Aleph (27 page)

“Go back to your wife! Go back to the woman who has always been by your side through thick and thin! She’s generous, loving, tolerant, and I’m everything you hate: complicated, aggressive, obsessive, capable of anything!”

“What right have you to talk about my wife?”

I am once again losing control of the situation.

“I’ll say what I like. You never could control me, and you never will!”

Keep calm. Keep talking, and she’ll quiet down
. But I’ve never seen anyone in such a state before. I try another tack.

“Then be glad that no one can control you. Celebrate the fact that you were brave enough to risk your career and set off in search of adventure, and find it, too. Remember what I said on the boat: someone, one day, will light the sacred fire for you. And from now on, it won’t be
your
fingers playing the violin but the angels’. Let God use your hands. Your feelings of bitterness will eventually disappear, and the person fate has placed in your path will arrive bearing a bouquet of happiness in his hands, and then everything will be fine. Right now, you feel desperate and think I’m lying, but that’s how it will be.”

Too late.

I have said precisely the wrong thing, which could be summarized in just two words: “Grow up.” No woman I’ve ever known would have accepted that piece of advice.

Hilal picks up a heavy metal lamp, rips the plug out of the wall, and hurls the lamp in my direction. I manage to catch it before it hits my face, but now she’s slapping me as hard as she can. I drop the lamp and try to grab her arms but fail. A fist hits my nose, and blood spurts in all directions.

She and I are covered in my blood.

“The soul of Turkey will give your husband all the love she possesses, but she will spill his blood before she reveals what it is she is seeking.”

“Right, come with me!”

…

M
Y TONE OF VOICE
has changed completely. She stops hitting me. I take her by the arm and drag her out of the room.

“Come with me!”

There’s no time for explanations. I run down the stairs, taking with me a Hilal who is now more frightened than angry. My heart is pounding. We hurry out of the building. The car that was supposed to be taking me to supper is still waiting.

“To the train station!”

The driver looks at me uncomprehendingly. I open the door, shove Hilal inside, then get in after her.

“Tell him to go straight to the train station!”

She repeats my words in Russian, and the driver obeys.

“Tell him to ignore any speed limits. I’ll make it all right with him afterward. We need to get there fast!”

The man seems to like what he hears. He races off, tires squealing on every bend, and other cars brake when they spot the car’s official insignia. To my surprise, he has a siren, which he places on the roof. My fingers are digging into Hilal’s arm.

“You’re hurting me!” she says.

I relax the pressure. I’m praying, asking God to help me, to make sure I arrive in time and that everything is where it should be.

Hilal is talking to me, begging me to calm down, apologizing for acting the way she did, saying that she hadn’t really intended to kill herself, that it was all an act. No one who
truly loves someone would destroy them or themselves, and she would never let me spend another incarnation suffering and blaming myself for what had happened—once was enough. I would like to be able to respond, but I’m not really following what she’s saying.

Ten minutes later, the car screeches to a halt outside the train station.

I open the door and drag Hilal out of the car and into the station, where we find the barrier to the platform closed. I try to push my way through, only to see two massive guards hove into view. Hilal leaves me alone for a moment, and for the first time during that whole journey I feel lost, unsure of how to proceed. I need her by my side. Without her, nothing, absolutely nothing, will be possible. I sit down on the ground. The men look at my blood-spattered face and clothes. They come over and gesture to me to get up, then start asking questions. I try to explain that I don’t speak Russian, but they become increasingly aggressive. Other people begin to gather to see what’s going on.

Hilal reappears with the driver. He doesn’t raise his voice, but what he says to the guards brings about a complete change of attitude. I have no time to lose. There’s something I must do. The guards push the onlookers aside. The way ahead is now free. I take Hilal’s hand. We walk onto the platform and run down to the end, where everything is in darkness. In the gloom, I can just make out the last carriage.

Yes, it’s still there!

I put my arms around Hilal while I recover my breath. My heart is beating furiously from the physical effort and
from the adrenaline coursing through my veins. I feel slightly dizzy. I didn’t have much to eat at lunch, but I mustn’t faint now. The soul of Turkey will show me what I need to see. Hilal is stroking me as if I were her child, telling me to calm down, she’s there by my side, and no harm will come to me.

I breathe deeply, and my pulse gradually returns to normal.

“Come with me.”

The door is open. No one would dare get on a train in Russia in order to steal anything. We enter the carriage. I make her stand with her back against the wall in the vestibule, as I had at the very beginning of that endless journey. Our faces are very close, as if the next step will be a kiss. A distant light, perhaps from a lamp on another platform, is reflected in her eyes.

And even though we’re in complete darkness, she and I will be able to see. This is where the Aleph is. Time suddenly changes frequency, and we’re propelled at speed down a dark tunnel. She knows what’s happening now, and so won’t be frightened.

