Witch of Portobello

by Paulo Coelho

  Afterward, she says that she’ll sleep at the hotel that night. I ask her if this is good-bye, but she says it isn’t. She’ll come back tomorrow.

  For a whole week, my daughter and I share together the adoration of the Universe. One night, she brought a friend, making it quite clear that he was neither her boyfriend nor the father of her child. The man, who must have been ten years older than her, asked who we were worshipping in our rituals. I explained that worshipping someone means—according to my protector—placing that person outside of our world. We are not worshipping anyone or anything, we are simply communing with Creation.

  “But do you pray?”

  “Myself, I pray to St. Sarah, but here we are part of everything and we celebrate rather than pray.”

  I felt that Athena was proud of my answer, but I was really only repeating my protector’s words.

  “And why do this in a group, when we can all celebrate the Universe on our own?”

  “Because the others are me. And I am the others.”

  Athena looked at me then, and I felt it was my turn to wound her heart.

  “I’m leaving tomorrow,” she said.

  “Before you do, come and say good-bye to your mother.”

  That was the first time, in all those days, I had used the word. My voice didn’t tremble, my gaze was steady, and I knew that, despite everything, standing before me was the blood of my blood, the fruit of my womb. At that moment, I was behaving like a little girl who has just found out that the world isn’t full of ghosts and curses as grown-ups have taught us. It’s full of love, regardless of how that love is manifested, a love that forgives our mistakes and redeems our sins.

  She gave me a long embrace. Then she adjusted the veil I wear to cover my hair; I may not have had a husband, but according to gypsy tradition, I had to wear a veil because I was no longer a virgin. What would tomorrow bring me, along with the departure of the being I’ve always both loved and feared from a distance? I was everyone, and everyone was me and my solitude.

  The following day, Athena arrived bearing a bunch of flowers. She tidied my room, told me that I should wear glasses because my eyes were getting worn out from all that sewing. She asked if the friends I celebrated with experienced any problems with the tribe, and I told her that they didn’t, that my protector had been a very respected man, had taught us many things, and had followers all over the world. I explained that he’d died shortly before she arrived.

  “One day, a cat brushed against him. To us, that means death, and we were all very worried. But although there is a ritual that can lift such a curse, my protector said it was time for him to leave, that he needed to travel to those other worlds that he knew existed, to be reborn as a child, and to rest for a while in the arms of the Mother. His funeral took place in a forest nearby. It was a very simple affair, but people came from all over the world.”

  “Among those people, was there a woman of about thirty-five, with dark hair?”

  “I can’t be sure, but possibly. Why do you ask?”

  “I met someone at a hotel in Bucharest who said that she’d come to attend the funeral of a friend. I think she said something about ‘her teacher.’”

  She asked me to tell her more about the gypsies, but there wasn’t much she didn’t already know, mainly because, apart from customs and traditions, we know little of our own history. I suggested that she go to France one day and take, on my behalf, a shawl to present to the image of St. Sarah in the little French village of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.

  “I came here because there was something missing in my life,” she said. “I needed to fill up my blank spaces, and I thought just seeing your face would be enough. But it wasn’t. I also needed to understand that…I was loved.”

  “You are loved.”

  I said nothing else for a long time. I’d finally put into words what I’d wanted to say ever since I let her go. So that she would not become too emotional, I went on:

  “I’d like to ask you something.”

  “Ask me anything you like.”

  “I want to ask your forgiveness.”

  She bit her lip.

  “I’ve always been a very restless person. I work hard, spend too much time looking after my son, I dance like a mad thing, I learned calligraphy, I go to courses on selling, I read one book after another. But that’s all a way of avoiding those moments when nothing is happening, because those blank spaces give me a feeling of absolute emptiness, in which not a single crumb of love exists. My parents have always done everything they could for me, and I do nothing but disappoint them. But here, during the time we’ve spent together, celebrating nature and the Great Mother, I’ve realized that those empty spaces were starting to get filled up. They were transformed into pauses—the moment when the man lifts his hand from the drum before bringing it down again to strike it hard. I think I can leave now. I’m not saying that I’ll go in peace, because my life needs to follow the rhythm I’m accustomed to. But I won’t leave feeling bitter. Do all gypsies believe in the Great Mother?”

  “If you were to ask them, none of them would say yes. They’ve adopted the beliefs and customs of the places where they’ve settled, and the only thing that unites us in religious terms is the worship of St. Sarah and making a pilgrimage, at least once in our lifetime, to visit her tomb in Saintes-Mariesde-la-Mer. Some tribes call her Kali Sarah, Black Sarah. Or the Virgin of the Gypsies, as she’s known in Lourdes.”

  “I have to go,” Athena said after a while. “The friend you met the other day is leaving with me.”

  “He seems like a nice man.”

  “You’re talking like a mother.”

  “I am your mother.”

  “And I’m your daughter.”

