Aleph (9 page)

The train stops. Hilal gets up and comes to join us. Yao smiles and embraces her. We all put on our coats, and, at 1:04 in the morning, we step out into Ekaterinburg.

T
HE OMNIPRESENT
H
ILAL HAS DISAPPEARED
.

I come down from my room, assuming that I’ll find her in the hotel lobby, but she isn’t there. Despite spending most of yesterday flat out on my bed, I had still managed to sleep well once back on terra firma. I phone Yao’s room, and we go out for a walk around the city. This is exactly what I need to do right now: to walk, walk, walk, breathe some fresh air, take a look at a city I’ve never visited before, and enjoy feeling that it’s mine.

Yao tells me a few historical facts—Ekaterinburg is Russia’s third-largest city, rich in minerals, the kind of fact that one can find in any tourist leaflet—but I’m not in the least interested. Then we stop outside what looks like a huge Orthodox church.

“This is the Cathedral-on-the-Blood, built on the site of a house owned by a man called Nikolai Ipatiev. Let’s go inside.”

I’m starting to feel cold, and so I do as he suggests. We
go into what appears to be a small museum, in which all the notices are in Russian.

Yao looks at me as if I should know what’s going on, but I don’t.

“Don’t you feel anything?”

“No,” I say. He seems disappointed.

“You mean that you, a man who believes in parallel worlds and in the eternity of the present moment, feel absolutely nothing?”

I feel tempted to tell him that what brought me to Russia in the first place was a conversation with J. about precisely that, my inability to connect with my spiritual side. Except that this is no longer true. Since I left London, I’ve been a different person, feeling calm and happy on my journey back to my kingdom and my soul. For a fraction of a second, I remember the episode on the train and Hilal’s eyes, but I quickly drive the memory from my mind.

“The fact that I can’t feel anything doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m disconnected. Perhaps my energies at this moment are alert to other discoveries. We’re in what seems to be a recently built cathedral. What exactly happened here?”

“The Russian Empire ended in the house of Nikolai Ipatiev. On the night of July 16, 1918, the family of Nicholas II, the last tsar of all the Russias, was executed along with his doctor and three servants. They started with the tsar himself, who received several bullets in the head and chest. The last to die were Anastasia, Tatiana, Olga, and Maria, who were bayoneted to death. It’s said that their ghosts continue to haunt this place, looking for the jewels they
left behind. People also say that Boris Yeltsin, when he was president of Russia, decided to demolish the old house and build a church in its place so that the ghosts would leave and Russia could begin to grow again.”

“Why did you bring me here?”

For the first time since we met in Moscow, Yao seems to be embarrassed.

“Because yesterday you asked me if I believed in God. Well, I did believe until He took away my wife, the person I loved most in the world. I always thought I would die before her, but that isn’t what happened,” Yao tells me. “The day we met I felt certain that I’d known her since before I was born. It was raining heavily, and she declined my invitation to tea, but I knew then that we were like the clouds that fill the sky so that you can no longer tell where one ends and another begins. We married a year later, as if it were the most obvious and natural thing in the world to do. We had children, we honored God and family, then, one day, a wind came and parted the clouds.”

I wait for him to finish what he has to say.

“It’s not fair. It wasn’t fair. It may seem absurd, but I would have preferred it if we had all departed together for the next life, like the tsar and his family.”

No, he has still not said everything he wants to. He’s waiting for me to say something, but I remain silent. It seems that the ghosts of the dead really are there with us.

“And when I saw you and the young woman looking at each other on the train in the vestibule between the carriages, I remembered my wife and the first glance we ever exchanged, and how even before we spoke, something was
telling me, ‘We’re together again.’ That’s why I wanted to bring you here, to ask if you can see what we cannot see, if you know where she is now.”

So he had witnessed the moment when Hilal and I entered the Aleph.

I look around the room again, thank him for having brought me there, and ask if we can continue our walk.

