The Witch of Portobello

by Paulo Coelho

  I asked.

  "I want everything. I want savagery and tenderness. I want to upset the neighbors and placate them too. I don't want a woman in my bed, I want men, real men, like you, for example. Whether they love me or are merely using me, it doesn't matter. My love is greater than that. I want to love freely, and I want to allow the people around me to do the same.

  "What I talked about to Athena were the simple ways of awakening repressed energy, like making love, for example, or walking down the street saying: 'I'm here and now.' Nothing very special, no secret ritual. The only thing that made our meeting slightly different was that we were both naked. From now on, she and I will meet every Monday, and if I have any comments to make, I will do so after that session. I have no desire to be her friend. Just as, when she feels the need to share something, she goes up to Scotland to talk with that Edda woman, who, it seems, you know as well, although you've never mentioned her."

  "I can't even remember meeting her!"

  I sensed that Andrea was gradually calming down. I prepared two cups of coffee, and we drank them together. She recovered her smile and asked about my promotion. She said she was worried about those Monday meetings, because she'd learned only that morning that friends of friends were inviting other people, and Athena's apartment was a very small place. I made an enormous effort to pretend that everything that had happened that evening was just a fit of nerves or premenstrual tension or jealousy on her part.

  I put my arms around her, and she snuggled into my shoulder. And despite my own exhaustion, I waited until she fell asleep. That night, I dreamed of nothing. I had no feelings of foreboding.

  And the following morning, when I woke up, I saw that her clothes were gone, the key was on the table, and there was no letter of farewell.

  DEIDRE O'NEILL, KNOWN AS EDDA

  People read a lot of stories about witches, fairies, paranormals, and children possessed by evil spirits. They go to films showing rituals featuring pentagrams, swords, and invocations. That's fine, people need to give free rein to their imagination and to go through certain stages. Anyone who gets through those stages without being deceived will eventually get in touch with the Tradition.

  The real Tradition is this: the teacher never tells the disciple what he or she should do. They are merely traveling companions, sharing the same uncomfortable feeling of "estrangement" when confronted by ever-changing perceptions, broadening horizons, closing doors, rivers that sometimes seem to block their path and which, in fact, should never be crossed, but followed.

  There is only one difference between teacher and disciple: the former is slightly less afraid than the latter. Then, when they sit down at a table or in front of a fire to talk, the more experienced person might say: "Why don't you do that?" But he or she never says: "Go there and you'll arrive where I did," because every path and every destination are unique to the individual.

  The true teacher gives the disciple the courage to throw his or her world off balance, even though the disciple is afraid of things already encountered and more afraid still of what might be around the next corner.

  I was a young, enthusiastic doctor who, filled by a desire to help my fellow human beings, traveled to the interior of Romania on an exchange program run by the British government. I set off with my luggage full of medicines and my head full of preconceptions. I had clear ideas about how people should behave, about what we need to be happy, about the dreams we should keep alive inside us, about how human relations should evolve. I arrived in Bucharest during that crazed, bloody dictatorship and went to Transylvania to assist with a mass vaccination program for the local population.

  I didn't realize that I was merely one more piece on a very complicated chessboard, where invisible hands were manipulating my idealism, and that ulterior motives lay behind everything I believed was being done for humanitarian purposes: stabilizing the government run by the dictator's son, allowing Britain to sell arms in a market dominated by the Soviets.

  All my good intentions collapsed when I saw that there was barely enough vaccine to go round; that there were other diseases sweeping the region; that however often I wrote asking for more resources, they never came. I was told not to concern myself with anything beyond what I'd been asked to do.

  I felt powerless and angry. I'd seen poverty from close up and would have been able to do something about it if only someone would give me some money, but they weren't interested in results. Our government just wanted a few articles in the press so that they could say to their political parties or to their electorate that they'd dispatched groups to various places in the world on a humanitarian mission. Their intentions were good--apart from selling arms, of course.

