Witch of Portobello

by Paulo Coelho

  Of course, many died at the stake, others were exiled, and many ended up hiding or suppressing the spark of the Great Mother in their souls. I never brought Athena into contact with the Power. She decided to do this, because the Mother had already given her various signs: she was a light while she danced, she changed into letters while she was learning calligraphy, she appeared to her in a fire and in a mirror. What my student didn’t know was how to live with her, until, that is, she did something that provoked this whole chain of events.

  Athena, who was always telling everyone to be different, was basically just like all other mortals. She had her own rhythm, a kind of cruise control. Was she more curious than most? Possibly. Had she managed to overcome her sense of being a victim? Definitely. Did she feel a need to share what she was learning with others, be they bank employees or actors? In some cases the answer was yes, but in others, I had to encourage her, because we are not meant for solitude, and we only know ourselves when we see ourselves in the eyes of others.

  But that was as far as my interference went.

  Maybe the Mother wanted to appear that night, and perhaps she whispered something in her ear: “Go against everything you’ve learned so far. You, who are a mistress of rhythm, allow the rhythm to pass through your body, but don’t obey it.” That was why Athena suggested the exercise. Her unconscious was already prepared to receive the Mother, but Athena herself was still dancing in time to the music, and so any external elements were unable to manifest themselves.

  The same thing used to happen with me. The best way to meditate and enter into contact with the light was by knitting, something my mother had taught me when I was a child. I knew how to count the stitches, manipulate the needles, and create beautiful things through repetition and harmony. One day, my protector asked me to knit in a completely irrational way! I found this really distressing, because I’d learned how to knit with affection, patience, and dedication. Nevertheless, he insisted on me knitting really badly.

  I knitted like this for two hours, thinking all the time that it was utterly ridiculous, absurd. My head ached, but I had to resist letting the needles guide my hands. Anyone can do things badly, so why was he asking this of me? Because he knew about my obsession with geometry and with perfection.

  And suddenly it happened: I stopped moving the needles and felt a great emptiness, which was filled by a warm, loving, companionable presence. Everything around me was different, and I felt like saying things that I would never normally dare to say. I didn’t lose consciousness; I knew I was still me, but, paradoxically, I wasn’t the person I was used to being with.

  So I can “see” what happened, even though I wasn’t there—Athena’s soul following the sound of the music while her body went in a totally contrary direction. After a time, her soul disconnected from her body, a space opened, and the Mother could finally enter.

  Or, rather, a spark from the Mother appeared. Ancient, but apparently very young. Wise, but not omnipotent. Special, but not in the least arrogant. Her perceptions changed, and she began to see the same things she used to see when she was a child—the parallel universes that people this world. At such moments, we can see not only the physical body but people’s emotions too. They say cats have this same power, and I believe them.

  A kind of blanket lies between the physical and the spiritual world, a blanket that changes in color, intensity, and light; it’s what mystics call “aura.” From then on, everything is easy. The aura tells you what’s going on. If I had been there, she would have seen a violet color with a few yellow splodges around my body. That means that I still have a long road ahead of me and that my mission on this earth has not yet been accomplished.

  Mixed up with human auras are transparent forms, which people usually call “ghosts.” That was the case with the young woman’s mother, and only in such cases can someone’s fate be altered. I’m almost certain that the young actress, even before she asked, knew that her mother was beside her, and the only real surprise to her was the story about the handbag.

  Confronted by that rhythm-less dance, everyone was really intimidated. Why? Because we’re used to doing things “as they should be done.” No one likes to make the wrong moves, especially when we’re aware that we’re doing so. Even Athena. It can’t have been easy for her to suggest doing something that went against everything she loved.

  I’m glad that the Mother won the battle at that point. A man has been saved from cancer, another has accepted his sexuality, and a third has stopped taking sleeping pills. And all because Athena broke the rhythm, slamming on the brakes when the car was traveling at top speed and thus throwing everything into disarray.

  To go back to my knitting: I used that method of knitting badly for quite some time until I managed to provoke the presence without any artificial means, now that I knew it and was used to it. The same thing happened with Athena. Once we know where the Doors of Perception are, it’s really easy to open and close them, when we get used to our own “strange” behavior.

  And it must be said that I knitted much faster and better after that, just as Athena danced with much more soul and rhythm once she had dared to break down those barriers.

  ANDREA MCCAIN, ACTRESS

  The story spread like wildfire. On the following Monday, when the theater was closed, Athena’s apartment was packed. We had all brought friends. She did as she had on the previous evening; she made us dance without rhythm, as if she needed that collective energy in order to get in touch with Hagia Sofia. The boy was there again, and I decided to watch him. When he sat down on the sofa, the music stopped and the trance began.

  As did the questions. The first three questions were, as you can imagine, about love—will he stay with me, does she love me, is he cheating on me. Athena said nothing. The fourth person to receive no answer asked again, more loudly this time, “So is he cheating on me or not?”

