Aleph

“You said you wanted some sort of payment in return.”

Aydi said, “Yes, but it isn’t money. Promise that if ever a cold wind blows through my life, you will light the fire of friendship for me.”

I thank the young woman for her kindness and tell her that I’m very busy, but that if she wants to go to the one signing session I’ll be giving in Moscow, I’ll be happy to sign one of her books.

“That isn’t why I came. I know about your journey across Russia by train, and I’m going with you. When I read your first book, I heard a voice saying that you once lit a sacred fire for me and that one day I would have to repay the favor. I dreamed about that fire night after night, and even thought I would have to go to Brazil to find you. I know you need help, which is why I’m here.”

The people with me laugh. I try to be polite, saying that I’m sure we’ll see each other the next day. My publisher explains to her that someone is waiting for me, and I seize that as an excuse to say good-bye.

“My name is Hilal,” she says, before she leaves.

Ten minutes later, I’m in my hotel room and have already forgotten about the girl who approached me outside the hotel. I can’t even remember her name, and if I were to meet her again now, I wouldn’t recognize her. However, something has left me feeling vaguely uneasy: in her eyes, I saw both love and death.

I TAKE OFF ALL MY CLOTHES, turn on the shower, and stand beneath the water—one of my favorite rituals.

I position my head so that all I can hear is the sound of the water in my ears, which cuts me off from everything else, transporting me into a different world. Like a conductor aware of every instrument in the orchestra, I begin to distinguish every sound, each one of which becomes a word. I can’t understand those words, but I know they exist.

The tiredness, anxiety, and feeling of disorientation that come from visiting so many different countries vanishes. With each day that passes, I can see that the long journey is having the desired effect. J. was right. I had been allowing myself to be slowly poisoned by routine; showers were merely a matter of washing my skin clean, meals were for feeding my body, and the sole purpose of walks was to avoid heart problems in the future.

Now things are changing, imperceptibly, but they are changing. Meals are times when I can venerate the presence and the teachings of friends, walks are once again meditations on the present mome

nt, and the sound of water in my ears silences my thoughts, calms me, and makes me relearn that it is these small daily gestures that bring us closer to God, as long as I am able to give each gesture the value it deserves.

When J. said, “Leave your comfortable life and go in search of your kingdom,” I felt betrayed, confused, abandoned. I was hoping for a solution or an answer to my doubts, something that would console me and help me feel at peace with my soul again. Those who set off in search of their kingdom know that they are going to find, instead, only challenges, long periods of waiting, unexpected changes, or, even worse, nothing.

I’m exaggerating. If we seek something, that same thing is seeking us.

Nevertheless, you have to be prepared for everything. At this point, I make the decision I’ve been needing to make: even if I find nothing on this train journey, I will carry on, because I’ve known since that moment of realization in the hotel in London that although my roots are ready, my soul has been slowly dying from something very hard to detect and even harder to cure.

Routine.

Routine has nothing to do with repetition. To become really good at anything, you have to practice and repeat, practice and repeat, until the technique becomes intuitive. I learned this when I was a child, in a small town in Brazil’s interior where my family used to spend the summer holidays. I was fascinated by the work of a blacksmith who lived nearby. I would sit for what seemed like an eternity, watching his hammer rise and fall on the red-hot steel, scattering sparks all around, like fireworks. Once he said, “You probably think I’m doing the same thing over and over, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, you’re wrong. Each time I bring the hammer down, the intensity of the blow is different; sometimes it’s harder, sometimes it’s softer. But I learned that only after I’d been repeating the same gesture for many years, until the moment came when I didn’t have to think—I simply let my hand guide my work.”

I’ve never forgotten those words.

Sharing Souls

I LOOK AT EACH OF MY READERS. I hold out my hand and thank them for being there. My body might be traveling, but when my soul flies from city to city, I am never alone; I am all the many people I meet and who have understood my soul through my books. I’m not a stranger here in Moscow, or in London, Sofia, Tunis, Kiev, Santiago de Compostela, Guimarães, or any of the other cities I’ve visited in the last month and a half.

I can hear an argument going on behind me, but I try to concentrate on what I’m doing. The argument, however, shows no sign of abating. Finally, I turn around and ask my publisher what the problem is.

“It’s that girl from yesterday. She says she wants to be near you.”

I can’t even recall the girl from yesterday, but I ask them at least to stop arguing. I carry on signing books.

Someone sits down close to me only to be removed by one of the uniformed security guards, and the argument starts again. I stop what I’m doing.

Beside me is the girl whose eyes speak of love and death. For the first time, I take a proper look at her: dark hair, between twenty-two and twenty-nine years old (I’m useless at judging people’s ages), a beat-up leather jacket, jeans, and sneakers.

“We’ve checked the backpack,” says the security man, “and there’s nothing to worry about. But she can’t stay here.”

The girl simply smiles. A reader is waiting for this conversation to end so that I can sign his books. I realize that the girl is not going to leave.

“My name’s Hilal, don’t you remember? I came to light the sacred fire.”