The Valkyries

by Paulo Coelho

  She heard the certainty in his voice. He knew, he knew everything. He would save her.

  He turned the shower on, and they both huddled under it—with their clothing, their documents, their money. The cold water moistened their bodies, and, for the first time since he had awakened, he experienced a sense of relief. The dizziness vanished. They stayed for two or three hours under the spray, without speaking, shivering from fear and the cold. They stepped out only once, to phone Argelia and tell her to do the same thing. The dizziness returned, and they had to flee back into the shower. There, everything seemed calm, but they needed desperately to understand what was happening.

  “I never believed it,” he said.

  She looked at him, not understanding. Two years earlier, they had been two hippies, without a cent to their name, and now his songs were being heard all over the country. He was at the peak of success—even though few people knew his name; and he had been saying that it was all the result of the rituals, the occult studies, the power of magic.

  “I never believed it,” he continued. “Or I never would have walked those paths! I never would have risked myself, or you.”

  “Do something, for the love of God!” she said. “We can’t stay here in the shower forever!”

  He left the shower again, checking whether the dizziness and the black hole were still there. He went to the bookcase and came back with the Bible. He had a Bible in the house only so that he could read from the Revelation to John, be certain about the reign of the Beast. He had done everything as called for by the Beast’s followers—and, in his heart, he had believed none of it.

  “Let’s pray to God,” he said. He felt ridiculous, demoralized before this woman whom he had tried to impress for all those years. He was weak, he was going to die. He had to humiliate himself, beg for forgiveness. What was most important now was the saving of his soul. In the end, everything was true.

  He embraced the Bible, and recited prayers he had learned as a child—Our Father, Hail Mary, the Creed. She refused at the beginning, and then recited them with him.

  Then he opened the book at random. The water poured down on the pages, but he was able to read the story of someone who had asked something of Jesus, and Jesus said that he must maintain the faith. The man answered: “Lord, I believe—help me in my incredulity.”

  “Lord, I believe, help me in my incredulity!” he shouted through the sound of the falling water.

  “Lord, I believe, help me in my incredulity!” he said in a whisper, through his sobs.

  He began to feel strangely calm. If the terrible evil they had experienced really existed, then it was true that the kingdom of heaven did, as well, and along with it, everything else that he had learned and then denied throughout his life.

  “The eternal life exists,” he said, knowing that he would never again believe in those words. “I don’t care if I die. You cannot fear death, either.”

  “I’m not afraid,” she answered. “I’m not afraid, but I think it’s unfair. It’s a pity.”

  They were only twenty-six. It really was a pity.

  “We have been through everything someone our’age could have experienced,” he answered. “Most people haven’t even come close.”

  “That’s true,” she said. “We can die.”

  He lifted his face, and the sound of the water in his ears seemed like thunder. He was no longer crying, nor afraid; he was only paying the price for his insolence.

  “Lord, I believe, help me in my incredulity,” he repeated. “We want to make an exchange. We offer you anything, absolutely anything, in return for the salvation of our souls. We offer our lives, or everything we own. Please accept, my lord.”

  She looked at him with contempt. The man she had admired so. The powerful, mysterious, courageous man she had so admired, who had convinced so many people with regard to the Alternative Society, who had preached about a world where anything was allowed, where the strong ruled over the weak. That man was there, crying, screaming for his mother, praying like a child, and saying that he had always been courageous—because he had believed in nothing.

  He turned, and said they should both look up and make the exchange. She did so. She had lost her man, her faith, and her hope. She had nothing else to lose.

  He placed his hand on the faucet, and slowly shut it down. Now they could die; God had forgiven them.

  The stream of water turned to droplets, and then there was complete silence. Soaked to the bone, they looked at each other. The dizziness, the black hole, the laughter, and the noises, all had disappeared.

  HE WAS LYING IN A WOMAN’S LAP, CRYING. HER HAND WAS caressing his head.

  “I made that pact,” he said tearfully.

  “No,” the woman answered. “It was a trade.”

  Paulo clutched the archangel medallion. Yes, there had been a trade—and the punishment was severe. Two days after that morning in 1974, they were imprisoned by the Brazilian political police and accused of subversion based on the Alternative Society. He was placed in a dark cell, similar to the black hole he had seen in his living room. He was threatened with death, and he gave in, but it was a trade. When he was released, he split up with his partner and was expelled from the world of music for a long time. No one would give him a job. But it was a trade.

  Other members of the group had not made the trade. They survived in the “black hole,” and regarded him as a coward. He lost his friends, his security, his desire to go on living. For years, he was afraid to go out into the street—the dizziness might return, the police could appear again. And, even worse, after his release from prison he never saw his girlfriend again. At times, he regretted the trade—it would have been better to have died than to have to live that way. But now it was too late to go back.

  “There was a pact,” Valhalla said. “What was it?”

  “I promised I would abandon my dreams.”