  She embraced me, this time with tears in her eyes. I stroked her hair as I held her in my arms, as I’d always dreamed I would, ever since the day when fate—or my fear—separated us. I asked her to take good care of herself, and she told me that she had learned a lot.

  “You’ll learn a lot more too because although nowadays we’re all trapped in houses, cities, and jobs, there still flows in your blood the time of caravans and journeyings and the teachings that the Great Mother placed in our path so that we could survive. Learn, but always learn with other people by your side. Don’t be alone in the search, because if you take a wrong step, you’ll have no one there to help put you right.”

  She was still crying, still clinging to me, almost begging me to let her stay. I pleaded with my protector not to let me shed one tear, because I wanted the best for Athena, and her destiny was to go forward. Here in Transylvania, apart from my love, she would find nothing else. And although I believe that love is enough to justify a whole existence, I was quite sure that I couldn’t ask her to sacrifice her future in order to stay by my side.

  Athena planted a kiss on my forehead and left without saying good-bye, perhaps thinking she would return one day. Every Christmas, she sent me enough money to spend the whole year without having to sew, but I never went to the bank to cash her checks, even though everyone in the tribe thought I was behaving like a foolish woman.

  Six months ago, she stopped sending money. She must have realized that I need my sewing to fill up what she called the “blank spaces.”

  I would love to see her again, but I know she’ll never come back. She’s probably a big executive now, married to the man she loves. And I probably have lots of grandchildren, which means that my blood will remain on this earth, and my mistakes will be forgiven.

  SAMIRA R. KHALIL, HOUSEWIFE

  As soon as Sherine arrived home, whooping with joy and clutching a rather startled Viorel to her, I knew that everything had gone much better than I’d imagined. I felt that God had heard my prayers, and that now she no longer had anything more to learn about herself, she would finally adapt to normal life, bring up her child, remarry, and forget all about the strange restlessness that left her simultaneously euphoric and depressed.

  “I love you
, Mum.”

  It was my turn to put my arms around her and hold her to me. During all the nights she’d been away, I had, I confess, been terrified by the thought that she might send someone to fetch Viorel, and then they would never come back.

  After she’d eaten, had a bath, told us about the meeting with her birth mother, and described the Transylvanian countryside (I could barely remember it, since all I was interested in, at the time, was finding an orphanage), I asked her when she was going back to Dubai.

  “Next week, but first I have to go to Scotland to see someone.”

  A man!

  “A woman,” she said at once, perhaps in response to my knowing smile. “I feel that I have a mission. While we were celebrating life and nature, I discovered things I didn’t even know existed. What I thought could be found only through dance is everywhere. And it has the face of a woman. I saw in the…”

  I felt frightened. Her mission, I told her, was to bring up her son, do well at her job, earn more money, remarry, and respect God as we know him.

  But Sherine wasn’t listening.

  “It was one night when we were sitting round the fire, drinking, telling funny stories, and listening to music. Apart from in the restaurant, I hadn’t felt the need to dance all the time I was there, as if I were storing up energy for something different. Suddenly I felt as if everything around me were alive and pulsating, as if the Creation and I were one and the same thing. I wept with joy when the flames of the fire seemed to take on the form of a woman’s face, full of compassion, smiling at me.”

  I shuddered. It was probably gypsy witchcraft. And at the same time, the image came back to me of the little girl at school, who said she’d seen “a woman in white.”

  “Don’t get caught up in things like that, they’re the Devil’s work. We’ve always set you a good example, so why can’t you lead a normal life?”

  I’d obviously been too hasty when I thought the journey in search of her birth mother had done her good. However, instead of reacting aggressively, as she usually did, she smiled and went on.

  “What is normal? Why is Dad always laden down with work, when we have money enough to support three generations? He’s an honest man and he deserves the money he earns, but he always says, with a certain pride, that he’s got far too much work. Why? What for?”

  “He’s a man who lives a dignified, hardworking life.”

  “When I lived at home, the first thing he’d ask me when he got back every evening was how my homework was going, and he’d give me a few examples illustrating how important his work was to the world. Then he’d turn on the TV, make a few comments about the political situation in Lebanon, and read some technical book before going to sleep. But he was always busy. And it was the same thing with you. I was the best-dressed girl at school; you took me to parties; you kept the house spick-and-span; you were always kind and loving and brought me up impeccably. But what happens now that you’re getting older? What are you going to do with your life now that I’ve grown up and am independent?”

  “We’re going to travel the world and enjoy a well-earned rest.”

  “But why don’t you do that now, while your health is still good?”

  I’d asked myself the same question, but I felt that my husband needed his work, not because of the money, but out of a need to feel useful, to prove that an exile also honors his commitments. Whenever he took a holiday and stayed in town, he always found some excuse to slip into the office, to talk to his colleagues and make some decision that could easily have waited. I tried to make him go to the theater, to the cinema, to museums, and he’d do as I asked, but I always had the feeling that it bored him. His only interest was the company, work, business.

