Like the Flowing River: Thoughts and Reflections Read online

  In this case, it is a piano and a pianist.

  The pianist plays two more Chopin sonatas, then pieces by Schubert and Mozart. He must be around thirty. A notice beside the stage explains that he is a famous musician from Georgia, one of the ex-Soviet republics. He must have looked for work, found all doors closed, despaired, given up, and now here he is in this mall.

  Except that I’m not sure he is really here: his eyes are fixed on the magical world where the music was composed; his hands share with us all his love, his soul, his enthusiasm, the very best of himself, all his years of study, concentration and discipline.

  The one thing he appears not to have understood is that no one, absolutely no one, has gone there to listen to him; they have gone there to buy, to eat, to pass the time, to window-shop, or to meet friends. A couple of people stop beside us, talking loudly, and then move on. The pianist does not notice – he is still conversing with Mozart’s angels. Nor has he noticed that he has an audience of two, one of whom is an extremely gifted violinist and is listening with tears in her eyes.

  I remember going into a chapel once and seeing a young woman playing for God, but that was in a chapel and made some kind of sense. Here, though, no one is listening, possibly not even God.

  That’s a lie. God is listening. God is in the soul, and in the hands of this man, because he is giving the very best of himself, regardless of whether or not he is noticed, regardless of the money he gets paid. He is playing as if he were at the Scala in Milan or the Opéra in Paris. He is playing because that is his fate, his joy, his reason for living.

  I am filled by a profound sense of reverence and respect for a man who is, at that moment, reminding me of a very important lesson: that we each of us have our personal legend to fulfil, and that is all. It doesn’t matter if other people support us or criticize us, or ignore us, or put up with us – we are doing it because that is our destiny on this earth, and the fount of all joy.

  The pianist ends with another piece by Mozart and, for the first time, he notices our presence. He gives us a discreet, polite nod, and we do the same. Then he returns to his paradise, and it is best to leave him there, untouched by the world, or even by our timid applause. He is serving as an example to us. Whenever we feel that no one is paying any attention to what we are doing, let us think of that pianist. He was talking to God through his work, and nothing else mattered.

  On My Way to the Chicago Book Fair

  I was flying from New York to Chicago to attend the book fair held by the American Booksellers Association. Suddenly, a young man stood up in the aisle of the plane and announced:

  ‘I need twelve volunteers each willing to carry a single rose when we get off the plane.’

  Several people raised their hands. I did too, but wasn’t chosen.

  Even so, I decided to follow the group. We landed, and the young man indicated a young woman in the arrivals hall at O’Hare Airport. One by one, the passengers presented their roses to her. At last, in front of everyone, the young man asked her to marry him, and she accepted.

  An air steward said to me:

  ‘I’ve been working here for years, and that’s the most romantic thing that has ever happened in this airport.’

  Of Poles and Rules

  In the autumn of 2003, I was strolling through the centre of Stockholm late one night when I saw a woman walking along using ski poles. My first reaction was to assume that she must have had an accident, but then I noticed that she was moving swiftly and rhythmically, just as if she were skiing, except, of course, that we were surrounded by asphalt. The obvious conclusion was: ‘The woman must be mad. How can she possibly pretend she’s skiing in a city?’

  Back at the hotel, I mentioned it to my publisher. He said that if anyone was mad it was me. What I had seen was a form of exercise known as Nordic walking. According to him, it gave you a much more comprehensive workout because, as well as moving your legs, your arms, shoulders and back muscles were also used.

  When I go walking (which, along with archery, is my favourite pastime), my intention is to be able to reflect and think, to look at the marvellous things around me, and to talk to my wife as we walk. I found what my publisher said very interesting, but I thought no more about it.

  One day, I was in a sports shop, buying some archery equipment, when I saw some new poles for mountaineers. They were made of light aluminium and could be made shorter or longer like a telescopic photographic tripod. I remembered the Nordic walking – why not try it? I bought two pairs, one for me, and one for my wife. We adjusted the poles to a comfortable height and decided to use them the following day.

  It was an amazing discovery! We walked up a mountain and back down again, and we really did feel as if our whole body was moving, plus our balance was better and we got less tired. We walked twice the distance we usually cover in an hour. I remembered wanting to explore the dried-up bed of a stream, but having to give up because of the difficulties I had in walking over the stones. With the poles, I thought, it would be much easier, and I was right.

  My wife went on the internet and found that she was burning 46 per cent more calories than when doing normal walking. She got really excited about it, and Nordic walking became part of our daily lives.

  One evening, just for amusement, I decided to see what else I could find out about it on the internet. I had a real shock. There were pages and pages, with federations, groups, discussions, models, and…rules.

  I don’t know what made me open the page on rules; but as I read it, I grew increasingly dismayed. I was doing everything wrong! My poles should be adjusted to a longer length; I should be keeping to a certain rhythm and holding the pole at a particular angle; there was some very complicated movement of the shoulder, and a different way of using your elbow. In short, everything had to conform to certain rigid, prescriptive techniques.

