by Paulo Coelho
Jacques decided to take part in a pro–de Gaulle demonstration. All of France watched in horror. The demonstration, which spread to nearly every city, brought together an enormous number of people, and those who had launched what Jacques never stopped calling “anarchy” soon recoiled. New labor agreements were signed. The students, who no longer had any demands, slowly returned to classes—overcome with the sensation that their victory meant absolutely nothing.
At the end of May (or beginning of June, he couldn’t remember), his daughter finally came back home and told him they had achieved everything they wanted. He didn’t ask her what it was they wanted, and she didn’t elaborate, but she looked tired, disappointed, frustrated. Restaurants were opening once again. They had a candlelight dinner and avoided the subject entirely. Jacques wasn’t about to tell her he’d gone to a rally in support of the government. The only comment he took seriously, very seriously, was when she said:
“I’m tired of this place. I’m going to travel and live far away from here.”
In the end, she gave up on the idea; first she needed to “finish her studies,” and Jacques understood that those who desired a prosperous, competitive France had won. True revolutionaries weren’t the least bit worried about graduating and earning a diploma.
Ever since that day, he’d read thousands of pages full of explanations and justifications offered by philosophers, politicians, editors, journalists, et cetera. They cited the closing of a university in Nanterre earlier that month, but that couldn’t have been the reason for the fury he’d witnessed the few times he had dared to leave the house.
He never saw a single line that could bring him to conclude: “Ah, that’s what started it all.”
* * *
—
The second—and defining—transformative moment was a dinner in one of Paris’s finest restaurants, where he would bring special clients—potential buyers for their countries and cities. France had already turned the page on May 1968, though its flames had spread to other locations across the globe. No one wanted to revisit these events and if a foreign client dared to ask about them, Jacques would discreetly change the subject, arguing that “the newspapers always exaggerate.”
And the conversation would end there.
He was a good friend of the restaurant’s owner; they were on a first-name basis, which impressed his clients—part of the plan, by the way. He would walk in, the waiters would take him to “his table” (which was always changing according to how busy it was, but his guests didn’t know this). A glass of champagne was immediately served to each of the guests, the menus delivered, the orders taken, the expensive wine (“Same as always, right?” the waiter would ask, and Jacques would nod), and the conversation was always the same (leaving those who had just arrived wondering if they ought to go to the Lido, the Crazy Horse, or the Moulin-Rouge; it was incredible how Paris was reduced to these three destinations in foreigners’ minds). There was no talk of work during a business dinner unless it came at the end, when an excellent Cuban cigar was offered to everyone at the table. The final details were worked out among people who thought they were extremely important when in reality the sales department had everything ready and only needed the proper signatures, as was always the case.
After everyone had ordered, the waiter turned to Jacques: “The usual?”
The usual: oysters for an appetizer. He explained how they must be served alive; seeing how the majority of his guests were foreigners, they were horrified. His plan was to order snails next—the famous escargots. He’d end by asking for a plate of frog legs.
No one dared join him, and that was how he preferred it. It was part of the marketing.
All the appetizers were served at the same time. The oysters arrived, and everyone else sat waiting to see what would happen next. He squeezed a bit of lemon over the first, which moved a bit, to the surprise and horror of his guests. He popped it in his mouth and allowed it to slide down into his stomach, savoring the salt water that always remained in the shell.
Then, two seconds later, he could no longer breathe. He tried to maintain his pose, but it was impossible—he dropped to the floor, certain he was about to die, looking at the ceiling and its crystal chandeliers, possibly brought from Czechoslovakia.
His vision began to change; now he could see only black and red. He tried to sit—he’d already eaten dozens, hundreds of oysters in his life—but he no longer had any control over his own body. He tried to pull air into his lungs, but it refused to enter.
There was a quick moment of anxiety, and then Jacques died.
Suddenly, he was hovering near the restaurant ceiling looking down on a crowd that had gathered around his body. Others tried to make room for help to arrive, as the Moroccan waiter ran toward the kitchen. His vision wasn’t exactly sharp and clear; it was as though there was a transparent veil or some sort of water running between him and the scene below. Fear, and everything else, had ceased to exist—an immense peace washed over everything, and time, because time still existed, sped up. The people down below seemed to move in slow motion, in other words, in photograms. The Moroccan waiter returned from the kitchen, and the images disappeared—the only thing left was complete, white emptiness, and a peacefulness that was almost palpable. Contrary to what many said on occasions like that, he saw no dark tunnel; he felt a loving energy all around him, something he hadn’t experienced in a long time. He was a baby in his mother’s womb, nothing more—he never wanted to leave there again.
Suddenly he felt a hand grabbing him and pulling him down. He didn’t want to go; he was finally enjoying what he’d fought and waited for his entire life—peace, love, music, love, peace. But the hand was tugging him with incredible force and he was unable to fight against it.
