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“You weren’t fighting with me but with her.”
“That’s true.”
“We’ll continue practicing, then, whenever the journey allows us. I want to thank you, by the way, for what you said on the train, comparing life and death to moving from one carriage to another, and explaining that we do that many times in our life. I slept peacefully for the first time since I lost my wife. I met her in my dreams and saw that she was happy.”
“I was talking to myself, too, you know.”
I thank him for being a loyal adversary who would not let me win a fight I did not deserve to.
The Ring of Fire
First develop a strategy that utilizes everything around you. The best way to prepare for a challenge is to cultivate the ability to call on an infinite variety of responses.
I finally had access to the Internet. I needed to remember everything I had learned about the Path of Peace.
The search for peace is a form of prayer that generates light and heat. Forget about yourself for a while and understand that in that light lies wisdom and in that heat lies compassion. As you travel this planet, try to perceive the true form of the Heavens and the Earth. That will be possible only if you can stop yourself from becoming paralyzed by fear and ensure that all your gestures and attitudes are in keeping with your thoughts.
Someone knocks at the door. I’m so focused on what I’m reading that at first I can’t understand what the noise is. My first impulse is simply not to open the door, but what if it’s something urgent? Why else would someone come knocking at this late hour?
As I go over to the door, I realize that there is one person with enough courage to do just that.
Hilal is standing outside, wearing a red T-shirt and pajama bottoms. Without saying a word, she comes in and lies down on my bed. I lie down beside her. She rolls over toward me, and I put my arms around her.
“Where have you been?” she asks.
“Where have you been?” is not an empty question. Anyone asking it is also saying “I missed you,” “I want to be with you,” “I need to know what you’ve been up to.”
I don’t an
swer. I simply stroke her hair.
“I phoned Tatiana, and we spent the evening together,” she says, in answer to the question I neither asked nor answered. “She’s a sad woman, and sadness is contagious. She told me she has a twin sister who’s a drug addict and incapable of holding down a job or a relationship. Tatiana’s sadness doesn’t stem from there, though, but from the fact that she’s successful, pretty, desirable, and enjoys her work, and, although she’s divorced, she’s already met another man who’s madly in love with her. The problem is that whenever she sees her sister, she feels terribly guilty. First, because she can’t do anything to help, and, second, because her victory makes her sister’s defeat seem all the more bitter. In other words, we’re never happy, whatever the circumstances. And Tatiana isn’t the only person to think like that.”
I continue to stroke her hair.
“You remember what I said at the embassy, don’t you? Everyone says that I have extraordinary talent, that I’m a great violinist and that success and acclaim are assured. My teacher told you so, adding, ‘But she’s very insecure, unstable.’ That’s not true—I have great technique, and I know where to look when I need inspiration, but that isn’t what I was born for, and no one will convince me otherwise. The violin is my way of running away from reality, my chariot of fire that takes me far from myself, and I owe my life to it. I survived so that I would meet someone who would free me from all the hatred I feel. When I read your books, I realized that you were that person. Of course.”
“Of course.”
“I tried to help Tatiana, saying that ever since I was a young girl, I’ve done my best to destroy all the men who came near me, simply because one of them tried unconsciously to destroy me. She wouldn’t believe it, though. She thinks I’m just a child. She agreed to meet me only so that she could get nearer to you.”
She moves a little closer. I can feel the warmth of her body.
“She asked if she could go with us to Lake Baikal. She says that even though the train passes through Novosibirsk every day, she has never had a reason to get on it before. But now she does.”
As I predicted, now that I’m lying here next to her, I feel only tenderness for the young woman by my side. I turn out the light, and the room is lit by the glow from the welding torches being used on a building site opposite my window.
“I said she couldn’t, that even if she did get on the train, she wouldn’t be allowed into your carriage. The guards won’t let you pass from one class to another. She thought I was just trying to put her off.”
“People here work all night,” I say.
“Are you listening to me?”
“Yes, I’m listening, but I don’t understand. Another person comes looking for me in precisely the same circumstances as you, but instead of helping her, you drive her away. ”
“That’s because I’m afraid that she’ll get too close to you, and then you’ll lose interest in me. I don’t know exactly who I am or what I’m doing here, and it could all disappear from one moment to the next.”
I reach out my left hand for my cigarettes, then light one for me and one for her. I place the ashtray on my chest.