  For seven years, he paid the price for the trade. But God was generous, and allowed him to rebuild his life. The director of the recording studio, the same person he had dreamed about that May morning, gave him a job and became his only friend. He went back to composing, but every time his work brought some success, something wound up happening, and everything went down the drain.

  He remembered J’s words: People destroy what they love.

  “I always figured it was part of the bargain,” he said.

  “No,” Valhalla said. “God was severe, but you were more severe than he was.”

  “I promised that I would never grow again. I thought that I could no longer trust myself.”

  The Valkyrie held his head to her bare breasts.

  “Tell me about the dread,” she said. “The dread that I saw when we met at the luncheonette.”

  “The terror…” He didn’t know how to begin, because he felt he would sound absurd. “The terror doesn’t allow me to sleep at night, or rest during the day.”

  Now Chris understood her angel. She had to be here, hearing this, because he would never have told her…

  “…and now I have a wife that I love, I found J., I walked the holy Road to Santiago, I’ve written books. I’m being faithful to my dreams again, and that’s where the dread comes from. Because everything is going the way I would like it to, and I know that soon it will all be destroyed.” It was terrible to say that. He had never said it to anyone—not even himself. He knew that Chris was there, hearing it all. And he was ashamed.

  “That’s the way it was with the songs,” he said, forcing himself to go on. “That’s the way it’s been with everything I’ve done since then. Nothing has lasted more than two years.”

  He felt Valhalla’s hands removing the medallion from around his neck. He stood. He didn’t want her to light the lantern, because he lacked the courage to confront Chris.

  But Valhalla lit the lantern, and the three made their way out in silence.

  “We two are going out first, and you come along later,” Valhalla said to Paulo as they were reachin
g the end of the tunnel.

  Paulo was certain that, just as with his girlfriend of fourteen years earlier, Chris would never again trust him.

  “Today, I believe in what I’m doing,” he tried to say before the other two left. It sounded like a plea for forgiveness, like self-justification.

  No one answered. After a few more steps, Valhalla extinguished the lantern. There was now sufficient light for them to see.

  “From the moment that you set foot outside,” the Valkyrie said, “promise, in the name of the archangel Michael, that never again—never again—will you raise your hand against yourself.”

  “I’m afraid to say that,” he answered. “Because I don’t know how to comply.”

  “You have no choice, if you want to see your angel.”

  “I didn’t realize what I was doing to myself. I might continue with the same kind of self-betrayal.”

  “Now you know,” Valhalla said. “And the truth gives you freedom.”

  Paulo nodded his head.

  “You will still have many problems in your life, some of them normal, some of them difficult. But, from now on, only God’s hand will be responsible for everything—you will interfere no more.”

  “I promise in the name of Saint Michael.”

  The women went out. He waited a moment, and then began to walk. He had been in the darkness long enough.

  THE RAYS OF LIGHT, REFLECTING FROM THE STONE WALLS, showed the way. There was the grated door, a door leading to a prohibited kingdom. A door that frightened him. Because out there was the kingdom of light, and he had been living for years in the darkness. A door that appeared to be closed—but, for anyone who approached it, it was open.

  The door to the light was there in front of him. He wanted to pass through. He could see the golden light of the sun outside, but he decided not to put on his sunglasses. He needed the light. And he knew that the archangel Michael was at his side, sweeping away the darkness with his lance.

  For years he had believed in the implacable hand of God, in his punishment. But it was his own hand, not God’s, that had wrought such destruction. Never, for the rest of his life, would he do that again.

  “Break the pact,” he said to the darkness of the mine and to the desert light. “God has the right to destroy me. I do not.”

  He thought of the books he had written, and was happy. The year would end without any problem—because the pact had been broken. There was no doubt that problems would arise in his work, in love, and along the path to magic—serious problems or passing problems, as Valhalla had said. But from now on, he would battle side by side with his guardian angel.

  You must have made a tremendous effort, he said to his angel. And, in the end, I spoiled everything, and you couldn’t understand it.

  His angel was listening. The angel knew about the pact, too, and was happy at not having to devote efforts to keeping Paulo from destroying himself.

  Paulo found the door and passed through it. The sun blinded him for a moment, but he kept his eyes open—he needed the light. He saw the figures of Valhalla and Chris approaching. “Put your hand on his shoulder,” Valhalla said to Chris. “Be a witness.”

  Chris obeyed.

  Valhalla took a few drops of water from her canteen and made a cross on his forehead—as if baptizing him. Then she knelt, and told them to kneel as well.

  “In the name of the archangel Michael, the pact was known in heaven. In the name of the archangel Michael, the pact was broken.”

  She placed the medallion on his forehead, and asked that he repeat her words:

  Sainted angel of the Lord,

  My zealous guardian…

  The prayer from childhood echoed from the walls of the mountain, and spread throughout that part of the desert.

  If I trust in you,

  The divine piety

  Will rule me always, and guard,

  Govern, and enlighten.

  Amen.

  “Amen,” said Chris.

  “Amen,” he repeated.

  PEOPLE WERE APPROACHING THEM CURIOUSLY.

