The Zahir

The more I thought about this, the weaker the Zahir became and the closer I moved to myself. I prepared myself mentally to do a great deal of work, work that would require much silence, meditation, and perseverance. The accident had helped me understand that I could not force something that had not yet reached its time to sew.

I remembered what Dr. Louit had said: after such a trauma to the body, death could come at any moment. What if that were true? What if in ten minutes' time, my heart stopped beating?

A nurse came into the room to bring me my supper and I asked him:

"Have you thought about your funeral?"

"Don't worry," he replied. "You'll survive; you already look much better."

"I'm not worried. I know I'm going to survive. A voice told me I would."

I mentioned the "voice" deliberately, just to provoke him. He eyed me suspiciously, thinking that perhaps it was time to call for another examination and check that my brain really hadn't been affected.

"I know I'm going to survive," I went on. "Perhaps for a day, for a year, for thirty or forty years, but one day, despite all the scientific advances, I'll leave this world and I'll have a funeral. I was thinking about it just now and I wondered if you had ever thought about it."

"Never. And I don't want to either; besides, that's what really terrifies me, knowing that everything will end."

"Whether you like it or not, whether you agree or disagree, that is a reality none of us can escape. Do you fancy having a little chat about it?"

"I've got other patients to see, I'm afraid," he said, putting the food down on the table and leaving as quickly as possible, as if running away--not from me, but from my words.

The nurse might not want to talk about it, but how about me thinking about it alone? I remembered some lines from a poem I had learned as a child:

When the Unwanted Guest arrives...

I might be afraid.

I might smile or say:

My day was good, let night fall.

You will find the fields ploughed, the house clean,

the table set,

and everything in its place.

It would be nice if that were true--everything in its place. And what would my epitaph be? Esther and I had both made wills, in which, among other things, we had chosen cremation: my ashes were to be scattered to the winds in a place called Cebreiro, on the road to Santiago, and her ashes were to be scattered over the sea. So there would be no inscribed headstone.

But what if I could choose an epitaph? I would ask to have these words engraved:

"He died while he was still alive."

That might sound like a contradiction in terms, but I knew many people who had ceased to live, even though they continued to work and eat and engage in their usual social activities. They did everything automatically, oblivious to the magic moment that each day brings with it, never stopping to think about the miracle of life, never understanding that the next minute could be their last on the face of this planet.

It was pointless trying to explain this to the nurse, largely because it was a different nurse who came to collect the supper dish. This new nurse started bombarding me with questions, possibly on the orders of some doctor. He wanted to know if I could remember my name, if I knew what year it was, the name of the president of the United States, the sort of thing they ask when they're assessing your mental state.

And all because I asked the questions that every human being should ask: Have you thought about your funeral? Do you realize that sooner or later you're going to die?

That night, I went to sleep smil

ing. The Zahir was disappearing, and Esther was returning, and if I were to die then, despite all that had happened in my life, despite all my failures, despite the disappearance of the woman I loved, the injustices I had suffered or inflicted on others, I had remained alive until the last moment, and could, with all certainty, affirm: "My day was good, let night fall."

Two days later, I was back home. Marie went to prepare lunch, and I glanced through the accumulated correspondence. The entry phone rang. It was the caretaker to say that the envelope I had expected the previous week had been delivered and should be on my desk.

I thanked him, but, contrary to all my expectations, I was not in a rush to open it. Marie and I had lunch; I asked her how filming had gone and she asked me about my immediate plans, given that I wouldn't be able to go out much while I was wearing the orthopedic collar. She said that she could, if necessary, come and stay.

"I'm supposed to do an appearance on some Korean TV channel, but I can always put it off or even cancel it altogether. That's, of course, if you need my company."