Paulo Coelho - The Zahir: A Novel of Obsession (P.S.)

Her name is Esther; she is a war correspondent who has just returned from Iraq because of the imminent invasion of that country; she is thirty years old, married, without children. He is an unidentified male, between twenty-three and twenty-five years old, with dark, Mongolian features. The two were last seen in a caf on the Rue du Faubourg St-Honor.

The police were told that they had met before, although no one knew how often: Esther had always said that the manwho concealed his true identity behind the name Mikhailwas someone very important, although she had never explained whether he was important for her career as a journalist or for her as a woman.

The police began a formal investigation. Various theories were put forwardkidnapping, blackmail, a kidnapping that had ended in murdernone of which were beyond the bounds of possibility given that, in her search for information, her work brought her into frequent contact with people who had links with terrorist cells. They discovered that, in the weeks prior to her disappearance, regular sums of money had been withdrawn from her bank account: those in charge of the investigation felt that these could have been payments made for information. She had taken no change of clothes with her, but, oddly enough, her passport was nowhere to be found.

He is a stranger, very young, with no police record, with no clue as to his identity.

She is Esther, thirty years old, the winner of two international prizes for journalism, and married.

My wife.

I immediately come under suspicion and am detained because I refuse to say where I was on the day she disappeared. However, a prison officer has just opened the door of my cell, saying that Im a free man.

And why am I a free man? Because nowadays, everyone knows everything about everyone; you just have to ask and the information is there: where youve used your credit card, where you spend your time, whom youve slept with. In my case, it was even easier: a woman, another journalist, a friend of my wife, and divorcedwhich is why she doesnt mind revealing that she slept with mecame forward as a witness in my favor when she heard that I had been detained. She provided concrete proof that I was with her on the day and the night of Esthers disappearance.

I talk to the chief inspector, who returns my belongings and offers his apologies, adding that my rapid detention was entirely within the law, and that I have no grounds on which to accuse or sue the state. I say that I havent the slightest intention of doing either of those things, that I am perfectly aware that we are all under constant suspicion and under twenty-four-hour surveillance, even when we have committed no crime.

Youre free to go, he says, echoing the words of the prison officer.

I ask: Isnt it possible that something really has happened to my wife? She had said to me once thatunderstandably given her vast network of contacts in the terrorist underworldshe occasionally got the feeling she was being followed.

The inspector changes the subject. I insist, but he says nothing.

I ask if she would be able to travel on her passport, and he says, of course, since she has committed no crime. Why shouldnt she leave and enter the country freely?

So she may no longer be in France?

Do you think she left you because of that woman youve been sleeping with?

Thats none of your business, I reply. The inspector pauses for a second and grows serious; he says that I was arrested as part of routine procedure, but that he is nevertheless very sorry about my wifes disappearance. He is married himself and although he doesnt like my books (So he isnt as ignorant as he looks! He knows who I am!), he can put himself in my shoes and imagine what I must be going through.

I ask him what I should do next. He gives me his card and asks me to get in touch if I hear anything. Ive watched this scene in dozens of films, and Im not convinced; inspectors always know more than they say they do.

He asks me if I have ever met the person who was with Esther the last time she was seen alive. I say that I knew his code name, but didnt know him personally.

He asks if we have any domestic problems. I say that weve been together for ten years and have the same problems most married couples havenothing more.

He asks, delicately, if we have discussed divorce recently, or if my wife was considering leaving me. I tell him we have never even considered the possibility, and say again that like all couples we have our occasional disagreements.

Frequent or only occasional?

Occasional, I say.

He asks still more delicately if she suspected that I was having an affair with her friend. I tell him that it was the firstand lasttime that her friend and I had slept together. It wasnt an affair; it came about simply because we had nothing else to do. It had been a bit of a dull day, neither of us had any pressing engagements after lunch, and the game of seduction always adds a little zest to life, which is why we ended up in bed together.

You go to bed with someone just because its a bit of a dull day?

I consider telling him that such matters hardly form part of his investigations, but I need his help, or might need it later on. There is, after all, that invisible institution called the Favor Bank, which I have always found so very useful.

Sometimes, yes. Theres nothing else very interesting to do, the woman is looking for excitement, Im looking for adventure, and thats that. The next day, you both pretend that nothing happened, and life goes on.

He thanks me, holds out his hand and says that in his world, things arent quite like that. Naturally, boredom and tedium exist, as does the desire to go to bed with someone, but everything is much more controlled, and no one ever acts on their thoughts or desires.

Perhaps artists have more freedom, he remarks.

I say that Im familiar with his world, but have no wish to enter into a comparison between our different views of society and people. I remain silent, awaiting his next move.

Speaking of freedom, he says, slightly disappointed at this writers refusal to enter into a debate with a police officer, youre free to go. Now that Ive met you, Ill read your books. I know I said I didnt like them, but the fact is Ive never actually read one.

This is not the first or the last time that I will hear these words. At least this whole episode has gained me another reader. I shake his hand and leave.

Im free. Im out of prison, my wife has disappeared under mysterious circumstances, I have no fixed timetable for work, I have no problem meeting new people, Im rich, famous, and if Esther really has left me, Ill soon find someone to replace her. Im free, independent.

But what is freedom?

Ive spent a large part of my life enslaved to one thing or another, so I should know the meaning of the word. Ever since I was a child, I have fought to make freedom my most precious commodity. I fought with my parents, who wanted me to be an engineer, not a writer. I fought with the other boys at school, who immediately homed in on me as the butt of their cruel jokes, and only after much blood had flowed from my nose and from theirs, only after many afternoons when I had to hide my scars from my motherbecause it was up to me, not her, to solve my problemsdid I manage to show them that I could take a thrashing without bursting into tears. I fought to get a job to support myself, and went to work as a delivery man for a hardware store, so as to be free from that old line in family blackmail: Well give you money, but youll have to do this, this, and this.

I foughtalthough without successfor the girl I was in love with when I was an adolescent, and who loved me too; she left me in the end because her parents convinced her that I had no future.