Esther closed the book. The women and children looked up and saw me.
"I'm going for a stroll with a friend of mine who has just arrived," she told the group. "Class is over for today."
They all laughed and bowed. She came over and kissed my cheek, linked arms with me, and we went outside.
"Hello," I said.
"I've been waiting for you," she said.
I embraced her, rested my head on her shoulder, and began to cry. She stroked my hair, and by the way she touched me I began to understand what I did not want to understand, I began to accept what I did not want to accept.
"I've waited for you in so many ways," she said, when she saw that my tears were abating. "Like a desperate wife who knows that her husband has never understood her life, and that he will never come to her, and so she has no option but to get on a plane and go back, only to leave again after the next crisis, then go back and leave and go back...."
The wind had dropped; the trees were listening to what she was saying.
"I waited as Penelope waited for Ulysses, as Romeo waited for Juliet, as Beatrice waited for Dante. The empty steppes were full of memories of you, of the times we had spent together, of the countries we had visited, of our joys and our battles. Then I looked back at the trail left by my footprints and I couldn't see you.
"I suffered greatly. I realized that I had set off on a path of no return and that when one does that, one can only go forward. I went to the nomad I had met before and asked him to teach me to forget my personal history, to open me up to the love that is present everywhere. With him I began to learn about the Tengri tradition. One day, I glanced to one side and saw that same love reflected in someone else's eyes, in the eyes of a painter called Dos."
I said nothing.
"I was still very bruised. I couldn't believe it was possible to love again. He didn't say much; he taught me to speak Russian and told me that in the steppes they use the word 'blue' to describe the sky even when it's gray, because they know that, above the clouds, the sky is always blue. He took me by the hand and helped me to go through those clouds. He taught me to love myself rather than to love him. He showed me that my heart was at the service of myself and of God, and not at the service of others.
"He said that my past would always go with me, but that the more I freed myself from facts and concentrated on emotions, the more I would come to realize that in the present there is always a space as vast as the steppes waiting to be filled up with more love and with more of life's joy.
"Finally, he explained to me that suffering occurs when we want other people to love us in the way we imagine we want to be loved, and not in the way that love should manifest itself--free and untrammeled, guiding us with its force and driving us on."
I looked up at her.
"And do you love him?"
"I did."
"Do you still love him?"
"What do you think? If I did love another man and was told that you were about to arrive, do you think I would still be here?"
"No, I don't. I think you've been waiting all morning for the door to open."
"Why ask silly questions, then?"
Out of insecurity, I thought. But it was wonderful that she had tried to find love again.
"I'm pregnant."
For a second, it was as if the world had fallen in on me.
"By Dos?"
"No. It was someone who stayed for a while and then left again."
I laughed, even though my heart was breaking.
"Well, I suppose there's not much else to do here in this one-horse town," I said.
"Hardly a one-horse town," she replied, laughing too.
"But perhaps it's time you came back to Paris. Your newspaper phoned me asking if I knew where to find you. They wanted you to report on a NATO patrol in Afghanistan, but you'll have to say no."