He wasn’t sure how long the moment lasted. He slowly became calmer and calmer, as though a weight had been taken from his shoulders, his chest, his head, his life. Marie thought it was time to let him sleep and began to remove her hand, but he held it there.
“Don’t leave. I need to tell you something.”
She laid her head on her father’s lap, like she’d done when she was a child listening to his stories. He ran his fingers through her hair.
“You know that you’re fine and can go back to work tomorrow, don’t you?”
Yes. He knew. And the next day he would go to work—not to the building where he had his office but to the headquarters. The current director had come up through the company together with Jacques and had sent a message saying he’d like to see him.
“I want to tell you something: I was dead for a few seconds, or minutes, or an eternity—I don’t have a sense of the time because things happened so slowly. And suddenly I saw myself surrounded by a loving energy I’d never felt before. It was as though I were in the presence…”
His voice began to tremble, like that of someone holding back tears. But he continued.
“…as though I were in the presence of God. Something that, as you know, I’ve never believed in. I only decided to send you to Catholic school because it was close to our house, and the education, excellent. I was required to participate in religious ceremonies, which bored me to death, filled your mother with pride, and made your classmates and their parents see me as one of them. But the truth is it was merely a sacrifice I made for your sake.”
He continued stroking his daughter’s head—it had never occurred to him to ask whether she believed in God or not, because the moment wasn’t right. As far as he could tell, she no longer followed the strict form of Catholicism she’d been raised in; she was always wearing exotic clothing and hanging out with friends with long hair, listening to music much different from Dalida or Edith Piaf.
“I always had everything planned out, I knew how to carry out these plans, and according to my time line, soon I’d be retired with enough money to do what I like. But all this changed in those minutes or seconds or years when God took me by the hand. As soon as I returned to the restaurant floor and the worried expression of the owner feigning calm, I understood that I could never go back to living the way I had before.”
“But you like your job.”
“I liked it so much I was the best at what I did. But now I want to say goodbye to this work that’s filled with warm memories. Tomorrow, I want to ask you a favor.”
“Anything. You’ve always been a father who taught me more by your example than by the things you told me.”
“That’s exactly what I want to ask you. I taught you many things for years and now I want you to teach me. I want us to travel the world together, to see things I’ve never seen, to pay closer attention to the morning and the night. Quit your job and come with me. I hope your boyfriend can indulge me a bit, patiently await your return, and allow you to come with me.
“I need to immerse my soul and my body in rivers I’ve not yet known, drink things I’ve not yet drunk, contemplate mountaintops I’ve only seen on television, allow the same love that I felt tonight to return, even if it’s only for a minute each year. I want you to lead me through your world. I will never be a burden, and when you feel I ought to go off on my own, you need only ask and I’ll do it. And when you feel the time is right to return, I’ll do that and we’ll take one more step together. I’ll say it again: I want you to lead me.”
His daughter didn’t move. Her father hadn’t merely returned to the world of the living but had found a door or window that opened onto his own world—which she would never dare share with him.
The two of them thirsted for the Everlasting. Quenching this thirst was simple—they needed only to allow the Everlasting to appear to them. To do so, they needed no special place beyond their own bodies and faith, a shapeless force that runs through everything and carries within it what the alchemists call anima mundi.
Jacques reached the front of the bazaar, where more women were entering than men, more children than adults, fewer mustaches and more head scarves. From where he stood he could detect a strong scent—a mixture of perfumes that combined into one and climbed toward the heavens before returning again to Earth, bringing with the rain a blessing and a rainbow.
34
Karla’s tone had softened when they met in the hotel room to change into the clothes they’d washed the day before, as they prepared to head out to dinner.
“Where did you end up going today?”
She had never asked him this—to his mind, this was something that his mother would ask his father, or other married adults their partners. He didn’t feel like answering, and she didn’t insist.
“I’ll bet you went to the bazaar looking for me,” she said, and began to laugh.
“I started walking in your direction, but soon I changed my mind and went back to the place I was before.”
“I have an offer that you can’t refuse: let’s have dinner in Asia.”
It didn’t take much effort to figure out what she was proposing: to cross the bridge that led from one continent to the next. But the Magic Bus would be doing this soon, why the hurry?
“Because one day I’ll be able to tell people something they’ll never believe. I had a coffee in Europe and twenty minutes later I walked into a restaurant in Asia, ready to eat all the delicious things to be found there.”
It was a good idea. He would be able to tell his friends the same thing. No one would believe him either; they’d think the drugs had gone to his brain, but what did he care? There really was a drug that had slowly begun to take effect, it had started that afternoon, with the very same man he’d found when he entered the empty cultural center with its walls painted green.
Karla must have bought some sort of makeup at the bazaar, because she left the bathroom with eye shadow, and mascara on her lashes, something he’d never seen. She wore a constant smile, something he’d also never noticed before. Paulo thought about shaving—he’d had a goatee for ages, which covered his prominent chin, but generally he shaved whenever possible, and being unable to do so brought back horrifying memories, such as the days he’d spent in prison. But it hadn’t occurred to him to buy one of those disposable razors—he’d thrown away the last one just before they crossed into Yugoslavia. He put on a sweater he’d bought in Bolivia and the jean jacket with the metallic stars, and they walked downstairs together.
There was no one from the bus in the hotel lobby, except the driver, entertaining himself with the newspaper. They asked how they could cross the bridge to Asia. The driver smiled.
“I can tell you. I did the same thing my first time here.”
He gave them the necessary information to grab a bus (“Don’t even think about going on foot”) and apologized for forgetting the name of the excellent restaurant where he’d had lunch one time, on the opposite side of the Bosphorus.
In reality, they weren’t headed for Asia but for the former Constantinople. Others had joked with the driver about this, and now he did the same thing with the young couple. Favorable delusions were always welcome.
“What’s going on in the world?” Karla asked, pointing to the newspaper. The driver also seemed surprised by her makeup and her smile. Something had changed.