Aleph Page 3

  “Have you gone mad?”

  “Oh, I went mad years ago. Do you know anything about Chinese bamboo? It apparently spends five years as a little shoot, using that time to develop its root system. And then, from one moment to the next, it puts on a spurt and grows up to twenty-five meters high.”

  “And what has that got to do with the act of insanity I’ve just witnessed?”

  “Later on, I’ll tell you about the conversation I had a month ago with J. What matters now, though, is that this is precisely what has been happening to me: I’ve invested work, time, and effort; I tried to encourage my personal growth with love and dedication, but nothing happened. Nothing happened for years.”

  “What do you mean ‘nothing happened’? Have you forgotten who you are?”

  The taxi arrives. The Russian publisher opens the door for Mônica.

  “I’m talking about the spiritual side of my life. I think I’m like that Chinese bamboo plant and that my fifth year has just arrived. It’s time for me to start growing again. You asked me if I’d gone mad, and I answered with a joke. But the fact is, I have been going mad. I was beginning to believe that nothing I had learned had put down any roots.”

  For a fraction of a second, immediately after the arrival of my Bulgarian publishers, I had felt J.’s presence at my side and finally understood his words, although the insight itself had come to me during a moment of boredom, after leafing through a magazine on gardening. My self-imposed exile, which, on the one hand, had helped me discover important truths about myself, had another serious side effect: the vice of solitude. My universe had become limited to a few friends locally, to answering letters and e-mails, and to the illusion that the rest of my time was mine alone. I was, in short, leading a life without any of the inevitable problems that arise from living with other people, from human contact.

  Is that what I’m looking for? A life without challenges? But where is the pleasure in looking for God outside of people?

  I know many who have done just that. I once had a serious and at the same time comical talk with a Buddhist nun who had spent twenty years alone in a cave in Nepal. I asked her what she had achieved. “Spiritual orgasm,” she replied, to which I replied that there were far easier ways to achieve orgasm.

  I could never follow that path; it’s simply not on my horizon. I cannot and could not spend the rest of my life in search of spiritual orgasms or contemplating the oak tree in my garden, waiting for wisdom to descend. J. knows this, and encouraged me to make this journey so that I would understand that my path is reflected in the eyes of others and that, if I want to find myself, I need that map.

  I apologize to the Russian publishers and say that I need to finish a conversation with Mônica in Portuguese. I start by telling her a story.

  “A man stumbles and falls into a deep hole. He asks a passing priest to help him out. The priest blesses him and walks on. Hours later, a doctor comes by. The man asks for help, but the doctor merely studies his injuries from afar, writes him a prescription, and tells him to buy the medicine from the nearest pharmacy. Finally, a complete stranger appears. Again, he asks for help, and the stranger jumps into the hole. ‘Now what are we going to do?’ says the man. ‘Now both of us are trapped down here.’ To which the stranger replies, ‘No, we’re not. I’m from around here, and I know how to get out.’ ”

  “Meaning?” asks Mônica.

  “That I need strangers like that,” I explain. “My roots are ready, but I’ll manage to grow only with the help of others. Not just you or J. or my wife but people I’ve never met. I’m sure of that. That’s why I asked for a party to be held after the book signings.”

  “You’re never satisfied, are you?” Mônica says in a tone of complaint.

  “That’s why you love me so much,” I say with a smile.

  IN THE RESTAURANT, we speak about all kinds of things; we celebrate a few successes and try to refine certain details. I have to stop myself from interfering, because Mônica is in charge of everything to do with publishing. At one point, though, the same question is asked.

  “And when will Paulo be visiting Russia?”

  Mônica starts explaining that my diary has suddenly got very crowded and that I have a series of commitments starting next week. I break in.

  “You know, I have long cherished a dream, which I’ve tried to realize twice before and failed. If you can help me achieve my dream, I’ll come to Russia.”

  “What dream is that?”

  “To cross the whole of Russia by train and end up at the Pacific Ocean. We could stop at various places along the way for signings. That way, we would be showing our respect for all those readers who could never make it to Moscow.”

  My publisher’s eyes light up with joy. He had just been talking about the increasing difficulties of distribution in a country so vast that it has seven different time zones.

  “A very romantic, very Chinese bamboo idea,” Mônica says with a laugh, “but not very practical. As you well know, I wouldn’t be able to go with you, because I have my son to look after now.”

  The publisher, however, is enthusiastic. He orders his fifth coffee of the night, says that he’ll take care of everything, that Mônica’s assistant can stand in for her, and that she needn’t worry about a thing, it will all be fine.

  I thus fill up my planner with two whole months of traveling, leaving along the way a lot of very happy but very stressed-out people who are going to have to organize everything at lightning speed; a friend and agent who is now looking at me with affection and respect; and a teacher who isn’t here but who doubtless knows that I have now made a commitment, even though I didn’t understand what he meant at the time. It’s a cold night, and I choose to walk back alone to the hotel, feeling rather frightened at what I’ve done, but happy, too, because there’s no turning back.

