Part 20 (1/2)
He didn't really need to do that. It was a bit of a waste of time for you really and a great opportunity to catch pneumonia. I hope you realize that it was just his way of showing you how welcome you are. Here, take the oil.”
”I overslept.”
”It's only a two-hour ride to the village. We'll be there before the sun is at its highest point.”
”I need a bath. I need to change my clothes.”
”That's impossible. You're in the middle of the steppes. Put the oil in the pan, but first offer it up to the Lady. Apart from salt, it's our most valuable commodity.”
”What is Tengri?”
”The word means 'sky wors.h.i.+p'; it's a kind of religion without religion. Everyone has pa.s.sed through here-Buddhists, Hindus, Catholics, Muslims, different sects with their beliefs and superst.i.tions. The nomads became converts to avoid being killed, but they continued and continue to profess the idea that the Divinity is everywhere all the time.
You can't take the Divinity out of nature and put it in a book or between four walls. I'vefelt so much better since coming back to the steppes, as if I had been in real need of nourishment. Thank you for letting me come with you.”
”Thank you for introducing me to Dos. Yesterday, during that dedication ceremony, I sensed that he was someone special.”
”He learned from his grandfather, who learned from his father, who learned from his father, and so on. The nomadic way of life, and the absence of a written language until the end of the nineteenth century, meant that they had to develop the tradition of the akyn, the person who must remember everything and pa.s.s on the stories. Dos is an akyn.
When I say 'learn,' though, I hope you don't take that to mean 'acc.u.mulate knowledge.'
The stories have nothing to do with dates and names and facts. They are legends about heroes and heroines, animals and battles, about the symbols of man's essential self, not just his deeds. They're not stories about the vanquishers or the vanquished, but about people who travel the world, contemplate the steppes, and allow themselves to be filled by the energy of love. Pour the oil in more slowly, otherwise it will spit.”
”I felt blessed.”
”I'd like to feel that too. Yesterday, I went to visit my mother in Almaty. She asked if I was well and if I was earning money. I lied and said I was fine, that I was putting on a successful theater production in Paris. I'm going back to my own people today, and it's as if I had left yesterday, and as if during all the time I've spent abroad, I had done nothing of any importance. I talk to beggars, wander the streets with the tribe, organize the meetings at the restaurant, and what have I achieved? Nothing. I'm not like Dos, who learned from his grandfather. I only have the presence to guide me and sometimes I think that perhaps it is just a hallucination; perhaps my visions really are just epileptic fits, and nothing more.”
”A minute ago you were thanking me for bringing you with me, and now it seems to have brought you nothing but sadness. Make up your mind what you're feeling.”
”I feel both things at once, I don't have to choose. I can travel back and forth between the oppositions inside me, between my contradictions.”
”I want to tell you something, Mikhail. I too have traveled back and forth between many contradictions since I first met you. I began by hating you, then I accepted you, and as I've followed in your footsteps, that acceptance has become respect. You're still young, and the powerlessness you feel is perfectly normal. I don't know how many people your work has touched so far, but I can tell you one thing: you changed my life.”
”You were only interested in finding your wife.”
”I still am, but that didn't just make me travel across the Kazakhstan steppes: it made me travel through the whole of my past life. I saw where I went wrong, I saw where I stopped, I saw the moment when I lost Esther, the moment that the Mexican Indians call the acomodador-the giving-up point. I experienced things I never imagined I would experience at my age. And all because you were by my side, guiding me, even though you might not have been aware that you were. And do you know something else? I believe that you do hear voices and that you did have visions when you were a child. I have always believed in many things, and now I believe even more.”
”You're not the same man I first met.”
”No, I'm not. I hope Esther will be pleased.”
”Are you?”
”Of course.””Then that's all that matters. Let's have something to eat, wait until the storm eases, and then set off.”
”Let's face the storm.”
”No, it's all right. Well, we can if you want, but the storm isn't a sign, it's just one of the consequences of the destruction of the Aral Sea.”
The furious wind is abating, and the horses seem to be galloping faster. We enter a kind of valley, and the landscape changes completely. The infinite horizon is replaced by tall, bare cliffs. I look to the right and see a bush full of ribbons.
”It was here! It was here that you saw...”
”No, my tree was destroyed.”
”So what's this, then?”
”A place where something very important must have happened.”
He dismounts, opens his saddlebag, takes out a knife, and cuts a strip off the sleeve of his s.h.i.+rt, then ties this to one of the branches. His eyes change; he may be feeling the presence beside him, but I prefer not to ask.
I follow his example. I ask for protection and help. I, too, feel a presence by my side: my dream, my long journey back to the woman I love.
We remount. He doesn't tell me what he asked for, and nor do I. Five minutes later, we see a small village of white houses. A man is waiting for us; he comes over to Mikhail and speaks to him in Russian. They talk for a while, then the man goes away.
”What did he want?”
”He wanted me to go to his house to cure his daughter. Nina must have told him I was arriving today, and the older people still remember my visions.”
He seems uncertain. There is no one else around; it must be a time when everyone is working, or perhaps eating. We were crossing the main road, which seemed to lead to a white building surrounded by a garden.
”Remember what I told you this morning, Mikhail. You might well just be an epileptic who refuses to accept the diagnosis and who has allowed his unconscious to build a whole story around it, but it could also be that you have a mission in the world: to teach people to forget their personal history and to be more open to love as pure, divine energy.”
”I don't understand you. All the months we've known each other, you've talked of nothing but this moment-finding Esther. And suddenly, ever since this morning, you seem more concerned about me than anything else. Perhaps Dos's ritual last night had some effect.”
”Oh, I'm sure it did.”
What I meant to say was: I'm terrified. I want to think about anything except what is about to happen in the next few minutes. Today, I am the most generous person on the face of this earth, because I am close to my objective and afraid of what awaits me. My reaction is to try and help others, to show G.o.d that I'm a good person and that I deserve this blessing that I have pursued so long and hard.
Mikhail dismounted and asked me to do the same.”I'm going to the house of the man whose daughter is ill. I'll take care of your horse while you talk to Esther.”
He pointed to the small white building in the middle of the trees.
”Over there.”
I struggled to keep control of myself.
”What does she do?”
”As I told you before, she's learning to make carpets and, in exchange, she teaches French. By the way, although the carpets may look simple, they are, in fact, very complicated-just like the steppes. The dyes come from plants that have to be picked at precisely the right time; otherwise the color won't be right. Then the wool is spread out on the ground, mixed with hot water, and the threads are made while the wool is still wet; and then, after many days, when the sun has dried them, the work of weaving begins. The final details are done by children. Adult hands are too big for the smallest, most delicate bits of embroidery.”
He paused.