  I was in despair. What kind of world was this? One night, I set off into the icy forest, cursing God, who was unfair to everything and everyone. I was sitting beneath an oak tree when my protector approached me. He said I could die of cold, and I replied that I was a doctor and knew the body's limits, and that as soon as I felt I was getting near those limits, I would go back to the camp. I asked him what he was doing there.

  "I'm speaking to a woman who can hear me, in a world in which all the men have gone deaf."

  I thought he meant me, but the woman he was referring to was the forest itself. When I saw this man wandering about among the trees, making gestures and saying things I couldn't understand, a kind of peace settled on my heart. I was not, after all, the only person in the world left talking to myself. When I got up to return to the camp, he came over to me again.

  "I know who you are," he said. "People in the village say that you're a very decent person, always good-humored and prepared to help others, but I see something else: rage and frustration."

  He might have been a government spy, but I decided to tell him everything I was feeling, even though I ran the risk of being arrested. We walked together to the field hospital where I was working; I took him to the dormitory, which was empty at the time (my colleagues were all having fun at the annual festival being held in the town), and I asked if he'd like a drink. He produced a bottle from his pocket.

  "Palinka," he said, meaning the traditional drink of Romania, with an incredibly high alcohol content. "On me."

  We drank together, and I didn't even notice that I was getting steadily drunk. I only realized the state I was in when I tried to go to the toilet, tripped over something, and fell flat.

  "Don't move," said the man. "Look at what is there before your eyes."

  A line of ants.

  "They all think they're very wise. They have memory, intelligence, organizational powers, a spirit of sacrifice. They look for food in summer, store it away for the winter, and now they are setting forth again, in this icy spring, to work. If the world was destroyed by an atomic bomb tomorrow, the ants would survive."

  "How do you know all this?"

  "I studied biology."

  "Why the hell don't you work to improve the living conditions of your own people? What are you doing in the middle of the forest, talking to the trees?"

  "In the first place, I wasn't alone; apart from the trees, you were listening to me too. But to answer your question, I left biology to work as a blacksmith."

  I struggled to my feet. My head was still spinning, but I was thinking clearly enough to understand the poor man's situation. Despite a university education, he had been unable to find work. I told him that the same thing happened in my country too.

  "No, that's not what I meant. I left biology because I wanted to work as a blacksmith. Even as a child, I was fascinated by those men hammering steel, making a strange kind of music, sending out sparks all around, plunging the red-hot metal into water, and creating clouds of steam. I was unhappy as a biologist, because my dream was to make rigid metal take on soft shapes. Then, one day, a protector appeared."

  "A protector?"

  "Let's say that, on seeing those ants doing exactly what they're programmed to do, you were to exclaim: 'How fantastic!' The guards are geneticall
y prepared to sacrifice themselves for the queen, the workers carry leaves ten times their own weight, the engineers make tunnels that can resist storms and floods. They enter into mortal combat with their enemies, they suffer for the community, and they never ask: 'Why are we doing this?' People try to imitate the perfect society of the ants, and as a biologist, I was playing my part until someone came along with this question: 'Are you happy doing what you're doing?' 'Of course I am,' I said. 'I'm being useful to my own people.' 'And that's enough?'

  "I didn't know whether it was enough or not, but I said that he seemed to me to be both arrogant and egotistical. He replied: 'Possibly. But all you will achieve is to repeat what has been done since man was man--keeping things organized.'

  "'But the world has progressed,' I said. He asked if I knew any history. Of course I did. He asked another question: 'Thousands of years ago, weren't we capable of building enormous structures like the pyramids? Weren't we capable of worshiping gods, weaving, making fire, finding lovers and wives, sending written messages? Of course we were. But although we've succeeded in replacing slaves with wage slaves, all the advances we've made have been in the field of science. Human beings are still asking the same questions as their ancestors. In short, they haven't evolved at all.' At that point, I understood that the person asking me these questions was someone sent from heaven, an angel, a protector."

