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I PUSH HILAL AWAY. We are back on the train.
“I couldn’t see clearly,” she says. “It looked like a crowd shouting, and there was a man wearing a hood. I think it was you, but I’m not sure.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Did you get the answer you needed?”
I would like to say, “Yes, I finally understand my destiny,” but my voice is choked with tears.
“You won’t leave me alone in this city, will you?”
I put my arms around her.
“Of course I won’t.”
Moscow, June 1, 2006
THAT NIGHT, when we return to the hotel, Yao is there, waiting for Hilal with a return ticket to Moscow. We will fly back on the same plane, although in different classes. My publishers cannot accompany me to my audience with Vladimir Putin, but a journalist friend of mine has permission to do so.
When the plane lands, Hilal and I leave through different exits. I am led into a special room, where two men and my friend are waiting. I ask to go to the terminal where the other passengers are disembarking, saying that I need to say good-bye to someone. One of the men says there isn’t time, but my friend points out that it’s only two in the afternoon and the meeting isn’t until five. And even if the president were waiting for me at the house outside Moscow where he’s usually to be found at this time of year, it will take us, at most, fifty minutes to get there.
“Besides, if there’s any problem, your cars are fitted with sirens, aren’t they?” he says jokingly.
We make our way to the other terminal. I enter a florist’s and buy a dozen roses. We reach the arrivals gate, which is crowded with people waiting for friends and relatives arriving from far-flung places.
“Does anyone here understand English?” I shout.
People look startled, doubtless because of the three burly men with me.
“Does anyone speak English?”
A few hands are raised. I show them the bouquet of roses.
“A young woman whom I love very much will be arriving shortly. I need eleven volunteers to help me give her these flowers.”
Eleven volunteers immediately appear by my side. We form a queue. Hilal comes out of the main door, sees me, smiles, and heads straight for me. One by one the volunteers hand her the roses. She looks half confused and half happy. When she finally reaches me, I hand her the twelfth rose and fold her in the warmest of embraces.
“Aren’t you going to tell me you love me?” she asks, trying to keep control of the situation.
“Yes. I love you like a river. But now we must say good-bye.”
“Good-bye?” she says with a laugh. “You’re not going to get rid of me that easily.”
The two men who are to be my escorts suddenly say something in Russian. My journalist friend laughs. I ask him what they said, but Hilal herself translates.
“They said it’s the most romantic thing they’ve ever seen in this airport.”
Saint George’s Day, 2010
Author’s Note
I MET HILAL AGAIN in September 2006 when I invited her to take part in a conference at the Monastery of Melk in Austria. We traveled from there to Barcelona, then on to Pamplona and Burgos. It was in one of those cities that she told me she had left music school and given up playing the violin. I tried to convince her to reconsider, but something inside told me that she, too, had become queen of her world again and needed to rule over her own realm.
While I was writing this book, Hilal sent me two e-mails saying that she had dreamed I was writing about what had happened between us. I asked her to be patient, and told her about the book only when I had finished writing it. She didn’t appear to be surprised in the least.
I wonder if I was right to think that if I missed that opportunity with Hilal, I would have another three chances (after all, eight girls were to be executed that day, and I had already met five of them). I doubt now that I will ever know; of the eight girls condemned to death, only one really loved me, the girl whose name I never knew.
I no longer work with Lena, Yuri Smirnov, and the Sofia Publishing House, but I would like to thank them for the unique experience of traveling across Russia by train.
