Aleph (16 page)

W
E DO NOT MOVE ALL NIGHT
. I wake with her still in my arms, exactly as we were before the ring of fire. My neck is stiff from lying in the same position.

“Let’s get up. There’s something we need to do.”

She turns over, grumbling about how the sun rises very early in Siberia at this time of year.

“Come on, let’s get up. We have to leave. Go to your room, get dressed, and meet me downstairs.”

T
HE MAN AT RECEPTION
gives me a map and shows me where to go. A five-minute walk. Hilal complains because the breakfast buffet isn’t yet open.

We cross two streets and find the place I was looking for.

“But this is a church!”

Yes, a church.

“I hate getting up early, and I particularly hate … this,”
she says, pointing up at the blue-painted onion dome topped by a gold cross.

The doors are open, and a few elderly ladies are going inside. I look around and notice that the street is deserted, not a car in sight.

“I need you to do something for me.”

She gives her first smile of the day.
I
am asking
her
for something. I need her.

“Something only I can do?”

“Yes, something only you can do. Just don’t ask me why I want you to do it.”

I
TAKE HER HAND
and lead her into the church. It isn’t the first time I’ve been inside an Orthodox church, but I never know quite what to do, apart from lighting one of the slender wax candles and praying to the saints and angels to protect me. Even so, I always love the beauty of these churches, which repeat the same architectural ideal: the vaulted ceiling, the bare central nave, the lateral arches, the gold icons made by artists who pray and fast, and before which some of the ladies who have just come in bow, then kiss the protective glass.

As always happens when we’re focused on what we want, things begin to slot perfectly into place. Despite everything I experienced last night, despite still not having got beyond reading the letter, there is time enough before we reach Vladivostok, and my heart is at peace.

Hilal seems equally enchanted by the surrounding beauty. She must have forgotten that we’re in a church. I
go over to a lady sitting in a corner, selling candles. I buy four, light three, and place those before what seems to be an image of Saint George. I pray for myself, my family, my readers, and my work.

I light the fourth and take it to Hilal.

“Please just do as I say. Hold this candle.”

Instinctively, she glances around to see if anyone is watching. She must think that what I’m asking her to do will seem disrespectful to the church we’re in. The next moment, however, she’s her usual blasé self. After all, she hates churches and doesn’t see why she should behave like everyone else.

The flame from the candle is reflected in her eyes. I bow my head. I don’t feel guilty at all; I feel only acceptance and the ache of a remote pain happening in another dimension, a pain I must embrace.

“I betrayed you, and I want you to forgive me.”

“Tatiana!”

I put my hand over her mouth. She may be strong and talented and a real fighter, but I have to remember that she is still only twenty-one. I should have phrased it differently.

“No, it wasn’t Tatiana. But please, forgive me.”

“I can’t forgive you when I don’t know what you’ve done.”

“Remember the Aleph. Remember what you felt at that moment. Try to bring into this sacred place something that you don’t know but that is there in your heart. If necessary, think of a favorite symphony and let it guide you to where you need to go. That’s all that matters now. Words, explanations, and questions won’t help; they’ll only confuse
something that is already quite complex enough. Forgive me, but let that forgiveness come from the depths of your soul, the same soul that passes from one body to another and learns as it travels through nonexistent time and infinite space.

“We can never wound the soul, just as we can never wound God, but we can become imprisoned by our memories, and that makes our lives wretched even when we have everything we need in order to be happy. If only we could be entirely here, as if we had just woken up on planet Earth and found ourselves inside a golden temple, but we can’t.”

“I don’t see why I should forgive the man I love. Or perhaps only for one thing, for never having heard those same words on his lips.”

A smell of incense begins to waft toward us. The priests are coming in for morning prayers.

“Forget who you are now and go to the place where the person you always were is waiting. There you will find the right words, and then you can forgive me.”

Hilal seeks inspiration in the gilded walls, the pillars, the people entering the church at this early hour, the flames of the lit candles. She closes her eyes, possibly following my suggestion and imagining some music.

“You won’t believe this, but I think I can see a girl, a girl who isn’t here anymore but who wants to come back …”

I ask her to listen to what the girl has to say.

“The girl forgives you, not because she has become a saint but because she can no longer bear to carry this burden of hatred. Hating is very wearisome. I don’t know if
something is changing in Heaven or on Earth, or if my soul is being damned or saved, but I feel utterly exhausted, and only now do I understand why. I forgive the man who tried to destroy me when I was ten years old. He knew what he was doing, and I did not. But I felt that it was my fault, and I hated him and myself. I hated everyone who came near me, but now my soul is being set free.”

This isn’t what I was expecting.

“Forgive everything and everyone, but forgive me, too,” I ask her. “Include me in your forgiveness.”

“I forgive everything and everyone, including you, even though I don’t know what crime you have committed. I forgive you because I love you and because you don’t love me. I forgive you because you help me to stay close to my Devil, even though I haven’t thought of him for years. I forgive you because you reject me and my powers are wasted, and I forgive you because you don’t understand who I am or what I’m doing here. I forgive you and the Devil who touched my body before I even knew what life was about. He touched my body but distorted my soul.”

She puts her hands together in prayer. I would have liked her forgiveness to have been exclusively for me, but Hilal is redeeming her whole world, and perhaps that is better.

Her body starts to tremble. Her eyes fill with tears.

“Must it be here, in a church? Let’s go outside into the open air. Please!”

