"It would harm me more to be living a life without meaning. In a war, everyone knows they're experiencing something important."
"A historic moment, you mean?"
"No, that isn't enough of a reason for risking your life. No, I mean that they're experiencing the true essence of man."
"War?"
"No, love."
"You're becoming like them."
"I think I am."
"Tell your news agency you've had enough."
"I can't. It's like a drug. As long as I'm in a war zone, my life has meaning. I go for days without having a bath, I eat whatever the soldiers eat, I sleep three hours a night and wake up to the sound of gunfire. I know that at any moment someone could lob a grenade into the place where we're sitting, and that makes me live, do you see? Really live, I mean, loving every minute, every second. There's no room for sadness, doubts, nothing; there's just a great love for life. Are you listening?"
"Absolutely."
"It's as if there was a divine light shining in the midst of every battle, in the midst of that worst of all possible situations. Fear exists before and after, but not while the shots are being fired, because, at that moment, you see men at their very limit, capable of the most heroic of actions and the most inhumane. They run out under a hail of bullets to rescue a comrade, and at the same time shoot anything that moves--children, women--anyone who comes within their line of fire will die. People from small, provincial towns where nothing ever happened and where they were always
decent citizens find themselves invading museums, destroying centuries-old works of art, and stealing things they don't need. They take photos of atrocities that they themselves committed and, rather than trying to conceal these, they feel proud. And people who, before, were always disloyal and treacherous feel a kind of camaraderie and solidarity and become incapable of doing wrong. It's a mad world, completely topsy-turvy."
"Has it helped you answer the question that Hans asked Fritz in that bar in Tokyo in the story you told me?"
"Yes, the answer lies in some words written by the Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin, the same man who said that our world is surrounded by a layer of love. He said: 'We can harness the energy of the winds, the seas, the sun. But the day man learns to harness the energy of love, that will be as important as the discovery of fire.'"
"And you could only learn that by going to a war zone?"
"I'm not sure, but it did allow me to see that, paradoxical though it may seem, people are happy when they're at war. For them, the world has meaning. As I said before, total power or sacrificing themselves for a cause gives meaning to their lives. They are capable of limitless love, because they no longer have anything to lose. A fatally wounded soldier never asks the medical team: 'Please save me!' His last words are usually: 'Tell my wife and my son that I love them.' At the last moment, they speak of love!"
"So, in your opinion, human beings only find life meaningful when they're at war."
"But we're always at war. We're at war with death, and we know that death will win in the end. In armed conflicts, this is simply more obvious, but the same thing happens in daily life. We can't allow ourselves the luxury of being unhappy all the time."
"What do you want me to do?"
"I need help. And that doesn't mean saying to me, 'Go and hand in your notice,' because that would only leave me feeling even more confused than before. We need to find a way of channeling all this, of allowing the energy of this pure, absolute love to flow through our bodies and spread around us. The only person so far who has helped me understand this is a rather otherworldly interpreter who says he's had revelations about this energy."
"Are you talking about the love of God?"
"If someone is capable of loving his partner without restrictions, unconditionally, then he is manifesting the love of God. If the love of God becomes manifest, he will love his neighbor. If he loves his neighbor, he will love himself. If he loves himself, then everything returns to its proper place. History changes."
"History will never change because of politics or conquests or theories or wars; that's mere repetition, it's been going on since the beginning of time. History will only change when we are able to use the energy of love, just as we use the energy of the wind, the seas, the atom."
"Do you think we two could save the world?"
"I think there are more people out there who think the same way. Will you help me?"
"Yes, as long as you tell what I have to do."
"But that's precisely what I don't know!"
I had been a regular customer at this charming pizzeria ever since my very first visit to Paris, so much so that it has become part of my history. Most recently, I had held a supper here to celebrate receiving the medal of Officer of Arts and Literature presented to me by the Ministry of Culture, even though many people felt that the commemoration of such an important event should have taken place somewhere more elegant and more expensive. But Roberto, the owner, had become a kind of good-luck charm to me; whenever I went to his restaurant, something good happened in my life.
"I could start with some small talk about the success of A Time to Rend and a Time to Sew or the contradictory emotions I felt last night as I watched your performance."
"It's not a performance, it's a meeting," he said. "We tell stories and we dance in order to feel the energy of love."
"I could talk about anything just to put you at your ease, but we both know why we're here."
"We're here because of your wife," said Mikhail, who was now full of a young man's defiance and in no way resembled the shy boy at the book signing or the spiritual leader of that "meeting."
"You mean my ex-wife. And I would like to ask you a favor: take me to her. I want her to look me in the eye and tell me why she left. Only then will I be free of the Zahir. Otherwise, I'll go on thinking about her day and night, night and day, going over and over our story, our history, again and again, trying to pinpoint the moment when I went wrong and our paths began to diverge."
He laughed.