  "Why do you call him a protector?"

  "Because he told me that there were two traditions, one that makes us repeat the same thing for centuries at a time, and another that opens the door into the unknown. However, the second tradition is difficult, uncomfortable, and dangerous, and if it attracted too many followers, it would end up destroying the society which, following the example of the ants, took so long to build. And so the second tradition went underground and has only managed to survive over so many centuries because its followers created a secret language of signs."

  "Did you ask more questions?"

  "Of course I did, because, although I'd denied it, he knew I was dissatisfied with what I was doing. My protector said: 'I'm afraid of taking steps that are not on the map, but by taking those steps despite my fears, I have a much more interesting life.' I asked more about the Tradition, and he said something like: 'As long as God is merely man, we'll always have enough food to eat and somewhere to live. When the Mother finally regains her freedom, we might have to sleep rough and live on love, or we might be able to balance emotion and work.' My protector then asked: 'If you weren't a biologist, what would you be?' I said: 'A blacksmith, but they don't earn enough money.' And he replied: 'Well, when you grow tired of being what you're not, go and have fun and celebrate life, hammering metal into shape. In time, you'll discover that it will give you more than pleasure, it will give you meaning.' 'How do I follow this tradition you spoke of?' I asked. 'As I said, through symbols,' he replied. 'Start doing what you want to do, and everything else will be revealed to you. Believe that God is the Mother and looks after her children and never lets anything bad happen to them. I did that and I survived. I discovered that there were other people who did the same but who are considered to be mad, irresponsible, superstitious. Since time immemorial, they've sought their inspiration in nature. We build pyramids, but we also develop symbols.'

  "Having said that, he left, and I never saw him again. I only know, from that moment on, symbols did begin to appear because my eyes had been opened by that conversation. Hard though it was, one evening I told my family that, although I had everything a man could dream of having, I was unhappy, and that I had, in fact, been born to be a blacksmith. My wife protested, saying: 'You were born a gypsy and had to face endless humiliations to get where you are, and yet you want to go back?' My son, however, was thrilled, because he too liked to watch the blacksmiths in our village and hated the laboratories in the big cities.

  "I started dividing my time between biological research and working as a blacksmith's apprentice. I was always tired, but I was much happier. One day I left my job and set up my own blacksmith's business, which went completely wrong from the start. Just when I was starting to believe in life, things got markedly worse. One day I was working away and I saw that there before me was a symbol.

  "The unworked steel arrives in my workshop and I have to transform it into parts for cars, agricultural machinery, kitchen utensils. Do you know how that's done? First, I heat the metal until it's red-hot, then I beat it mercilessly with my heaviest hammer until the metal takes on the form I need. Then I plunge it into a bucket of cold water and the whole workshop is filled with the roar of steam while the metal sizzles and crackles in response to the sudden change in temperature. I have to keep repeating that process until the object I'm making is perfect: once is not enough."

  The blacksmith paused for a long time, lit a cigarette, then went on.

  "Sometimes the steel I get simply can't withstand such treatment. The heat, the hammer blows, the cold water cause it to crack. And I know that I'll never be able to make it into a good plowshare or an engine shaft. Then I throw it on the pile of scrap metal at the entrance to my forge."

  Another long pause, then the blacksmith concluded: "I know that God is putting me through the fire of afflictions. I've accepted the blows that life has dealt me, and sometimes I feel as cold and indifferent as the water that inflicts such pain on the steel. But my one prayer is this: 'Please, God, my Mother, don't give up until I've taken on the shape that you wish for me. Do this by whatever means you think best, for as long as you like, but never ever throw me on the scrap heap of souls.'"

  I may have been drunk when I finished my conversation with that man, but I knew that my life had changed. There was a tradition behind everything we learn, and I needed to go in search of people who, consciously or unconsciously, were able to make manifest the female side of God. Instead of cursing my government and all the political shenanigans, I decided to do what I really wanted to do: heal people. I wasn't interested in anything else.

