ut what techniques?

At least I knew where it had all started, and so I summoned Athena to my office. I complimented her on her excellent productivity levels, and she thanked me with a smile.

I proceeded cautiously, not wishing to be misinterpreted.

'And how's your boyfriend? I've always found that anyone who is loved has more love to give. What does he do?'

'He works for Scotland Yard.' ( Editor's note: Police investigation department linked to London's Metropolitan Police. )

I preferred not to ask any further questions, but I needed to keep the conversation going and I didn't have much time.

'I've noticed a great change in you andÐ'

'Have you noticed a change in the bank too?'

How to respond to a question like that? On the one hand, I would be giving her more power than was advisable, and on the other, if I wasn't straight with her, I would never get the answers I needed.

'Yes, I've noticed a big change, and I'm thinking of promoting you.'

'I need to travel. I'd like to get out of London and discover new horizons.'

Travel? Just when everything was going so well in my branch, she wanted to leave? Although, when I thought about it, wasn't that precisely the way out I needed and wanted?

'I can help the bank if you give me more responsibility,' she went on.

Yes, she was giving me an excellent opportunity. Why hadn't I thought of that before? 'Travel' meant getting rid of her and resuming my leadership of the group without having to deal with the fall-out from a dismissal or a rebellion. But I needed to ponder the matter, because rather than her helping the bank, I needed her to help me. Now that my superiors had noticed an increase in productivity, I knew that I would have to keep it up or risk losing prestige and end up worse off than before. Sometimes I understand why most of my colleagues don't do very much in order to improve: if they don't succeed, they're called incompetent. If they do succeed, they have to keep improving all the time, a situation guaranteed to bring on an early heart attack.

I took the next step very cautiously: it's not a good idea to frighten the person in possession of a secret before she's revealed that secret to you; it's best to pretend to grant her request.

'I'll bring your request to the attention of my superiors. In fact, I'm having a meeting with them in Barcelona, which is why I called you in. Would it be true to say that our performance has improved since, shall we say, the other employees began getting on better with you?'

'Or shall we say, began getting on better with themselves?'

'Yes, but encouraged by you or am I wrong?'

'You know perfectly well that you're not.'

'Have you been reading some book on management I don't know about?'

'I don't read that kind of book, but I would like a promise from you that you really will consider my request.'

I thought of her boyfriend at Scotland Yard. If I made a promise and failed to keep it, would I be the object of some reprisal? Could he have taught her some cutting-edge technology that enables one to achieve impossible results?

'I'll tell you everything, even if you don't keep your promise, but I can't guarantee that you'll get the same results if you don't practise what I teach.'

'You mean the rejuvenation technique?'

'Exactly.'

'Wouldn't it be enough just to know the theory?'

'Possibly. The person who taught me learned about it from a few sheets of paper.'

I was glad she wasn't forcing me to make decisions that went beyond my capabilities or my principles. But I must confess that I had a personal interest in that whole story, because I, too, dreamed of finding some way of 'recycling' my potential. I promised that I'd do what I could, and Athena began to describe the long, esoteric dance she performed in search of the so-called Vertex (or was it Axis, I can't quite remember now). As we talked, I tried to set down her mad thoughts in objective terms. An hour proved not to be enough, and so I asked her to come back the following day, and together we would prepare the report to be presented to the bank's board of directors. At one point in our conversation, she said with a smile:

'Don't worry about describing the technique in the same terms we've been using here. I reckon even a bank's board of directors are people like us, made of flesh and blood, and interested in unconventional methods.'

Athena was completely wrong. In England, tradition always speaks louder than innovation. But why not take a risk, as long as it didn't endanger my job? The whole thing seemed absurd to me, but I had to summarise it and put it in a way that everyone could understand. That was all.

Before I presented my 'paper' in Barcelona, I spent the whole morning repeating to myself: 'My' process is producing results, and that's all that matters. I read a few books on the subject and learned that in order to present a new idea with the maximum impact, you should structure your talk in an equally provocative way, and so the first thing I said to the executives gathered in that luxury hotel were these words of St Paul: 'God hid the most important things from the wise because they cannot understand what is simple.' ( Editor's note: It is impossible to know here whether he is referring to a verse from Matthew 11: 25: 'I thank thee, O Father, thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes', or from St Paul (1 Corinthians 1: 27): 'But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.' )

When I said this, the whole audience, who had spent the last two days analysing graphs and statistics, fell silent. It occurred to me that I had almost certainly lost my job, but I carried on. Firstly, because I had researched the subject and was sure of what I was saying and deserved credit for this. Secondly, because although, at certain points, I was obliged to omit any mention of Athena's enormous influence on the whole process, I was, nevertheless, not lying.

