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Authors: Tiziano Terzani
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he had before him. Perhaps his instinct told him that my attention was wandering, because he suddenly broke off the singsong recital.
“I’ve bad news for you,”
he said. For an instant I was worried. Was he going to warn me about flying?
“You’ll never be rich. You’ll always have enough money to live, but never will you become rich. That is certain,”
he declared.
I almost laughed. Here we were, in the middle of the Chinese city where everyone’s dream is to become rich, where the greatest curse is just what the fortune-teller had told me. For the people here it really would be bad news, but not for me: becoming rich has never been my aim.
Well then, what would interest me? I asked myself, continuing my silent mental dialogue with the blind man. If I do not want to be rich, what would I like to be? The answer had just taken shape in my head when it came to me from him, still reading his invisible computer.
“Famous. Yes. You’ll never become rich, but between the ages of fifty-seven and sixty-two you will become famous.”
“But how?” I asked instinctively, this time aloud.
The translation had hardly reached him when he lifted his handsand, with a widening smile on his lips, began tapping an imaginary typewriter in midair.
“By writing!”
Extraordinary! The blind man could of course guess that anyone sitting before him would like to be famous, but what gave him the idea that I might do so by writing? Why not by starring in a film, say? Had I perhaps told him? Told him mentally, in no actual language—there was none we had in common—but in that language of gestures comprehensible to anyone who could … see?
Unconsciously, internally, at the very moment when I asked, “But how?” I answered the question and mentally made the gesture of a hand that wrote. Could it be that the blind man “read” this gesture and immediately repeated it with his hands? Is there any other explanation of this brief sequence?
He felt that he had regained my attention, and continued.
“Until the age of seventy-two you’ll have a good life. After seventy-three you’ll have to rest, and you’ll reach the age of seventy-eight. From now on never try your hand at any business dealings or you’ll lose every penny. If you want to start something new, if you want to live in another country, you must absolutely do it next year.”
Business is something I have never thought about. As for changing countries, I knew I wanted to go and live in India, but definitely not before May 1995, when my contract with
Der Spiegel
and the lease on the Turtle House were due to expire. And then? It would depend on various circumstances if I could then move. To go next year was impossible, in any case.
“Be careful; this year isn’t good for your health,”
said the blind man. Then he stopped and did some more calculations with his fingers in the air.
“No, no, the worst is over. You were through with all that was bad at the beginning of September of last year.”
At this point it seemed only right to let him know why I had come to him, and to tell him about the prophecy of the Hong Kong fortune-teller. The blind man burst out laughing, and said,
“No, definitely not. The dangerous year was 1991; you did then indeed risk death in a plane.”
He was not mistaken. I shuddered at the memory of all the ghastly planes in which I had flown that summer of 1991 in the Soviet Union, when I was working on my book
Goodnight, Mister Lenin
.
For a moment I had a sense of disappointment. Perhaps it was onlybecause he knew I was firm in my resolve not to fly that he saw no danger in the future. As I told myself this, I realized how readily the mind will perform any somersault to rationalize what suits it.
We thanked the man, paid, and left. In the little square we found the limousine with the driver in his fine white uniform. “Well?” the woman asked me. I did not know what to say. The strangest thing the blind man had told me was that as a
“I’ve bad news for you,”
he said. For an instant I was worried. Was he going to warn me about flying?
“You’ll never be rich. You’ll always have enough money to live, but never will you become rich. That is certain,”
he declared.
I almost laughed. Here we were, in the middle of the Chinese city where everyone’s dream is to become rich, where the greatest curse is just what the fortune-teller had told me. For the people here it really would be bad news, but not for me: becoming rich has never been my aim.
Well then, what would interest me? I asked myself, continuing my silent mental dialogue with the blind man. If I do not want to be rich, what would I like to be? The answer had just taken shape in my head when it came to me from him, still reading his invisible computer.
“Famous. Yes. You’ll never become rich, but between the ages of fifty-seven and sixty-two you will become famous.”
“But how?” I asked instinctively, this time aloud.
The translation had hardly reached him when he lifted his handsand, with a widening smile on his lips, began tapping an imaginary typewriter in midair.
“By writing!”
Extraordinary! The blind man could of course guess that anyone sitting before him would like to be famous, but what gave him the idea that I might do so by writing? Why not by starring in a film, say? Had I perhaps told him? Told him mentally, in no actual language—there was none we had in common—but in that language of gestures comprehensible to anyone who could … see?
Unconsciously, internally, at the very moment when I asked, “But how?” I answered the question and mentally made the gesture of a hand that wrote. Could it be that the blind man “read” this gesture and immediately repeated it with his hands? Is there any other explanation of this brief sequence?
He felt that he had regained my attention, and continued.
“Until the age of seventy-two you’ll have a good life. After seventy-three you’ll have to rest, and you’ll reach the age of seventy-eight. From now on never try your hand at any business dealings or you’ll lose every penny. If you want to start something new, if you want to live in another country, you must absolutely do it next year.”
Business is something I have never thought about. As for changing countries, I knew I wanted to go and live in India, but definitely not before May 1995, when my contract with
Der Spiegel
and the lease on the Turtle House were due to expire. And then? It would depend on various circumstances if I could then move. To go next year was impossible, in any case.
“Be careful; this year isn’t good for your health,”
said the blind man. Then he stopped and did some more calculations with his fingers in the air.
“No, no, the worst is over. You were through with all that was bad at the beginning of September of last year.”
At this point it seemed only right to let him know why I had come to him, and to tell him about the prophecy of the Hong Kong fortune-teller. The blind man burst out laughing, and said,
“No, definitely not. The dangerous year was 1991; you did then indeed risk death in a plane.”
He was not mistaken. I shuddered at the memory of all the ghastly planes in which I had flown that summer of 1991 in the Soviet Union, when I was working on my book
Goodnight, Mister Lenin
.
For a moment I had a sense of disappointment. Perhaps it was onlybecause he knew I was firm in my resolve not to fly that he saw no danger in the future. As I told myself this, I realized how readily the mind will perform any somersault to rationalize what suits it.
We thanked the man, paid, and left. In the little square we found the limousine with the driver in his fine white uniform. “Well?” the woman asked me. I did not know what to say. The strangest thing the blind man had told me was that as a
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