  “I am Hagia Sofia, universal wisdom. I came into the world accompanied only by Love. I am the beginning of everything, and before I existed there was chaos. Therefore, if any of you wish to control the forces that prevailed in chaos, do not ask Hagia Sofia. For me, love fills everything. It cannot be desired because it is an end in itself. It cannot betray because it has nothing to do with possession. It cannot be held prisoner because it is a river and will overflow its banks. Anyone who tries to imprison love will cut off the spring that feeds it, and the trapped water will grow stagnant and rank.”

  Hagia looked around the group, most of whom were there for the first time, and she began to point out what she saw: the threat of disease, problems at work, frictions between parents and children, sexuality, potentialities that existed but were not being explored. I remember her turning to one woman in her thirties and saying, “Your father told you how things should be and how a woman should behave. You have always fought against your dreams, and ‘I want’ has never even shown its face. It was always drowned out by ‘I must’ or ‘I hope’ or ‘I need,’ but you’re a wonderful singer. One year’s experience could make a huge difference to your work.”

  “But I have a husband and a child.”

  “Athena has a child too. Your husband will be upset at first, but he’ll come to accept it eventually. And you don’t need to be Hagia Sofia to know that.”

  “Maybe I’m too old.”

  “You’re refusing to accept who you are, but that is not my problem. I have said what needed to be said.”

  Gradually, everyone in that small room—unable to sit down because there wasn’t enough space, sweating profusely even though the winter was nearly over, feeling ridiculous for having come to such an event—was called upon to receive Hagia Sofia’s advice.

  I was the last.

  “Stay behind afterward if you want to stop being two and to be one instead.”

  This time, I didn’t have her son on my lap. He watched everything that happened, and it seemed that the conversation they’d had after the first session had been enough for him to lose his fear.r />
  I nodded. Unlike the previous session, when people had simply left when she’d asked to talk to her son alone, this time Hagia Sofia gave a sermon before ending the ritual.

  “You are not here to receive definite answers. My mission is to provoke you. In the past, both governors and governed went to oracles who would foretell the future. The future, however, is unreliable because it is guided by decisions made in the here and now. Keep the bicycle moving, because if you stop pedaling, you will fall off.

  “For those of you who came to meet Hagia Sofia wanting her merely to confirm what you hoped to be true, please, do not come back. Or else start dancing and make those around you dance too. Fate will be implacable with those who want to live in a universe that is dead and gone. The new world belongs to the Mother, who came with Love to separate the heavens from the waters. Anyone who believes they have failed will always fail. Anyone who has decided that they cannot behave any differently will be destroyed by routine. Anyone who has decided to block all changes will be transformed into dust. Cursed be those who do not dance and who prevent others from dancing!”

  Her eyes glanced fire.

  “You can go.”

  Everyone left, and I could see the look of confusion on most of their faces. They had come in search of comfort and had found only provocation. They had arrived wanting to be told how love can be controlled and had heard that the all-devouring flame will always burn everything. They wanted to be sure that their decisions were the right ones, that their husbands, wives, and bosses were pleased with them, but instead they were given only words of doubt.

  Some people, though, were smiling. They had understood the importance of the dance and from that night on would doubtless allow their bodies and souls to drift—even though, as always happens, they would have to pay a price.

  Only the boy, Hagia Sofia, Heron, and myself were left in the room.

  “I asked you to stay here alone.”

  Without a word, Heron picked up his coat and left.

  Hagia Sofia was looking at me. And, little by little, I watched her change back into Athena. The only way of describing that change is to compare it with the change that takes place in an angry child: we can see the anger in the child’s eyes, but once distracted and once the anger has gone, the child is no longer the same child who, only moments before, was crying. The “being,” if it can be called that, seemed to have vanished into the air as soon as its instrument lost concentration.

  And now I was standing before an apparently exhausted woman.

  “Make me some tea.”

  She was giving me an order! And she was no longer universal wisdom but merely someone my boyfriend was interested in or infatuated with. Where would this relationship take us?

  But making a cup of tea wouldn’t destroy my self-esteem. I went into the kitchen, boiled some water, added a few chamomile leaves, and returned to the living room. The child was asleep on her lap.

  “You don’t like me,” she said.

  I made no reply.

  “I don’t like you either,” she went on. “You’re pretty and elegant, a fine actress, and have a degree of culture and education which I, despite my family’s wishes, do not. But you’re also insecure, arrogant, and suspicious. As Hagia Sofia said, you are two, when you could be one.”

  “I didn’t know you remembered what you said during the trance, because in that case, you are two people as well: Athena and Hagia Sofia.”

  “I may have two names, but I am only one—or else all the people in the world. And that is precisely what I want to talk about. Because I am one and everyone, the spark that emerges when I go into a trance gives me very precise instructions. I remain semiconscious throughout, of course, but I’m saying things that come from some unknown part of myself, as if I were suckling on the breast of the Mother, drinking the milk that flows through all our souls and carries knowledge around the earth. Last week, which was the first time I entered into contact with this new form, I received what seemed to me to be an absurd message: that I should teach you.”

