It makes the time pass more slowly or quickly, but time never passes as before—at the same monotonous, unbearably monotonous pace.
The changes within her were slow because true change requires time. But something was changing.
Before they went out, Marie came up to Karla.
“You said something to the Irish couple about some LSD you brought, didn’t you?”
She did. It was impossible to detect, because she’d soaked one of the pages of The Lord of the Rings in an LSD solution. She’d set it out to dry back in the Netherlands, and now it was merely a passage in one of the chapters of Tolkien’s book.
“I’d really like—really like—to try some today. I’m fascinated by this city, I need to see it with new eyes. Could it help me do that?”
Yes, it could. But for someone who’d never taken it, it could be heaven or it could be hell.
“My plan is simple. We go to the bazaar, then I get ‘lost’ there and take it far away from everybody so as not to bother anyone.”
She had no idea what she was talking about. Experience your first trip alone, without bothering anyone?
At first, Karla deeply regretted having told anyone she’d brought a “page” of acid. She could have told the girl she’d heard wrong, she could have said she was referring to the characters in the book, but she hadn’t mentioned any book at all. She could have said she didn’t want the karma from introducing someone, especially Marie, to any sort of drug. Even more so at a moment in which her life had changed forever, because once you love someone, don’t you begin to love everyone?
She looked at the girl, a little younger than she was, who had the curiosity of those true warriors, the Amazons, ready to face the unknown, the dangerous, the different—not unlike what she was herself facing. She was scared, but it was good; it was good and terrifying at the same time to discover you were alive, to know that in the end something called death awaits, and still be capable of living each moment without worrying about this.
“Let’s go to my room. But first I want you to promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“You must never leave my side. There are several kinds of LSD, and this is the most potent—you could have an amazing experience or an awful one.”
Marie laughed. The Dutch girl had no idea who Marie was, the things she’d already experienced in life.
“Promise me,” Karla insisted.
“I promise.”
The rest of their group was ready to leave, and “girl problems” were the perfect excuse for that moment. They would be back in ten minutes.
Karla opened the door and felt proud to show off her room; Marie saw the clothes hung out to dry, the window open to let in fresh air, and a bed with two pillows that looked as if a hurricane had blown through—which was in fact what had happened, taking several things with it and leaving others behind.
She walked over to her backpack, grabbed the book, opened it to page 155, and, with tiny scissors she always carried with her, cut a quarter of a square inch of paper.
Next, she handed it to Marie and asked her to chew it.
“That’s all?”
“To tell the truth, I’d thought about giving you only half. But then I thought it might not have any effect, so I’m giving you the amount I used to take.”
That wasn’t the truth. She was giving the girl a half dose and, depending on Marie’s behavior and tolerance for the drug, she’d make sure she had the real experience—she was simply waiting a bit.
“Remember what I’m telling you: it’s what I used to take, it’s been more than a year since I’ve put LSD in my mouth and I’m not sure I’ll ever do it again. There are other, better ways to achieve the same effect, though I don’t have the patience to try them out.”
“Such as?” Marie had put the paper in her mouth, it was too late now to change her mind.
“Meditation. Yoga. Overwhelming passion. That sort of thing. Anything that makes us think about the world as though we’re seeing it for the first time.”
“How long until I feel the effects?”
“I don’t know. It depends on the person.”
Karla closed the book again and put it back in her bag. They went downstairs, and everyone walked together to the Grand Bazaar.
40
Back at the hotel, Mirthe had grabbed a brochure about the bazaar, founded in 1455 by a sultan who’d managed to wrest Constantinople from the hands of the pope. In an era when the Ottoman Empire ruled the world, the bazaar was the place people brought their wares, and it grew and grew to such an extent that the ceiling structures had to be expanded several times.
Even after having read this, the group was far from ready for what they would find—thousands of people walking through packed corridors, fountains, restaurants, prayer spots, coffee, rugs—everything, absolutely everything you could find in France’s best department store: finely wrought gold jewelry, clothes in all styles and colors, shoes, rugs of all kinds, working artisans indifferent to those around them.
One of the merchants wanted to know if they were interested in antiques—the fact that they were tourists was written on their foreheads; it was clear from the way they looked around them.
“How many stores are there?” Jacques asked the merchant.
“Three thousand. Two mosques. Several fountains, an enormous number of places where you can have the best Turkish food. But I have some religious statuary you won’t find anywhere else.”
Jacques thanked him, said he’d be back soon—the merchant knew it was a lie and briefly redoubled his efforts but soon saw it was useless and wished them all a good day.
“Did you know Mark Twain was here?” asked Mirthe, who at this point was covered in sweat and somewhat frightened by what she was seeing. What if there was a fire, how would they get out? Where was the door, the tiny little door they’d used to come in? How would they keep the group together when everyone wanted to see something different?
“And what did Mark Twain have to say?”
“He said it was impossible to describe what he saw, but that it had been a much more powerful, more important experience than his visit to the city. He spoke of the colors, the immense variety of visual tones, the rugs, people conversing, the apparent chaos that nonetheless seemed to follow an order he was unable to explain. ‘If I want to buy shoes,’ he wrote, ‘I don’t need to go from store to store along the street, comparing prices and models, but simply find the aisle of shoemakers, lined up one after another, without there being any sort of competition or annoyance between them; it all depends on who is the better salesman.”
Mirthe didn’t care to mention that the bazaar had already been through four fires and an earthquake—it wasn’t known how many had died because the hotel brochure said only this and glossed over any talk of body counts.
Karla noticed that Marie’s eyes were glued to the ceiling, its curved beams and its arches, and she’d begun to smile as if she could say nothing beyond “incredible, absolutely incredible.”
They walked at about a mile per hour. When one person stopped, the rest did, too. Karla needed some privacy.
“At this rate, we won’t even make it to the corner of the next aisle. Why don’t we split up and meet back at the hotel? Unfortunately—I repeat, unfortunately—we’ll be leaving this place tomorrow, so we have to make the most of this last day.”
The idea was greeted with enthusiasm, and Jacques turned to his daughter to take her with him, but Karla stopped him.
“I can’t stay here on my own. Let the two of us discover this universe of wonders together.”