A Warrior's Life Part 10

One of the policemen backed him up, a.s.suring Lygia and Pedro: 'Yes, they'll be back before you know it.'

As on the outward journey, he sat in the back of the van with an armed policeman on either side and the other two in the front. Halfway there, Paulo asked if they could stop at a public telephone, saying that he needed to tell the recording company that there were some problems with the record. One of the policemen said 'No', but calmed him by saying that in a few hours he and Gisa would be free. His plan had not worked: in fact, Paulo had been hoping to call home to ask Gisa to get rid of a jar full of cannabis that was on the bookcase in the sitting room. He sat frozen and silent until they reached the door of the building where he lived. A policeman stayed with the van while the other three went upstairs with him, crowding into the small, slow lift which on that occasion seemed to take about an hour to arrive at the fourth floor. Inside, wearing an Indian sari, Gisa was just turning out the lights, ready to leave, when Paulo came in with the policemen.

'Sweetheart, these men are from the Dops and they need some information about the record I made with Raul and about the comic strip you and I did for Philips.'

Gisa was a bit frightened, but she seemed to take the matter calmly enough: 'Fine. Tell me what you want. What do you want to know?'

A policeman said that it didn't work that way: 'We can only take statements at the Dops headquarters, so we'll have to go back there.'

She didn't understand. 'Do you mean we're being arrested?'

The policeman answered politely: 'No. You're being detained so that you can provide us with some further information and then you'll be released. But before we leave, we'll just take a quick look around the apartment.'

Paulo's heart was beating so fast he thought he'd have a heart attack: they were sure to find the cannabis. Standing in the middle of the room with his arm around Gisa's shoulder, he followed the movements of the policemen with his eyes. One of them took a pile of about a hundred Krig-Ha, Bandolo! Krig-Ha, Bandolo! comic strips, while another rummaged through drawers and cupboards, and the third, who seemed to be the leader, scrutinized the books and records. When he saw a Chinese lacquered jar the size of a sweet tin, he picked it up, took off the lid and saw that it was full to the brim with cannabis. He sniffed the contents as though savouring a fine perfume, put the lid back on and restored it to its original place. It was only then that Paulo realized that the situation was infinitely worse than he had supposed: if the policeman was prepared to overlook a jar of cannabis, it was because he was suspected of far graver crimes. The Ponta Grossa incident came to mind: could it be that he was once again being confused with a terrorist or a bank robber? comic strips, while another rummaged through drawers and cupboards, and the third, who seemed to be the leader, scrutinized the books and records. When he saw a Chinese lacquered jar the size of a sweet tin, he picked it up, took off the lid and saw that it was full to the brim with cannabis. He sniffed the contents as though savouring a fine perfume, put the lid back on and restored it to its original place. It was only then that Paulo realized that the situation was infinitely worse than he had supposed: if the policeman was prepared to overlook a jar of cannabis, it was because he was suspected of far graver crimes. The Ponta Grossa incident came to mind: could it be that he was once again being confused with a terrorist or a bank robber?

It was only when they arrived at the Dops headquarters that he and Gisa realized that they would not be dining with his parents that evening. They were separated as soon as they arrived and ordered to exchange the clothes they were wearing for yellow overalls with the word 'PRISONER' written in capital letters on the top pocket. During the night of the twenty-eighth they were both photographed and identified and fingerprinted for the police files that had been created in their names; Paulo's number was 13720 and Gisa's 13721. They were then interrogated separately for several hours. Among the personal items confiscated along with their clothes were their watches, which meant that they lost all idea of time, particularly in the circ.u.mstances in which they found themselvesimprisoned in a place where there was no natural light.

The interrogation did not involve any physical torture and mainly had to do with the psychedelic comic strip that accompanied the Krig-Ha, Bandolo! Krig-Ha, Bandolo! LP and what exactly was meant by Sociedade Alternativa. This, of course, was after they had spent hours dictating to clerks what in the jargon of the Brazilian police is called the LP and what exactly was meant by Sociedade Alternativa. This, of course, was after they had spent hours dictating to clerks what in the jargon of the Brazilian police is called the capivara capivaraa careful, detailed history of a prisoner's activities up to that date. When Paulo said that he had been in Santiago in May 1970 with Vera Richter the police pressed him for information on Brazilians who lived there, but he had nothing to tell them, for the simple reason that he'd had no contact with any Brazilian exiled in Chile or anywhere else. Gisa, for her part, had a problem convincing her interrogators that the t.i.tle of Krig-Ha, Bandolo! Krig-Ha, Bandolo! had come up during a brainstorming session at Philips when Paulo, standing on a table, had bellowed out Tarzan's war cry. had come up during a brainstorming session at Philips when Paulo, standing on a table, had bellowed out Tarzan's war cry.