  That is what I wanted. If I believe I will win, then victory will believe in me. No life is complete without a touch of madness, or, to use J.’s words, what I need to do is to re-conquer my kingdom. If I can understand what’s going on in the world, I can understand what’s going on inside myself.

  AT THE HOTEL, there is a message from my wife, saying that she’s been trying to contact me and asking me to phone her as soon as possible. My heart starts pounding, because she rarely phones me when I’m traveling. I return her call at once. The seconds between each ring seem like an eternity.

  Finally, she picks up the phone.

  “Véronique has had a serious car accident, but don’t worry, she’s not in any danger,” she says nervously.

  I ask if I can phone Véronique now, but she says no. She’s still in the hospital.

  “Do you remember that clairvoyant?” she asks.

  Of course I do! He made a prediction about me as well. We hang up, and I immediately phone Mônica’s room. I ask if, by any chance, I’ve arranged a visit to Turkey.

  “Can’t you even remember which invitations you accepted?”

  “No,” I say. I was in a strange state of euphoria when I started saying yes to all those publishers.

  “But you do remember the commitments you’ve taken on, don’t you? There’s still time to cancel, if you want to.”

  I tell her that I’m perfectly happy with the commitments; that’s not the problem. It’s too late to start explaining about the clairvoyant, the predictions, and Véronique’s accident. I ask Mônica again if I have arranged a visit to Turkey.

  “No,” she says. “The Turkish publishers are staying in a different hotel. Otherwise…”

  We both laugh.

  I can sleep easy.

  The Stranger’s Lantern

  ALMOST TWO MONTHS of traveling, of pilgrimage. My joy in life has returned, but I lie awake all night, wondering if that sense of joy will stay with me when I return home. Am I doing what I need to do to make the Chinese bamboo grow? I’ve been to six countries, met my readers, had fun, temporarily driven away the depression that was threatening to engulf me, but someth
ing tells me that I still haven’t re-conquered my kingdom. The trip so far hasn’t really been any different from other similar journeys made in previous years.

  All that remains now is Russia. And then what will I do? Continue making commitments in order to keep moving, or stop and see what the results have been?

  I still haven’t reached a decision. I know only that a life without cause is a life without effect. And I can’t allow that to happen to me. If necessary, I’ll spend the rest of the year traveling.

  I’m in the African city of Tunis, in Tunisia. The talk is about to begin, and—thank heavens—the room is packed. I’m going to be introduced by two local intellectuals. In the short meeting we held beforehand, one of them showed me a text that would take just two minutes to deliver and the other a veritable thesis on my work that would take at least half an hour.

  The coordinator very tactfully explains to the latter that since the event is supposed to last, at most, fifty minutes, there won’t be time for him to read his piece. I imagine how hard he must have worked on that essay, but the coordinator is right. The purpose of my visit to Tunis is to meet my readers. There is a brief discussion, after which the author of the essay says that he no longer wishes to take part, and he leaves.

  The talk begins. The introductions and acknowledgments take only five minutes; the rest of the time is free for open dialogue. I tell the audience that I haven’t come here to explain anything and that, ideally, the event should be more of a conversation than a presentation.

  A young woman asks about the signs I speak of in my books. What form do they take? I explain that signs are an extremely personal language that we develop throughout our lives, by trial and error, until we begin to understand that God is guiding us. Someone else asks if a sign had brought me all the way to Tunisia. Without going into any detail, I say that it had.

  The conversation continues, time passes quickly, and I need to wrap things up. For the last question, I choose, at random, out of the six hundred people there, a middle-aged man with a bushy mustache.

  “I don’t want to ask a question,” he says. “I just want to say a name.”

  The name he pronounces is that of Barbazan-Debat, a chapel in the middle of nowhere, thousands of kilometers from here, the same chapel where, one day, I placed a plaque in gratitude for a miracle, and which I had visited before setting out on this pilgrimage in order to pray for Our Lady’s protection.

  I don’t know how to respond. The following words were written by one of the other people onstage with me.

  In the room, the Universe seemed suddenly to have stopped moving. So many things happened; I saw your tears and the tears of your dear wife, when that anonymous reader pronounced the name of that distant chapel.

  You could no longer speak. Your smiling face grew serious. Your eyes filled with shy tears that trembled on your lashes, as if wishing to apologize for appearing there uninvited.

  Even I had a lump in my throat, although I didn’t know why. I looked for my wife and daughter in the audience, because I always look to them whenever I feel myself to be on the brink of something unknown. They were there, but they were sitting as silently as everyone else, their eyes fixed on you, trying to support you with their gaze, as if a gaze could ever support anyone.

  Then I looked to Christina for help, trying to understand what was going on, how to bring to an end that seemingly interminable silence. And I saw that she was silently crying, too, as if you were both notes from the same symphony and as if your tears were touching, even though you were sitting far apart.

  For several long seconds, nothing existed, there was no room, no audience, nothing. You and your wife had set off for a place where we could not follow; all that remained was the joy of living, expressed in silence and emotion.

  Words are tears that have been written down. Tears are words that need to be shed. Without them, joy loses all its brilliance and sadness has no end. Thank you, then, for your tears.

