The Zahir Page 0,50

a lack of joy."

"No, there isn't. Whenever you're far away, I wish you were near. I imagine the conversations we'll have when you or I come back from a trip. I phone you to make sure everything's all right. I need to hear your voice every day. I'm still passionate about you, I can guarantee you that."

"It's the same with me, but what happens when we're together? We argue, we quarrel over nothing, one of us wants to change the other, to impose his or her view of reality. You demand things of me that make no sense at all, and I do the same. Sometimes, in the silence of our hearts, we say to ourselves: 'How good it would be to be free, to have no commitments.'"

"You're right. And at moments like that, I feel lost, because I know that I'm with the woman I want to be with."

"And I'm with the man I always wanted to have by my side."

"Do you think that could change?"

"As I get older, and fewer men look at me, I find myself thinking: 'Just leave things as they are.' I'm sure I can happily deceive myself for the rest of my life. And yet, whenever I go off to cover a war, I see that a greater love exists, much greater than the hatred that makes men kill each other. And then, and only then, do I think I can change things."

"But you can't be constantly covering wars."

"Nor can I live constantly in the sort of peace that I find with you. It's destroying the one important thing I have: my relationship with you, even if the intensity of my love remains undiminished."

"Millions of people the world over are thinking the same thing right now, they resist fiercely and allow those moments of depression to pass. They withstand one, two, three crises and, finally, find peace."

"You know that isn't how it is. Otherwise you wouldn't have written the books you've written."

I had arranged to meet the American actor-director for lunch at Roberto's pizzeria. I needed to go back there as soon as possible in order to dispel any bad impression I might have made. Before I left, I told the maid and the caretaker of the apartment building that if I was not back in time and a young man with Mongolian features should deliver a package for me, they must take him up to my apartment, ask him to wait in the living room, and give him anything he needed. If, for some reason, the young man could not wait, then they should ask him to leave the package with one of them.

Above all, they must not let him leave without handing over the package!

I caught a taxi and asked to be dropped off on the corner of Boulevard St-Germain and Rue des Sts-Peres. A fine rain was falling, but it was only a few yards to the restaurant, its discreet sign, and Roberto's generous smile, for he sometimes stood outside, smoking a cigarette. A woman with a baby stroller was coming toward me along the narrow pavement, and because there wasn't room for both of us, I stepped off the curb to let her pass.

It was then, in slow motion, that the world gave a giant lurch: the ground became the sky, the sky became the ground; I had time to notice a few architectural details on the top of the building on the corner - I had often walked past before, but had never looked up. I remember the sensation of surprise, the feeling of a wind blowing hard in my ear, and the sound of a dog barking in the distance; then everything went dark.

I was bundled abruptly down a black hole at the end of which was a light. Before I could reach it, however, invisible hands were dragging me roughly back up, and I woke to voices and shouts all around me: it could only have lasted a matter of seconds. I was aware of the taste of blood in my mouth, the smell of wet asphalt, and then I realized that I had had an accident. I was conscious and unconscious at the same time; I tried without success to move; I could make out another person lying on the ground beside me; I could smell that person's smell, her perfume; I imagined it must be the woman who had been pushing her baby along the pavement. Oh, dear God!

Someone came over and tried to help