Part 13 (1/2)
”Are you telling me that Esther can't continue with the process of freeing herself from sadness because of me?”
”No, that's not what I meant. I don't believe that one person can blame another, under any circ.u.mstances. All I said was that she has a choice between stopping loving you or making you come to her.”
”That's what she's doing.”
”I know, but, if it were up to me, we would only go to her when the voice allows us to.”
Right, this should be the last you see of the orthopedic collar. I certainly hope so anyway. But, please, avoid making any sudden movements. Your muscles need to get used to working on their own again. By the way, what happened to the girl who made those predictions?”
”What girl? What predictions?”
”Didn't you tell me at the hospital that someone had claimed to hear a voice warning that something was going to happen to you?”
”Oh, it wasn't a girl. And you said you were going to find out about epilepsy for me.”
”Yes, I got in touch with a specialist and asked him if he knew of any such cases. His answer surprised me a bit, but let me just remind you that medicine has its mysteries. Do you remember the story I told you about the boy who goes out to buy five apples and returns with two?”
”Yes, and how he might have lost them or given them away, or else they might have turned out to be more expensive than expected, etc. Don't worry, I know there are no absolute answers. But, first, did Joan of Arc suffer from epilepsy?”
”Oddly enough, my friend mentioned her during our conversation. Joan of Arc started hearing voices when she was thirteen. Her statements reveal that she saw lights, which is one of the symptoms of an attack. According to the neurologist, Dr. Lydia Bayne, the warrior-saint's ecstatic experiences were caused by what we now call musicogenic epilepsy, which is provoked by hearing a particular kind of sound or music: in Joan's case, it was the sound of bells. Were you there when the boy had a fit?”
”Yes.”
”Was there any music playing?”
”I can't remember. But even if there was, the clatter of cutlery and the buzz of conversation would have drowned it out.”
”Did he seem tense?”
”Yes, very.”
”That's another thing that can provoke an attack. Epilepsy has been around for longer than you might think. In Mesopotamia, there are remarkably accurate descriptions of what they called 'the falling sickness,' which was followed by convulsions. Ancient people believed that it was caused by demons invading a person's body; only much later on did the Greek Hippocrates relate these convulsions to some dysfunction of the brain.
Even so, epileptics are still the victims of prejudice.”
”I'm sure. I was absolutely terrified when it happened.”
”You mentioned the word prophecy, and so I asked my friend to concentrate his researches in that area. According to him, most scientists agree that, although a lot of famous people have suffered from epilepsy, the disease itself does not confer greater or lesser powers on anyone. Nevertheless, the more famous epileptics did succeed in persuading other people to see their fits as having a mystical aura.”
”Give me an example of some famous epileptics.”
”Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Dante...I didn't make a full list, since what you were interested in was the boy's prophecy. What's his name, by the way?””You don't know him, and since you've nearly always got another appointment to go to, perhaps you'd better just finish your explanation.”
”All right. Medical scientists who study the Bible are sure that the apostle Paul was an epileptic. They base this on the fact that, on the road to Damascus, he saw a brilliant light near him which caused him to fall to the ground, leaving him temporarily blind and unable to eat or drink for some days. In medical terms, this is known as 'temporal lobe epilepsy.'”
”I don't think the church would agree.”
”I'm not even sure that I agree, but that's what the medical literature says. Other epileptics develop their self-destructive side, as was the case with van Gogh. He described his convulsions as 'the storm within.' In Saint-Remy, where he was a patient, one of the nurses saw him having a convulsive seizure.”
”At least he managed in his paintings to transform his self-destruction into a reconstruction of the world.”
”Some people suspect that Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland in order to describe his own experiences of epilepsy. The story at the beginning of the book, when Alice falls down a black hole, is an experience familiar to most epileptics. During her journey through Wonderland, Alice often sees things flying and she herself feels very light-another very precise description of the effects of an epileptic attack.”
”So it would seem epileptics have a propensity for art.”
”Not at all, it's just that because artists tend to become famous, art and epilepsy become linked in people's minds. Literature is full of examples of writers with a suspected or confirmed diagnosis of epilepsy: Moliere, Edgar Allan Poe, Flaubert.... Dostoevsky had his first attack when he was nine years old, and said that it brought him moments when he felt utterly at peace with the world as well as moments of terrible depression. Don't take all of this too seriously, and don't go thinking that you might develop epilepsy because of your accident. I haven't come across a single case of epilepsy being caused by colliding with a motorbike.”
”As I said, this is someone I actually know.”
”Does the boy with the predictions really exist or did you invent all this simply because you think you might have pa.s.sed out when you stepped off the pavement?”
