The Zahir

It's absolutely true when Fort Minor say 'You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone'. "The Zahir (pix)" is a novel about losing someone the author later finds out he can't live without.
The book began with the author describing himself being detained in a police station for the investigation of his wife disappearance. The author was a journalist and was staying in Paris. Before his wife (Esther) went missing, she had been withdrawing a regular sum of money from her bank account. This gave the possibility that his wife had been planning on running away all along. Besides, his wife had 'vast network of contacts in the terrorist underworld". This meant there was also a possibility that his wife was being held hostage by a certain group of terrorists who wanted to shut her mouth. The author was freed when one oh his wife's friends came forward to present herself as his alibi.
The author had married twice but his relationships with his two previous wives had not gone well and thus ended up in two divorces. His relationship with Esther suffered a similar problem as both of them desired freedom. Since she left him, his life had been in disarray. He began to think back what wrong he had done to her. He recalled how he came home one day to receive a ticket to Spain from Esther. She had asked him to go to Santiago and he did. He soon recovered his writing ability and went back to Paris with Esther. Without his permission, Esther took his drafts to a publisher who was her ex-boyfriend. At this point of the story, the author described the role of Favor Bank which was said to be the most powerful bank in the world. According to the book, Favor Bank worked this way: For a writer to be successful, he/she had to demand contacts from those influential people. Once the writer had established trust in other people, more and more contacts would be deposited into his/her account, making him/her an influential person. However, he/she had to repay by doing favour for those who had helped them.
The author later revealed that he was constantly in love with other women but not to the extend of leaving his wife. Meanwhile, Esther didn't see fidelity as something that was practical as a person couldn't possibly 'possess body and soul that aren't mine'. Everyone wasn't satisfied as shown in the excerpt below:
"The businessman hasn't yet closed the deal he wanted, the housewife would like to have more independence and more money, the boy who's in love is afraid of losing his girlfriend, the new graduate wonders if he chose his career or if it was chosen for him, the dentist wanted to be a singer, the singer wanted to be a politician, the politician wanted to be a farmer."
Even celebrities were not happy. Esther knew this well as her husband was one.
Esther had told of her intention to become a war correspondent as she wanted to live her life at the limit for she could possibly die the next day on a battlefield. To her, life like this had meaning as 'there's no room for sadness, doubts, nothing. There's just a great love for life.' During her work, she came across a translator named Mikhail.
It was revealed in the second part of the book that the author's Zahir was his wife. On his book signing day, he met Mikhail who informed him that Esther was fine. The author demanded Mikhail to lead him to his wife so that he could find out the reason she left but Mikhail refused. Mikhail had in his possession a piece of cloth soaked with blood. It was given to him by Esther who imparted a message along with it and made him swear to keep the message a secret. According to Mikhail, Esther wasn't his lover as the author had been suspecting all along. Besides, Mikhail was one of the organizers of a strange sect which always had a meeting every Thursday, where people would be able to share 'a story of love and stories about the lack of love'. In fact, Mikhail's real name was Oleg. Mikhail was the name he chose to be reborn to life. The meeting helped people to realize that they were not suffering alone as the excerpts below suggested:
"All men, in all cultures and countries, independent of any feelings of love or sexual attraction, have all experienced impotence at one time or another, often when they are with the person they most desired. It's normal."
"But the story we're told is that all men can always get an erection. When he can't, the man feels useless; the woman is convinced she isn't attractive enough to arouse him. Since it's a taboo subject, he can't talk to his friends about it. He tells the woman the old lie: 'It's never happened to me before'".
The author then came to realize that everyone pretended to be happy except beggars. This was because most people didn't want others to sympathize or look down on them. Beggars, on the other hand, had nothing to lose. They could sleep, eat, enjoy or talk whenever they felt like it. How other people felt was not important to them.
On the day when Mikhail promised to give him Esther's address, the author met with a road accident. He was knocked down by a motorbike. When he came to himself, he was surprised to find out that the doctor also had a piece of cloth from his wife. After the accident, he began to realize the importance of life.
Mikhail spent other days telling stories to beggars. He claimed that when he was a boy, he used to see a girl floating in the air. He told his classmates of his experience but was being said to be suffering from mental problem by the headmaster. One day, he brought his mother to see a girl. Though his mother could not see her, she told Mikhail to ask her about his father. The girl replied that he was fine and was always watching over them. The girl was the source of The Voice which Mikhail always claimed to have helped him to foresee the future. Mikhail also told of his journey to Almaty with Esther. There they met with an old man who said that one could erase all his/her personal history by telling it to others repeatedly. That was the reason Mikhail organized the meeting every Thursday so that people could come to tell their stories about lack of love to free themselves from the past. The author later found out that his wife had also been visiting these beggars when a female beggar showed him the piece of cloth she received.
Gradually, the urge to find his wife was growing stronger. He finally decided to go to Kazakhstan to search for his wife. Mikhail begged him to bring him along and the author agreed. In a small village in Kazakhstan, the author found his wife teaching the native children. Both of them were filled with joy to meet each other. She then handed him a piece of bloodstained cloth for he had understood the meaning of love.
There are loads of brilliant quotes that I wish I could write in this review. But if I were to do so, I might as well copy the whole book. It certainly has some life-enhancing effects on me. It makes me realize the human condition which steers us into sharing only the best of ourselves because we are always seeking for love and approval. My physic teacher had once asked in class the width of the railway tracks. We gave the answer of 1.0 m or 1.5 m which was accepted. But according to the book, the precise width is 143.5 cm, which is the width measurement of the road used by horse-cart during ancient Rome. Paulo Coelho (pix) uses this unchanged measurement to demonstrate the distance between married couples who have lost their freedom as a result of being tied down by their offspring. Besides, it is interesting to note that epileptic attacks will diminish with age.
This book is highly recommended to those who enjoy reading a good book. It is certainly 10 out of 10.