"Reviewing history's a great idea, that's the only way you can make things change."
"Very clever, but I'd prefer to leave philosophical discussions to one side for the moment. I'm sure that, like all young men, you hold in your hands the precise formula for putting the world to rights. However, like all young men, you will one day be as old as me and then you'll see that it's not so easy to change things. But there's no point talking about that now. Can you grant me that favor?"
"I must first ask you something: Did she say goodbye?"
"No."
"Did she say she was going away?"
"No, she didn't. You know that."
"Do you think that, given the kind of person Esther is, she would be capable of leaving a man she had lived with for more than ten years without first confronting him and explaining her reasons?"
"That's precisely what I find most troubling. But what are you getting at?"
The conversation was interrupted by Roberto, who wanted to know if we were ready to order. Mikhail asked for a Napolitana and I told Roberto to choose for me--this was hardly the moment to be worrying about what I should eat. The only thing we needed urgently was a bottle of red wine, as quickly as possible. When Roberto asked me what sort of wine and I muttered an inaudible reply, he understood that he should simply leave us alone and not ask me anything else during lunch, but take all the necessary decisions himself, thus leaving me free to concentrate on my conversation with the young man before me.
The wine arrived within thirty seconds. I filled our glasses.
"What's she doing?"
"Do you really want to know?"
It irritated me to receive a question in response to mine.
"Yes, I do."
"She's making carpets and giving French lessons."
Carpets! My wife (ex-wife, please, do try and get used to it), who had all the money she could possibly need, had a degree in journalism, spoke four languages, was now obliged to making a living weaving carpets and giving French lessons to foreigners? I must get a grip on myself. I couldn't risk wounding the young man's male pride, even though I thought it shameful that he couldn't give Esther everything she deserved.
"Please, you must understand what I've been going through for the last year or more. I'm no threat to your relationship with Esther. I just need a couple of hours with her, or one hour, it doesn't matter."
Mikhail appeared to be savoring my words.
"You haven't answered my question," he said, with a smile. "Do you think that, given the kind of person Esther is, she would leave the man of her life without at least saying goodbye and without explaining why?"
"No, I don't."
"Then why all this stuff about 'she left me'? Why do you say, 'I'm no threat to your relationship with Esther'?"
I was confused. I felt something like hope stirring inside me--not that I knew what I was hoping for or where that hope had come from.
"Are you telling me that..."
"Exactly. I'm telling you that she hasn't left you or me. She has just disappeared for a while, possibly forever, but we must both respect that."
It was as if a bright light were suddenly shining in that pizzeria, a place that had always brought me good memories and good stories. I desperately wanted to believe what the young man was saying; the Zahir was now pulsating all around me.
"Do you know where she is?"
"Yes, I do. But even though I miss her as much as you do, I must respect her silence. I fi
nd this whole situation as confusing as you do. Esther may have found satisfaction in the Love That Devours, she might be waiting for one of us to go and find her, she may have met a new man, or she may have withdrawn from the world altogether. Whatever the truth, if you do decide to go and find her, I can't stop you. But, if you do, you must know one thing: you must find not only her body, but also her soul."
I felt like laughing. I felt like hugging him, or possibly killing him--my emotions changed with startling speed.
"Did you and she..."
"Did we sleep together? That's none of your business. I found in Esther the partner I was looking for, the person who helped me set out on the mission I was entrusted with, the angel who opened the doors, the roads, the paths that will allow us--if our Lady is willing--to restore the energy of love to the earth. We share the same mission. And just to put your mind at rest: I have a girlfriend, the blonde girl who was on stage with me last night. Her name's Lucrecia; she's Italian."
"Are you telling me the truth?"
"Yes, in the name of the Divine Energy, I am."
He took a scrap of dark fabric out of his pocket.
"Do you see this? The cloth is actually green; it looks black because it's caked with dried blood. A soldier somewhere in the world asked her before he died to remove his shirt, then cut it into tiny pieces and distribute those pieces to anyone capable of understanding the message of his death. Do you have a piece?"
"No, Esther has never even mentioned it to me."
"Whenever she meets someone whom she feels should receive the message, she also gives them a little of the soldier's blood."
"And what is the message?"
"If she didn't give you a piece of the shirt, I don't think I can tell you; not, of course, that she swore me to secrecy."
"Do you know anyone else who has a piece of that cloth?"
"All the people who appear with me at the restaurant do. We're only there because Esther brought us together."
I needed to tread carefully, to build up a relationship, to make a deposit in the Favor Bank. I mustn't frighten him or seem overeager; I should ask him about himself and his work, about his country, of which he had spoken with such pride; I needed to find out if what he was telling me was true or if he had some ulterior motive; I needed to be absolutely sure that he was still in touch with Esther or if he had lost track of her as well. He may have come from a remote country, where the values are different, but I knew that the Favor Bank operated everywhere: it was an institution that knew no frontiers.