the zahir | Page 8

or as
determined. I ask her if she�s trying to get rid of me. She laughs and says I was the one
who wanted to end the relationship. We go to bed, and the following day, the desire to
leave is not as urgent, and I decide I need to think things through. Esther, however, says
the matter isn�t over yet: this scenario will simply keep recurring as long as I refuse to
risk everything for what I believe to be my real reason for living; in the end, she�ll
become unhappy and will leave me. Except that, if she left, she would do so immediately
and burn any bridges that would allow her to come back. I ask her what she means. She�d
get another boyfriend, she says, fall in love.
She goes off to her work at the newspaper, and I decide to take a day�s leave (apart from
writing lyrics, I�m also working for a recording company). I sit down at the typewriter. I
get up again, read the papers, reply to some urgent letters, and, when I�ve done that, start
replying to nonurgent letters. I make a list of things I need to do, I listen to music, I take a
walk around the block, chat to the baker, come home, and suddenly the whole day has
gone and I still haven�t managed to type a single sentence. I decide that I hate Esther, that
she�s forcing me to do things I don�t want to do.
When she gets home, she doesn�t ask me anything, but I admit that I haven�t managed to
do any writing. She says that I have the same look in my eye as I did yesterday.
The following day I go to work, but that evening I again go over to the desk on which the
typewriter is sitting. I read, watch television, listen to music, go back to the machine, and
so two months pass, with me accumulating pages and more pages of �first sentences,� but
never managing to finish a paragraph.
I come up with every possible excuse�no one reads in this country; I haven�t worked out
a plot; I�ve got a fantastic plot, but I�m still looking for the right way to develop it.
Besides, I�m really busy writing an article or a song lyric. Another two months pass, and
one day, she comes home bearing a plane ticket.
�Enough,� she says. �Stop pretending that you�re busy, that you�re weighed down by
responsibilities, that the world needs you to do what you�re doing, and just go traveling
for a while.� I can always become the editor of the newspaper where I publish a few
articles, I can always become the president of the recording company for which I write
lyrics, and where I work simply because they don�t want me to write lyrics for their
competitors. I can always come back to do what I�m doing now, but my dream can�t wait.
Either I accept it or I forget it.
Where is the ticket for?
Spain.
I�m shocked. Air tickets are expensive; besides, I can�t go away now, I�ve got a career
ahead of me, and I need to look after it. I�ll lose out on a lot of potential music
partnerships; the problem isn�t me, it�s our marriage. If I really wanted to write a book,
no one would be able to stop me.
�You can, you want to, but you don�t,� she says. �Your problem isn�t me, but you, so it
would be best if you spent some time alone.�
She shows me a map. I must go to Madrid, where I�ll catch a bus up to the Pyrenees, on
the border with France. That�s where a medieval pilgrimage route begins: the road to
Santiago. I have to walk the whole way. She�ll be waiting for me at the other end and
then she�ll accept anything I say: that I don�t love her anymore, that I still haven�t lived
enough to create a literary work, that I don�t even want to think about being a writer, that
it was nothing but an adolescent dream.
This is madness! The woman I�ve been living with for two long years�a real eternity in
relationship terms�is making decisions about my life, forcing me to give up my work
and expecting me to walk across an entire country! It�s so crazy that I decide to take it
seriously. I get drunk several nights running, with her beside me getting equally drunk�
even though she hates drinking. I get aggressive; I say she�s jealous of my independence,
that the only reason this whole mad idea was born is because I said I wanted to leave her.
She says that it all started when I was still at school and dreaming of becoming a writer�
no more putting things off; if I don�t confront myself now, I�ll spend the rest of my life
getting married and divorced, telling cute anecdotes about my past and going steadily
downhill.
Obviously, I can�t admit she�s right, but I know she�s telling the truth. And the more
aware I am of this, the more aggressive