Brida

by Paulo Coelho

  She might only be twenty-one, but she already knew it was possible to encounter two Soul Mates in the same incarnation, and that the result was bound to be pain and suffering.

  How could she avoid that?

  “I’m not going home,” she said. “I’m staying here.”

  The Magus’s eyes shone, and what had been only a hope became a certainty.

  They continued walking. The Magus watched Brida’s aura change color many times and hoped she was taking the right path. He understood the storms and earthquakes shaking the soul of his Soul Mate, but he knew that this was in the nature of transformations. That’s how the earth and the stars and mankind are transformed.

  They left the village and were walking out into the countryside, toward the mountains where they always met, when Brida asked him to stop.

  “Let’s go this way,” she said, turning down a path that led into a wheat field, although why she didn’t know. She simply felt a sudden need to feel the force of nature and the friendly spirits who, ever since the world was created, have inhabited all the lovely places of the planet. A huge moon was shining in the sky, illuminating the path and the countryside around.

  Without a word, the Magus followed. Deep in his heart, he thanked God for having believed and for not allowing him to make the same mistake again, as he had been on the point of doing just a minute before his prayers were answered.

  They walked through the wheat field, which was transformed by the moonlight into a silver sea. Brida was walking aimlessly, with no idea what her next step would be. A voice inside her was telling her that she should go forward, that she was just as strong as her forebears, and that there was no need to worry, because they were there guiding her steps and protecting her with the Wisdom of Time.

  They stopped in the middle of the field. They were surrounded by mountains, and on one of those mountains was a rock from which one could get a fine view of the sunset; there was a hunters’ cabin, too, higher up than all the others, and a place where, one night, a young woman had confronted fear and darkness.

  “I’m ready,” she thought to herself. “I’m ready and I know I’m protected.” She conjured up the image of the candle at home always burning, her seal with the Tradition of the Moon.

  “Here’s a good place,” she said, stopping.

  She picked up a twig and traced a large circle in the earth while she recited the sacred names her Teacher had taught her. She didn’t have her ritual dagger with her, she had none of her sacred objects, but her ancestors were there, and they were telling her that, in order not to be burned at the stake, they had consecrated their kitchen utensils.

  “Everything in this world is sacred,” she said. That twig was sacred.

  “Yes,” responded the Magus. “Everything in this world is sacred, and a grain of sand can be a bridge to the invisible.”

  “At this moment, though, the bridge to the invisible is my Soul Mate,” Brida said.

  His eyes filled with tears. God was just.

  The two of them entered the circle, and she ritually closed it. This was the protective gesture that Magi and Witches had used since time immemorial.

  “You were generous enough to show me your world,” said Brida. “I perform this ritual now to show that I belong to that world.”

  She raised her arms to the moon and invoked the magical forces of nature. She had often seen her Teacher do this when they went to the wood, but now she was doing it, confident that nothing would go wrong. The forces were telling her that she did not need to learn anything; she had only to remember the many times she had done this in her many lives as a witch. She prayed then that the harvest would be good, and that the field would always be fertile. There she was, the priestess who, in other ages, had brought together the earth’s knowledge and the transformation of the seed, and had prayed while her man was working the land.

  The Magus let Brida take the initial steps. He knew that, at a certain point, he would have to take control, but he needed to leave recorded on space and time the fact that she had begun the process. His Teacher, who, at that moment, was wandering some astral plane awaiting his next life, was there in that field of wheat, just as he had been there in the pub, during his last temptation, and he was doubtless happy that his student had learned from his suffering. The Magus listened in silence to Brida’s invocations. When she stopped, she said:

  “I don’t know why I have done all this, but I know I have done my part.”

  “I’ll continue,” he said.

  Then he turned to the north and imitated the cries of birds that existed now only in myths and legends. That was the only detail that had been lacking. Wicca was a good Teacher and had taught Brida almost everything, apart from the ending.

  When the sound of the sacred pelican and the phoenix had been invoked, the whole circle filled with light, a mysterious light, which illuminated nothing around it, but which was, nonetheless, a light. The Magus looked at his Soul Mate and there she was, resplendent in her eternal body, with a golden aura and filaments of light emerging from her navel and her head. He knew that she was seeing the same thing, as well as the point of light above his left shoulder, slightly blurred perhaps because of the wine they’d drunk earlier.

  “My Soul Mate,” she said softly when she saw the point of light.

  “I am going to walk with you through the Tradition of the Moon,” said the Magus. And at once the wheat field around them became a gray desert, in which there was a temple with women all in white dancing before the temple’s vast door. Brida and the Magus were watching this from high up on a dune, and she didn’t know if the people could see her.

  She felt the Magus’s presence beside her and wanted to ask him what the vision meant, but she could not speak. He saw the fear in her eyes, and they returned to the circle of light in the wheat field.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “A present from me to you. That is one of the eleven secret temples of the Tradition of the Moon. A gift of love and gratitude for the fact that you exist and because I have waited so long to find you.”