  I printed out all the pages. The next day – and the days that followed – I tried to do exactly what the experts were telling me to do. The walk became less interesting; I stopped noticing all the marvels around me, and hardly spoke to my wife at all – the only thing I could think about were the rules. After a week, I asked myself: why am I learning all this?

  My aim was not to do some sort of keep-fit exercise. I am sure that the people who started doing Nordic walking in the first place were merely thinking of the pleasure of walking, of improving their balance and moving their whole body. We knew intuitively what was the best length of pole for us, just as we could intuitively deduce that the closer we held the poles to our body, the better and easier the movement. But now, because of those rules, I had stopped concentrating on the things I loved and was more concerned about burning calories, moving my muscles, and using a particular part of my spine.

  I decided to forget everything I had learned. Now we go walking with our poles, enjoying the world around us, and feeling our bodies being worked, moved and balanced. If I wanted to do a keep-fit workout rather than a kind of walking meditation, I would go to a gym. For the moment, I am happy with my relaxed, instinctive Nordic walking, even if I’m not burning off that 46 per cent of extra calories.

  I don’t know why we human beings are so obsessed with making rules about everything.

  The Piece of Bread That Fell Wrong Side Up

  We all have a tendency to believe in ‘Murphy’s Law’: that everything we do will turn out wrong. Jean Claude Carrière has an interesting story about precisely that feeling.

  A man was quietly eating his breakfast. Suddenly, the piece of bread that he had just spread with butter fell to the ground.

  Imagine his surprise when he looked down and saw that it had landed buttered side up! The man thought he had witnessed a miracle. Excited, he went to tell his friends what had happened, and they were all amazed; because when a piece of bread falls on the floor, it nearly always lands buttered side down, making a mess of everything.

  ‘Perhaps you’re a saint,’ one friend said. ‘And this is a sign from God.’
/>   Soon the whole village knew, and they all started animatedly discussing the incident: how was it that, against all expectations, the man’s slice of bread had fallen on the floor buttered side up? Since no one could come up with a credible answer, they went to see a Teacher, who lived nearby and told him the story.

  The Teacher requested that he be given one night to pray, reflect, and seek divine inspiration. The following day, they all returned, eager for an answer.

  ‘It’s quite simple really,’ said the Teacher. ‘The fact is, that the piece of bread fell exactly as it should have fallen, but the butter had been spread on the wrong side.’

  Of Books and Libraries

  I don’t really own many books. A few years ago, driven by the idea of getting the maximum quality of life with the minimum number of possessions, I made certain choices. This doesn’t mean that I opted for the life of a monk; on the contrary, divesting yourself of many of your possessions gives you enormous freedom. Some of my friends (male and female) complain that, because they have so many clothes, they waste hours of their life trying to decide what to wear. Now that I have reduced my wardrobe to ‘basic black’, I no longer have this problem.

  However, I’m not here to talk about fashion, but about books. To return to my main point, I decided to keep only four hundred books in my library, some because they have sentimental value, others because I’m always re-reading them. I took this decision for various reasons, and one of them was the sadness I felt at seeing how libraries, which have been painstakingly acquired over a lifetime, are often simply sold off as a job lot once the collector is dead, with no respect shown for them at all. Also why keep all these books at home? To prove to my friends how cultivated I am? To decorate the walls? The books I have bought would be of far more use in a public library than in my house.

  I used to say that I needed my books in case I ever wanted to look something up in them. Now, however, when I want to find out something, I turn on my computer, type in the key word or words, and everything I need to know appears on the screen – courtesy of the internet, the biggest library on the planet.

  Of course, I still continue to buy books – there’s no electronic substitute for them; but as soon as I’ve finished a book, I let it go; I give it to someone else, or to the public library. My intention is not to save forests or to be generous. I simply believe that a book has its own journey to make, and should not be condemned to being stuck on a shelf.

  Being a writer and living, as I do, on royalties, I might be working to my own detriment; after all, the more books that are bought, the more money I earn. However, that would be unfair on the reader, especially in countries where a large part of the government budget for buying books for libraries is clearly not based on the two main criteria for making a serious choice – the pleasure one gets from reading a book, plus the quality of the writing.

  Let’s leave our books free to travel, then, to be touched by other hands, and enjoyed by other eyes. As I’m writing this, I have a vague memory of a poem by Jorge Luis Borges, which speaks of books that will never again be opened.

  Where am I now? Sitting in a café in a small Pyrenean town in France, enjoying the air-conditioning, because the heat outside is unbearable. I happen to have Borges’ complete works in my house, which is a few kilometres from where I’m writing this – he’s one of those authors I constantly read and re-read. But why not put my theory to the test?

