Aleph

Nevertheless, you have to be prepared for everything. At this point, I make the decision I’ve been needing to make: even if I find nothing on this train journey, I will carry on, because I’ve known since that moment of realisation in the hotel in London that, although my roots are ready, my soul has been slowly dying from something very hard to detect and even harder to cure.

Routine.

Routine has nothing to do with repetition. To become really good at anything, you have to practise and repeat, practise and repeat, until the technique becomes intuitive. I learned this when I was a child, in a small town in the interior of Brazil, where my family used to spend the summer holidays. I was fascinated by the work of a blacksmith who lived nearby. I would sit, for what seemed like an eternity, watching his hammer rise and fall on the red-hot steel, scattering sparks all around, like fireworks. Once he said to me:

‘You probably think I’m doing the same thing over and over, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Well, you’re wrong. Each time I bring the hammer down, the intensity of the blow is different. Sometimes it’s harder, sometimes it’s softer. But I only learned that after I’d been repeating the same gesture for many years, until the moment came when I didn’t have to think, I simply let my hand guide my work.’

I’ve never forgotten those words.

Sharing Souls

Ilook at each of my readers. I hold out my hand and thank them for being there. My body may be travelling, but when my soul flies from city to city, I am never alone: I am all the many people I meet and who have understood my soul through my books. I’m not a stranger here in Moscow, or in London, Sofia, Tunis, Kiev, Santiago de Compostela, Guimarães or any of the other cities I’ve visited in the last month and a half.

I can hear an argument going on behind me, but I try to concentrate on what I’m doing. The argument, however, shows no sign of abating. Finally, I turn round and ask my publisher what the problem is.

‘It’s that girl from yesterday. She says she wants to be near you.’

I can’t even recall the girl from yesterday, but I ask them at least to stop arguing. I carry on signing books.

Someone sits down close to me only to be removed by one of the uniformed security guards, and the argument starts again. I stop what I’m doing.

Beside me is the girl whose eyes speak of love and death. For the first time, I take a proper look at her: dark hair, between twenty-two and twenty-nine years old (I’m useless at judging people’s ages), a beat-up leather jacket, jeans and trainers.

‘We’ve checked the backpack,’ says the security man, ‘and there’s nothing to worry about. But she can’t stay here.’

The girl simply smiles. A reader is waiting for this conversation to end so that I can sign his books. I realise that the girl is not going to leave.

‘My name’s Hilal, don’t you remember? I came to light the sacred fire.’

I lie and say that yes, of course I remember. The people in the queue are beginning to grow impatient. The reader at the head of the queue says something in Russian to her, and judging from his tone of voice, I sense that it was nothing very pleasant.

There is a proverb in Portuguese which says: ‘What can’t be cured must be endured.’ Since I don’t have time for arguments now and need to make a quick decision, I simply ask her to move slightly further off, so that I can have a little privacy with the people waiting. She does as asked, and goes and stands at a discreet distance from me.

Seconds later, I have once again forgotten her existence and I’m concentrating on the task in hand. Everyone thanks me and I thank them in return, and the four hours pass as if I were in paradise. I take a cigarette-break every hour, but I’m not in the least tired. I leave each book-signing session with my batteries recharged and with more energy than ever.

Afterwards, I call for a round of applause for the organisers. It’s time to move on to my next engagement. The girl whose existence I had forgotten comes over to me.

‘I have something important to show you,’ she says.

‘That’s not going to be possible,’ I say. ‘I have a supper to go to.’

‘It’s perfectly possible,’ she replies. ‘My name is Hilal. I was waiting for you yesterday outside your hotel. And I can show you what I want to show you here and now, while you’re waiting to leave.’

Before I can respond, she takes a violin out of her backpack and starts to play.

The readers, who had begun to drift away, return for this impromptu concert. Hilal plays with her eyes closed, as if she were in a trance. I watch the bow moving back and forth, lightly touching the strings and producing this music, which, even though I’ve never heard it before, is saying something that I and everyone else present need to hear. Sometimes she pauses; sometimes she seems to be in a state of ecstasy; sometimes her whole being dances with the instrument; but mostly only her upper body and her hands move.