”On the contrary, I hate knowing about illnesses. Whenever I read a medical book, I immediately start to get all the symptoms.”
”Let me tell you something, but please don't take it the wrong way. I think this accident did you a lot of good. You seem calmer, less obsessed. A brush with death always helps us to live our lives better; that's what your wife told me when she gave me a bit of bloodstained fabric, which I always carry with me, even though, as a doctor, I see death, close to, every day.”
”Did she say why she gave you the cloth?”
”She was very generous in her description of my work. She said that I was capable of combining technique with intuition, discipline with love. She told me that a soldier, before he died, had asked her to take his blood-soaked s.h.i.+rt, cut it into pieces, and share those pieces among people who were genuinely trying to reveal the world as it is. I imagine you, with all your books, must also have a bit of this s.h.i.+rt.”
”No, I haven't.”
”Do you know why?””I do, or, rather, I'm beginning to find out.”
”And since I'm not only your doctor, but your friend, may I give you some advice? If this epileptic boy did tell you that he can foresee the future, then he knows nothing about medicine.”
Zagreb, Croatia. 6:30 a.m.
Marie and I are sitting by a frozen fountain. It appears that, this year, spring has decided not to happen; indeed, it looks as if we will jump straight from winter into summer. In the middle of the fountain stands a column with a statue on top.
I have spent the entire afternoon giving interviews and cannot bear to say another word about my new book. The journalists all ask the usual questions: Has my wife read the book (I don't know)? Do I feel I've been unfairly treated by the critics (what?)? Has A Time to Rend and a Time to Sew shocked my readers at all, given that I reveal a great deal about my personal life (a writer can only write about his own life)? Will the book be made into a film (I repeat for the nth time that the film happens in the reader's mind and that I have forbidden the sale of film rights on any of my books)? What do I think about love? Why did I choose to write about love? How can one be happy in love, love, love, love?...
Once the interviews are over, there's the publisher's supper-it's part of the ritual. The table is packed with local worthies who keep interrupting me just as I'm about to put my fork in my mouth, and usually ask the same thing: ”Where do you find your inspiration?”
I try to eat, but I must also be pleasant, I must chat, fulfill my role as celebrity, tell a few interesting stories, make a good impression. I know that the publisher is a real hero, because he can never tell whether a book will sell or not; he could be selling bananas or soap instead; it would certainly be easier: they're not vain, they don't have inflated egos, they don't complain if they don't like the publicity campaign or if their book doesn't appear in a particular bookshop.
After supper, it's the usual routine: they want to show me their city's monuments, historic places, fas.h.i.+onable bars. There is always a guide who knows absolutely everything and fills my head with information, and I have to look as if I'm really listening and ask the occasional question just to show interest. I know nearly all the monuments, museums, and historic places of all the many cities I have visited to promote my work-and I can't remember any of them. What I do remember are the unexpected things, the meetings with readers, the bars, perhaps a street I happened to walk down, where I turned a corner and came upon something wonderful.
One day, I'm going to write a travel guide containing only maps and addresses of hotels, and with the rest of the pages blank. That way people will have to make their own itinerary, to discover for themselves restaurants, monuments, and all the magnificent things that every city has, but which are never mentioned because ”the history we have been taught” does not include them under the heading Things You Must See.
I've been to Zagreb before. And this fountain doesn't appear in any of the local tourist guides, but it is far more important to me than anything else I saw here-because it is pretty, because I discovered it by chance, and because it is linked to a story in my life.
Many years ago, when I was a young man traveling the world in search of adventure, Isat in this very spot with a Croatian painter who had traveled with me for much of the journey. I was heading off into Turkey and he was going home. We said goodbye here, drank two bottles of wine between us, and talked about everything that had happened while we had been together, about religion, women, music, the price of hotels, drugs. We talked about everything except love, because although there were people we loved, there was no need to talk about it.
After the painter had returned to his house, I met a young woman and we spent three days together and loved each other with great intensity because we both knew that it would not last very long. She helped me to understand the soul of those people and I never forgot her, just as I never forgot the fountain or saying goodbye to my traveling companion.
This was why-after the interviews, the autographs, the supper, the visits to monuments and historic places-I pestered my publishers into bringing me to this fountain. They asked me where it was, and I had no idea, just as I had no idea that Zagreb had so many fountains. After nearly an hour of searching, we finally managed to locate it. I asked for a bottle of wine, we said goodbye to everyone, and Marie and I sat down together in silence, our arms about each other, drinking wine and waiting for the sun to come up.
”You seem to get happier and happier by the day,” she says, resting her head on my shoulder.