The Zahir

"Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused.

"This force is on earth to make us happy, to bring us closer to God and to our neighbor, and yet, given the way that we love now, we enjoy one hour of anxiety for every minute of peace."

Mikhail paused. The strange cymbal sounded again.

"As on every Thursday, we are not going to tell stories about love. We are going to tell stories about the lack of love. We will see what lies on the surface--the layer where we find all our customs and values--in order to understand what lies beneath. When we penetrate beneath that layer we will find ourselves. Who would like to begin?"

Several people raised their hand. Mikhail pointed to a young woman of Arab appearance. She turned to a man on his own, on the other side of the room.

"Have you ever failed to get an erection when you've been to bed with a woman?"

Everyone laughed. The man, however, avoided giving a direct answer.

"Are you asking that because your boyfriend is impotent?"

Again everyone laughed. While Mikhail had been speaking, I had once more begun to suspect that this was indeed some new sect, but when sects hold meetings, I can't imagine that they smoke and drink and ask embarrassing questions about each other's sex lives.

"No, he's not," said the girl firmly. "But it has occasionally happened to him. And I know that if you had taken my question seriously, your answer would have been 'Yes, I have.' All men, in all cultures and countries, independent of any feelings of love or sexual attraction, have all experienced impotence at one time or another, often when they're with the person they most desire. It's normal."

Yes, it was normal, and the person who had told me this was a psychiatrist, to whom I went when I thought I had a problem.

The girl went on:

"But the story we're told is that all men can always get an erection. When he can't, the man feels useless, and the woman is convinced she isn't attractive enough to arouse him. Since it's a taboo subject, he can't talk to his friends about it. He tells the woman the old lie: 'It's never happened to me before.' He feels ashamed of himself and often runs away from someone with whom he could have had a really good relationship, if only he had allowed himself a second, third, or fourth chance. If he had trusted more in the love of his friends, if he had told the truth, he would have found out that he wasn't the only one. If he had trusted more in the love of the woman, he would not have felt humiliated."

Applause. Cigarettes are lit, as if a lot of the people there--men and women--feel a great sense of relief.

Mikhail points to a man who looks like an executive in some big multinational.

"I'm a lawyer and I specialize in contested divorces."

"What does that mean?" asks someone in the audience.

"It's when one of the parties won't agree to the separation," replies the lawyer, irritated at being interrupted and as if he found it absurd that anyone should not know the meaning of such a straightforward legal term.

"Go on," says Mikhail, with an authority that I would never have imagined in the young man I had met at the book signing.

The lawyer continues:

"Today I received a report from the London-based firm Human and Legal Resources. This is what it says:

(a) 'Two-thirds of all employees in a company have some kind of love relationship. Imagine! That means that in any office of three people, two will end up having some form of intimate contact.

(b) 'Ten percent leave their job because of this, 40 percent have relationships that last more than three months, and in the case of certain professions that require people to spend long periods away from home, at least eight out of ten end up having an affair.'

"Isn't that unbelievable?"

"Well, of course, we have to bow down to statistics!" remarks one of a group of young men who are all dressed as if they were members of some dangerous band of robbers. "We all believe in statistics! That means that my mother must be being unfaithful to my father, but it's not her fault, it's the fault of the statistics!"

More laughter, more cigarettes, more relief, as if the people in the audience were hearing things they had always been afraid to hear and that hearing them freed them from some kind of anxiety. I think about Esther and about Mikhail in "professions that require people to spend long periods away from home..."

I think about myself and the many times this has happened to me. They are, after all, statistics. We are not alone.

Other stories are told of jealousy, abandonment, depression, but I am no longer listening. My Zahir has returned in its full intensity--even though, for a few moments, I had believed I was merely engaging in a little group therapy, I am, in fact, in the same room as the man who stole my wife. My neighbor, the one who recognized me, asks if I'm enjoying myself. He distracts me for a moment from my Zahir, and I am happy to respond.

"I still can't quite see the point. It's like a self-help group, like Alcoholics Anonymous or marriage counseling."

"But doesn't what you hear strike you as genuine?"