  “They’re lesbians,” said one.

  “They’re crazy,” said another.

  The Valkyries paid no attention, but continued with what they were doing. They had tied one kerchief to another, forming a kind of rope. They sat on the ground in a circle—their arms resting on their knees, holding the joined kerchiefs.

  Valhalla was in the middle, on foot. People continued to arrive. When a small multitude had formed, the Valkyries began to chant a psalm.

  By the rivers of Babylon,

  There we sat down, yea, and wept.

  We hung our harps upon the willows

  In the midst of it.

  The people watched, understanding none of it. It was not the first time these women had appeared in the city. They had been there before, speaking of strange things—although certain words were similar to those uttered by television preachers.

  “Have courage.” Valhalla’s voice rang out clearly and strongly. “Open your heart, and listen to what your dreams tell you. Follow those dreams, because only a person who is not ashamed can manifest the glory of God.”

  “The desert’s made them crazy,” a woman said.

  Some people left immediately. They were fed up with preaching.

  “There is no sin but the lack of love,” Valhalla continued. “Have courage, be capable of loving, even if love appears to be a treacherous and terrible thing. Be happy in love. Be joyful in victory. Follow the dictates of your heart.”

  “That’s impossible,” someone in the crowd said. “People have obligations.”

  Valhalla turned in the direction of the voice. She was doing it—people were paying attention! Different from five years earlier, when no one came near them during their appearances in the city.

  “We have children. We have husbands and wives. People have to earn a living,” another person said.

  “Well, meet your obligations. But obligations never prevented anyone from following their dreams. Remember that you are a manifestation of the absolute, and do only those things in your lives that are worth the effort. Only those who do that will understand the great transformations that are yet to be seen.”

  The Conspiracy, Chris thought, as she listened. She remembered the time long ago when she had sung in the plaza with others from her church, to save people from sin. In those days, no one spoke of a New Age—they spoke of the coming of Christ, of punishment and hell. There was no Conspiracy, such as now.

  She walked through the crowd and found Paulo. He was sitting on a bench, far from the gathering.

  “How long are we going to travel with them?” she asked.

  “Until Valhalla teaches me how to see angels.”

  “But we’ve been here for almost a month.”

  “She cannot refuse me. She swore on the Tradition. She has to keep her vow.”

  The crowd was growing in size. Chris was thinking how difficult it must be to talk to the people gathered there.

  “They’re not going to take the Valkyries seriously,” she said. “Not with the way they’re dressed, and with those motorcycles.”

  “They have been fighting for some very old ideas,” Paulo said. “Nowadays, soldiers dress in camouflage. They disguise themselves, and they hide. But the old warriors dressed in colorful outfits, much more obvious on the field of battle.

  “They wanted the enemy to see them. They took pride in battle.”

  “Why are they doing this? Why preach in public parks and in bars and in the middle of the desert? Why are they helping us to speak to our angels?”

  He lit a cigarette. “You joke about a Conspiracy, but you’re right,” he said. “There is a Conspiracy.”

  She laughed. No, no, there was no Conspiracy. She had used that term because her husband’s friends acted like secret agents, always careful not to discuss certain things when others were present, always changing the subject—although they had sworn, all of them had, that there was n
othing occult in the Tradition.

  But Paulo seemed to be serious.

  “The gates to Paradise have been reopened,” he said. “God banished the angel with the burning sword who was at the gate. For some time—no one is certain for how long—anyone could enter, since it was obvious that the gates were open.”

  As he was speaking to Chris, Paulo recalled the abandoned gold mine. Up until that day—a week ago—he had chosen to remain outside of paradise.

  “What guarantees entry?”

  “Faith. And the Tradition,” he answered.

  They walked over to an ice cream wagon and bought cones. Valhalla continued to speak, and her sermon appeared to be endless. Before long, she might even try to get the spectators to participate, at which point it would probably end.

  “Does everyone know that the gates are open?” Chris asked.

  “Some people have noticed—and they are calling the others. But there’s a problem.”

  Paulo pointed to a monument in the middle of the square. “Let’s suppose that paradise is there. And every person on earth is here in the plaza. Each of them has their own path for arriving there.

  “That’s why people talk with their angels. Because only the angels know the best path. It does no good to seek advice about it from others.”

  “Follow your dreams, and take your risks,” they heard Valhalla saying.

  “What will this world be like?”

  “It will be only for those who enter into paradise,” Paulo answered. “The world of the ‘Conspiracy.’ The world of people who are able to see the transformations that are occurring, of people who have the courage to pursue their dreams and listen to angels. A world for all those who believe in that world.”

  A murmur arose from the crowd, and Chris knew that the play had begun. She wanted to move forward to observe, but what Paulo was saying was more important.

  “For centuries, we wept on the banks of the rivers of Babylon,” Paulo continued. “We hung up our harps, we were prohibited from singing, we were persecuted and massacred. But we never forgot that there was a promised land. The Tradition survived everything.