  I should have said to the young woman who asked the first question about signs that this was a sign, confirming that I was where I should be, in the right place, at the right time, even though I didn’t understand what had brought me there.

  I suspect there was no need, though. She would probably have understood anyway.[1]

  MY WIFE AND I are walking along, hand in hand, through the bazaar in Tunis, fifteen kilometers from the ruins of Carthage, which, centuries before, had defied the might of Rome. We are discussing the great Carthaginian warrior Hannibal. Since Carthage and Rome were separated by only a few hundred kilometers of sea, the Romans were expecting a sea battle. Instead, Hannibal took his vast army and crossed the desert and the Strait of Gibraltar, marched through Spain and France, climbed the Alps with soldiers and elephants, and attacked the Romans from the north, scoring one of the most resounding military victories ever recorded.

  He overcame all the enemies in his path, and yet—for reasons we still do not understand—he stopped short of conquering Rome and failed to attack at the right moment. As a result of his indecision, Carthage was wiped from the map by the Roman legions.

  “Hannibal stopped and was defeated,” I say, thinking out loud. “I’m glad that I’m able to go on, even though the beginning was difficult. I’m starting to get used to the journey now.”

  My wife pretends not to have heard, because she realizes that I’m trying to convince myself of something. We’re on our way to a café to meet one of my readers, Samil, chosen at random at the post-talk party. I ask him to avoid all the usual monuments and tourist sights and show us where the real life of the city goes on.

  He takes us to a beautiful building where, in 1754, a man killed his own brother. The brothers’ father resolved to build this palace as a school, as a way of keeping alive the memory of his murdered son. I say that surely the son who had committed the murder would also be remembered.

  “It’s not quite like that,” says Samil. “In our culture, the criminal shares his guilt with everyone who allowed him to commit the crime. When a man is murdered, the person who sold him the weapon is also responsible before God. The only way in which the father could correct what he perceived as his own mistake was to transform the tragedy into something useful to others.”

  Suddenly, everything vanishes—the palace, the street, the city, Africa. I take a gigantic leap into the dark and enter a tunnel that emerges into a damp dungeon. I’m standing before J. in one of my many previous lives, two hundred years before the crime committed in that house. He fixes me with stern, admonitory eyes.

  I return just as quickly to the present. It all happened in a fraction of a second. I’m back at the palace, with Samil, my wife, and the hubbub of the street in Tunis. But why that dip into the past? Why do the roots of the Chinese bamboo insist on poisoning the plant? That life was lived and the price paid.

  “You committed just one cowardly deed, while I acted unfairly many times. But that discovery freed me,” J. had said in Saint Martin; he, who had never encouraged me to go back into the past, who was vehemently opposed to the books, manuals, and exercises that taught such things.

  “Instead of resorting to vengeance, which would be merely a one-time punishment, he created a school in which wisdom and learning were passed on for more than two centuries,” Samil says.

  I haven’t missed a single word Samil has said, and yet I also made that gigantic leap back in time.

  “That’s it.”

  “What is?” asks my wife.

  “I’m walking. I’m beginning to understand. It’s all making sense.”

  I feel euphoric. Samil is confused.

  “What does Islam have to say about reincarnation?” I ask.

  Samil looks at me, surprised.

  “I’ve no idea; I’m not a scholar,” he says.

  I ask him to find out. He takes his cell phone and starts ringing various people. Christina and I go to a bar and order two strong black coffees. We’re both tired, but we’ll be having a seafood supper late
r and have to resist the temptation to have a snack now.

  “I just had a déjà vu moment,” I tell her.

  “Everyone has them from time to time. You don’t have to be a magus to have one,” jokes Christina.

  Of course not, but déjà vu is more than just that fleeting moment of surprise, instantly forgotten because we never bother with things that make no sense. It shows that time doesn’t pass. It’s a leap into something we have already experienced and that is being repeated.

  Samil has vanished.

  “While he was telling us about the palace, I was drawn back into the past for a millisecond. I’m sure this happened when he was talking about how any crime was not only the responsibility of the murderer but of all those who created the conditions in which the crime could occur. The first time I met J., in 1982, he talked about my connection with his father. He never mentioned the subject again, and I forgot about it, too. But a few moments ago, I saw his father. And I understand now what he meant.”

  “In the life you told me about?”

  “Yes, during the Spanish Inquisition.”

  “That’s all over. Why torment yourself over something that’s ancient history now?”

  “I’m not tormenting myself. I learned long ago that in order to heal my wounds, I must have the courage to face up to them. I also learned to forgive myself and correct my mistakes. However, ever since I started out on this journey, I’ve had a sense of being confronted by a vast jigsaw puzzle, the pieces of which are only just beginning to be revealed, pieces of love, hate, sacrifice, forgiveness, joy, and grief. That’s why I’m here with you. I feel much better now, as if I really were going in search of my soul, of my kingdom, rather than sitting around complaining that I can’t assimilate everything I’ve learned. I can’t do that because I don’t understand it all properly, but when I do, the truth will set me free.”

  SAMIL IS BACK, carrying a book. He sits down with us, consults his notes, and respectfully turns the pages of the book, murmuring words in Arabic.