'I have learned that, in order to motivate employees nowadays, you need more than just the training provided by our own excellent training centres. Each of us contains something within us which is unknown, but which, when it surfaces, is capable of producing miracles.

'We all work for some reason: to feed our children, to earn money to support ourselves, to justify our life, to get a little bit of power. However, there are always tedious stages in that process, and the secret lies in transforming those stages into an encounter with ourselves or with something higher.

'For example, the search for beauty isn't always associated with anything practical and yet we still search for it as if it were the most important thing in the world. Birds learn to sing, but not because it will help them find food, avoid predators or drive away parasites. Birds sing, according to Darwin, because that is the only way they have of attracting a partner and perpetuating the species.'

I was interrupted by an executive from Geneva, who called for a more objective presentation. However, to my delight, the Director-General asked me to go on.

'Again according to Darwin, who wrote a book that changed the course of all humanity ( Editor's note: The Origin of Species, 1859, in which he first posited that human beings evolved from a type of ape ), those who manage to arouse passions are repeating something that has been going on since the days we lived in caves, where rituals for courting a partner were fundamental for the survival and evolution of the human species. Now, what difference is there between the evolution of the human race and that of the branch of a bank? None. Both obey the same laws only the fittest survive and evolve.'

At this point, I was obliged to admit that I'd developed this idea thanks to the spontaneous collaboration of one of my employees, Sherine Khalil.

'Sherine, who likes to be known as Athena, brought into the workplace a new kind of emotion passion. Yes, passion, something we never normally consider when discussing loans or spreadsheets. My employees started using music as a stimulus for dealing more efficiently with their clients.'

Another executive interrupted, saying that this was an old idea: supermarkets did the same thing, using piped music to encourage their customers to buy more.

'I'm not saying that we used music in the workplace. People simply started living differently because Sherine, or Athena if you prefer, taught them to dance before facing their daily tasks. I don't know precisely what mechanism this awakens in people; as a manager, I'm only responsible for the results, not for the process. I myself didn't participate in the dancing, but I understand that, through dance, they all felt more connected with what they were doing.

'We were born and brought up with the maxim: Time is money. We know exactly what money is, but what does the word time mean? The day is made up of twenty-four hours and an infinite number of moments. We need to be aware of each of those moments and to make the most of them regardless of whether we're busy doing something or merely contemplating life. If we slow down, everything lasts much longer. Of course, that means that washing the dishes might last longer, as might totting up the debits and credits on a balance sheet or checking promissory notes, but why not use that time to think about pleasant things and to feel glad simply to be alive?'

The Director-General was looking at me in surprise. I was sure he wanted me to explain in detail what I'd learned, but some of those present were beginning to grow restless.

'I understand exactly what you mean,' he said. 'I understand, too, that your employees worked with more enthusiasm because they were able to enjoy one moment in the day when they came into full contact with themselves. And I'd like to compliment you on being flexible enough to allow such unorthodox practices, which are, it must be said, producing excellent results. However, speaking of time, this is a conference, and you have only five minutes to conclude your presentation. Could you possibly try to list the main points which would allow us to apply these principles in other branches?'

He was right. This was fine for the employees, but it could prove fatal to my career, and so I decided to summarise the points Sherine and I had written together.

'Basing ourselves on personal observations, Sherine Khalil and I developed certain points which I would be delighted to discuss with anyone who's interested. Here are the main ones:

'(a) We all have an unknown ability, which will probably remain unknown forever. And yet that ability can become our ally. Since it's impossible to measure that ability or give it an economic value, it's never taken seriously, but I'm speaking here to other human beings and I'm sure you understand what I mean, at least in theory.

'(b) At my branch, employees have learned how to tap into that ability through a dance based on a rhythm which comes, I believe, from the desert regions of Asia. However, its place of origin is irrelevant, as long as people can express through their bodies what their souls are trying to say. I realise that the word soul might be misunderstood, so I suggest we use the word intuition instead. And if that word is equally hard to swallow, then let's use the term primary emotions, which sounds more scientific, although, in fact, it has rather less meaning than the other two words.

'(c) Before going to work, instead of encouraging my employees to do keep-fit or aerobics, I get them to dance for at least an hour. This stimulates the body and the mind; they start the day demanding a certain degree of creativity from themselves and channel that accumulated energy into their work at the bank.