The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the restaurant owner’s face, somewhere between worried and overjoyed. His heart was racing, he felt nauseous, like he was about to vomit, but he controlled himself. He’d broken out in a cold sweat, and one of the waiters brought a tablecloth to cover him.
“Where was it you found this lovely pale tone and beautiful blue lipstick?” the owner asked him.
His guests, sitting around him on the floor, also appeared relieved and terrified. He tried standing up, but the owner stopped him.
“Rest. This isn’t the first time this has happened here and it won’t be the last, I imagine. That’s why we, along with most restaurants, are required to have a first-aid kit, with bandages, disinfectant, a defibrillator in case of heart attack, and, luckily, the adrenaline injection we’ve just given you. Do you have the phone number of some relative? We’re calling an ambulance, but you’re entirely out of danger. They’re going to ask the same thing, but if there’s no one, I imagine one of your companions here can go with you.”
“The oyster?” were his first words.
“Of course not—our products are of the highest quality. But we don’t know what they eat—and, by the looks of things, this little friend of ours, rather than create a pearl, took advantage of your illness and decided to try to kill you.”
What was it then?
At that moment, the ambulance pulled up. The paramedics tried placing him on a stretcher, but he said he was all right. He needed to believe this and got up with a bit of effort, but the paramedics laid him out again, this time on the stretcher. He decided not to argue or say anything at all. They asked for a phone number for next of kin. He gave his daughter’s, and that was a good sign; he was able to think clearly.
The paramedics took his blood pressure, ordered him to follow a certain light with his eyes, to put his finger on the tip of his nose. Every order obeyed, he was itching to get out of there. He didn’t need any hospital, even if he did pay a fortune in taxes to have a health service that was excellent and free.
“It’s likely we’re going to keep you overnight for observation,” th
ey told him as they walked toward the ambulance at the door, where people peered in from the street, always happy to see someone in worse shape than they were. There was no limit to human morbidity.
On their way to the hospital, the siren turned off (a good sign), he asked whether it had been the oyster. The paramedic at his side confirmed what the owner had told him. No. Had it been the oyster, it would have taken longer, even hours.
So what was it?
“An allergy.”
He asked them to explain in more detail—the restaurant owner had said that it must have been something the oyster ate, and, again, they confirmed this. No one knew how or when such a reaction would occur—but they knew how to treat it. The technical name for it was “anaphylactic shock.” Without trying to frighten him, one of the paramedics told him that allergies can appear without any warning. “For example, you might have eaten pomegranates since you were a kid, but one day one might kill you in minutes for reasons we can’t explain. For example, a person spends years caring for his garden, the herbs are the same, the pollen hasn’t changed, until one day he begins coughing, feels a pain in his throat, then in his neck, thinks he’s catching cold and ought to go inside, but suddenly he can no longer walk. But it isn’t a sore throat, it’s the trachea closing up. Troppo tardi. And this happens with things we’ve come in contact with our entire lives.
“Insects may be more dangerous, but even so we’re not going to spend our entire lives afraid of bees, am I right?
“Don’t be afraid. Most allergies aren’t serious and don’t select their victims by age. What’s serious is anaphylactic shock, like you had—the rest mean a runny nose, red bumps on the skin, itching, that sort of thing.”
* * *
—
They made it to the hospital, where his daughter was waiting. She already knew her father had suffered an acute allergic reaction, that it could have been fatal had help not arrived in time, but that such cases were incredibly rare. They went to a private room—Marie had already given the hospital their insurance number, so it wasn’t necessary to go into one of the common rooms.
He changed clothes—in her haste, Marie had forgotten to bring his pajamas, so he wore a gown provided by the hospital. The doctor came in, took his pulse—it was back to normal; his blood pressure was still a little high, but he blamed this on the stress he’d felt in the last twenty minutes. The doctor asked Marie not to stay too long, told her the next day her father would be home.
She pulled a chair up next to the bed, took her father’s hands, and suddenly Jacques began to cry. At first, they were only silent tears, but they soon transformed into hiccups, which increased in intensity, and he knew that he had needed that release, so much so that he made no effort to control himself. The tears flowed, and his daughter simply patted his hands affectionately, half-relieved, half-scared. It was the first time she’d seen her father cry.
He wasn’t sure how long the moment lasted. He slowly became calmer and calmer, as though a weight had been taken from his shoulders, his chest, his head, his life. Marie thought it was time to let him sleep and began to remove her hand, but he held it there.
“Don’t leave. I need to tell you something.”
She laid her head on her father’s lap, like she’d done when she was a child listening to his stories. He ran his fingers through her hair.
“You know that you’re fine and can go back to work tomorrow, don’t you?”
Yes. He knew. And the next day he would go to work—not to the building where he had his office but to the headquarters. The current director had come up through the company together with Jacques and had sent a message saying he’d like to see him.
“I want to tell you something: I was dead for a few seconds, or minutes, or an eternity—I don’t have a sense of the time because things happened so slowly. And suddenly I saw myself surrounded by a loving energy I’d never felt before. It was as though I were in the presence…”
His voice began to tremble, like that of someone holding back tears. But he continued.
