The Zahir

While I'm waiting, I talk to the owner and learn that he is planning to turn the whole restaurant area into a theater.

"More and more people come every week," he says. "I agreed initially because a journalist asked me as a favor and said that, in return, he'd publish a review of my restaurant in his magazine. Besides, the room is rarely used on Thursdays, and while people are waiting, they have a meal; in fact, I probably make more money on a Thursday than I do on any other night of the week. The only thing that concerned me was that the actors might belong to a sect. As you probably know, the laws here are very strict."

Yes, I did know; certain people had even suggested that my books were linked to some dangerous philosophical trend, to a strand of religious teaching that was out of step with commonly accepted values. France, normally so liberal, was slightly paranoid about the subject. There had been a recent long report about the "brainwashing" practiced on certain unwary people. As if those same people were able to make all kinds of other choices about school, university, toothpaste, cars, films, husbands, wives, lovers, but, when it came to matters of faith, were easily manipulated.

"How do they advertise these events?" I ask.

"I've no idea. If I did, I'd use the same person to promote my restaurant."

And just to clear up any doubts, since he doesn't know who I am, he adds: "By the way, it isn't a sect. They really are just actors."

The door to the room is opened, the people flock in, depositing five euros in a small basket. Inside, standing impassive on the improvised stage, are two young men and two young women, all wearing full, white skirts, stiffly starched to make them stand out. As well as these four, there is an older man carrying a conga drum and a woman with a huge bronze cymbal covered in small, tinkling attachments; every time she inadvertently brushes against this instrument, it emits a sound like metallic rain.

Mikhail is one of the young men, although he looks completely different from the person I met at the book signing: his eyes, fixed on some point in space, shine with a special light.

The audience sits down on the chairs scattered around the room. Young men and women dressed in such a way that if you met them on the street, you would think they were into hard drugs. Middle-aged executives or civil servants with their wives. A few nine-or ten-year-old children, possibly brought by their parents. A few older people, who must have made a great effort to get here, since the nearest metro station is five blocks away.

They drink, smoke, talk loudly, as if the people on the stage did not exist. The volume of conversation gradually increases; there is much laughter, it's a real party atmosphere. A sect? Only if it's a confraternity of smokers. I glance anxiously about, thinking I can see Esther in all the women there, sometimes even when they bear no physical resemblance at all to my wife. (Why can't I get used to saying "my ex-wife"?)

I ask a well-dressed woman what this is all about. She doesn't seem to have the patience to respond; she looks at me as if I were a novice, a person who needs to be educated in the mysteries of life.

"Love stories," she says. "Stories and energy."

Stories and energy. Perhaps I had better not pursue the subject, although the woman appears to be perfectly normal. I consider asking someone else, but decide that it's best to say nothing. I'll find out soon enough for myself. A gentleman sitting by my side looks at me and smiles:

"I've read your books and so, of course, I know why you're here."

I'm shocked. Does he know about the relationship between Mikhail and my wife--I must again correct myself--the relationship between one of the people on stage and my ex-wife?

"An author like you would be bound to know about the Tengri. They're intimately connected with what you call 'warriors of light.'"

"Of course," I say, relieved.

And I think: I've never even heard of the Tengri.

Twenty minutes later, by which time the air in the room is thick with cigarette smoke, we hear the sound of that cymbal. Miraculously, the conversations stop, the anarchic atmosphere seems to take on a religious aura; audience and stage are equally silent; the only sounds one can hear come from the restaurant next door.

Mikhail, who appears to be in a trance and is still gazing at some point in the distance, begins:

"In the words of the Mongolian creation myth: 'There came a wild dog who was blue and gray and whose destiny was imposed on him by the heavens. His mate was a roe deer.'"

His voice sounds different, more feminine, more confident.

"Thus begins another love story. The wild dog with his courage and strength, the doe with her gentleness, intuition, and elegance. Hunter and hunted meet and love each other. According to the laws of nature, one should destroy the other, but in love there is neither good nor evil, there is neither construction nor destruction, there is merely movement. And love changes the laws of nature."

He gestures with his hand and the four people on stage turn on the spot.

"In the steppes where I come from, the wild dog is seen as a feminine creature. Sensitive, capable o

f hunting because he has honed his instincts, but timid too. He does not use brute force, but strategy. Courageous, cautious, quick. He can change in a second from a state of complete relaxation to the tension he needs to pounce on his prey."

Accustomed as I am to writing stories, I think: "And what about the doe?" Mikhail is equally used to telling stories and answers the question hanging in the air:

"The roe deer has the male attributes of speed and an understanding of the earth. The two travel along together in their symbolic worlds, two impossibilities who have found each other, and because they overcome their own natures and their barriers, they make the world possible too. That is the Mongolian creation myth: out of two different natures love is born. In contradiction, love grows in strength. In confrontation and transformation, love is preserved.

"We have our life. It took the world a long time and much effort to get where it is, and we organize ourselves as best we can; it isn't ideal, but we get along. And yet there is something missing, there is always something missing, and that is why we are gathered here tonight, so that we can help each other to think a little about the reason for our existence. Telling stories that make no sense, looking for facts that do not fit our usual way of perceiving reality, so that, perhaps in one or two generations, we can discover another way of living.

"As Dante wrote in The Divine Comedy, 'The day that man allows true love to appear, those things which are well made will fall into confusion and will overturn everything we believe to be right and true.' The world will become real when man learns how to love; until then we will live in the belief that we know what love is, but we will always lack the courage to confront it as it truly is.