'(d) Customers and employees live in the same world: reality is nothing but a series of electrical stimuli to the brain. What we think we see is a pulse of energy to a completely dark part of the brain. However, if we get on the same wavelength with other people, we can try to change that reality. In some way which I don't understand, joy is infectious, as is enthusiasm and love. Or indeed sadness, depression or hatred things which can be picked up intuitively by customers and other employees. In order to improve performance, we have to create mechanisms that keep these positive stimuli alive.'

'How very esoteric,' commented a woman who managed investment funds at a branch in Canada.

I slightly lost confidence. I had failed to convince anyone. Nevertheless, I pretended to ignore her remark and, using all my creativity, sought to give my paper a practical conclusion:

'The bank should earmark a fund to do research into how this infectious state of mind works, and thus noticeably increase our profits.'

This seemed a reasonably satisfactory ending, and so I preferred not to use the two minutes remaining to me. When I finished the seminar, at the end of an exhausting day, the Director-General asked me to have supper with him, and he did so is front of all our other colleagues, as if he were trying to show that he supported everything I'd said. I had never before had an opportunity to dine with the Director-General, and so I tried to make the most of it. I started talking about performance, about spreadsheets, difficulties on the stock exchange and possible new markets. He interrupted me; he was more interested in knowing more of what I'd learned from Athena.

In the end, to my surprise, he turned the conversation to more personal matters.

'I understood what you meant when, during your paper, you talked about time. At New Year, when I was still enjoying the holiday season, I decided to go and sit in the garden for a while. I picked up the newspaper from the mailbox, but it contained nothing of any importance, only the things that journalists had decided we should know, feel involved in and have an opinion about.

'I thought of phoning someone at work, but that would be ridiculous, since they would all be with their families. I had lunch with my wife, children and grandchildren, took a nap, and when I woke up, I made a few notes, then realised that it was still only two o'clock in the afternoon. I had another three days of not working, and, however much I love being with my family, I started to feel useless.

'The following day, taking advantage of this free time, I went to have my stomach checked out, and, fortunately, the tests revealed nothing seriously wrong. I went to the dentist, who said there was nothing wrong with my teeth either. I again had lunch with my wife, children and grandchildren, took another nap, again woke up at two in the afternoon, and realised that I had absolutely nothing on which to focus my attention.

'I felt uneasy: shouldn't I be doing something? Well, if I wanted to invent work, that wouldn't take much effort. We all have projects to develop, light bulbs to change, leaves to sweep, books to put away, computer files to organise, etc. But how about just facing up to the void? It was then that I remembered something that seemed to me of great importance: I needed to walk to the letterbox which is less than a mile from my house in the country and post one of the Christmas cards lying forgotten on my desk.

'And I was surprised: why did I need to send that card today. Was it really so hard just to stay where I was, doing nothing?

'A series of thoughts crossed my mind: friends who worry about things that haven't yet happened; acquaintances who manage to fill every minute of their lives with tasks that seem to me absurd; senseless conversations; long telephone calls in which nothing of any importance is ever said. I've seen my directors inventing work in order to justify their jobs; employees who feel afraid because they've been given nothing important to do that day, which might mean that they're no longer useful. My wife who torments herself because our son has got divorced, my son who torments himself because our grandson, his son, got bad marks at school, our grandson who is terrified because he's making his parents sad even though we all know that marks aren't that important.

'I had a long, hard struggle with myself not to get up from my chair. Gradually, though, the anxiety gave way to contemplation, and I started listening to my soul or intuition or primary emotions, or whatever you choose to believe in. Whatever you call it, that part of me had been longing to speak to me, but I had always been too busy.

'In that case, it wasn't a dance, but the complete absence of noise and movement, the silence, that brought me into contact with myself. And, believe it or not, I learned a great deal about the problems bothering me, even though all those problems had dissolved completely while I was sitting there. I didn't see God, but I had a clearer understanding of what decisions to take.'

Before paying the bill, he suggested that I send the employee in question to Dubai, where the bank was opening a new branch, and where the risks were considerable. As a good manager, he knew that I had learned all I needed to learn, and now it was merely a question of providing continuity. My employee could make a useful contribution somewhere else. He didn't know this, but he was helping me to keep the promise I'd made.

When I returned to London, I immediately told Athena about this invitation, and she accepted at once. She told me that she spoke fluent Arabic (I knew this already because of her father), although, since we would mainly be doing deals with foreigners, not Arabs, this would not be essential. I thanked her for her help, but she showed no curiosity about my talk at the conference, and merely asked when she should pack her bags.

I still don't know whether the story of the boyfriend in Scotland Yard was a fantasy or not. If it were true, I think Athena's murderer would already have been arrested, because I don't believe anything the newspapers wrote about the crime. I can understand financial engineering, I can even allow myself the luxury of saying that dancing helps my employees to work better, but I will never comprehend how it is that the best police force in the world catches some murderers, but not others. Not that it makes much difference now.

Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin

It made me very happy to know that Athena had kept a photo of me in a place of honour in her apartment, but I don't really think what I taught her had any real use. She came here to the desert, leading a three-year-old boy by the hand. She opened her bag, took out a radio-cassette and sat down outside my tent. I know that people from the city usually give my name to foreigners who want to experience some local cooking, and so I told her at once that it was too early for supper.

'I came for another reason,' she said. 'Your nephew Hamid is a client at the bank where I work and he told me that you're a wise man.'

'Hamid is a rather foolish youth who may well say that I'm a wise man, but who never follows my advice. Mohammed, the Prophet, may the blessings of God be upon him, he was a wise man.'

I pointed to her car.

'You shouldn't drive alone in a place you don't know, and you shouldn't come here without a guide.'

Instead of replying, she turned on the radio-cassette. Then, all I could see was this young woman dancing on the dunes and her son watching her in joyous amazement; and the sound seemed to fill the whole desert. When she finished, she asked if I had enjoyed it.

I said that I had. There is a sect in our religion which uses dance as a way of getting closer to Allah blessed be His Name. ( Editor's note: The sect in question is Sufism. )

'Well,' said the woman, who introduced herself as Athena, 'ever since I was a child, I've felt that I should grow closer to God, but life always took me further away from Him. Music is one way I've discovered of getting close, but it isn't enough. Whenever I dance, I see a light, and that light is now asking me to go further. But I can't continue learning on my own; I need someone to teach me.'

'Anything will do,' I told her, 'because Allah, the merciful, is always near. Lead a decent life, and that will be enough.'

But the woman appeared unconvinced. I said that I was busy, that I needed to prepare supper for the few tourists who might appear. She told me that she'd wait for as long as was necessary.

'And the child?'

'Don't worry about him.'

While I was making my usual preparations, I observed the woman and her son. They could have been the same age; they ran about the desert, laughed, threw sand at each other, and rolled down the dunes. The guide arrived with three German tourists, who ate and asked for beer, and I had to explain that my religion forbade me to drink or to serve alcoholic drinks. I invited the woman and her son to join us for supper, and in that unexpected female presence, one of the Germans became quite animated. He said that he was thinking of buying some land, that he had a large fortune saved up and believed in the future of the region.

'Great,' she replied. 'I believe in the region too.'

'It would be good to have supper somewhere, so that we could talk about the possibility ofÐ'

'No,' she said, holding a card out to him, 'but if you like, you can get in touch with my bank.'

When the tourists left, we sat down outside the tent. The child soon fell asleep on her lap. I fetched blankets for us all, and we sat looking up at the starry sky. Finally, she broke the silence.

'Why did Hamid say that you were a wise man?'

'Perhaps so that I'll be more patient with him. There was a time when I tried to teach him my art, but Hamid seemed more interested in earning money. He's probably convinced by now that he's wiser than I am: he has an apartment and a boat, while here I am in the middle of the desert, making meals for the occasional tourist. He doesn't understand that I'm satisfied with what I do.'

'He understands perfectly, and he always speaks of you with great respect. And what do you mean by your art?'

'I watched you dancing today, well, I do the same thing, except that it's the letters not my body that dance.'

She looked surprised.

'My way of approaching Allah may his name be praised has been through calligraphy, and the search for the perfect meaning of each word. A single letter requires us to distil in it all the energy it contains, as if we were carving out its meaning. When sacred texts are written, they contain the soul of the man who served as an instrument to spread them throughout the world. And that doesn't apply only to sacred texts, but to every mark we place on paper. Because the hand that draws each line reflects the soul of the person making that line.'

'Would you teach me what you know?'

'Firstly, I don't think anyone as full of energy as you would have the patience for this. Besides, it's not part of your world, where everything is printed, without, if you'll allow me to say so, much thought being given to what is being published.'

'I'd like to try.'

And so, for more than six months, that woman whom I'd judged to be too restless and exuberant to be able to sit still for a moment came to visit me every Friday. Her son would go to one corner of the tent, take up paper and brushes, and he, too, would devote himself to revealing in his paintings whatever the heavens determined.

When I saw the immense effort it took her to keep still and to maintain the correct posture, I said: 'Don't you think you'd be better off finding something else to do?' She replied: 'No, I need this, I need to calm my soul, and I still haven't learned everything you can teach me. The light of the Vertex told me that I should continue.' I never asked her what the Vertex was, nor was I interested.

The first lesson, and perhaps the most difficult, was: 'Patience!'