  “Take me with you,” she said. “Show me how to walk through your world.”

  And together they traveled through time and space, through the two Traditions. Brida saw meadows full of flowers, animals she had only read about in books, mysterious castles and cities that seemed to float on clouds of light. The sky lit up as the Magus drew for her, above the wheat field, the sacred symbols of the Tradition. At one point, they appeared to be in the icy landscape of one of Earth’s two poles, but it was not our planet: other smaller creatures, with long fingers and strange eyes, were working on a vast spaceship. Whenever she was about to say something to him, the images would vanish to be replaced by others. Brida understood with her woman’s soul that the man by her side was trying to show her everything he had learned over the years, and that he must have been waiting all this time simply to present her with this gift. He could give himself to her now without fear, because she was his Soul Mate. She could travel with him through the Elysian Fields, where the enlightened souls live, and which are visited now and then by other souls still in search of enlightenment so that they can nourish themselves with hope.

  She could not have said how much time had passed before she found herself back with that luminous being inside the circle she herself had drawn. She had known love before, but until that night love had also meant fear. That fear, however slight, was always a veil; you could see almost everything through it, but not the colors. And at that moment, with her Soul Mate there before her, she understood that love was a feeling completely bound up with color, like thousands of rainbows superimposed one on top of the other.

  “How much I missed simply because I was afraid of missing it,” she thought, gazing at those rainbows.

  She was lying down, and the luminous being was on top of her, with a point of light above his left shoulder and filaments of light pouring forth from his head and his navel.

  “I wante
d to speak to you, but I couldn’t,” she said.

  “That was because of the wine,” he replied.

  The pub, the wine, and the feeling of irritation were now but a distant memory to Brida.

  “Thank you for the visions.”

  “They weren’t visions,” said the luminous being. “What you saw was the wisdom of the Earth and of a distant planet.”

  Brida didn’t want to talk about that. She didn’t want any lessons. She wanted only what she had experienced.

  “Am I full of light, too?”

  “Yes, just as I am. The same color, the same light, and the same beams of energy.”

  The color was golden now, and the waves of energy emerging from navel and head were a brilliant pale blue.

  “I feel that we were lost and now are saved,” said Brida.

  “I’m tired. We should go back. I had a lot to drink, too.”

  Brida knew that somewhere there existed a world of pubs, wheat fields, and bus stations, but she didn’t want to go back there; all she wanted was to stay in that field forever. She heard a distant voice making invocations while the light around her gradually faded, then vanished completely. An enormous moon lit up the sky, illuminating the countryside. They were naked and in each other’s arms. And they felt neither cold nor shame.

  The Magus asked Brida to close the ritual, since she had begun it. Brida pronounced the words she knew, and he helped where necessary. When the last formula had been spoken, he opened the magic circle. They got dressed and sat down on the ground.

  “Let’s leave this place,” said Brida after a while. The Magus got up, and she followed. She didn’t know what to say; she felt awkward, and so did he. They had confessed their love to each other, and now, like any other couple in those circumstances, they were embarrassed to look each other in the eye.

  Then the Magus broke the silence.

  “You must go back to Dublin. I know the number of a taxi firm.”

  Brida didn’t know whether to feel disappointed or relieved. The feeling of joy was giving way to nausea and a throbbing head. She was sure that she would make very bad company.

  “Fine,” she said.

  They turned and walked back to the village. He phoned for a taxi from a telephone booth. Then they sat on the curb, waiting for the cab to arrive.

  “I want to thank you for tonight,” she said.

  He said nothing.

  “I don’t know if the Equinox festival is just for witches, but it will be a very important day for me.”

  “A party is a party.”

  “Then I would like to invite you.”

  He made a gesture as if wanting to change the subject. He must have been thinking the same thing she was: how hard it was to leave your Soul Mate once you’d found them. She imagined him going home alone, wondering when she would come back. She would come back, because her heart was telling her to, but the solitude of forests is harder to bear than the solitude of towns.

  “I don’t know if love appears suddenly,” Brida went on, “but I know that I’m open to love, ready for love.”

  The taxi came. Brida looked again at the Magus and felt that he had grown many years younger.

  “I’m ready for love, too,” he said.

  The sunlight poured into the spacious kitchen through the sparkling clean windows.

  “Did you sleep well, love?”

  Her mother put a mug of tea down on the table, along with some toast. Then she went back to the cooker, where she was frying eggs and bacon.

  “Yes, I did, thanks. By the way, is my dress ready? I need it for the party the day after tomorrow.”

  Her mother brought her the eggs and bacon and sat down. She knew that something odd was going on with her daughter, but she could do nothing about it. She would like to talk to her today as she never had before, but she would achieve little if she did. There was a new world out there, a world she didn’t know.

  She was afraid for her daughter because she loved her and because Brida was alone in that new world.

  “My dress will be ready, won’t it, Mum?”

