the zahir | Page 4

that even I couldn�t understand them.
While I was fighting, I heard other people speaking in the name of freedom, and the more
they defended this unique right, the more enslaved they seemed to be to their parents�
wishes, to a marriage in which they had promised to stay with the other person �for the
rest of their lives,� to the bathroom scales, to their diet, to half-finished projects, to lovers
to whom they were incapable of saying �No� or �It�s over,� to weekends when they were
obliged to have lunch with people they didn�t even like. Slaves to luxury, to the
appearance of luxury, to the appearance of the appearance of luxury. Slaves to a life they
had not chosen, but which they had decided to live because someone had managed to
convince them that it was all for the best. And so their identical days and nights passed,
days and nights in which adventure was just a word in a book or an image on the
television that was always on, and whenever a door opened, they would say:
�I�m not interested. I�m not in the mood.�
How could they possibly know if they were in the mood or not if they had never tried?
But there was no point in asking; the truth was they were afraid of any change that would
upset the world they had grown used to.
The inspector says I�m free. I�m free now and I was free in prison too, because freedom
continues to be the thing I prize most in the world. Of course, this has led me to drink
wines I did not like, to do things I should not have done and which I will not do again; it
has left scars on my body and on my soul, it has meant hurting certain people, although I
have since asked their forgiveness, when I realized that I could do absolutely anything
except force another person to follow me in my madness, in my lust for life. I don�t regret
the painful times; I bear my scars as if they were medals. I know that freedom has a high
price, as high as that of slavery; the only difference is that you pay with pleasure and a
smile, even when that smile is dimmed by tears.
I leave the police station, and it�s a beautiful day outside, a sunny Sunday that does not
reflect my state of mind at all. My lawyer is waiting for me with a few consoling words
and a bunch of flowers. He says that he�s phoned around to all the hospitals and morgues
(the kind of thing you do when someone fails to return home), but has not as yet found
Esther. He says that he managed to prevent journalists from finding out where I was
being held. He says he needs to talk to me in order to draw up a legal strategy that will
help me defend myself against any future accusation. I thank him for all his trouble; I
know he�s not really interested in drawing up a legal strategy, he just doesn�t want to
leave me alone, because he�s not sure how I�ll react. (Will I get drunk and be arrested
again? Will I cause a scandal? Will I try to kill myself?) I tell him I have some important
business to sort out and that we both know perfectly well that I have no problem with the
law. He insists, but I give him no choice�after all, I�m a free man.
Freedom. The freedom to be wretchedly alone.
I take a taxi to the center of Paris and ask to be dropped near the Arc de Triomphe. I set
off down the Champs-Elys�es toward the H�tel Bristol, where Esther and I always used
to meet for hot chocolate whenever one of us came back from some trip abroad. It was
our coming-home ritual, a plunge back into the love that bound us together, even though
life kept sending us off along ever more diverging paths.
I keep walking. People smile, children are pleased to have been given these few hours of
spring in the middle of winter, the traffic flows freely, everything seems to be in order�
except that none of them know that I have just lost my wife; they don�t even pretend not
to know, they don�t even care. Don�t they realize the pain I�m in? They should all be
feeling sad, sympathetic, supportive of a man whose soul is losing love as if it were
losing blood; but they continue laughing, immersed in their miserable little lives that only
happen on weekends.
What a ridiculous thought! Many of the people I pass must also have their souls in tatters,
and I have no idea how or why they are suffering.
I go into a bar and buy some cigarettes; the person answers me in English. I go into a
chemist�s to buy a mint I particularly like, and the assistant speaks to me in English (both
times I asked for the products in French). Before I reach the hotel, I am