Writing wasn't just the expression of a thought, but a way of reflecting on the meaning of each word. Together we began work on texts written by an Arab poet, because I do not feel that the Koran is suitable for someone brought up in another faith. I dictated each letter, and that way she could concentrate on what she was doing, instead of immediately wanting to know the meaning of each word or phrase or line.

'Once, someone told me that music had been created by God, and that rapid movement was necessary for people to get in touch with themselves,' said Athena on one of those afternoons we spent together. 'For years, I felt that this was true, and now I'm being forced to do the most difficult thing in the world slow down. Why is patience so important?'

'Because it makes us pay attention.'

'But I can dance obeying only my soul, which forces me to concentrate on something greater than myself, and brings me into contact with God if I can use that word. Dance has already helped me to change many things in my life, including my work. Isn't the soul more important?'

'Of course it is, but if your soul could communicate with your brain, you would be able to change even more things.'

We continued our work together. I knew that, at some point, I would have to tell her something that she might not be ready to hear, and so I tried to make use of every minute to prepare her spirit. I explained that before the word comes the thought. And before the thought, there is the divine spark that placed it there. Everything, absolutely everything on this Earth makes sense, and even the smallest things are worthy of our consideration.

'I've educated my body so that it can manifest every sensation in my soul,' she said.

'Now you must educate only your fingers, so that they can manifest every sensation in your body. That will concentrate your body's strength.'

'Are you a teacher?'

'What is a teacher? I'll tell you: it isn't someone who teaches something, but someone who inspires the student to give of her best in order to discover what she already knows.'

I sensed that, despite her youth, Athena had already experienced this. Writing reveals the personality, and I could see that she was aware of being loved, not just by her son, but by her family and possibly by a man. I saw too that she had mysterious gifts, but I tried never to let her know that I knew this, since these gifts could bring about not only an encounter with God, but also her perdition.

I did not only teach her calligraphy techniques. I also tried to pass on to her the philosophy of the calligraphers.

'The brush with which you are making these lines is just an instrument. It has no consciousness; it follows the desires of the person holding it. And in that it is very like what we call life. Many people in this world are merely playing a role, unaware that there is an Invisible Hand guiding them. At this moment, in your hands, in the brush tracing each letter, lie all the intentions of your soul. Try to understand the importance of this.'

'I do understand, and I see that it's important to maintain a certain elegance. You tell me to sit in a particular position, to venerate the materials I'm going to use, and only to begin when I have done so.'

Naturally, if she respected the brush that she used, she would realise that in order to learn to write she must cultivate serenity and elegance. And serenity comes from the heart.

'Elegance isn't a superficial thing, it's the way mankind has found to honour life and work. That's why, when you feel uncomfortable in that position, you mustn't think that it's false or artificial: it's real and true precisely because it's difficult. That position means that both the paper and the brush feel proud of the effort you're making. The paper ceases to be a flat, colourless surface and takes on the depth of the things placed on it. Elegance is the correct posture if the writing is to be perfect. It's the same with life: when all superfluous things have been discarded, we discover simplicity and concentration. The simpler and more sober the posture, the more beautiful it will be, even though, at first, it may seem uncomfortable.'

Occasionally, she would talk about her work. She said she was enjoying what she was doing and that she had just received a job offer from a powerful emir. He had gone to the bank to see the manager, who was a friend of his (emirs never go to banks to withdraw money, they have staff who can do that for them), and while he was talking to Athena, he mentioned that he was looking for someone to take charge of selling land, and wondered if she would be interested.

Who would want to buy land in the middle of the desert or in a far-flung port? I decided to say nothing and, looking back, I'm glad I stayed silent.

Only once did she mention the man she loved, although whenever she was there when tourists arrived, one of the men would always start flirting with her. Normally Athena simply ignored them, but, one day, a man suggested that he knew her boyfriend. She turned pale and immediately shot a glance at her son, who, fortunately, wasn't listening to the conversation.

'How do you know him?'

'I'm joking,' said the man. 'I just wanted to find out if you were unattached.'

She didn't say anything, but I understood from this exchange that the man in her life was not the father of her son.

One day, she arrived earlier than usual. She said that she'd left her job at the bank and started selling real estate, and would now have more free time. I explained that I couldn't start her class any earlier because I had various things to do.

'I can combine two things: movement and stillness; joy and concentration.'

She went over to the car to fetch her radio-cassette and, from then on, Athena would dance in the desert before the start of our class, while the little boy ran round her, laughing. When she sat down to practise calligraphy, her hand was steadier than usual.