“Take my hand, and let’s go together into the other world,
Now!
”

Camels and deserts appear, rains and winds, the fountain in a village in the Pyrenees, the waterfall at the Monasterio de Piedra, the Irish coast, a corner of a street in what looks like London, women on motorbikes, a prophet standing at the foot of the sacred mountain, the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, prostitutes waiting for clients in Geneva, witches dancing naked around a fire, a man preparing
to shoot his wife and her lover, the steppes of some country in Asia where a woman is weaving beautiful tapestries while she waits for her man to return, mad people in a hospital, the seas with all their fish, and the Universe with each and every star. The sound of babies being born, old men dying, cars braking, women singing, men cursing, and doors, doors, and more doors.

I go through all the lives I have lived, will live, and am living. I’m a man in a train with a woman, a writer in late-nineteenth-century France; I am the many people I was and will be. We go through the door I want to go through. The hand I am holding disappears.

Around me, a crowd smelling of beer and wine is guffawing, shouting, and hurling insults.

F
EMALE VOICES ARE CALLING TO ME
. I feel ashamed and try to ignore them, but the voices insist. Other people in the crowd compliment me: So I was the person responsible, was I? Saving the town from heresy and sin! The girls’ voices continue to call my name.

I have been cowardly enough to last me for the rest of my life. I slowly raise my head.

The cart has almost passed by; another second and I would hear nothing more. But now I am looking at them. Despite the humiliations they have been through, they seem quite serene, as if they had matured, grown up, married, and had children, and were now calmly heading for death, the fate of all human beings. They struggled while
they could, but at some point they must have understood that this was their fate, set down long before they were born. Only two things can reveal life’s great secrets: suffering and love. They have experienced both.

And that is what I see in their eyes: love. We had played together at being princes and princesses, made plans for the future, as all children do. Life decided to separate us. I chose to serve God, and they followed a different path.

I am twenty, slightly older than the girls now gazing gratefully down at me because I have finally deigned to look at them. A great weight lies on my soul, though, a weight full of contradictions and guilt at never having had the courage to say “No,” and all in the name of an absurd sense of obedience that I would like to believe was true and logical.

The girls are still looking at me, and that second lasts for an eternity. One of them again calls out my name. I move my lips silently so that only they can understand: “Forgive me.”

“There’s no need,” one of them says. “We talked with the spirits, and they revealed to us what would happen. The time for fear has passed; now there is only the time of hope. Are we guilty? One day, the world will judge us and we will not be the ones to feel ashamed. We will meet again in the future, when your life and work will be dedicated to those who are so sorely misunderstood today. Your voice will speak out loudly, and many will listen to you.”

The cart is moving off, and I start to run along beside it, despite being pushed away by the guards.

“Love will conquer hatred,” says another of the girls,
speaking as calmly as if we were still in the forests and woods of our childhood. “When the time comes, those who are burned today will be exalted. Wizards and alchemists will return, the Goddess will be welcomed and witches celebrated. And all for the greatness of God. That is the blessing we place on your head now, until the end of time.”

A guard punches me in the stomach, and I double up, all the breath knocked out of me, but still I look up. The cart is moving past now, and I won’t be able to catch it again.

I
PUSH
H
ILAL AWAY
. We are back on the train.

“I couldn’t see clearly,” she says. “It looked like a crowd shouting, and there was a man wearing a hood. I think it was you, but I’m not sure.”

“Don’t worry.”

“Did you get the answer you needed?”

I would like to say, “Yes, I finally understand my destiny,” but my voice is choked with tears.

“You won’t leave me alone in this city, will you?”

I put my arms around her.

“Of course I won’t.”

T
HAT NIGHT
, when we return to the hotel, Yao is there, waiting for Hilal with a return ticket to Moscow. We will fly back on the same plane, although in different classes. My publishers cannot accompany me to my audience with Vladimir Putin, but a journalist friend of mine has permission to do so.

When the plane lands, Hilal and I leave through different exits. I am led into a special room, where two men and my friend are waiting. I ask to go to the terminal where the other passengers are disembarking, saying that I need to say good-bye to someone. One of the men says there isn’t time, but my friend points out that it’s only two in the afternoon and the meeting isn’t until five. And even if the president were waiting for me at the house outside Moscow where he’s usually to be found at this time of year, it will take us, at most, fifty minutes to get there.

“Besides, if there’s any problem, your cars are fitted with sirens, aren’t they?” he says jokingly.

We make our way to the other terminal. I enter a florist’s
and buy a dozen roses. We reach the arrivals gate, which is crowded with people waiting for friends and relatives arriving from far-flung places.

“Does anyone here understand English?” I shout.

People look startled, doubtless because of the three burly men with me.

“Does anyone speak English?”

A few hands are raised. I show them the bouquet of roses.

“A young woman whom I love very much will be arriving shortly. I need eleven volunteers to help me give her these flowers.”

Eleven volunteers immediately appear by my side. We form a queue. Hilal comes out of the main door, sees me, smiles, and heads straight for me. One by one the volunteers hand her the roses. She looks half confused and half happy. When she finally reaches me, I hand her the twelfth rose and fold her in the warmest of embraces.