In Gavea, the Coelhos were frantic with worry. With the help of a friend, the secretary of the governor of what was then the state of Guanabara, the journalist and businessman Antonio de Padua Chagas Freitas, Lygia managed to find out, to everyone's relief, that her son had been arrested by the Dops and was being detained in their prison in Rua da Relaco. This was some guarantee, however flimsy, that he would not join the list of the 'disappeared'. Since habeas corpus habeas corpus no longer existed, all they could do was to try to find people who might have some kind of link, either family or personal, with influential individuals in the security forces. Paulo's brother-in-law, Marcos, suggested seeking the help of a friend, Colonel Imba.s.sahy, who had connections with the SNI (Brazil's National Intelligence Service), but Pedro decided to try legal routes first, however fragile these might be. It was Aunt Heloi who suggested the name of the lawyer Antonio Claudio Vieira, who had worked in the offices of 'Uncle Candinho', as the Coelho family called the ex-procurator general of the Republic, Candido de Oliveira Neto, who had died a year earlier. no longer existed, all they could do was to try to find people who might have some kind of link, either family or personal, with influential individuals in the security forces. Paulo's brother-in-law, Marcos, suggested seeking the help of a friend, Colonel Imba.s.sahy, who had connections with the SNI (Brazil's National Intelligence Service), but Pedro decided to try legal routes first, however fragile these might be. It was Aunt Heloi who suggested the name of the lawyer Antonio Claudio Vieira, who had worked in the offices of 'Uncle Candinho', as the Coelho family called the ex-procurator general of the Republic, Candido de Oliveira Neto, who had died a year earlier.

By five in the afternoon, they were all at the door of the prison. When he was told that only the lawyer, Vieira, could enter, Pedro mentioned that he knew one of the stars of the dictators.h.i.+p. 'We're friends of Colonel Jarbas Pa.s.sarinho.' He was speaking of the ex-governor of Para, who had held ministerial positions in three military governments (he had been one of the signatories of the AI-5) and had been re-elected senator for Arena, a party that supported the regime. The policeman was unimpressed, saying that even someone in Jarbas's position had no influence in Dops.

While the lawyer was trying to get news about Paulo from the officer on duty, Pedro, Lygia, Sonia and her husband Marcos had to wait on the pavement in the drizzle.

After some minutes, Vieira came out with good news: 'Paulo is here and should be released today. The officer in charge is phoning his superior to see whether they will allow me to see him for a few minutes.'

The lawyer was summoned by the doorman and taken to a room where he would be allowed to speak to Paulo briefly. He was shocked by Paulo's appearance: while he hadn't been the victim of any physical violence, Paulo was very pale with dark rings under his eyes and had a strange zombie-like expression on his face. Vieira rea.s.sured him, saying he had been given a promise that he would be freed in the next few hours. And that was that. Lygia insisted that they remain on the pavement outside the Dops until her son was released, but the lawyer dissuaded her from this idea.

At about ten o'clock on the Tuesday night, one of the policemen, who had always seemed to Paulo to be the most sympathetic and least threatening, opened the cell door and gave him back the clothes and doc.u.ments he'd had with him when he was arrested: he and Gisa were free to go. Paulo dressed quickly and met Gisa in the lobby, and the policeman accompanied the couple to the cafe next to the Dops, where they smoked a cigarette.

Anxious to get away from such a terrifying place, Paulo hailed a taxi and asked the driver to take them to his parents' house in Gavea. The driver set off; then, as the cab was travelling at speed past Hotel Gloria, it was brought screeching to a halt by three or four civilian vehicles, among them two Chevrolet Veraneio estate cars, which at the time were the trademark vehicle used by the security police. Several men in plain clothes jumped out and opened the two rear doors of the taxi in which the couple were travelling and dragged Paulo and Gisa out by force. As Paulo was handcuffed and dragged along on his stomach across the gra.s.s, he caught sight of Gisa being thrown into an estate car, which drove off, tyres squealing. The last thing he saw before his head was covered in a black hood was the elegant white building of the Hotel Gloria, lit up like fairyland.

Once in the back seat of the car, Paulo managed to murmur a question to one of the men with him: 'Are you going to kill me?'

The agent realized how terrified he was and said. 'Don't worry. No one's going to kill you. We're just going to interrogate you.'

His fear remained undiminished. His hands shaking, Paulo was able to overcome his fear and shame enough to ask his captor: 'Can I hold on to your leg?'

