Between Mirror and Reflection

Noor was telling me:

“Madam Norma is a woman who is said to look into the past and the future through contact with beings from another realm. She is so much in demand that people wait for months just to get a ten-minute appointment with her. I was lucky to get a half-hour slot when someone cancelled at the last moment.”

I said to Noor,

“Yes, I know about her.”

After a long drive, along a rather deserted and half-dark road, we finally entered a large, mansion-like building. At first sight it looked no less than a haunted house. Patches of green moss clung to the walls. The stained-glass windows, like those of an old cathedral, were covered with the thick dust of centuries, as if their heavy curtains had never been drawn back. Somewhere deep inside, it felt as though a single candle was burning. Outside, the vague terror of shadowy shapes, the slight drop in temperature, and the wind whistling through the place had wrapped everything in a strange, eerie stillness.

We drove through an iron gate into an open, brightly lit space near the main entrance and parked the car close to the reception. When we walked toward the front door, I turned back to look. That “open space” was really part of a garden that stretched out in front of the building. All around, as far as the eye could see, there were only bushes and dried, lifeless plants and trees, crying out the story of countless seasons of neglect. It was partly autumn and partly silence. Every step on the dry leaves sounded as if they were chanting the music of the Last Day.

My gaze travelled those few yards as if it were crossing several years, and then came to rest on the main door: a large, old wooden door, untouched by paint or varnish, with a big rusty iron knocker and a few large decorative nails, their raised heads gleaming in the bulb light as if they had been hammered in long ago for some unknown trial.

As soon as Noor knocked, a pigeon that had been hiding in some broken, crumbling part of the roof cornice burst out, like a restless spirit, and vanished into the air. A shiver ran through my body. I cast a quick, questioning glance at Noor. She said,

“In old houses where the owners forget the living and spend their lives among the spirits of the past, things like this always happen.”

With a harsh creak the old wooden door opened a little. The sound must have been heard out on the street.

An old woman stood there, holding a large candle-lamp. The moment I saw her, the image of a desert witch who kidnaps little children flickered in my mind. She glanced at us briefly, bowed her head, and motioned for us to come inside. Noor and I followed her.

We passed along a long, wide corridor and entered a spacious room, completely bare of furniture. The corridor, however, showed signs of particular decoration. The paint and wallpaper on the walls had long outlived their natural age and seemed to be going through a second or third reincarnation, yet every two or three feet there hung big wooden frames containing pictures of ancient churches, of the Virgin Mary, and of Christ on the cross. Candles were burning in various niches.

In this first room, only along the walls, at measured distances, stood old iron candle-stands in the shape of crosses, each with a wax candle burning. The light was very dim.

We crossed this room and went into another, slightly smaller one. In the middle stood a wooden pillar, ten or twelve inches across and about three feet high. On top of it was fixed a large iron bowl in which a big, torch-like flame was burning. On one side there was an old wooden sofa for sitting. The air was rich with the scent of a Havana cigar. Here the sense of mystery had reached its height.

The woman signalled to us to sit down and then slipped away through a small door. Pulling myself together, I said softly to Noor,

“This really does feel like a dwelling of restless spirits. But I sense some secret even in this cigar smoke. Perhaps spirits too enjoy smoking.”

We both tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress our laughter.

Suddenly a voice rang out in the room—a voice that sounded as though many women were speaking at the same time:

“Whose spirit do you wish to call?”

Noor replied,

“We want to know about a living person. He lives in this very city, and his name is Aqa Qafa.”

The voice asked,

“What do you want to know?”

Noor said,

“We want to know who he is, where he has come from, and whether a good spirit lives in him or an evil one.”

There was silence on the other side. After quite a long pause, the voice returned:

“The man you speak of is sitting with you right now. It seems to me that you people have come to test me, and that is a very bad thing.”

Noor said,

“That is exactly our problem—we want to know what connection he has with the person sitting next to me.”

The woman’s voice replied,

“Can you let me hear his voice?”

Noor said,

“I’ll give you his phone number. You can call him.”

She gave the woman Aqa Qafa’s number. The woman dialled it. She must have put the phone on speaker, because we could hear the beeps as it rang. Then we heard Aqa Qafa’s voice. He said, “Hello.”

In English, the woman asked,

“May I speak to Aqa Qafa?”

In a beautifully accented English voice he replied,

“Yes, speaking.”

The woman said,

“I’ve heard a great deal about you. Is it possible for me to meet you?”

Aqa Qafa answered,

“Madam Norma, I am, at this very moment, in your mansion, sitting here with Noor.”

The woman exclaimed in astonishment,

“Then how are you speaking from this number? Because the man I speak of is right in front of me, sitting silent.”

Aqa Qafa replied,

“That is for you to understand.”

And he cut the call.

For a while there was complete silence. After about ten minutes, the same old woman who had left us there returned to the room. She shook hands with both of us and said,

“This is the most astonishing experience of my life. My knowledge tells me that you are present here right now, and also far away in the place from which you were just speaking to me.”

For the first time, I spoke:

“That is exactly what we have come to you to understand.”

She said,

“So you yourself are not aware that you are present in both places, but the one who is elsewhere *is* aware of it.”

I said,

“Yes.”

She led us with her through the small door. As soon as we stepped through, it felt as if we had entered a church. Crosses and statues of Christ and the Virgin Mary hung on the walls. In the middle stood a single bed, surrounded by a wooden frame. Very close together, candles were burning all around the frame. She unlatched the frame from one side so that one line of candles moved away from the bed, then said to me,

“Lie down here.”

I looked at Noor; in her eyes, too, was the same silent command that I should lie down. So I lay on the bed. The woman pointed to a nearby stool and said to Noor,

“You sit here.”

Then she went to a large candle burning on a small table and blew it out. Now the only light in the room came from the candles around the bed.

She said to me,

“Let your mind open. Take a deep breath and close your eyes.”

I obeyed. She began to recite something softly. I lost all sense of time; it felt as though it had stopped moving. Suddenly, from far away, a voice that sounded exactly like Madam Norma’s echoed:

“I cannot stay here with you. I can see a very strong divine light surrounding you. If I come close, I will burn in that light.”

Madam Norma murmured,

“Just tell me this much—what is the relationship between this man’s soul and the soul of Aqa Qafa?”

After a few moments of silence, the same voice replied:

“A mirror and its reflection… On high mountains of snow, an unknown power is in the process of turning that reflection into a mirror. Of the two, one is only a mirror, and one is both mirror and reflection. Beyond this I can see nothing. Around both of them are great halos of powerful light through which it is impossible to pass.”

Then there was silence again.

Madam Norma continued to recite something for a little while longer, then said to me,

“You may get up now. My knowledge goes no further than this. But I would like you to keep in touch with me. You have now heard what your spiritual powers are.”

Rising to my feet in amazement, I said,

“My spiritual powers? I know nothing about them.”

She said,

“I humbly request that you let me share in your grace. I am only a humble traveller on this path.”

I said,

“First tell me what is in that room of Bradford Cathedral where you spend so many nights.”

Madam Norma replied,

“Whatever I have, I will lay before you. Just take my hand.”

Noor said,

“Very well, we will speak to Aqa Qafa about you.”

It was not easy to free ourselves from Madam Norma. It seemed that, for her, nothing in the world was more important than me. She clung to me like a spirit. Somehow we finally managed to take our leave.

As soon as we stepped out of the mansion, I asked Noor,

“Tell me, when we were hearing the voice of that spirit, could you see Madam Norma’s lips?”

Noor replied,

“Yes, I looked at her carefully. Her lips were closed, her pupils had rolled upward, and her hands had turned completely red.”