“Don’t make that young woman suffer,” he says. “Whenever I see her looking at you, it seems to me that you must have known each other for a long time.”

I think to myself that this really isn’t something I should concern myself with.

“You asked me on the train if I would like to go somewhere with you tonight. Is that offer still open? We can talk more about all this later. If you had ever seen me watching my wife sleeping, you would be able to read my eyes and understand why we’ve been married for nearly thirty years.”

W
ALKING IS DOING WONDERS
for my body and soul. I’m completely focused on the present moment, for that is where all signs, parallel worlds, and miracles are to be found. Time really doesn’t exist. Yao can speak of the tsar’s death as if it had happened yesterday and show me the wounds of his love as if they had appeared only minutes before, while I remember the platform at Moscow station as if it belongs to the distant past.

We sit down in a park and watch the people passing: women with children; men in a hurry; boys standing
around a radio blasting out music; girls gathered opposite them, talking animatedly about something utterly unimportant; and older people wearing long winter coats, even though it’s spring. Yao buys us a couple of hot dogs and rejoins me.

“Is it difficult to write?” he asks.

“No. Is it difficult to learn so many foreign languages?”

“No, not really. You just have to pay attention.”

“Well, I pay attention all the time, but I’ve never got beyond what I learned as a boy.”

“And I’ve never tried to write, because as a child I was told that I’d have to study really hard, read lots of boring books, and mix with intellectuals. And I hate intellectuals.”

I don’t know if this remark is intended for me or not. I have my mouth full of hot dog, and so don’t reply. I think again about Hilal and the Aleph. Perhaps she found the experience so alarming that she’s gone home and decided not to continue the journey. A few months ago, I would have been driven frantic if a process like this had failed to run its full course, believing that my entire apprenticeship depended on it. But it’s a sunny day, and if the world seems to be at peace, that’s because it is.

“What do you need in order to be able to write?” Yao asks.

“To love. As you loved your wife, or, rather, as you love your wife.”

“Is that all?”

“You see this park? There are all kinds of stories here, and even though they’ve been told many times, they still deserve to be told again. The writer, the singer, the gardener,
the translator, we are all a mirror of our time. We all pour our love into our work. In my case, obviously, reading is very important, but anyone who puts all his faith in academic tomes and creative-writing courses is missing the point: words are life set down on paper. So seek out the company of others.”

“Whenever I saw those literature courses at the university where I taught, it all seemed to me so …”

“Artificial?” I ask, completing his sentence. “No one can learn to love by following a manual, and no one can learn to write by following a course. I’m not telling you to seek out other writers but to find people with different skills from yourself, because writing is no different from any other activity done with joy and enthusiasm.”

“What about writing a book about the last days of Nicholas the Second?”

“It’s not a subject that really interests me. It’s an extraordinary story, but for me, writing is, above all, about discovering myself. If I had to give you one piece of advice, it would be this: don’t be intimidated by other people’s opinions. Only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks and do what you really want to do. Seek out people who aren’t afraid of making mistakes and who, therefore, do make mistakes. Because of that, their work often isn’t recognized, but they are precisely the kind of people who change the world and, after many mistakes, do something that will transform their own community completely.”

“Like Hilal.”

“Yes, like Hilal. But let me say one thing: what you felt for your wife, I feel for mine. I’m no saint, and I have no
intention of becoming one, but, to use your image, we were two clouds, and now we are one. We were two ice cubes that the sunlight melted, and now we are the same free-flowing water.”

“And yet, when I walked past and saw the way you and Hilal were looking at each other …”

I don’t respond, and he lets the matter drop.

In the park, the boys never look at the girls standing just a few meters from them, even though the two groups are clearly fascinated by each other. The older people walk past, thinking about their childhood. Mothers smile at their children as if they were all future artists, millionaires, and presidents of the republic. The scene before us is a synthesis of human behavior.