“No, it has to be in a church. One day we’ll do the same thing outside, but today it has to be in a church. Please, forgive me.”

She closes her eyes and holds her hands aloft. A woman
coming into the church sees this gesture and shakes her head disapprovingly. We are in a sacred place; the rituals are different here, and we should respect the traditions. I pretend not to notice, and feel relieved because Hilal, I realize, is talking with the Spirit who dictates prayers and the true laws, and nothing in the world will distract her now.

“I free myself from hatred through forgiveness and love. I understand that suffering, when it cannot be avoided, is here to help me on my way to glory. I understand that everything is connected, that all roads meet, and that all rivers flow into the same sea. That is why I am, at this moment, an instrument of forgiveness, forgiveness for crimes that were committed; one crime I know about, the other I do not.”

Yes, a spirit was talking to her. I knew that spirit and that prayer, which I had learned many years ago in Brazil. It was spoken by a little boy then, not a girl. But Hilal was repeating the words that were in the Cosmos, waiting to be used when necessary.

Hilal is speaking softly, but the acoustics in the church are so perfect that everything she says seems to reach every corner.

She lowers her arms, opens her eyes, and puts her hands to her face. I go over to embrace her, but she stops me with a gesture.

“I haven’t finished yet.”

She closes her eyes again and raises her face heavenward.

“I also forgive myself. May the misfortunes of the past no longer weigh on my heart. Instead of pain and resentment, I choose understanding and compassion. Instead of rebellion, I choose the music from my violin. Instead of grief, I choose forgetting. Instead of vengeance, I choose victory.

She opens her eyes, places her hands on my head, and says with an authority that comes from on high, “So it is. So it will be.”

…

A
COCK CROWS
in the distance. That is the sign. I take her hand, and we set off back to the hotel, looking around at the city that is just beginning to wake up. She is clearly somewhat surprised by what she has said, but for me, her words of forgiveness have been the most important part of my journey so far. This is not the final step, however. I still need to know what happens after I finish reading that letter.

We arrive in time to have breakfast with the rest of the group, pack our bags, and head for the train station.

“Hilal will sleep in the empty berth in our carriage,” I say.

No one makes any comment. I can imagine what’s going through their minds, but I don’t bother explaining that it is not at all what they think.

“Korkmaz git,”
says Hilal.

Given the look of surprise on everyone’s face, including that of my interpreter, the words are obviously not Russian.

“Korkmaz git,”
she says again. “In Turkish that means ‘He goes and is not afraid.’ ”

E
VERYONE SEEMS TO HAVE GROWN
more used to being on the train. The table in the lounge is the center of the universe around which we gather every day for breakfast, lunch, and supper, and where we talk about life and our hopes for the future. Hilal is now installed in the same carriage as us; she shares our meals, uses my bathroom to take her daily shower, practices obsessively, and takes less and less part in discussions.

Today we’re talking about the shamans of Lake Baikal, our next stop. Yao explains that he would really like me to meet one of them.

“We’ll see,” I say, which translates as “I’m not really interested.”

However, I don’t think he’ll be discouraged so easily. One of the best-known principles in martial arts is that of nonresistance. Good fighters use their opponent’s energy and turn it back on them. So the more I waste my energy on words, the less convinced I will be of what I’m saying and the easier it will be to get the better of me.

“I’ve been thinking about our conversation before we arrived in Novosibirsk,” my editor says. “You said that the Aleph was a point that existed outside of us, but that when people really love each other, they can locate that point wherever they want. The shamans believe that they are endowed with special powers and that only they can see such visions.”

“If we’re talking about the magical Tradition, the answer is yes, the Aleph is outside of us. If we’re talking about the human tradition, people who are in love can, at certain very special moments, experience the Whole. In real life, we tend to see ourselves as separate beings, but the Universe is only one thing, one soul. However, to invoke the Aleph, something very powerful has to happen: a huge orgasm, a terrible loss, the climax of a great conflict, a moment of ecstasy when confronted by something of rare beauty.”

“Well, there’s no shortage of conflicts,” says Hilal. “We’re surrounded by them, even in this carriage.”

Having been quiet for some time, she seems to have gone back to the beginning of the journey and to be intent on stirring up a situation that has already been resolved. She won the battle and wants to demonstrate her newly acquired power. My editor knows that these words are aimed at her.

“Conflicts are for undiscerning souls,” she replies, making a generalization that nonetheless hits its intended target. “The world is divided into those who understand me and those who don’t. In the case of the latter, I simply leave them to torment themselves trying to gain my sympathy.”

“That’s funny,” says Hilal, “I’m just the same. I’ve always
been that way, and I’ve always got where I wanted to get, one example being that now I’m sleeping in a berth in this carriage.”

Yao gets up. He obviously isn’t in the mood for this kind of conversation.

My publisher looks at me. What does he expect me to do? Take sides?

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” says the editor, looking straight at Hilal now. “I always thought I was prepared for everything until my son was born, and then the world seemed to fall in on me. I felt weak and insignificant and incapable of protecting him. Only children believe they’re capable of everything. They’re trusting and fearless, so they believe in their own power and get exactly what they want. When children grow up, they start to realize that they’re not as powerful as they thought and that they need other people in order to survive. Then the child begins to love and to hope his love will be requited; as life goes on, he develops an ever greater need to be loved in return, even if that means having to give up his power. We all end up where we are now: grown-ups doing everything we can to be accepted and loved.”