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I HAVE A TERRIBLE HEADACHE after drinking all that Mongolian-Siberian vodka, and none of the pills and potions I’ve taken seem to help. It’s a bright, cloudless day, but there’s a biting wind. It may be spring, but ice still mingles with the pebbles on the shore. Despite the various layers of clothing I’ve put on, the cold is unbearable.
But my one thought is: My God, I’m home!
Before me lies a vast lake, so big that I can barely see the far shore. Against a backdrop of snowcapped mountains, a fishing boat is setting out across the lake’s transparent waters and will presumably return this evening. All I want is to be here, entirely present, because I don’t know if I will ever come back. I take several deep breaths, trying to soak up the beauty of it all.
“It’s one of the loveliest things I’ve ever seen.”
Encouraged by this remark, Yao decides to feed me some facts. He explains that Lake Baikal, called the North Sea in ancient Chinese texts, contains roughly twenty percent of the world’s surface fresh water and is more than twenty-five million years old. Unfortunately, none of this interests me.
“Don’t distract me; I want to absorb this whole landscape into my soul.”
“It’s very big. Why don’t you just plunge straight in and merge your soul with the soul of the lake?”
In other words, risk suffering thermal shock and dying of hypothermia in Siberia. He has finally managed to get my attention. My head is heavy, the wind unbearable, and we decide to go straight to the place where we are to spend the night.
“Thank you for coming. You won’t regret it.”
We go to an inn in a little village with dirt roads and houses like the ones I saw in Irkutsk. There is a well near the door, and a little girl is standing by it, trying to draw up a bucket of water. Hilal goes to help her, but instead of pulling on the rope, she positions the child perilously near the edge.
“According to the I Ching,” I tell her, “you can move a town, but you cannot move a well. I say that you can move the bucket but not the child. Be careful.”
The child’s mother comes over and berates Hilal. I leave them to it and go to my room. Yao had been vehemently opposed to Hilal coming with us. Women are not allowed in the place where we are going to meet the shaman. I told him that I wasn’t particularly interested in making the visit. I know the Tradition, which is to be found everywhere, and I’ve met various shamans in my own country. I agreed to go only because Yao has helped me and taught me many things during the journey.
“I need to spend every second I can with Hilal,” I had said while we were still in Irkutsk. “I know what I’m doing. I am on the path back to my kingdom. If she doesn’t help me now, I will have only three more chances in this life.”
He didn’t understand exactly what I meant, but he gave in.
I put my backpack down in one corner of my room, turn the heat up to maximum, close the curtains, and fall onto the bed, hoping my headache will go away. At this point, Hilal comes in.
“You left me out there, talking to that woman. You know I hate strangers.”
“We’re the strangers here.”
“I hate being judged all the time and having to hide my fear, my emotions, my vulnerabilities. You think I’m a brave, talented young woman who is never intimidated by anything. Well, you’re wrong. Everything intimidates me. I avoid glances, smiles, close contact. You’re the only person I’ve really talked to. Or haven’t you noticed?”
Lake Baikal, snowcapped mountains, limpid water, one of the most beautiful places on the planet, and this stupid conversation.
“Let’s rest for a while, then we can go out for a walk. I’m meeting the shaman tonight.” She makes as if to put down her backpack, but I say, “You have your own room.”
“But on the train…”
She doesn’t complete her sentence and leaves, slamming the door. I lie there, staring up at the ceiling, wondering what to do. I can’t let myself be guided by my feelings of guilt. I can’t and I won’t, because I love another woman who is far away just now and who trusts her husband even though she knows him well. All my previous attempts at explanation have failed; perhaps here would be the ideal place to set things straight once and for all with this obsessive, adaptable, strong but fragile young woman.
I am not to blame for what is happening. Neither is Hilal. Life has placed us in this situation, and I just hope it is for the good of both of us. Hope? I’m sure it is. I start praying and immediately fall asleep.
WHEN I WAKE UP I go to her room, and from outside I can hear her playing the violin. I wait until she has finished, then knock on the door.
“Let’s go for a walk.”
She looks at me, surprised and happy. “Are you feeling better? Can you stand the wind and the cold?”
“Yes, I’m much better. Let’s go.”
We walk through the village, which is like something out of a fairy tale. One day, tourists will come here, vast hotels will be built, and shops will sell T-shirts, lighters, postcards, models of the wooden houses. They will make huge parking lots for the double-decker coaches that will bring people armed with digital cameras, determined to capture the whole lake on a microchip. The well we saw will be destroyed and replaced by another, more decorative one; however, it won’t supply the inhabitants with water but will be sealed by order of the council so that no foreign children risk leaning over the edge and falling in. The fishing boat I saw this morning will vanish. The waters of the lake will be crisscrossed by modern yachts offering day cruises to the center of the lake, lunch included. Professional fishermen and hunters will arrive, armed with the necessary licenses for which they will pay, per day, the equivalent of what the local fishermen and hunters earn in a year.
At the moment, though, it’s just a remote village in Siberia, where a man and a woman less than half his age are walking alongside a river created by the thaw. They sit down beside it.
“Do you remember our conversation last night in the restaurant?”