'There are two kinds of letter,' I explained. 'The first is precise, but lacks soul. In this case, although the calligrapher may have mastered the technique, he has focused solely on the craft, which is why it hasn't evolved, but become repetitive; he hasn't grown at all, and one day he'll give up the practice of writing, because he feels it is mere routine.

'The second kind is done with great technique, but with soul as well. For that to happen, the intention of the writer must be in harmony with the word. In this case, the saddest verses cease to be clothed in tragedy and are transformed into simple facts encountered along the way.'

'What do you do with your drawings?' asked the boy in perfect Arabic. He might not understand our conversation, but he was eager to share in his mother's work.

'I sell them.'

'Can I sell my drawings?'

'You should sell your drawings. One day, you'll become rich that way and be able to help your mother.'

He was pleased by my comment and went back to what he was doing, painting a colourful butterfly.

'And what shall I do with my texts?' asked Athena.

'You know the effort it took to sit in the correct position, to quieten your soul, keep your intentions clear and respect each letter of each word. Meanwhile, keep practising. After a great deal of practice, we no longer think about all the necessary movements we must make; they become part of our existence. Before reaching that stage, however, you must practise and repeat. And if that's not enough, you must practise and repeat some more.

'Look at a skilled blacksmith working steel. To the untrained eye, he's merely repeating the same hammer blows, but anyone trained in the art of calligraphy knows that each time the blacksmith lifts the hammer and brings it down, the intensity of the blow is different. The hand repeats the same gesture, but as it approaches the metal, it understands that it must touch it with more or less force. It's the same thing with repetition: it may seem the same, but it's always different. The moment will come when you no longer need to think about what you're doing. You become the letter, the ink, the paper, the word.'

This moment arrived almost a year later. By then, Athena was already known in Dubai and recommended customers to dine in my tent, and through them I learned that her career was going very well: she was selling pieces of desert! One night, the emir in person arrived, preceded by a great retinue. I was terrified; I wasn't prepared for that, but he reassured me and thanked me for what I was doing for his employee.

'She's an excellent person and attributes her qualities to what she's learning from you. I'm thinking of giving her a share in the company. It might be a good idea to send my other sales staff to learn calligraphy, especially now that Athena is about to take a month's holiday.'

'It wouldn't help,' I replied. 'Calligraphy is just one of the ways which Allah blessed be His Name places before us. It teaches objectivity and patience, respect and elegance, but we can learn all thatÐ'

'Ðthrough dance,' said Athena, who was standing nearby.

'Or through selling land,' I added.

When they had all left, and the little boy had lain down in one corner of the tent, his eyes heavy with sleep, I brought out the calligraphy materials and asked her to write something. In the middle of the word, I took the brush from her hand. It was time to say what had to be said. I suggested that we go for a little walk in the desert.

'You have learned what you needed to learn,' I said. 'Your calligraphy is getting more and more individual and spontaneous. It's no longer a mere repetition of beauty, but a personal, creative gesture. You have understood what all great painters understand: in order to forget the rules, you must know them and respect them.

'You no longer need the tools that helped you learn. You no longer need paper, ink or brush, because the path is more important than whatever made you set off along it. Once, you told me that the person who taught you to dance used to imagine the music playing in his head, and even so, he was able to repeat the necessary rhythms.'

'He was.'

'If all the words were joined together, they wouldn't make sense, or, at the very least, they'd be extremely hard to decipher. The spaces are crucial.'

She nodded.

'And although you have mastered the words, you haven't yet mastered the blank spaces. When you're concentrating, your hand is perfect, but when it jumps from one word to the next, it gets lost.'

'How do you know that?'

'Am I right?'

'Absolutely. Before I focus on the next word, for a fraction of a second I lose myself. Things I don't want to think about take over.'

'And you know exactly what those things are.'

Athena knew, but she said nothing until we went back to the tent and she could cradle her sleeping son in her arms. Her eyes were full of tears, although she was trying hard to control herself.

'The emir said that you were going on holiday.'

She opened the car door, put the key in the ignition and started the engine. For a few moments, only the noise of the engine troubled the silence of the desert.

'I know what you mean,' she said at last. 'When I write, when I dance, I'm guided by the Hand that created everything. When I look at Viorel sleeping, I know that he knows he's the fruit of my love for his father, even though I haven't seen his father for more than a year. But I '

She fell silent again. Her silence was the blank space between the words.

' but I don't know the hand that first rocked me in the cradle. The hand that wrote me in the book of the world.'

I merely nodded.

'Do you think that matters?'

'Not necessarily. But in your case, until you touch that hand, your, shall we say, calligraphy will not improve.'

