"I think the time is right."
"Well, in my opinion, you couldn't be more wrong! I don't want your child. I want a child by the man I knew, who had dreams, who was always by my side! If I ever do become pregnant it will be by someone who understands me, keeps me company, listens to me, who truly desires me!"
"You have been drinking. Look, I promise, we'll talk tomorrow, but, please, come to bed now, I'm tired."
"All right, we'll talk tomorrow. And if my soul, which is standing at the door, does decide to leave, I doubt it will affect our lives very much."
"Your soul won't leave."
"You used to know my soul very well, but you haven't spoken to it for years, you don't know how much it has changed, how desperately it's begging you to listen. Even to banal topics of conversation, like experiments at American universities."
"If your soul has changed so much, how come you're the same?"
"Out of cowardice. Because I genuinely think that tomorrow we will talk. Because of everything we've built together and which I don't want to see destroyed. Or for that worst of all possible reasons, because I've simply given up."
"That's just what you've been accusing me of doing."
"You're right. I looked at you, thinking it was you I was looking at, but the truth is I was looking at myself. Tonight I'm going to pray with all my might and all my faith and ask God not to let me spend the rest of my days like this."
I hear the applause, the theater is packed. I'm about to do the one thing that always gives me sleepless nights, I'm about to give a lecture.
The master of ceremonies begins by saying that there's no need to introduce me, which is a bit much really, since that's what he's there for and he isn't taking into account the possibility that there might be lots of people in the audience who have simply been invited along by friends. Despite what he says, however, he ends up giving a few biographical details and talking about my qualities as a writer, the prizes I've won, and the millions of books I've sold. He thanks the sponsors, turns to me, and the floor is mine.
I thank him too. I tell the audience that the most important things I have to say are in my books, but that I feel I have an obligation to my public to reveal the man who lies behind those words and paragraphs. I explain that our human condition makes us tend to share only the best of ourselves, because we are always searching for love and approval. My books, however, will only ever be the mountaintop visible in the clouds or an island in the ocean: the light falls on it, everything seems to be in its place, but beneath the surface lies the unknown, the darkness, the incessant search for self.
I describe how difficult it was to write A Time to Rend and a Time to Sew, and that there are many parts of the book which I myself am only beginning to understand now, as I reread it, as if the created thing were always greater and more generous than its creator.
I say that there is nothing more boring than reading interviews or going to lectures by authors who insist on explaining the characters in their books: if a book isn't self-explanatory, then the book isn't worth reading. When a writer appears in public, he should attempt to show the audience his universe, not try to explain his books; and in this spirit, I begin talking about something more personal.
"Some time ago, I was in Geneva for a series of interviews. At the end of a day's work, and because a woman friend I was supposed to have supper with canceled at the last minute, I set off for a stroll around the city. It was a particularly lovely night, the streets were deserted, the bars and restaurants still full of life, and everything seemed utterly calm, orderly, pretty, and yet suddenly...suddenly I realized that I was utterly alone.
"Needless to say, I had been alone on other occasions during the year. Needless to say, my girlfriend was only two hours away by plane. Needless to say, after a busy day, what could be better than a stroll through the narrow streets and lanes of the old city, without having to talk to anyone, simply enjoying the beauty around me. And yet the feeling that surfaced was one of oppressive, distressing loneliness--not having someone with whom I could share the city, the walk, the things I'd like to say.
"I got out my cell phone; after all, I had a reasonable number of friends in the city, but it was too late to phone anyone. I considered going into one of the bars and ordering a drink; someone was bound to recognize me and invite me to join them. But I resisted the temptation and tried to get through that moment, discovering, in the process, that there is nothing worse than the feeling that no one cares whether we exist or not, that no one is interested in what we have to say about life, and that the world can continue turning without our awkward presence.
"I began to imagine how many millions of people were, at that moment, feeling utterly useless and wretched--however rich, charming, and delightful they might be--because they were alone that night, as they were
yesterday, and as they might well be tomorrow. Students with no one to go out with, older people sitting in front of the TV as if it were their sole salvation, businessmen in their hotel rooms, wondering if what they were doing made any sense, women who spent the afternoon carefully applying their makeup and doing their hair in order to go to a bar only to pretend that they're not looking for company; all they want is confirmation that they're still attractive; the men ogle them and chat them up, but the women reject them all disdainfully, because they feel inferior and are afraid the men will find out that they're single mothers or lowly clerks with nothing to say about what's going on in the world because they work from dawn to dusk to scrape a living and have no time to read the newspapers. People who look at themselves in the mirror and think themselves ugly, believing that being beautiful is what really matters, and spend their time reading magazines in which everyone is pretty, rich, and famous. Husbands and wives who wish they could talk over supper as they used to, but there are always other things demanding their attention, more important things, and the conversation can always wait for a tomorrow that never comes.
"That day, I had lunch with a friend who had just got divorced and she said to me: 'Now I can enjoy the freedom I've always dreamed of having.' But that's a lie. No one wants that kind of freedom: we all want commitment, we all want someone to be beside us to enjoy the beauties of Geneva, to discuss books, interviews, films, or even to share a sandwich with because there isn't enough money to buy one each. Better to eat half a sandwich than a whole one. Better to be interrupted by the man who wants to get straight back home because there's a big game on TV tonight or by the woman who stops outside a shop window and interrupts what we were saying about the cathedral tower, far better that than to have the whole of Geneva to yourself with all the time and quiet in the world to visit it.
"Better to go hungry than to be alone. Because when you're alone--and I'm talking here about an enforced solitude not of our choosing--it's as if you were no longer part of the human race.
"A lovely hotel awaited me on the other side of the river, with its luxurious rooms, its attentive employees, its five-star service. And that only made me feel worse, because I should have felt contented, satisfied with all I had achieved.
"On the way back, I passed other people in the same situation and noticed that they fell into two categories: those who looked arrogant, because they wanted to pretend they had chosen to be alone on that lovely night, and those who looked sad and ashamed of their solitary state.
"I'm telling you all this because the other day I remembered being in a hotel room in Amsterdam with a woman who was talking to me about her life. I'm telling you all this because, although in Ecclesiastes it says there is a time to rend and a time to sew, sometimes the time to rend leaves deep scars. Being with someone else and making that person feel as if they were of no importance in our life is far worse than feeling alone and miserable in the streets of Geneva."
There was a long moment of silence before the applause.
I arrived in a gloomy part of Paris, which was nevertheless said to have the most vibrant cultural life of the whole city. It took me a while to recognize the scruffy group of people before me as the same ones who appeared on Thursdays in the Armenian restaurant immaculately dressed in white.
"Why are you all wearing fancy dress? Is this some kind of tribute to a movie?"
"It's not fancy dress," replied Mikhail. "Don't you change your clothes to go to a gala supper? Would you wear a jacket and tie to play golf?"
"All right, let me put the question another way: Why have you decided to dress like young homeless people?"