The Zahir

Marie knew at once that I was talking about Mikhail and could not conceal a flicker of displeasure. She said she had to go, there was a film crew waiting.

Dr. Louit, however, having picked up his things ready to leave, stopped to answer my question.

"It's an excess of electrical impulses in one specific area of the brain, which provokes convulsions of greater or lesser severity. There's no definitive study on the subject, but they think attacks may be provoked when the person is under great strain. But don't worry, while epileptic symptoms can appear at any age, epilepsy itself is unlikely to be brought on by colliding with a motorcycle."

"So what causes it?"

"I'm not a specialist, but, if you like, I can find out."

"Yes, if you would. And I have another question too, but please don't go thinking that my brain's been affected by the accident. Is it possible that epileptics can hear voices and have premonitions?"

"Did someone tell you this accident was going to happen?"

"Not exactly, but that's what I took it to mean."

"Look, I can't stay any longer, I'm giving Marie a lift, but I'll see what I can find out about epilepsy for you."

For the two days that Marie was away, and despite the shock of the accident, the Zahir took up its usual space in my life. I knew that if Mikhail had kept his word, there would be an envelope waiting for me at home containing Esther's address; now, however, the thought frightened me.

What if Mikhail was telling the truth about the voice?

I started trying to remember the details of the accident: I had stepped down from the curb, automatically looking to see if anything was coming; I'd seen a car approaching, but it had appeared to be a safe distance away. And yet I had still been hit, possibly by a motorbike that was trying to overtake the car and was outside my field of vision.

I believe in signs. After I had walked the road to Santiago, everything had changed completely: what we need to learn is always there before us, we just have to look around us with respect and attention in order to discover where God is leading us and which step we should take next. I also learned a respect for mystery. As Einstein said, God does not play dice with the universe; everything is interconnected and has a meaning. That meaning may remain hidden nearly all the time, but we always know we are close to our true mission on earth when what we are doing is touched with the energy of enthusiasm.

If it is, then all is well. If not, then we had better change direction.

When we are on the right path, we follow the signs, and if we occasionally stumble, the Divine comes to our aid, preventing us from making a mistake. Was the accident a sign? Had Mikhail intuited a sign that was intended for me?

I decided that the answer to these questions was yes.

And perhaps because of this, because I accepted my destiny and allowed myself to be guided by something greater than myself, I noticed that, during the day, the Zahir began to diminish in intensity. I knew that all I had to do was open the envelope, read her address, and go and knock on her door, but the signs all indicated that this was not the moment. If Esther really was as important in my life as I thought, if she still loved me (as Mikhail said she did), why force a situation that would simply lead me into making the same mistakes I had made in the past?

How to avoid repeating them?

By knowing myself better, by finding out what had changed and what had provoked this sudden break in a road that had always been marked by joy.

Was that enough?

No, I also needed to know who Esther was, what changes she had undergone during the time we were together.

And was it enough to be able to answer these two questions?

There was a third: Why had fate brought us together?

I had a lot of free time in that hospital room, and so I made a general review of my life. I had always sought both adventure and security, knowing that the two things did not really mix. I was sure of my love for Esther and yet I easily fell in love with other women, merely because the game of seduction is the most interesting game in the world.

Had I shown my wife that I loved her? Perhaps for a while, but not always. Why? Because I didn't think it was necessary; she must know I loved her; she couldn't possibly doubt my feelings.

I remember that, many years ago, someone asked me if there was a common denominator among all the various girlfriends I had had in my life. The answer was easy: me. And when I realized this, I saw how much time I had wasted looking for the right person--the women changed, but I remained the same and so got nothing from those shared experiences. I had lots of girlfriends, but I was always waiting for the right person. I controlled and was controlled and the relationship never went any further than that, until Esther arrived and changed everything.

I was thinking tenderly of my ex-wife; I was no longer obsessed with finding her, with finding out why she had left without a word of explanation. A Time to Rend and a Time to Sew had been a true account of my marriage, but it was, above all, my own testimony, declaring that I am capable of loving and needing someone else. Esther deserved more than just words, especially since I had never said those words while we were together.

It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn't matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over. Slowly, I began to realize that I could not go back and force things to be as they once were: those two years, which up until then had seemed an endless inferno, were now beginning to show me their true meaning.

And that meaning went far beyond my marriage: all men and all women are connected by an energy which many people call love, but which is, in fact, the raw material from which the universe was built. This energy cannot be manipulated, it leads us gently forward, it contains all we have to learn in this life. If we try to make it go in the direction we want, we end up desperate, frustrated, disillusioned, because that energy is free and wild.

We could spend the rest of our life saying that we love such a person or thing, when the truth is that we are merely suffering because, instead of accepting love's strength, we are trying to diminish it so that it fits the world in which we imagine we live.