'I don't see why I should bother to look for someone who never took the trouble to love me.'

She closed the car door, smiled and drove off. Despite her last words, I knew what her next step would be.

Samira R. Khalil, Athena's mother

It was as if all her professional success, her ability to earn money, her joy at having found a new love, her contentment when she played with her son my grandson had all been relegated to second place. I was quite simply terrified when Sherine told me that she'd decided to go in search of her birth mother.

At first, of course, I took consolation in the thought that the adoption centre would no longer exist, the paperwork would all have been lost, any officials she encountered would prove implacable, the recent collapse of the Romanian government would make travel impossible, and the womb that bore her would long since have vanished. This, however, provided only a momentary consolation: my daughter was capable of anything and would overcome seemingly impossible obstacles.

Up until then, the subject had been taboo in the family. Sherine knew she was adopted, because the psychiatrist in Beirut had advised me to tell her as soon as she was old enough to understand. But she had never shown any desire to know where she had come from. Her home had been Beirut, when it was still our home.

The adopted son of a friend of mine had committed suicide at the age of sixteen when he acquired a biological sister, and so we had never attempted to have more children of our own, and we did everything we could to make her feel that she was the sole reason for our joys and sadnesses, our love and our hopes. And yet, it seemed that none of this counted. Dear God, how ungrateful children can be!

Knowing my daughter as I did, I realised that there was no point in arguing with her about this. My husband and I didn't sleep for a whole week, and every morning, every evening, we were bombarded with the same question: 'Whereabouts in Romania was I born?' To make matters worse, Viorel kept crying, as if he understood what was going on.

I decided to consult a psychiatrist again. I asked why a young woman who had everything in life should always be so dissatisfied.

'We all want to know where we came from,' he said. 'On the philosophical level, that's the fundamental question for all human beings. In your daughter's case, I think it's perfectly reasonable that she should want to go in search of her roots. Wouldn't you be curious to know?'

'No, I wouldn't. On the contrary, I'd think it dangerous to go in search of someone who had denied and rejected me when I was still too helpless to survive on my own.'

But the psychiatrist insisted:

'Rather than getting into a confrontation with her, try to help. Perhaps when she sees that it's no longer a problem for you, she'll give up. The year she spent far from her friends must have created a sense of emotional need, which she's now trying to make up for by provoking you like this. She simply wants to be sure that she's loved.'

It would have been better if Sherine had gone to the psychiatrist herself, then she would have understood the reasons for her behaviour.

'Show that you're confident and don't see this as a threat. And if, in the end, she really does go ahead with it, simply give her the information she needs. As I understand it, she's always been a difficult child. Perhaps she'll emerge from this search a stronger person.'

I asked if the psychiatrist had any children. He didn't, and I knew then that he wasn't the right person to advise me.

That night, when we were sitting in front of the TV, Sherine returned to the subject:

'What are you watching?'

'The news.'

'What for?'

'To find out what's going on in Lebanon,' replied my husband.

I saw the trap, but it was too late. Sherine immediately pounced on this opening.

'You see, you're curious to know what's going on in the country where you were born. You're settled in England, you have friends, Dad earns plenty of money, you've got security, and yet you still buy Lebanese newspapers. You channel-hop until you find a bit of news to do with Beirut. You imagine the future as if it were the past, not realising that the war will never end. What I mean is that if you're not in touch with your roots, you feel as if you'd lost touch with the world. Is it so very hard then for you to understand what I'm feeling?'

'You're our daughter.'

'And proud to be. And I'll always be your daughter. Please don't doubt my love or my gratitude for everything you've done for me. All I'm asking is to be given the chance to visit the place where I was born and perhaps ask my birth mother why she abandoned me or perhaps, when I look into her eyes, simply say nothing. If I don't at least try and do that, I'll feel like a coward and I won't ever understand the blank spaces.'

'The blank spaces?'

'I learned calligraphy while I was in Dubai. I dance whenever I can, but music only exists because the pauses exist, and sentences only exist because the blank spaces exist. When I'm doing something, I feel complete, but no one can keep active twenty-four hours a day. As soon as I stop, I feel there's something lacking. You've often said to me that I'm a naturally restless person, but I didn't choose to be that way. I'd like to sit here quietly, watching television, but I can't. My brain won't stop. Sometimes, I think I'm going mad. I need always to be dancing, writing, selling land, taking care of Viorel, or reading whatever I find to read. Do you think that's normal?'

'Perhaps it's just your temperament,' said my husband.

The conversation ended there, as it always ended, with Viorel crying, Sherine retreating into silence, and with me convinced that children never acknowledge what their parents have done for them. However, over breakfast the next day, it was my husband who brought the subject up again.

