Free Aleph by Paulo Coelho

the sentence, because the doors continue to open and reveal their secrets. I see lies and truths, strange dances performed before what appears to be the image of a goddess, sailors battling the fierce sea, a couple sitting on a beach, gazing at the same sea, which looks calm and welcoming. The doors continue to open, the doors of Hilal’s eyes, and I begin to see myself, as if we had known each other for a long, long time …
    “What are you doing?” she asks.
    “The Aleph …”
    The tears of that girl or woman standing before me seem to want to leave by those same doors. Someone once said that tears are the blood of the soul, and that is what I’m beginning to see now, because I have entered a tunnel, I’m going back into the past, and she is waiting for me there, too, her hands pressed together as if saying the most sacred prayer God ever gave to mankind. Yes, she is therebefore me, kneeling on the ground and smiling, telling me that love can save everything, but I look at my clothes, at my hands, in one of which I am holding a quill pen …
    “Stop!” I shout.
    Hilal closes her eyes.
    I am once more on a train, traveling to Siberia and beyond to the Pacific Ocean. I feel even wearier than I did before, and although I understand exactly what has happened, I am incapable of explaining it.
    She embraces me. I embrace her and gently stroke her hair.
    “I knew it,” she says. “I knew I had met you before. I knew it the first time I saw your photograph. It’s as if we had to meet again at some point in this life. I talked to my friends about it, but they thought I was crazy, that thousands of people must say the same thing about thousands of other people every day. I thought they must be right, but life … life brought you to me. You came to find me, didn’t you?”
    I am gradually recovering from what I have just experienced. I know what she’s talking about, because centuries before I went through one of the doors I have just seen in her eyes. She was there, along with other people. Cautiously, I ask her what she saw.
    “Everything. I don’t think I will ever be able to explain this, but the moment I closed my eyes, I was in a safe, comfortable place, as if I were in my own house.”
    No, she doesn’t know what she’s saying. She doesn’t know yet. But I do. I pick up her bags and lead her back into the lounge.
    “I haven’t got the energy to think or speak right now. Sit over there, read something, let me rest a little, and then I’ll be right back. If anyone says anything, tell them that I asked you to stay.”
    She does as asked. I go to my compartment, collapse onto the bed fully clothed, and fall into a deep sleep.
    S OMEONE KNOCKS AT THE DOOR .
    “We’ll be arriving in ten minutes.”
    I open my eyes. It’s night outside, or, rather, it’s the early hours of the morning. I’ve slept all day and will have difficulties now getting back to sleep.
    “They’re going to uncouple the carriage and leave it in a siding, so take what you need for two nights in the city,” says the voice.
    I open the shutters. Lights begin to appear; the train is slowing; we really are arriving. I wash my face and quickly pack whatever I will need for two nights in Ekaterinburg. What I experienced earlier is gradually beginning to come back to me.
    When I leave the compartment, everyone is standing in the corridor, apart from Hilal, who is still sitting in the place where I left her. She doesn’t smile but simply shows me a piece of paper.
    “Yao got me the permit.”
    Yao looks at me and whispers, “Have you ever read the
Tao Te Ching
?”
    Yes, of course I have, like almost everyone of my generation.
    “Then you’ll remember these words: ‘Expend your energies and you will remain young.’ ”
    He nods slightly in the direction of the girl, who is still seated. I find this remark to be in bad taste.
    “If you’re insinuating—”
    “I’m not insinuating anything. If you have misunderstood me,