Aleph

The cart approaches. The girls’ white dresses are now stained with eggs, beer, wine, and potato peels. God have mercy on them. I hope that when the fire is lit, they ask pardon again for their sins, sins that will one day be transformed into virtues, unimaginable though that is for any of us there now. If they ask for absolution, a monk will hear their confessions once again and commend their souls to God. They will then be garroted, and only their corpses will be burned.

If they refuse to admit their guilt, they will be burned alive.

I have witnessed other executions and sincerely hope that the girls’ parents have bribed the executioner. If they have, he will pour a little oil over the wood, so that the fire burns more quickly, and the smoke will suffocate them before the flames begin to consume first their hair, then their feet, hands, faces, legs, and, finally, their bodies. If they have given no bribe, their daughters will burn slowly and endure indescribable pain.

The cart is now immediately in front of me. I bow my head, but one of the girls sees me. They all turn, and I prepare to be insulted and attacked as I deserve to be, for I am the guiltiest of all, the one who washed his hands of them when just one word could have changed everything.

They call my name. The people nearby turn to look at me in surprise. Do I know these witches? Were it not for my Dominican habit, they might well attack me. A fraction of a second later, the people around me realize that I must be one of those who condemned the girls. Someone gives me a congratulatory slap on the back, and a woman says, “Well done, you are a man of good faith.”

The girls continue calling to me. And weary of being a coward, I finally decide to raise my head and look at them.

At that point, everything freezes and I can see nothing more.

I CONSIDER TAKING HILAL to where the Aleph is, so close by, but is that what this journey is all about? Using someone who loves me just to get an answer to a tormenting question? Will that really make me once again the king of my kingdom? If I don’t find the answer now, I will find it later. There are doubtless another three women waiting for me along my path—if I have the courage to follow it to the end. Surely I will not leave this incarnation without knowing the answer.

IT’S LIGHT NOW, and we can see the big city through the windows of the train. People get up from their seats with no show of enthusiasm, no sign that they are pleased to be arriving. Perhaps this is where our journey really begins.

The train, this city of steel, slows to a halt, this time for good. I turn to Hilal and say, “Let’s get out together.”

People are waiting on t

he platform. A girl with large eyes is holding up a poster bearing the Brazilian flag and some words in Portuguese. Journalists come over to me, and I thank the Russian people for their kindness as I crossed their vast continent. I receive bunches of flowers, and the photographers ask me to pose in front of a large bronze column topped by a two-headed eagle. There’s a number engraved at the base of the column: 9,288.

There is no need to add the word “kilometers.” Everyone who arrives here knows what that number means.

The Telephone Call

THE SHIP IS SAILING CALMLY over the Pacific Ocean while the sun sets slowly behind the hills where the city of Vladivostok lies. The sadness I thought I saw in my traveling companions when we arrived at the station has given way to wild euphoria. We all behave as if this were the first time we had ever seen the sea. No one wants to think that we’ll be saying good-bye shortly and promising to meet up again soon, knowing that the purpose of this promise is simply to make parting easier.

The journey is coming to a close, the adventure is about to end, and in three days’ time, we will all be going back to our respective houses, where we will embrace our families, see our children, read through the correspondence that has accumulated in our absence, show off the hundreds of photos we’ve taken, and tell our stories about the train, the cities we passed through, and the people we met along the way.

And all to convince ourselves that the journey really did happen. In another three days’ time, once we’re back in our daily routine, it will feel as if we had never left and never made that long journey. We have the photos, the tickets, the souvenirs, but time—the only absolute, eternal master of our lives—will be telling us: You never left this house, this room, this computer.

Two weeks? What’s that in a whole lifetime? Nothing has changed in the street. The neighbors are still gossiping about the same old things; the newspaper you bought this morning carries exactly the same news: the World Cup about to start in Germany, the debate over whether Iran should be allowed to have nuclear weapons, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the latest celebrity scandal, the constant complaints about things the government promised to do but hasn’t.

No, nothing has changed. But we—who went off in search of our kingdom and discovered lands we had never seen before—know we are different. However, the more we try to explain, the more we will persuade ourselves that this journey, like all the others, exists only in our memory. Perhaps we will tell our grandchildren about it or even write a book on the subject, but what exactly will we say?

Nothing, or perhaps only what happened outside, not what changed inside.

We may never see one another again. And the only person with her eyes fixed on the horizon now is Hilal. She must be thinking about how to resolve this problem. No, for her the Trans-Siberian Railway doesn’t end here. Yet she doesn’t show her feelings, and when someone talks to her, she replies kindly and politely, something she has never done for as long as we’ve known each other.

…

YAO TRIES TO STRIKE UP a conversation with her. He has already made a couple attempts, but she always moves away after exchanging only a few words. In the end, he gives up and comes to join me.

“What can I do?”

“Just respect her silence.”

“Yes, I agree, but—”

“I know. Meanwhile, try thinking about yourself for a change. Remember what the shaman said: you killed God. If you don’t take this opportunity to bring Him back to life, this journey will have been a waste of time. I know a lot of people who help others simply as a way of avoiding their own problems.”

Yao pats me on the back as if to say “I understand,” then leaves me alone to gaze out to sea.

Now that I’ve reached the farthest point in my journey, my wife is once more by my side. That afternoon, I met some more readers, had the usual party, visited the local prefect, and, for the first time in my life, held in my hands a real Kalashnikov, the one the prefect keeps in his office. As we were leaving, I noticed the newspaper lying on his desk. I don’t understand a word of Russian, but the photos spoke for themselves: football.

The World Cup is due to start in a few days’ time! She’s waiting for me in Munich, where we will meet very shortly. I’ll tell her how much I’ve missed her and describe in detail what happened between me and Hilal.