The man seemed to find this unusual request amusing. 'Of course you can. And don't worry, we're not going to kill you.'

CHAPTER 17.

Paulo renounces the Devil.

IT WAS NOT UNTIL THIRTY YEARS LATER, with the country's return to democracy, that Paulo learned he had been kidnapped by a commando group of the DOI-Codi (Department of Information OperationsCentre for Internal Defence Operations). Pedro Queima Coelho was concerned about the damage all this might inflict on his son's fragile emotional state and made a point of being at home so that he would be there to receive Paulo when he was freed. He spent a sleepless night beside a silent telephone and at eight in the morning took a taxi to the Dops. When he arrived, he was astonished to be told by the officer at the desk: with the country's return to democracy, that Paulo learned he had been kidnapped by a commando group of the DOI-Codi (Department of Information OperationsCentre for Internal Defence Operations). Pedro Queima Coelho was concerned about the damage all this might inflict on his son's fragile emotional state and made a point of being at home so that he would be there to receive Paulo when he was freed. He spent a sleepless night beside a silent telephone and at eight in the morning took a taxi to the Dops. When he arrived, he was astonished to be told by the officer at the desk: 'Your son and his girlfriend were freed at ten o'clock last night.'

When Paulo's father stared at him in disbelief, the agent opened a file and showed him two stamped sheets of paper. 'This is the doc.u.ment for release and here are their signatures,' he said, trying to appear sympathetic. 'He was definitely released. If your son hasn't come home, it's probably because he's decided to go underground.'

The nightmare had begun. Paulo and Gisa had been added to the list of the regime's 'disappeared'. This meant that whatever might happen to them, it was no longer the responsibility of the state, since both had been released safe and sound after signing an official release doc.u.ment.

What happened after their kidnapping is still so swathed in mystery that in 2007, when he turned sixty, the author still had many unanswered questions. Records kept by the security police confirm that Raul was not detained and that on 27 May the Dops arrested the couple, having identified and questioned them during the night and throughout the day of the twenty-eighth. Doc.u.ments from the army also show that following their kidnapping outside the Hotel Gloria, Paulo and Gisa were taken separately to the 1st Battalion of the Military Police in Rua Baro de Mesquita, in the north of Rio, where the DOI-Codi had its offices, although there is no information about how long they were held at the barracks. Some family members state, albeit not with any certainty, that he could have spent 'up to ten days' in the DOI-Codi, but on Friday, 31 May, Paulo was in Gavea writing the first entry in his diary following his release: 'I'm staying at my parents' house. I'm even afraid of writing about what happened to me. It was one of the worst experiences of my lifeimprisoned unjustly yet again. But my fears will be overcome by faith and my hatred will be conquered by love. From insecurity will come confidence in myself.'

However, among the doc.u.ments taken from the archives of Abin, the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (the successor to the SNI, the National Intelligence Service), is a long interrogation with Paulo lasting from eleven o'clock on the night of 14 June until four in the morning of 15 June in the offices of the DOI-Codi. The mystery lies in the fact that he swears that he never returned to the DOI-Codi following his release. The lawyer Antonio Claudio Vieira also states with equal certainty that he never accompanied him to Rua Baro de Mesquita; nor was he called a second time by the Coelho family to help their son. The same version is corroborated by Pedro, Paulo's sister Sonia Maria and her ex-husband, Marcos, who witnessed everything at close hand. Any suspicion that Paulo, in his terror, had betrayed his friends or put others in danger and now wanted to remove this stain from his record does not stand up to a reading of the seven pages typed on the headed notepaper of the then 1st Army. The first four pages are filled with a reiteration of the statement that Paulo had made in the Dops, a detailed history of his life up until then: schools, work in the theatre, trips within Brazil and abroad, prison in Parana, O Globo O Globo, the course in Mato Grosso, A Pomba A Pomba, his partners.h.i.+p with Raul...The part referring to his and Raul's members.h.i.+p of the OTO is so incomprehensible that the clerk had to write 'sic' several times, just to make it clear that this really was what the prisoner had said: That in 1973 the deponent and Raul Seixas had concluded 'that the world is experiencing an intense period of tedium' [sic]; that on the other hand they realized that the career of a singer, when not accompanied by a strong movement, tends to end quickly. That the deponent and Raul Seixas then resolved 'to capitalize on the end of hippiedom and the sudden interest in magic around the world' [sic]; that the deponent began to study the books of an esoteric movement called 'OTO'. That the deponent and Raul Seixas then decided to found the 'Sociedade Alternativa', 'which was registered at the register office to avoid any false interpretations' [sic]; that the deponent and Raul Seixas were in Brasilia and explained the precepts of the Sociedade Alternativa to the chiefs of the Federal Police and the Censors, stating 'that the intention was not to act against the government, but to interest youth in another form of activity' [sic].

