Aleph

“I can’t get over what everyone else seems perfectly able to get over. You are in search of your treasure, and I am part of it. Nevertheless, I feel like a stranger in my own skin. The only reason I don’t throw myself into your arms, kiss you, and make love with you now is that I lack the courage and am afraid of losing you. While you were setting out in search of your kingdom, I was beginning to find myself, until at a certain point on the journey I couldn’t go any further. That was when I started to get more aggressive. I feel rejected, useless, and there’s nothing you can say that will make me change my mind.”

I sit down on the one chair in the room and ask her to sit on my lap. Her body is damp with sweat because of the excessive heat. She keeps ahold of her violin and bow.

“I’m afraid of lots of things,” I say, “and always will be. I’m not going to try and explain anything, but there is something you could do right now.”

“I don’t want to go on telling myself that one day it will pass. It won’t. I have to learn to live with my demons.”

“Wait. I didn’t make this journey in order to save the world, far less to save you, but according to the magical Tradition, it’s possible to transfer pain. It won’t disappear instantly, but it will gradually disappear as you transfer it to another place. You’ve been doing this unconsciously all your life. Now I suggest you do it consciously.”

“Don’t you want to make love with me?”

“Very much. At this moment, even though the room is boiling hot, I’m generating even more heat at the spot where your body is in contact with my legs. I’m no Superman. That’s why I’m

asking you to transfer both your pain and my desire. I want you to get up, go to your room, and play your violin until you’re exhausted. We’re the only guests in the hotel, so no one is going to complain about the noise. Pour all your feelings into your music, and do the same again tomorrow. Whenever you play, tell yourself that the thing that hurt you so much has become a gift. You’re wrong when you say that other people have recovered from the trauma; they’ve simply hidden it away in a place they never go to. In your case, though, God has shown you the way. The power of regeneration is in your hands.”

“I love you as I love Chopin. I always wanted to be a pianist, but the violin was all my parents could afford at the time.”

“And I love you like a river.”

She gets up and starts to play. The heavens hear the music, and the angels come down to join me in listening to the naked woman who sometimes stands still and sometimes sways her body in time to the music. I desired her and made love with her without ever touching her or having an orgasm. Not because I’m the most faithful man in the world but because that was the way in which our bodies met—with the angels watching over us.

For the third time that night—the first was when my spirit flew with the eagle of Baikal, the second when I heard that childhood tune—time had stopped. I was entirely there, with no past or future, experiencing the music with her, that unexpected prayer, and feeling grateful that I had set off in search of my kingdom. I lay down on the bed, and she continued to play. I fell asleep to the sound of her violin.

I WOKE AT FIRST LIGHT, went to her room, and saw her face. For the first time, she looked like an ordinary twenty-one-year-old woman. I woke her gently and asked her to get dressed because Yao was waiting for us to have breakfast. We had to get back to Irkutsk. The train would be leaving in a few hours.

We go downstairs, eat some marinated fish for breakfast (the only thing on the menu at that hour), then hear the sound of the car that has come to fetch us drawing up outside. The driver greets us, takes our bags, and puts them in the trunk.

We emerge from the hotel into brilliant sunshine, clear skies, and no wind. The snowy mountains in the distance are clearly visible. I pause to say good-bye to the lake, knowing that I will probably never be back. Yao and Hilal get into the car, and the driver starts the engine.

But I can’t move.

“We’d better go,” he says. “I’ve allowed an extra hour, just in case there’s some accident en route, but I don’t want to risk missing the train.”

The lake is calling to me.

Yao gets out of the car and comes over. “You were perhaps expecting more from that meeting last night with the shaman, but it was very important to me.”

I had, in fact, expected less. Later, I will tell him what happened with Hilal. Now I am looking at the lake, which is dawning along with the sun, its waters reflecting every ray. My spirit had visited it with the eagle of Baikal, but I need to know it better.

“Things aren’t always the way we expect them to be,” he goes on. “But I’m really grateful to you for coming.”

“Is it possible to deviate from the path God has made? Yes, but it’s always a mistake. Is it possible to avoid pain? Yes, but you’ll never learn anything. Is it possible to know something without ever having experienced it? Yes, but it will never truly be part of you.”

And with those words, I walk toward the waters that continue to call to me. I do so slowly at first, hesitantly, unsure as to whether I will reach them. When I feel reason trying to hold me back, I start to walk more quickly, then break into a run, pulling off my winter clothes as I do. By the time I reach the edge of the lake, I am wearing only my underpants. For a moment, for a fraction of a second, I hesitate, but my doubts are not strong enough to prevent me from going forward. The icy water touches first my feet, then my ankles. The bottom of the lake is covered with stones, and I have difficulty maintaining my balance, but I keep going, until the water is deep enough to—dive in!

My body enters the freezing water, I feel thousands of needles pricking my skin, I stay under for as long as I can—a few seconds, perhaps, perhaps an eternity—then I return to the surface.

Summer! Heat!

Later, I realize that anyone moving from a very cold place to a warmer place experiences the same sensation. There I was, with no shirt on, knee-deep in the waters of Lake Baikal, as happy as a child, because I had been enfolded in an energy that was now part of me.

Yao and Hilal had followed me and were watching incredulously from the shore.

“Come on! Come on in!”

They both start getting undressed. Hilal has nothing on underneath and is once again completely naked. But what does that matter? Some people gather on the pier and watch us. But, again, who cares? The lake is ours. The world is ours.

Yao is first in. He doesn’t realize how uneven the bottom of the lake is and falls. He gets up, wades in a little farther, then takes the plunge. Hilal must have levitated over the pebbles, because she enters at a run, going farther out than either of us before plunging in; then she opens her arms to the skies and laughs like a loon.