Every note leaves in each of us a memory, but it is the melody as a whole that tells a story, the story of someone wanting to get closer to another person and who keeps on trying despite repeated rejections. While Hilal is playing, I remember the many occasions on which help has come from precisely those people whom I thought had nothing to add to my life.

When she stops playing, there is no applause, nothing, only an almost palpable silence.

‘Thank you,’ I say.

‘I’ve shared a little of my soul, but there is still a lot to do before I can fulfil my mission. May I come with you?’

Generally speaking, pushy people provoke one of two reactions in me: either I turn and walk away or I allow myself to be beguiled. I can’t tell someone that their dreams are impossible. Not everyone has the strength of mind that Mônica showed in that bar in Catalonia, and if I were to persuade just one person to stop fighting for something they were convinced was worthwhile, I would end up persuading myself, and my whole life would be diminished.

It has been a very satisfying day. I phone the Brazilian ambassador and ask if he could include another guest at supper. Very kindly, he agrees, saying that my readers are my representatives.

Despite the formal atmosphere, the ambassador manages to put everyone at their ease. Hilal arrives wearing an outfit that I consider to be tasteless in the extreme, full of gaudy colours, in sharp contrast with the sober dress of the other guests. Not knowing quite where to put this last-minute arrival, the organisers end up seating her in the place of honour, next to our host.

Before we sit down to supper, my best friend in Russia, an industrialist, explains that we’re going to have problems with the sub-agent, who spent the whole of the cocktail party prior to supper arguing with her husband over the phone.

‘About what exactly?’

‘It seems that you agreed to go to the club where he’s the manager, but cancelled at the last minute.’

There was something in my diary along the lines of ‘discuss the menu for the journey through Siberia’, which was the least and most irrelevant of my concerns on an afternoon during which I had received only positive energy. I cancelled the meeting because it seemed so absurd; I’ve never discussed menus in my entire life. I preferred to go back to the hotel, take a shower and let the sound of the water carry me off to places I can’t even explain to myself.

Supper is served, parallel conversations spring up around the table and, at one point, the ambassador’s wife kindly asks Hilal about herself.

‘I was born in Turkey and came to study violin in Ekaterinburg when I was twelve. I assume you know how musicians are selected?’

No, the ambassador’s wife doesn’t. Suddenly, there seem to be fewer parallel conversations going on. Perhaps everyone is interested in that awkward young woman in the garish clothes.

‘Any child who starts playing an instrument has to practise for a set number of hours per week. At that stage, they’re all deemed capable of performing in an orchestra one day. As they grow older, some start practising more than others. In the end, there is just a small group of outstanding students, who practise for nearly forty hours a week. Scouts from big orchestras visit the music schools in search of new talent, who are then invited to turn professional. That’s what happened to me.’

‘It would seem that you found your vocation,’ says the ambassador. ‘We’re not all so lucky.’

‘It wasn’t exactly my vocation. I started practising a lot because I was sexually abused when I was ten.’

All conversation around the table stops. The ambassador tries to change the subject and makes some comment about Brazil negotiating with Russia on the export and import of heavy machinery, but no one, absolutely no one, is interested in my country’s trade balance. It falls to me to pick up the thread of the story.

‘Hilal, if you wouldn’t mind, I think everyone here would be interested to know what relation there is between being a young sex abuse victim and becoming a violin virtuoso.’

‘What does your name mean?’ asks the ambassador’s wife, in a last desperate attempt to take the conversation off in another direction.

‘In Turkish it means new moon. It’s the symbol on our national flag. My father was an ardent nationalist. Actually, it’s a name more common among boys than girls. It has another meaning in Arabic apparently, but I don’t quite know what.’

I refuse to be sidetracked.

‘To go back to what we were talking about, would you mind explaining? We’re among family.’

Family?! Most of the people here met for the first time over supper.