Paulo Coelho - Aleph

“No,” I say. “That’s fine.”

“You know, I have a lifetime of experience in the martial arts,” he says. “And when Ueshiba was developing the Path of Peace, he wasn’t just thinking about overcoming a physical enemy. As long as there was a clear desire on the part of the student, he could learn to overcome his inner enemy as well.”

“I haven’t fought for a long time.”

“I don’t believe you. It might have been a while since you practiced aikido, but the Path of Peace continues inside you. Once learned, we never forget it.”

I can see where the conversation is leading. I could stop it right there, but I allow him to continue. He is a man with great experience of life and who was honed by adversity, a man who has survived despite having to change worlds many times in this incarnation. There’s no point trying to hide anything from him. I ask him to go on.

“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.

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 answer. 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.

“Do you desire me?” she asks.

I feel like saying, “Yes, I desire you when you’re far away, when you’re just a fantasy. Today I practiced aikido for nearly an hour, thinking about you all the time—about your body, your legs, your breasts—and yet the fighting used up only a tiny part of that energy. I love and desire my wife, and yet I also desire you. I’m not the only man who desires you, nor am I the only married man ever to desire another woman. We all commit adultery in our thoughts, ask forgiveness, then do it all over again. But it isn’t fear of committing a sin that keeps me from touching you, even though you’re here in my arms. I don’t suffer from that kind of guilt. There’s something far more important now than making love to you. That’s why I feel perfectly at peace lying beside you, looking at the hotel room lit by the glow from the building site next door.”

However, instead I say, “Of course I desire you. Very much. I’m a man, and you’re a very attractive woman. Besides, I feel a great tenderness for you, a feeling that grows with each day that passes. I admire the way you can change so easily from woman to child, from child to woman. It’s like a bow touching the strings of a violin and creating a divine melody.”

The ends of our cigarettes glow more intensely as we both inhale.

“Why don’t you touch me, then?”

I put out my cigarette, and she does the same. I continue to stroke her hair and try to make that journey back into the past.