The Zahir Page 0,47

brings people together when they are both truly prepared for that moment. And yet we all try and force the situation even if it means hearing the very words we don't want to hear: 'Go away.' Anyone who fails to obey the voice and arrives earlier or later than he should, will never get the thing he wants."

"I'd rather hear her tell me to go away than be stuck with the Zahir day and night. If she said that, she would at least cease to be an idee fixe and become a woman who now has a different life and different thoughts."

"She would no longer be the Zahir, but it would be a great loss. If a man and a woman can make the Energy manifest, then they are helping all the men and women of the world."

"You're frightening me. I love her, you know I do, and you say that she still loves me. I don't know what you mean by being prepared; I can't live according to other people's expectations, not even Esther's."

"As I understand it from conversations I had with her, at some point you got lost. The world started revolving exclusively around you."

"That's not true. She was free to forge her own path. She decided to become a war correspondent, even though I didn't want her to. She felt driven to find out why people were unhappy, even though I told her this was impossible. Does she want me to go back to being a railway track running alongside another railway track, always keeping the same stupid distance apart, just because the Romans decided that was the way it should be?"

"On the contrary."

Mikhail started walking again, and I followed him.

"Do you believe that I hear a voice?"

"To be perfectly honest, I don't know. But now that we're here, let me show you something."

"Everyone thinks I'm just having an epileptic fit, and I let them believe that because it's easier. But the voice has been speaking to me ever since I was a child, when I first saw the Lady."

"What lady?"

"I'll tell you later."

"Whenever I ask you something, you say: 'I'll tell you later.'"

"The voice is telling me something now. I know that you're anxious and frightened. In the pizzeria, when I felt that warm wind and saw the lights, I knew that these were symptoms of my connection with the Power. I knew it was there to help us both. If you think that all the things I've been telling you are just the ravings of a young epileptic who wants to manipulate the feelings of a famous writer, I'll bring you a map tomorrow showing you where Esther is living, and you can go and find her. But the voice is telling us something."

"Are you going to say what exactly, or will you tell me later?"

"I'll tell you in a moment. I haven't yet properly understood the message."

"But you promise to give me the address and the map."

"I promise. In the name of the divine energy of love, I promise. Now what was it you wanted to show me?"

I pointed to a golden statue of a young woman riding a horse.

"This. She used to hear voices. As long as people respected what she said, everything was fine. When they started to doubt her, the wind of victory changed direction."

Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans, the heroine of the Hundred Years War, who, at the age of seventeen, was made commander of the French troops because she heard voices and the voices told her the best strategy for defeating the English. Two years later, she was condemned to be burned at the stake, accused of witchcraft. I had used part of the interrogation, dated February 24, 1431, in one of my books.

She was questioned by Maitre Jean Beaupere. Asked how long it had been since she had heard the voice, she replied:

"I heard it three times, yesterday and today. In the morning, at Vespers, and again when the Ave Maria rang in the evening..."

Asked if the voice was in the room, she replied that she did not know, but that she had been woken by the voice. It wasn't in the room, but it was in the castle.

She asked the voice what she should do, and the voice asked her to get out of bed and place the palms of her hands together.

Then she said to the bishop who was questioning her:

"You say you are my judge. Take care what you are doing; for in