  “Yes, by lunchtime,” her mother replied. And that made her happy. At least some things in the world hadn’t changed. There were certain problems that mothers continued to solve for their daughters.

  She hesitated, then asked:

  “How’s Lorens?”

  “Fine. He’s coming to pick me up tomorrow evening.”

  She felt simultaneously relieved and sad. Problems of the heart always bruised the soul, and she thanked God that her daughter had no such problems. On the other hand, that was perhaps the one area on which she could advise her, love having changed little over the centuries.

  They set off for a walk around the little village where Brida had spent her childhood. The houses had remained unchanged, and people were still doing the same things they always had. Her daughter met a few old school friends, who now worked either at the village’s one bank or at the stationer’s. They said hello and stopped to chat. Some said how Brida had grown, others how pretty she looked. Around ten o’clock they dropped in at the café her mother used to go to on Saturdays, before she met her husband, in the days when she was still hoping to meet someone and be swept up in some whirlwind romance that would put a stop to the endless identical days.

  She looked at her daughter again as she told her the latest news about the various people in the village. Brida was still interested, and this pleased her.

  “I really do have to have the dress today,” Brida said. She seemed worried, but that couldn’t be the reason. She knew that her mother would never let her down.

  Her mother decided to take a risk and ask the kind of question children always hate, because they’re independent, free, and capable of solving their own problems.

  “Is anything worrying you?”

  “Have you ever been in love with two men at once, Mum?” There was a defiant note in her voice, as if life had set its traps only for her.

  Her mother took a bite of her cake. A distant look came into her eyes, as she went off in search of a time that was almost lost.

  “Yes, I have.”

  Brida stared at her in amazement.

  Her mother smiled and invited her to continue their walk.

  “Your father was my first and greatest love,” she said, once they’d left the café. “And I’m still very happy with him. When I was younger than you are now, I had everything I could have dreamed of. At the time, my friends and I believed that love was the only reason for living. If you failed to find someone, then you could never claim to have realized your dreams.”

  “Stick to the point, Mum.” Brida was impatient.

  “I had other dreams, too, though. I dreamed, for example, of doing what you did, going off to the big city and discovering the world that lay beyond my village. The only way I could get my parents to accept my decision was by telling them that I needed to follow some course of study that wasn’t available locally.

  “The sleepless nights I spent, thinking about how to broach the subject with them. I planned exactly what I was going to say and what they would say in reply and how I would answer.”

  Her mother had never spoken to her like this before. Brida felt a mixture of affection and regret. They could have enjoyed other such moments, but they were both too caught up in their own worlds and their own values.

  “Two days before I was going to talk to my parents, I met your father. I looked into his eyes and saw a special light there, as if I’d met the person I most wanted to meet in the world.”

  “Yes, I’ve had the same experience.”

  “After I met your father, I realized, too, that my search was over. I didn’t need any other explanation of the world. I didn’t feel frustrated to be living here, always seeing the same people and doing the same things. Every day was different, because of the great love between us.

  “We started going out together and then we got married. I never talked to him about my dreams of going to live
in a big city, of discovering other places and other people. Because suddenly, the whole world fitted into my village. Love became my explanation for life.”

  “You mentioned someone else, Mum.”

  “Let me show you something,” her mother said in reply.

  They walked to the bottom of the steps that led up to the Catholic church in the village, and which had been destroyed and then rebuilt over the centuries. Brida used to go to mass there every Sunday, and she remembered that, as a child, climbing those steps had been really hard. At the beginning of each stretch of balustrade was the carving of a saint—St. Paul to the left and St. James to the right—rather worn by time and by tourists. The ground was covered in dry leaves, as if autumn were about to arrive, not spring.

  The church was at the top of the hill, and it was impossible to see it from where they were because of the trees. Her mother sat down on the first step and invited Brida to do the same.

  “This is where it happened,” she said. “One afternoon, for some reason or other, I decided to come here to pray. I needed to be alone, to think about my life, and I thought the church would be a good place to do so.

  “When I got here, however, I met a man. He was sitting where you are now, with two suitcases beside him, and he looked totally lost, desperately leafing through the book he was holding. I thought he must be a tourist in search of a hotel and so I went over to him. I even started talking to him. He seemed a bit startled at first, but then he relaxed.

  “He said that he wasn’t lost. He was an archaeologist and had been driving north—where some ruins had been found—when the engine packed up. A mechanic would arrive soon, and so he’d decided to visit the church while he waited. He asked me about the village and the other villages nearby, about historic monuments.

  “Suddenly, all the problems I’d been grappling with disappeared as if by magic. I felt really useful and started telling him everything I knew, feeling that the many years I’d spent in the region at last had some meaning. Before me was a man who had studied peoples and societies, who might hold in his memory, for the benefit of future generations, everything I’d heard or discovered when I was a child. That man sitting on the steps made me understand that I was important to the world and to the history of my country. I felt necessary, and that’s the best feeling a human being can have.