The Zahir

He did not manage to finish the sentence. He pushed the table away from him; pizzas, glasses, and cutlery went flying, hitting the diners on the next table. His expression had changed completely. His whole body was shaking and only the whites of his eyes were now visible. His head was violently thrown back and I heard the sound of bones cracking. A gentleman from one of the other tables leapt to his feet. Roberto caught Mikhail before he fell, while the other man picked up a spoon from the floor and placed it in Mikhail's mouth.

The whole thing can only have lasted a matter of seconds, but to me it seemed like an eternity. I could imagine the tabloids describing how a famous writer--and, despite all the adverse reviews, a possible candidate for a major literary prize--had concocted some sort of seance in a pizzeria just to get publicity for his new book. My paranoia was racing out of control. They would find out that the medium in question was the same man who had run off with my wife. It would all start again, and this time I wouldn't have the necessary courage or energy to face the same test.

I knew a few of the other diners, but which of them were really my friends? Who would be capable of remaining silent about what they were seeing?

Mikhail's body stopped shaking and relaxed; Roberto was holding him upright in his chair. The other man took Mikhail's pulse, examined his eyes, and then turned to me:

"It's obviously not the first time this has happened. How long have you known him?"

"Oh, they're regular customers," replied Roberto, seeing that I had

become incapable of speech. "But this is the first time it's happened in public, although, of course, I've had other such cases in my restaurant before."

"Yes," said the man. "I noticed that you didn't panic."

The remark was clearly aimed at me, for I must have looked deathly pale. The man went back to his table and Roberto tried to reassure me:

"He's the personal physician of a very famous actress," he said. "Although it looks to me as if you're more in need of medical attention than your guest here."

Mikhail--or Oleg or whatever the name was of the young man sitting opposite me--was beginning to come to. He looked around him and, far from seeming embarrassed, he merely smiled rather shyly.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I did try to control it."

I was doing my best to remain calm. Roberto again came to my rescue.

"Don't worry. Our writer here has enough money to pay for the broken plates."

Then he turned to me: "Epilepsy. It was just an epileptic fit, that's all."

I left the restaurant with Mikhail, who immediately hailed a taxi.

"But we haven't talked yet! Where are you going?"

"I'm in no state to talk now. And you know where to find me."

There are two kinds of world: the one we dream about and the real one.

In my dream world, Mikhail had told the truth: I was just going through a difficult patch, experiencing the kind of misunderstanding that can occur in any love relationship. Esther was somewhere, waiting patiently for me to discover what had gone wrong in our marriage and then to go to her and ask her forgiveness so that we could resume our life together.

In that dream world, Mikhail and I talked calmly, left the pizzeria, took a taxi, rang the doorbell of a house where my ex-wife (or my wife? The question now formulated itself the other way around) wove carpets in the morning, gave French lessons in the afternoon, and slept alone at night, waiting, like me, for the bell to ring, for her husband to enter bearing a large bouquet of flowers and carry her off to drink hot chocolate in a hotel near the Champs-Elysees.

In the real world, any meeting with Mikhail would always be tense, because I feared a recurrence of what had happened at the pizzeria. Everything he had said was just the product of his imagination; he had no more idea where Esther was than I did. In the real world, I was at the Gare de l'Est at 11:45 in the morning, waiting for the Strasbourg train to arrive, bringing with it an important American actor and director who very much wanted to produce a film based on one of my books.

Up until then, whenever anyone had mentioned the possibility of making a film adaptation, my answer had always been, "No, I'm not interested." I believe that each reader creates his own film inside his head, gives faces to the characters, constructs every scene, hears the voices, smells the smells. And that is why, whenever a reader goes to see a film based on a novel that he likes, he leaves feeling disappointed, saying: "The book is so much better than the film."

This time, my agent had been more insistent. She told me that this actor-filmmaker was very much "on our side," and was hoping to do something entirely different from any of the other proposals we had received. The meeting had been arranged two months earlier, and we were to have supper that night to discuss details and see if we really were thinking along the same lines.

In the last two weeks, however, my diary had changed completely: it was Thursday, and I needed to go to the Armenian restaurant, to try to reestablish contact with the young epileptic who swore that he could hear voices, but who was nevertheless the only person who knew where to find the Zahir. I interpreted this as a sign not to sell the film rights of the book and so tried to cancel the meeting with the actor; he insisted and said that it didn't matter in the least; we could have lunch instead the following day: "No one could possibly feel sad about having to spend a night in Paris alone," he said, leaving me with no possible comeback.

In the world of my imagination, Esther was still my companion, and her love gave me the strength to go forward and explore all my frontiers.

In the real world, she was pure obsession, sapping my energy, taking up all the available space, and obliging me to make an enormous effort just to continue with my life, my work, my meetings with film producers, my interviews.

How was it possible that, even after two years, I had still not managed to forget her? I could not bear having to think about it anymore, analyzing all the possibilities, and trying various ways out: deciding simply to accept the situation, writing a book, practicing yoga, doing some charity work, seeing friends, seducing women, going out to supper, to the cinema (always avoiding adaptations of books, of course, and seeking out films that had been specially written for the screen), to the theater, the ballet, to soccer games. The Zahir always won, though; it was always there, making me think, "I wish she was here with me."

I looked at the station clock--fifteen minutes to go. In the world of my imagination, Mikhail was an ally. In the real world, I had no concrete proof of this, apart from my great desire to believe what he was saying; he could well be an enemy in disguise.

I returned to the usual questions: Why had she said nothing to me? Or had she been trying to do just that when she asked me the question that Hans had asked? Had Esther decided to save the world, as she had hinted in our conversation about love and war, and was she preparing me to join her on this mission?