“I’ve lived in many countries,” says Yao. “And obviously, I’ve been through some difficult times, known injustice, and fallen flat on my face when everyone expected the best from me. But those memories have no relevance to my life. The important things that stay are the moments spent listening to people singing, telling stories, enjoying life. I lost my wife twenty years ago, and yet it seems like yesterday. She’s still here, sitting on this bench with us, remembering the happy times we had together.”

Yes, she’s still here, and I would explain that to him if I could find the words.

My emotions have been very close to the surface ever since I saw the Aleph and understood what J. meant. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to solve this problem, but at least I’m aware that it exists.

“It’s always worth telling a story, even if only to your family. How many children do you have?”

“Two sons and two daughters. But they’re not interested in my stories. They say they’ve heard them all before. Are you going to write a book about your trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway?”

“No.”

Even if I wanted to, how could I describe the Aleph?

T
HE OMNIPRESENT
H
ILAL HAS STILL NOT REAPPEARED
.

After keeping my feelings to myself throughout most of the supper, saying how well the signing session went and thanking everyone for that and for the Russian music and dance put on for me at the party afterward (bands in Moscow and in other countries always tend to stick to an international repertoire), I finally ask if anyone had remembered to give her the address of the restaurant.

They stare at me in amazement. Of course they hadn’t! They all thought I was finding the girl a real pest. It was just lucky she didn’t turn up during the signing session.

“She might have given another of her violin recitals, hoping to steal the limelight again,” says my editor.

Yao is watching me from the other side of the table. He knows that I mean the exact opposite, and that I would love her to be here. But why? So that I could visit the Aleph again and go through a door that only ever brings me bad memories? I know where that door leads. I’ve been through
it four times before and have never been able to find the answer I need. That isn’t what I came looking for when I began the long journey back to my kingdom.

We finish supper. The two readers’ representatives, chosen at random, take photographs and ask if I would like them to show me the city. I tell them yes, I would.

“We already have a date,” says Yao.

My publishers’ irritation, previously directed at Hilal and her insistence on being with me all the time, is now turned on my interpreter, whom they employed and who is now demanding my presence when it should be the other way around.

“I think Paulo’s tired,” says my publisher. “It’s been a long day.”

“He’s not tired. His energy levels are fine after all the loving vibes from this evening.”

My publishers are right about Yao. He does seem to want to show everyone that he occupies a privileged position in “my kingdom.” I understand his sadness at losing the woman he loved, and, when the moment comes, I’ll find the right words to say this. I’m afraid, though, that what he wants is to tell me “an amazing story that would make a fantastic book.” I’ve heard this many times before, especially from people who have lost someone they love.

I decide to try to please everyone.

“I’ll walk back to the hotel with Yao. After that, I need a bit of time alone.” This will be my first night alone since we set off.

…

T
HE TEMPERATURE HAS DROPPED
more than we imagined, the wind is blowing, and it feels intensely cold. We walk along a crowded street, and I see that I’m not the only one wanting to head straight home. The doors of the shops are closing, the chairs are already piled up on the tables, and the neon lights are starting to go out. Even so, after a day and a half shut up in a train and knowing that we still have many, many kilometers ahead of us, I need to take every opportunity to do some physical exercise.

Yao stops next to a van selling drinks and asks for two orange juices. I don’t particularly want to drink anything, but perhaps a little vitamin C would be a good idea in this cold weather.

“Keep the cup.”

I don’t quite know why he’s telling me to do so, but I do as he says. We continue walking down what must be the main street in Ekaterinburg. At one point, we stop outside a cinema.

“Perfect. With your hood and scarf on, no one will recognize you. Let’s do a little begging.”

“Begging? Look, I haven’t done that since my hippie days, and besides, it would be an insult to people who are in real need.”

“But you are in real need. When we visited the Ipatiev House, there were moments when you simply weren’t there, when you seemed distant, trapped in the past, constrained by everything you’ve achieved and by everything you’re doing your best to cling onto. I’m worried about the girl, too, but if you really want to change, then begging will help you become more innocent, more open.”