  She paused.

  “Obviously, this struck me as quite mad, because I don’t like you at all.”

  She paused again, for longer this time.

  “Today, though, the source repeated the same message, and so I’m giving you that choice.”

  “Why do you call it Hagia Sofia?”

  “That was my idea. It’s the name of a really beautiful mosque I saw in a book. You could, if you like, be my student. That’s what brought you here on that first day. This whole new stage in my life, including the discovery of Hagia Sofia inside me, only happened because one day you came through that door and said: ‘I work in the theater and we’re putting on a play about the female face of God. I heard from a journalist friend that you’ve spent time in the Balkan mountains with some gypsies and would be prepared to tell me about your experiences there.’”

  “Are you going to teach me everything you know?”

  “No, everything I don’t know. I’ll learn through being in contact with you, as I said the first time we met, and as I say again now. Once I’ve learned what I need to learn, we’ll go our separate ways.”

  “Can you teach someone you dislike?”

  “I can love and respect someone I dislike. On the two occasions when I went into a trance, I saw your aura, and it was the most highly developed aura I’ve ever seen. You could make a difference in this world, if you accept my proposal.”

  “Will you teach me to see auras?”

  “Until it happened to me the first time, I myself didn’t know I was capable of doing so. If you’re on the right path, you’ll learn too.”

  I realized then that I too was capable of loving someone I disliked. I said yes.

  “Then let us transform that acceptance into a ritual. A ritual throws us into an unknown world, but we know that we cannot treat the things of that world lightly. It isn’t enough to say yes, you must put your life at risk, and without giving it much thought either. If you’re the woman I think you are, you won’t say: ‘I need to think about it.’ You’ll say—”

  “I’m ready. Let’s move on to the ritual. Where did you learn the ritual, by the way?”

  “I’m going to learn it now. I no longer need to remove myself from my normal rhythm in order to enter into contact with the spark from the Mother, because once that spark is installed inside you, it’s easy to find again. I know which door I need to open, even though it’s concealed among many other entrances and exits. All I need is a little silence.”

  Silence again!

  We sat there, our eyes wide and staring, as if we were about to begin a fight to the death. Rituals! Before I even rang the bell of Athena’s apartment for the first time, I had already taken part in various rituals, only to feel used and diminished afterward, standing outside a door I could see, but not open. Rituals!

  All Athena did was drink a little of the tea I prepared for her.

  “The ritual is over. I asked you to do something for me. You did, and I accepted it. Now it is your turn to ask me something.”

  I immediately thought of Heron, but it wasn’t the right moment to talk about him.

  “Take your clothes off.”

  She didn’t ask me why. She looked at the child, checked that he was asleep, and immediately began to remove her sweater.

  “No, really, you don’t have to,” I said. “I don’t know why I asked that.”

  But she continued to undress, first her blouse, then her jeans, then her bra. I noticed her breasts, which were the most beautiful I’d ever seen. Finally she removed her knickers. And there she was, offering me her nakedness.

  “Bless me,” said Athena.

  Bless my “teacher”? But I’d already taken the first step and couldn’t stop now, so I dipped my fingers in the cup and sprinkled a little tea over her body.

  “Just as this plant was transformed into tea, just as the water mingled with the plant, I bless you and ask the Great Mother that the spring
from which this water came will never cease flowing, and that the earth from which this plant came will always be fertile and generous.”

  I was surprised at my own words. They had come neither from inside me nor outside. It was as if I’d always known them and had done this countless times before.

  “You have been blessed. You can get dressed now.”

  But she didn’t move, she merely smiled. What did she want? If Hagia Sofia was capable of seeing auras, she would know that I hadn’t the slightest desire to have sex with another woman.

  “One moment.”

  She picked up the boy, carried him to his room, and returned at once.

  “You take your clothes off too.”

  Who was asking this? Hagia Sofia, who spoke of my potential and for whom I was the perfect disciple? Or Athena, whom I hardly knew, and who seemed capable of anything, a woman whom life had taught to go beyond her limits and to satisfy any curiosity?

  We had started a kind of confrontation from which there was no retreat. I got undressed with the same nonchalance, the same smile, and the same look in my eyes.

  She took my hand, and we sat down on the sofa.

  During the next half hour, both Athena and Hagia Sofia were present; they wanted to know what my next steps would be. As they asked me this question, I saw that everything really was written there before me, and that the doors had only been closed before because I hadn’t realized that I was the one person in the world with the authority to open them.

  HERON RYAN, JOURNALIST

  The deputy editor hands me a video and we go into the projection room to watch it.

  The video was made on the morning of April 26, 1986, and shows normal life in a normal town. A man is sitting, drinking a cup of coffee. A mother is taking her baby for a walk. People in a hurry are going to work. A few people are waiting at a bus stop. A man on a bench in a square is reading a newspaper.

  But there’s a problem with the video. There are various horizontal lines on the screen, as if the tracking button needed to be adjusted. I get up to do this but the deputy editor stops me.