For days she had been searching her father's office for answers. He had left three months ago, three months since anyone had heard from him. She had had a conversation with her father when he told her he was going away for a while. She asked him where he was going and why. He said it was too personal, but that normally he wouldn't be gone for long - that he just had something to deal with himself.
She found her phone on the desk littered with papers, documents and books. Her father also had reproductions of Edward Hopper paintings that were placed between the bookcases. The bookshelves had gaps in them. He had put some of the books in boxes, or in stacks, a little ways away. Those that remained were not arranged as anyone would have done. She understood his logic as she looked through his notebooks, for he often copied passages from his books. He lined them up in the order in which he had read them, and kept only the ones that were most valuable to him close by. The very last one, with the cover turned so she could see it, was the teachings of Ramana Maharshi, which Rebecca did not know. His library told the story of his reading journey, his choices, and most importantly, a direction. He had not taken his favorite books with him. On the other hand, he had apparently had an urge to tidy up, or rather to clear out. Given the state of his desk, he had left before finishing.
Of all his notebooks, one had a red cover. The first time she opened it, she immediately understood that she should never have touched it, never have found it. She had glimpsed a list, a list with women's names. Had her father kept a kind of logbook of his conquests? How else could he be named? And above all, why had he left it in plain sight? Surely he wanted it to be discovered. For days the notebook remained on the ground, where she had left it. Some of the loose papers, which had been slipped inside, were now spread on the floor, like splashes of intimacy. She turned around it like a lioness around a prey, divided between the desire to read it and the disgust that it inspired to her.
She began by searching the rest of the desk, glancing from time to time at the notebook covered with scarlet leather. One day she imagined it disappearing and the next she was looking for it with her eyes.
She tried to reconstruct her father's mental journey, working out various explanations, but she was still missing two things: the reason he had left and, of course, his destination. Soon what started as a hunch became a certainty: the answers were in the red notebook.
Rebecca closed the only window in the office. She placed the vinyl of Ravel's Bolero that had remained on the record player and lowered the arm. The first few bars, slow and haunting, filled the room. She bent down to pick up the red notebook and the pieces of paper. She found two cards from the Tarot de Marseille, two major arcana - Strength and Temperance. She looked at them for a moment and then sat down in her father's chair, took a deep breath and opened them. Immediately she recognized some of the women. But most of the names were completely foreign to her. Small notes followed the identities. Details she preferred to ignore. She also saw small symbols, crosses and other signs that remained a mystery to her. She was surprised to see that there were also men's names. She quickly passed the first part because then there was no more of it. Little by little she saw reflections and doubts emerge. Her father seemed to be fighting against himself and his inclinations. This combat seemed to her unequal. She retained a few sentences that she compiled as follows: Is it possible that I will be free one day? Is suffering and making others suffer inevitable? I know now that I am made up of shadows and lights, but it is less the presence of the shadows than the attraction that I have for them that afflicts me. I am chained of my own free will. This addiction burns my wings. Running away will not help me because I carry this curse inside me. Wherever I go and whatever I do... No matter how hard I try, it seems to me that I am not making any progress, that I am stumbling and getting stuck... A little while ago, while listening to the Indian flute, I saw a path, a way harmonizing the darkness and the light... Last night I dreamed that I was flying over Arunachala. I have the feeling that it is there that I must go. A journey that, perhaps, will allow me to know who I am...
A quick search revealed the exact location of Arunachala. It was a hill. At its foot lay Tiruvannamalai, the sacred city and religious center of Tamil Nadu. There are many ashrams at the foot of Mount Arunachala. The most famous being that of Sri Ramana Maharshi. And it was precisely his teachings, transcribed in a French translation, that her father had accompanied for several months. Rebecca read that even today millions of people come to visit the grave of the man who based his teachings on this simple question: "Who am I?" She finally had what she was looking for and now knew where her father had gone. A flight from Nantes would take her to Chennai, India. Once there, she would still have almost 200 km to go to reach the Arunachala hill.
