The Zahir

However, this was not the ideal moment to speak of such matters. I was only interested in the Zahir. I needed the Zahir to become Esther again.

"Mikhail..."

"Mikhail isn't my real name. My real name is Oleg."

"Oleg, then..."

"Mikhail is the name I chose when I decided to be reborn to life. Like the warrior archangel, with his fiery sword, opening up a path so that--what is it you call them?--so that the 'warriors of light' can find each other. That is my mission."

"It's my mission too."

"Wouldn't you rather talk about Esther?"

What? Was he changing the subject again back to the very thing that interested me?

"I'm not feeling very well." His gaze was starting to wander; he kept glancing around the restaurant as if I were not there. "I don't want to talk about that. The voice..."

Something strange, something very strange, was happening. How far was he prepared to go in order to impress me? Would he end up asking me to write a book about his life and powers, like so many others had before him?

Whenever I have a clear objective, I will do anything to achieve it; that, after all, was what I said in my books and I could hardly betray my own words. I had an objective now: to gaze once more into the eyes of the Zahir. Mikhail had given me a lot of new information: He wasn't her lover, Esther hadn't left me, it was just a matter of time before I could bring her back. There was also the possibility that this meeting in the pizzeria was all a farce, that he was just someone with no other means of earning a living than by exploiting someone else's pain in order to achieve his own ends.

I drank another glass of wine; Mikhail did the same.

Take care, my instinct was telling me.

"Yes, I do want to talk about Esther, but I want to know more about you too."

"That's not true. You're just trying to seduce me, to persuade me to do things I was perfectly prepared to do anyway. Your pain is preventing you from seeing things clearly; you think I could be lying, that I'm trying to take advantage of the situation."

Mikhail might know exactly what I was thinking, but he was speaking more loudly than good manners permit. People were starting to turn around to see what was going on.

"You're just trying to impress me; you don't realize what an impact your books had on my life or how much I learned from them. Your pain has made you blind, mean-spirited, and obsessed with the Zahir. It isn't your love for her that made me accept your invitation to have lunch; in fact, I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced of your love; it might just be wounded pride. The reason I'm here..."

His voice was growing louder; he was still glancing wildly around, as if he were losing control.

"The lights..."

"What's wrong?"

"The reason I'm here is her love for you!"

"Are you all right?"

Roberto had noticed that something was wrong. He came over to the table, smiling, and put his hand casually on Mikhail's shoulder.

"Well, the pizza was obviously pretty terrible. No need to pay, you can leave when you like."

That was the way out we needed. We could simply get up and go, thus avoiding the depressing spectacle of someone in a pizzeria pretending to be communing with the spirit world just to impress or embarrass me, although I did feel that this was more than just a theatrical performance.

"Can you feel the wind blowing?"

At that moment, I was sure he wasn't acting; on the contrary, he was making an enormous effort to control himself and was more frightened by what was happening than I was.

"The lights, the lights are starting to appear! Please, get me out of here!"

His body began to be shaken by tremors. There was now no hiding what was going on; the people at the other tables had got up.

"In Kazakh..."