the zahir | Page 2

we have come into contact with them or it, gradually occupies our every
thought, until we can think of nothing else. This can be considered either a state of
holiness or of madness.
FAUBOURG SAINT-P�RES
Encyclopaedia of the Fantastic (1953)
CONTENTS
O Mary�
What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose�
ITHACA
DEDICATION
According to the writer Jorge Luis Borges�
I AM A FREE MAN
HANS�S QUESTION
ARIADNE�S THREAD
THE RETURN TO ITHACA
AUTHOR�S NOTE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY PAULO COELHO
CREDITS
COVER
COPYRIGHT
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
I AM A FREE MAN


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 man�who concealed his true identity behind the name
Mikhail�was 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 forward�kidnapping,
blackmail, a kidnapping that had ended in murder�none 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the weeks prior to her disappearance, regular sums of money had been withdrawn from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 I�m 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 you�ve used your
credit card, where you spend your time, whom you�ve slept with. In my case, it was even
easier: a woman, another journalist, a friend of my wife, and divorced�which is why she
doesn�t mind revealing that she slept with me�came 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 Esther�s 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 haven�t 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.
�You�re free to go,� he says, echoing the words of the prison officer.
I ask: Isn�t it possible that something really has happened to my wife? She had said to me
once that�understandably given her vast network of contacts in the terrorist
underworld�she 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 shouldn�t 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 you�ve been sleeping with?�
That�s 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 wife�s disappearance. He is married himself and although he doesn�t
like my books (So he isn�t 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. I�ve watched this scene in dozens of films, and I�m 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 didn�t know him personally.
He asks if we have any domestic problems. I say that we�ve been together for ten years
and have the same problems most married couples have�nothing more.
He asks, delicately, if we have discussed divorce recently, or if my wife was considering
leaving me.