  I cross the street and make the five-minute walk to another café, one that is equipped with computers (an establishment known by the nice, but contradictory, name of ‘cyber-café’). I greet the owner, order a glass of ice-cold mineral water, go to a search engine, and key in some of the words of the one line I do remember, along with the name of the author. In less than two minutes, I have the poem before me:

  There is a line from Verlaine I’ll never now recall,

  There is a street nearby from which my footsteps are barred,

  There is a mirror that has looked its last on my face,

  There is a door I have closed for the final time.

  Amongst the books in my library (I can see them now)

  There are some I will never open again.

  I felt exactly the same about many of the books I gave away: that I would simply never open them again, because new, interesting books are constantly being published, and I love to read. Now, I think it’s wonderful that people should have libraries; generally speaking, a child’s first contact with books arises out of their curiosity to find out about those bound volumes containing pictures and words; but I find it equally wonderful when, at a book-signing, a reader comes up to me clutching a battered copy of one of my books that has been passed from friend to friend dozens of times. This means that the book has travelled just as its author’s mind travelled while he was writing it.

  Prague, 1981

  Once, in the winter of 1981, I was walking with my wife through the streets of Prague and we came across a young man making drawings of the buildings around him.

  Although I have a real horror of carrying things when I’m travelling (and we still had a lot of journeying ahead of us), I really liked one of the drawings and decided to buy it.

  When I held out the money, I noticed that the young man was not wearing gloves, despite the −5°C temperatures.

  ‘Why aren’t you wearing gloves?’ I asked.

  ‘So that I can hold my pencil.’

  And he began telling me how he adored Prague in winter, and how it was the best season in which to draw the city. He was so pleased with this sale, that he asked if he could draw a portrait of my wife – without charge.

  While I was waiting for him to finish the drawing, I realized that something strange had happened. We had been talking for almost five minutes, and yet neither of us could speak the other’s language. We made ourselves understood by gestures, smiles, facial expressions, and the desire to share something.

  That simple desire to share something meant that we could enter the world of language without words, where everything is always clear, and there is no danger of being misinterpreted.

  For the Woman Who Is All Women

  A week after the 2003 Frankfurt Book Fair, I get a call from my Norwegian publisher. The organizers of the concert being arranged for the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Shirin Ebadi, would like me to write something for the event.

  This is an honour I should not refuse; after all, Shirin Ebadi is a legendary figure. She may be less than five feet tall, but she has sufficient stature to speak out in defence of human rights, and to have her voice heard all around the world. At the same time, I feel slightly nervous about such a responsibility – the event will be televised in 110 countries, and I have only two minutes to talk about someone who has dedicated her whole life to other people. I walk in the forests near the old mill where I live when I am in Europe. Several times, I consider phoning to tell them that I can’t think of anything to say; but then, what makes life interesting are the challenges we face, and so I end up accepting the invitation.

  I travel to Oslo on 9 December, and the following day – a lovely, sunny day – I am in the audience at the award ceremony. The vast windows of the Prefecture provide a view of the port where, at about the same time of year, twenty years before, I had sat with my wife, looking out at the icy sea and eating prawns that had just been brought in by the fishing boats. I think of the long journey that has brought me from that port to this room, but my memories of the past are interrupted by the sound of trumpets and the arrival of the Queen and the royal family. The organizing committee hands over the prize, and Shirin Ebadi gives a passionate speech denouncing the way certain governments are using the so-called war on terror as a justification for trying to create a kind of worldwide police state.

  That night, at the concert in honour of the prize-winner, Catherine Zeta-Jones announces that my text will be read. At that moment, I press a button on my mobile phone, and the phone rings in the old mill where I live (this has al
l been planned beforehand), and my wife is suddenly there with me, listening to Michael Douglas as he reads my words.

  This is what I wrote, words which can, I think, be applied to all those who are working to create a better world.

  The Persian poet Rumi once said that life is like being sent by a king to another country in order to carry out a particular task. The person sent may do a hundred other things in that other country, but if he or she fails to fulfil the particular task he or she was charged with, it is as if nothing had been done.

  To the woman who understood her task.

  To the woman who looked at the road ahead of her, and knew that hers would be a difficult journey.

  To the woman who did not attempt to make light of those difficulties, but, on the contrary, spoke out against them and made them clearly visible.

  To the woman who made the lonely feel less alone, who fed those who hungered and thirsted for justice, who made the oppressor feel as bad as those he oppressed.

  To the woman who always keeps her door open, her hands working, her feet moving.

  To the woman who personifies the verses of that other Persian poet, Hafez, when he says:

  Not even seven thousand years of joy can justify seven days of repression.

  To the woman who is here tonight, may she be each and every one of us, may her example spread, may she still have many difficult days ahead, so that she can complete her work, so that, for the generations to come, the meaning of ‘injustice’ will be found only in dictionary definitions and never in the lives of human beings.