who deserved better or a treacherous, perfidious woman who had embroiled me in such a complicated situation that I had even been thought a criminal.
Friends, acquaintances, publishers, people I sat next to at the many gala dinners I was obliged to attend, listened with some curiosity at first. Gradually, though, I noticed that they tended to change the subject; they had been interested in the subject at some point, but it was no longer part of their current curiosities: they were more interested in talking about the actress who had been murdered by a singer or about the adolescent girl who had written a book about her affairs with well-known politicians. One day, in Madrid, I noticed that the number of guests at events and suppers was beginning to fall off. Although it may have been good for my soul to unburden myself of my feelings, to blame or to bless Esther, I began to realize that I was becoming something even worse than a betrayed husband: I was becoming the kind of boring person no one wants to be around.
I decided, from then on, to suffer in silence, and the invitations once more flooded in through my mailbox.
But the Zahir, about which I initially used to think with either irritation or affection, continued to grow in my soul. I started looking for Esther in every woman I met. I would see her in every bar, every cinema, at bus stops. More than once I ordered a taxi driver to stop in the middle of the street or to follow someone, until I could persuade myself that the person was not the person I was looking for.
With the Zahir beginning to occupy my every thought, I needed an antidote, something that would not take me to the brink of despair.
There was only one possible solution: a girlfriend.
I encountered three or four women I felt drawn to, but then I met Marie, a thirty-five-year-old French actress. She was the only one who did not spout such nonsense as: "I like you as a man, not as the celebrity everyone wants to meet" or "I wish you weren't quite so famous," or worse still: "I'm not interested in money." She was the only one who was genuinely pleased at my success, because she too was famous and knew that celebrity counts. Celebrity is an aphrodisiac. It was good for a woman's ego to be with a man and know that he had chosen her even though he had had the pick of many others.
We were often seen together at parties and receptions; there was speculation about our relationship, but neither she nor I confirmed or denied anything, and the matter was left hanging, and all that remained for the magazines was to wait for the photo of the famous kiss - which never came, because both she and I considered such public exhibitionism vulgar. She got on with her filming and I with my work; when I could, I would travel to Milan, and when she could, she would meet me in Paris; we were close, but not dependent on each other.
Marie pretended not to know what was going on in my soul, and I pretended not to know what was going on in hers (an impossible love for a married neighbor, even though she could have had any man she wanted). We were friends, companions, we enjoyed the same things; I would even go so far as to say that there was between us a kind of love, but different from the love I felt for Esther or that Marie felt for her neighbor.
I started taking part in book signings again, I accepted invitations to give lectures, write articles, attend charity dinners, appear on television programs, help out with projects for up-and-coming young artists. I did everything except what I should have been doing, namely, writing a book.
This didn't matter to me, however, for in my heart of hearts I believed that my career as a writer was over, because the woman who had made me begin was no longer there. I had lived my dream intensely while it lasted, I had got further than most people are lucky enough to get, I could spend the rest of my life having fun.
I thought this every morning. In the afternoon, I realized that the only thing I really liked doing was writing. By nightfall, there I was once more trying to persuade myself that I had fulfilled my dream and should try