  Since I didn't have the necessary resources, I approached the local men and women, and they guided me to the world of medicinal herbs. I discovered that there was a popular tradition that went back hundreds of years and was passed from generation to generation through experience rather than through technical knowledge. With their help, I was able to do far more than I would otherwise have been able to do, because I wasn't there merely to fulfill a university task or to help my government to sell arms, or, unwittingly, to spread party political propaganda. I was there because healing people made me happy.

  This brought me closer to nature, to the oral tradition, and to plants. Back in Britain, I decided to talk to other doctors and I asked them: "Do you always know exactly which medicines to prescribe or are you sometimes guided by intuition?" Almost all of them, once they had dropped their guard, admitted that they were often guided by a voice and that when they ignored the advice of the voice, they ended up giving the wrong treatment. Obviously they make use of all the available technology, but they know that there is a corner, a dark corner, where lies the real meaning of the cure, and the best decision to make.

  My protector threw my world off balance--even though he was only a gypsy blacksmith. I used to go at least once a year to his village, and we would talk about how, when we dare to see things differently, life opens up to our eyes. On one of those visits, I met other disciples of his, and together we discussed our fears and our conquests. My protector said: "I too get scared, but it's at such moments that I discover a wisdom that is beyond me, and I go forward."

  Now I earn a lot of money working as a GP in Edinburgh, and I would earn even more if I went to work in London, but I prefer to make the most of life and to take time out. I do what I like: I combine the healing processes of the ancients, the Arcane Tradition, with the most modern techniques of present-day medicine, the Hippocratic Tradition. I'm writing a paper on the subject, and many people in the "scientific" community, when they see my text published in a specialist journal, will dare to tak
e the steps which, deep down, they've always wanted to take.

  I don't believe that the mind is the source of all ills; there are real diseases too. I think antibiotics and antivirals were great advances for humanity. I don't believe that a patient of mine with appendicitis can be cured by meditation alone; what he needs is some good emergency surgery. So I take each step with courage and fear, combining technique and inspiration. And I'm careful who I say these things to, because I might get dubbed a witch doctor, and then many lives that I could have saved would be lost.

  When I'm not sure, I ask the Great Mother for help. She has never yet failed to answer me. But she has always counseled me to be discreet. She probably gave the same advice to Athena on more than one occasion, but Athena was too fascinated by the world she was just starting to discover, and she didn't listen.

  A LONDON NEWSPAPER, AUGUST 24, 1991

  THE WITCH OF PORTOBELLO

  London ((c) Jeremy Lutton)--"That's another reason why I don't believe in God. I mean, look at the behavior of people who do believe!" This was the reaction of Robert Wilson, one of the traders in Portobello Road.

  This road, known around the world for its antique shops and its Saturday flea market, was transformed last night into a battlefield, requiring the intervention of at least fifty police officers from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to restore order. By the end of the fracas, five people had been injured, although none seriously. The reason behind this pitched battle, which lasted nearly two hours, was a demonstration organized by the Rev. Ian Buck to protest about what he called "the Satanic cult at the heart of England."

  According to Rev. Buck, a group of suspicious individuals have been keeping the neighborhood awake every Monday night for the last six months, Monday being their chosen night for invoking the Devil. The ceremonies are led by a Lebanese woman, Sherine H. Khalil, who calls herself Athena, after the goddess of wisdom.

  About two hundred people began meeting in a former East India Company warehouse, but the numbers increased over time, and in recent weeks, an equally large crowd has been gathering outside, hoping to gain entry and take part in the ceremony. When his various verbal complaints, petitions, and letters to the local newspapers achieved nothing, the Rev. Buck decided to mobilize the community, calling on his parishioners to gather outside the warehouse by 1900 hours yesterday to stop the "devil worshipers" from getting in.