'A while ago, while you were in the Middle East, I looked into the possibility of going home to Beirut. I went to the street where we used to live. The house is no longer there, but, despite the foreign occupation and the constant incursions, they are slowly rebuilding the country. I felt a sense of euphoria. Perhaps it was the moment to start all over again. And it was precisely that expression, start all over again, that brought me back to reality. The time has passed when I could allow myself that luxury. Nowadays, I just want to go on doing what I'm doing, and I don't need any new adventures.

'I sought out the people I used to enjoy a drink with after work. Most of them have left, and those who have stayed complain all the time about a constant feeling of insecurity. I walked past some of my old haunts, and I felt like a stranger, as if nothing there belonged to me anymore. The worst of it was that my dream of one day returning gradually disappeared when I found myself back in the city where I was born. Even so, I needed to make that visit. The songs of exile are still there in my heart, but I know now that I'll never again live in Lebanon. In a way, the days I spent in Beirut helped me to a better understanding of the place where I live now, and to value each second that I spend in London.'

'What are you trying to tell me, Dad?'

'That you're right. Perhaps it really would be best to understand those blank spaces. We can look after Viorel while you're away.'

He went to the bedroom and returned with the yellow file containing the adoption papers. He gave them to Sherine, kissed her and said it was time he went to work.

Heron Ryan, journalist

For a whole morning in 1990, all I could see from the sixth-floor window of the hotel was the main government building. A flag had just been placed on the roof, marking the exact spot where the megalomaniac dictator had fled in a helicopter only to find death a few hours later at the hands of those he had oppressed for twenty-two years.

In his plan to create a capital that would rival Washington, Ceau¼escu had ordered all the old houses to be razed to the ground. Indeed, Bucharest had the dubious honour of being described as the city that had suffered the worst destruction outside of a war or a natural disaster.

The day I arrived, I attempted to go for a short walk with my interpreter, but in the streets I saw only poverty, bewilderment, and a sense that there was no future, no past and no present: the people were living in a kind of limbo, with little idea of what was happening in their country or in the rest of the world. When I went back ten years later and saw the whole country rising up out of the ashes, I realised human beings can overcome any difficulty, and that the Romanian people were a fine example of just that.

But on that other grey morning, in the grey foyer of a gloomy hotel, all I was concerned about was whether my interpreter would manage to get a car and enough petrol so that I could carry out some final research for the BBC documentary I was working on. He was taking a very long time, and I was beginning to have my doubts. Would I have to go back to England having failed to achieve my goal? I'd already invested a significant amount of money in contracts with historians, in the script, in filming interviews, but before the BBC would sign the final contract, they insisted on me visiting Dracula's castle to see what state it was in. The trip was costing more than expected.

I tried phoning my girlfriend, but was told I'd have to wait nearly an hour to get a line. My interpreter might arrive at any moment with the car and there was no time to lose, and so I decided not to risk waiting.

I asked around to see if I could buy an English newspaper, but there were none to be had . To take my mind off my anxiety, I started looking, as discreetly as I could, at the people around me drinking tea, possibly oblivious to everything that had happened the year before popular uprisings, the cold-blooded murder of civilians in Timi¼oara, shoot-outs in the streets between the people and the dreaded secret service as the latter tried desperately to hold on to the power fast slipping from their grasp. I noticed a group of three Americans, an interesting-looking woman who was, however, glued to the fashion magazine she was reading, and some men sitting round a table, talking loudly in a language I couldn't identify.

I was just about to get up yet again and go over to the entrance to see if my interpreter was anywhere to be seen, when she came in. She must have been a little more than twenty years old. She sat down, ordered some breakfast, and I noticed that she spoke English. None of the other men present appeared to notice her arrival, but the other woman interrupted her reading.

Perhaps because of my anxiety or because of the place, which was beginning to depress me, I plucked up courage and went over to her.

'Excuse me, I don't usually do this. I always think breakfast is the most private meal of the day.'

She smiled, told me her name, and I immediately felt wary. It had been too easy she might be a prostitute. Her English, however, was perfect and she was very discreetly dressed. I decided not to ask any questions, and began talking at length about myself, noticing as I did so that the woman on the next table had put down her magazine and was listening to our conversation.

'I'm an independent producer working for the BBC in London, and, at the moment, I'm trying to find a way to get to Transylvania '

I noticed the light in her eyes change.

' so that I can finish the documentary I'm making about the myth of the vampire.'

I waited. This subject always aroused people's curiosity, but she lost interest as soon as I mentioned the reason for my visit.