Aleph

summoned by some inaudible bell. Again, no one had managed to get a wink of sleep, not even Yao, who seemed accustomed to this type of journey. He was beginning to look ever wearier and sadder.

As usual, Hilal was there waiting, and, as usual, she had slept better than anyone else. Over breakfast, we began our conversation with complaints about the constant rocking of the carriage, then I went back to my room to try to sleep, got up again a few hours later, and returned to the lounge, where I encountered the same people. Together we bemoaned the thousands of kilometers that still lay ahead. Then we sat gazing out the window, smoking and listening to the irritating piped music issuing from the train’s loudspeakers.

Hilal now barely spoke. She always sat down in the same corner, opened her book and began to read, removing herself from the group. No one else, apart from me, seemed bothered by this, but I found her behavior very rude indeed. However, when I considered the alternative—her penchant for making inappropriate remarks—I decided to say nothing.

I would finish breakfast, go back to my compartment to sleep or doze or write. As everyone agreed, we were rapidly losing all sense of time. We no longer cared if it was day or night; our days were measured out in mealtimes, as I imagine the days of all prisoners are.

We would turn up in the lounge to find supper was served. More vodka than mineral water was drunk, and there was more silence than conversation. My publisher told me that when I wasn’t there, Hilal played an imaginary violin, as if she were practicing. I know that chess players do the same, playing entire games in their head, without the need of a board.

“Yes, she’s playing silent music for invisible beings. Perhaps they need it.”

…

ANOTHER BREAKFAST. Today, though, things are different. Inevitably, we are starting to get used to our new way of life. My publisher complains that his cell phone isn’t working properly (mine doesn’t work at all). His wife is dressed like an odalisque, which strikes me as both amusing and absurd. She doesn’t speak English, but we somehow manage to understand each other very well through looks and gestures. Hilal decides to take part in this morning’s conversation and describes some of the difficulties faced by musicians struggling to make a living. It might be a prestigious profession, but many musicians earn less than taxi drivers.

“How old are you?” asks my editor.

“Twenty-one.”

“You don’t look it.”

She says this in a way that implies she looks much older. And she really does. It had never occurred to me that she was so young.

“The director of the music conservatory came to see me at the hotel in Ekaterinburg,” says the editor. “She said you were one of the most talented violinists she’s ever known but that you had suddenly lost all interest in music.”

“It was the Aleph,” Hilal replies, avoiding my eyes.

“The Aleph?”

Everyone looks at her in surprise. I pretend not to have heard.

“Yes, the Aleph. I couldn’t find it, and my energy stopped flowing. Something in my past was blocking it.”

The conversation seems to have taken a completely surreal turn. I still say nothing, but my publisher tries to ease the situation.

“I published a mathematics book with that word in the title. In technical language, it means ‘the number that contains all numbers.’ The book was about the kabbalah and mathematics. Apparently, mathematicians use the Aleph to represent the cardinality of infinite sets…”

No one appears to be following this explanation. He stops midway.

“It’s in the Apocalypse as well,” I say, as if I’d just picked up the thread of the conversation. “Where the Lamb is defined as the beginning and the end, as the thing that is beyond time. It’s also the first letter of the alphabet in Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic.”

The editor now regrets having made Hilal the center of attention and decides to bring her down a peg or two.

“Nevertheless, for a girl of twenty-one, just out of music school and with a brilliant career ahead of her, it must be quite enough to have traveled all the way from Moscow to Ekaterinburg.”

“Especially for someone who’s a spalla,” says Hilal.

She noticed the confusion her use of the word “Aleph” caused and is delighted to confuse the publisher still further with yet another mysterious term.

The tension grows, until Yao intervenes.

“You’re a spalla already? Congratulations!”

Then, turning to the rest of the group, he adds, “As you all know, spalla is the first violin in an orchestra, the last player to come onto the stage before the conductor enters, and who is always seated in the first row on the left. He or she is responsible for making sure all the other instruments are in tune. Actually, I know an interesting story on the subject, which took place when I was in Novosibirsk, our next stop. Would you like to hear it?”

Everyone agrees, as if they had, indeed, always known the meaning of the word “spalla.”

Yao’s story turns out not to be particularly interesting, but confrontation between Hilal and my editor is averted. After a tedious dissertation on the marvels of Novosibirsk, everyone has calmed down and people are considering going back to their compartments and trying to rest for a little, while I once again regret ever having had the idea of crossing a whole continent by train.

“Oh, I’ve forgotten to put up today’s thought,” says Yao.

On a yellow Post-it, he writes, “Dreamers can never be tamed,” and sticks it on the mirror next to the previous day’s “thought.”

“There’s a TV reporter waiting at one of the next stations, and he’d like to interview you,” says my publisher.

I say “Fine,” glad of any distraction, anything to help pass the time.

“Write about insomnia,” says my publisher. “You never know, it might help you sleep.”

“I want to interview you, too,” says Hilal, and I see that she has fully recovered from her lethargy.

“Make an appointment with my publisher,” I tell her.

I go and lie down in my compartment, then, as usual, spend the next two hours tossing and turning. My biological clock is completely out of kilter. Like any insomniac, I assure myself optimistically that I can use the time to reflect on interesting matters, but that, of course, proves to be totally impossible.

Suddenly, I can hear music. At first I think that my perception of the spiritual world has somehow effortlessly returned, but realize that as well as the music, I can also hear the sound of the wheels on the track and the objects joggling about on my table.

The music is real. And it’s coming from the bathroom. I go and open the door.

Hilal is standing with one foot in the shower and one foot out, balancing as best she can and playing her violin. She smiles when she sees me, because I’m naked, apart from my underpants. However, the situation seems to me so natural and so familiar that I make no effort to go and put on my trousers.

“How did you get in here?”

She continues to play but indicates with a movement of her head the door into the next compartment, with which I share the bathroom. She says, “I woke up this morning knowing that it’s up to me to help you get back in touch with the energy of the Universe. God passed through my soul and told me that if you succeed in doing that, then so will I. And He asked me to come in here and play you to sleep.”

I’ve never mentioned losing touch with that energy, and I’m moved by her concern. The two of us struggle to keep our balance in the constantly rocking carriage; her bow touches the strings, the strings give out a sound, the sound fills the space, and the space becomes transformed into musical time and is filled with peace and the Divine Light that comes from everything dynamic and alive, and all thanks to her violin.

Hilal’s soul is in every note, in every chord. The Aleph had revealed to me a little about the woman standing before me. I can’t remember every detail of our joint story, but I know that she and I have met before. I only hope she never learns in what circumstances that meeting took place. At this precise moment, she is enfolding me in the