“…as though I were in the presence of God. Something that, as you know, I’ve never believed in. I only decided to send you to Catholic school because it was close to our house, and the education, excellent. I was required to participate in religious ceremonies, which bored me to death, filled your mother with pride, and made your classmates and their parents see me as one of them. But the truth is it was merely a sacrifice I made for your sake.”
He continued stroking his daughter’s head—it had never occurred to him to ask whether she believed in God or not, because the moment wasn’t right. As far as he could tell, she no longer followed the strict form of Catholicism she’d been raised in; she was always wearing exotic clothing and hanging out with friends with long hair, listening to music much different from Dalida or Edith Piaf.
“I always had everything planned out, I knew how to carry out these plans, and according to my time line, soon I’d be retired with enough money to do what I like. But all this changed in those minutes or seconds or years when God took me by the hand. As soon as I returned to the restaurant floor and the worried expression of the owner feigning calm, I understood that I could never go back to living the way I had before.”
“But you like your job.”
“I liked it so much I was the best at what I did. But now I want to say goodbye to this work that’s filled with warm memories. Tomorrow, I want to ask you a favor.”
“Anything. You’ve always been a father who taught me more by your example than by the things you told me.”
“That’s exactly what I want to ask you. I taught you many things for years and now I want you to teach me. I want us to travel the world together, to see things I’ve never seen, to pay closer attention to the morning and the night. Quit your job and come with me. I hope your boyfriend can indulge me a bit, patiently await your return, and allow you to come with me.
“I need to immerse my soul and my body in rivers I’ve not yet known, drink things I’ve not yet drunk, contemplate mountaintops I’ve only seen on television, allow the same love that I felt tonight to return, even if it’s only for a minute each year. I want you to lead me through your world. I will never be a burden, and when you feel I ought to go off on my own, you need only ask and I’ll do it. And when you feel the time is right to return, I’ll do that and we’ll take one more step together. I’ll say it again: I want you to lead me.”
His daughter didn’t move. Her father hadn’t merely returned to the world of the living but had found a door or window that opened onto his own world—which she would never dare share with him.
The two of them thirsted for the Everlasting. Quenching this thirst was simple—they needed only to allow the Everlasting to appear to them. To do so, they needed no special place beyond their own bodies and faith, a shapeless force that runs through everything and carries within it what the alchemists call anima mundi.
* * *
—
Jacques reached the front of the bazaar, where more women were entering than men, more children than adults, fewer mustaches and more head scarves. From where he stood he could detect a strong scent—a mixture of perfumes that combined into one and climbed toward the heavens before returning again to Earth, bringing with the rain a blessing and a rainbow.
Karla’s tone had softened when they met in the hotel room to change into the clothes they’d washed the day before, as they prepared to head out to dinner.
“Where did you end up going today?”
She had never asked him this—to his mind, this was something that his mother would ask his father, or other married adults their partners. He didn’t feel like answering, and she didn’t insist.
“I’ll bet you went to the bazaar looking for me,” she said, and began to laugh.
“I started walking in your direction, but soon I changed my mind a
nd went back to the place I was before.”
“I have an offer that you can’t refuse: let’s have dinner in Asia.”
It didn’t take much effort to figure out what she was proposing: to cross the bridge that led from one continent to the next. But the Magic Bus would be doing this soon, why the hurry?
“Because one day I’ll be able to tell people something they’ll never believe. I had a coffee in Europe and twenty minutes later I walked into a restaurant in Asia, ready to eat all the delicious things to be found there.”
It was a good idea. He would be able to tell his friends the same thing. No one would believe him either; they’d think the drugs had gone to his brain, but what did he care? There really was a drug that had slowly begun to take effect, it had started that afternoon, with the very same man he’d found when he entered the empty cultural center with its walls painted green.
Karla must have bought some sort of makeup at the bazaar, because she left the bathroom with eye shadow, and mascara on her lashes, something he’d never seen. She wore a constant smile, something he’d also never noticed before. Paulo thought about shaving—he’d had a goatee for ages, which covered his prominent chin, but generally he shaved whenever possible, and being unable to do so brought back horrifying memories, such as the days he’d spent in prison. But it hadn’t occurred to him to buy one of those disposable razors—he’d thrown away the last one just before they crossed into Yugoslavia. He put on a sweater he’d bought in Bolivia and the jean jacket with the metallic stars, and they walked downstairs together.
There was no one from the bus in the hotel lobby, except the driver, entertaining himself with the newspaper. They asked how they could cross the bridge to Asia. The driver smiled.
“I can tell you. I did the same thing my first time here.”
He gave them the necessary information to grab a bus (“Don’t even think about going on foot”) and apologized for forgetting the name of the excellent restaurant where he’d had lunch one time, on the opposite side of the Bosphorus.
