The Witch of Portobello Page 0,35

work. And something tells me it's a subject you're interested in too.'

She glanced at her watch again.

'I'm going to Sibiu,' she said. 'My bus leaves in an hour. I'm looking for my mother, if that's what you want to know. I work as a real estate agent in the Middle East, I have a son of nearly four, I'm divorced, and my parents live in London. My adoptive parents, of course, because I was abandoned as a baby.'

She was clearly at a very advanced stage of perception, and had identified with me, even though she wasn't aware of this yet.

'Yes, that's what I wanted to know.'

'Did you have to come all this way just to do research into a writer? Aren't there any libraries where you live?'

'The fact is that Eliade only lived in Romania until he graduated from university. So if I really wanted to know more about his work, I should go to Paris, London or to Chicago, where he died. However, what I'm doing isn't research in the normal sense of the word: I wanted to see the ground where he placed his feet. I wanted to feel what inspired him to write about things that affect my life and the lives of people I respect.'

'Did he write about medicine too?'

I had better not answer that. I saw that she'd picked up on the word 'teacher', and assumed it must be related to my profession.

The young woman got to her feet. I felt she knew what I was talking about. I could see her light shining more intensely. I only achieve this state of perception when I'm close to someone very like myself.

'Would you mind coming with me to the bus station?' she asked.

Not at all. My plane didn't leave until later that night, and a whole, dull, endless day stretched out before me. At least I would have someone to talk to for a while.

She went upstairs, returned with her suitcases in her hand and a series of questions in her head. She began her interrogation as soon as we left the hotel.

'I may never see you again,' she said, 'but I feel that we have something in common. Since this may be the last opportunity we have in this incarnation to talk to each other, would you mind being direct in your answers?'

I nodded.

'Based on what you've read in all those books, do you believe that through dance we can enter a trance-like state that helps us to see a light? And that the light tells us nothing only whether we're happy or sad?'

A good question!

'Of course, and that happens not only through dance, but through anything that allows us to focus our attention and to separate body from spirit. Like yoga or prayer or Buddhist meditation.'

'Or calligraphy.'

'I hadn't thought of that, but it's possible. At such moments, when the body sets the soul free, the soul either rises up to heaven or descends into hell, depending on the person's state of mind. In both cases, it learns what it needs to learn: to destroy or to heal. But I'm no longer interested in individual paths; in my tradition, I need the help of are you listening to me?'

'No.'

She had stopped in the middle of the street and was staring at a little girl who appeared to have been abandoned. She went to put her hand in her bag.

'Don't do that,' I said. 'Look across the street at that woman, the one with cruel eyes. She's put the girl there purely in order too'

'I don't care.'

She took out a few coins. I grabbed her hand.

'Let's buy her something to eat. That would be more useful.'

I asked the little girl to go with us to a cafe and bought her a sandwich. The little girl smiled and thanked me. The eyes of the woman across the street seemed to glitter with hatred, but, for the first time, the grey eyes of the young woman walking at my side looked at me with respect.

'What were you saying?' she asked.

'It doesn't matter. Do you know what happened to you a few moments ago? You went into the same trance that your dancing provokes.'

'No, you're wrong.'

'I'm right. Something touched your unconscious mind. Perhaps you saw yourself as you would have been if you hadn't been adopted begging in the street. At that moment, your brain stopped reacting. Your spirit left you and travelled down to hell to meet the demons from your past. Because of that, you didn't notice