  For the first time, I talked to her as if she were a friend and not my daughter, but I chose my words carefully and spoke in a way that she could understand.

  “Are you saying that your father is also trying to fill in what you call the ‘blank spaces’?”

  “The day he retires, although I really don’t think that day will ever come, he’ll fall into a deep depression. I’m sure of it. What to do with that hard-won freedom? Everyone will congratulate him on a brilliant career, on the legacy he leaves behind him because of the integrity with which he ran his company, but no one will have time for him anymore—life flows on, and everyone is caught up in that flow. Dad will feel like he is an exile again, but this time he won’t have a country where he can seek refuge.”

  “Have you got a better idea?”

  “Only one: I don’t want the same thing to happen to me. I’m too restless, and please don’t take this the wrong way, because I’m not blaming you and Dad at all for the example you set me, but I need to change, and change fast.”

  DEIDRE O’NEILL, KNOWN AS EDDA

  She’s sitting in the pitch-black.

  The boy, of course, left the room at once—the night is the kingdom of terror, of monsters from the past, of the days when we wandered like gypsies, like my former teacher—may the Mother have mercy on his soul, and may he be loved and cherished until it is time for him to return.

  Athena hasn’t known what to do since I switched off the light. She asks about her son, and I tell her not to worry, to leave everything to me. I go out, put the TV on, find a cartoon channel, and turn off the sound; the child sits there hypnotized—problem solved. I wonder how it must have been in the past, because the women who came to perform the same ritual Athena is about to take part in would have brought their children, and in those days there was no TV. What did teachers do then?

  Fortunately, I don’t have to worry about that.

  What the boy is experiencing in front of the television—a gateway into a different reality—is the same state I am going to induce in Athena. Everything is at once so simple and so complicated! It’s simple because all it takes is a change of attitude: I’m not going to look for happiness anymore. From now on, I’m independent; I see life through my eyes and not through other people’s. I’m going in search of the adventure of being alive.

  And it’s complicated: Why am I not looking for happiness when everyone has taught me that happiness is the only goal worth pursuing? Why am I going to risk taking a path that no one else is taking?

  After all, what is happiness?

  Love, they tell me. But love doesn’t bring and never has brought happiness. On the contrary, it’s a constant state of anxiety, a battlefield; it’s sleepless nights, asking ourselves all the time if we’re doing the right thing. Real love is composed of ecstasy and agony.

  All right then, peace. Peace? If we look at the Mother, she’s never at peace. The winter does battle with the summer, the sun and the moon never meet, the tiger chases the man, who’s afraid of the dog, who chases the cat, who chases the mouse, who frightens the man.

  Money brings happiness. Fine. In that case, everyone who earns enough to have a high standard of living would be able to stop working. But then they’re more troubled than ever, as if they were afraid of losing everything. Money attracts money, that’s true. Poverty might bring unhappiness, but money won’t necessarily bring happiness.

  I spent a lot of my life looking for happiness; now what I want is joy. Joy is like sex—it begins and ends. I want pleasure. I want to be contented, but happiness? I no longer fall into that trap.

  When I’m with a group of people and I want to provoke them by asking that most important of questions—Are you happy?—they all reply: “Yes, I am.”

  Then I ask: “But don’t you want more? Don’t you want to keep on growing?” And they all reply: “Of course.”

  Then I say: “So you’re not happy.” And they change the subject.

  I must go back to the room where Athena is sitting. It’s dark. She hears my footsteps; a match is struck and a candle lit.

  “We’re surrounded by Universal Desire. It’s not happiness, it’s desire. And desires are never satisfied, because once they are, they cease to be desires.”

  “Where’s my son
?”

  “Your son is fine; he’s watching TV. I just want you to look at the candle; don’t speak, don’t say anything. Just believe.”

  “Believe what?”

  “I asked you not to say anything. Simply believe—don’t doubt anything. You’re alive, and this candle is the only point in your universe. Believe in that. Let go of the idea that the path will lead you to your goal. The truth is that with each step we take, we arrive. Repeat that to yourself every morning: ‘I’ve arrived.’ That way you’ll find it much easier to stay in touch with each second of your day.”

  I paused.

  “The candle flame is illuminating your world. Ask the candle: ‘Who am I?’”

  I paused again, then went on. “I can imagine your answer. I’m so-and-so. I’ve had these experiences. I have a son. I work in Dubai. Now ask the candle again: ‘Who am I not?’”

  Again I waited and again I went on. “You probably said: I’m not a contented person. I’m not a typical mother concerned only with her son and her husband, with having a house and a garden and a place to spend the summer holidays. Is that so? You can speak now.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Good, we’re on the right path. You, like me, are a dissatisfied person. Your ‘reality’ does not coincide with the ‘reality’ of other people. And you’re afraid that your son will follow the same path as you, is that correct?”