When the police asked him to give the names of people he knew with left-wing tendencies, Paulo could recall only two: someone who used to go to the Paissandu, 'known by everyone as the Philosopher', and an ex-boyfriend of Gisa's in the student movement, whose name he also could not remember, but which he believed 'began with the letter H or A'. The certainty with which everyone states that he did not return to the DOI-Codi after being kidnapped is corroborated by his diary, in which there is absolutely no record of his making a further statement on the night of 1415 June. The theory that the clerk had typed the wrong date doesn't hold up when one considers the fact that the statement is seven pages long, with the date14 Junetyped on every page. The definitive proof that Paulo was indeed at the DOI-Codi on some date after 27 May, however, is to be found in one small detail: when he was photographed and identified in the Dops some hours after his arrest on 27 May, he had a moustache and goatee beard. On 14 June, he is described as having 'beard and moustache shaven off'.

As for Gisa, during the time in which she remained in the DOI-Codi she underwent two interrogations. The first started at eight on the morning of 29 May and only ended at four in the afternoon, and the second was held between eight and eleven on the morning of the following day, Thursday. On both occasions, she was treated as a militant member of the radical group Aco Popular (Popular Action) and of the Brazilian Communist Party, but, as in Paulo's case, she had little or nothing to tell them, apart from her work in the student movement when she was involved in several left-wing organizations.

During one of the nights when they were being held in the DOI, something happened that caused the final break between the two. With his head covered by a hood, Paulo was being taken to the toilet by a policeman when, as he walked past a cell, he heard someone sobbing and calling him: 'Paulo? Are you there? If it's you, talk to me!'

It was Gisa, probably also with a hood on her head: she had recognized his voice. Terrified at the thought that he might be placed naked in the 'refrigerator'the closed cell where the temperature was kept deliberately lowhe stayed silent.

His girlfriend begged for his help: 'Paulo, my love! Please, say yes. Just that, say that it's you!'

Nothing.

She went on: 'Please, Paulo, tell them I've got nothing to do with all this.'

In what he was to see as his greatest act of cowardice, he didn't even open his mouth.

One afternoon that week, probably Friday, 31 May, a guard appeared with his clothes, told him to get dressed and to cover his head with the hood. He was put on the rear seat of a car and, having been driven some way, thrown out in a small square in Tijuca, a middle-cla.s.s district 10 kilometres from the barracks where he had been held.

The first days in his parents' house were terrifying. Every time someone knocked on the door, or the telephone rang, Paulo would lock himself in his room, afraid of being taken away again by the police, the military or whoever it was who had kidnapped him. In order to calm him a little, Pedro, touched by his son's paranoia, had to swear that he would not allow him to be imprisoned again, whatever the consequences. 'If anyone comes to take you without a legal summons,' he promised, 'he'll be greeted with a bullet.' Only after two weeks holed up in Gavea did Paulo have the courage to go out in the street again, and even then he chose a day when it would be easy to spot if someone was following him: Thursday, 13 June, when Brazil and Yugoslavia were playing the first match of the 1974 World Cup in Germany, and the whole country would be in front of the television supporting the national team. With Rio transformed into a ghost town he went by bus to Flamengo and then, after much hesitation, he plucked up the courage to go into the apartment where he and Gisa had lived until the Sat.u.r.day on which they believed they had received a visit from the Devil. It was exactly as the police had left it on the Monday evening after searching it. Before the referee blew the final whistle of the match, Paulo was back in the shelter of his parents' home. One of the penances he imposed on himself, though, so that everything would return to normal as quickly as possible, was not to watch any of the World Cup matches.

The most difficult thing was finding Gisa. Since that dreadful encounter in the DOI-Codi prison he had had no more news of his girlfriend, but her voice crying 'Paulo! Talk to me, Paulo!' kept ringing in his head. When he eventually managed to call her old apartment, where she had gone back to live, it suddenly occurred to him that the phone might be tapped and so he didn't dare to ask whether she had been tortured or when she had been released. When he suggested a meeting in order to discuss their future, Gisa was adamant: 'I don't want to live with you again, I don't want you to say another word to me and I would prefer it if you never spoke my name again.'

Following this, Paulo fell into such a deep depression that his family again sought help from Dr Benjamim Gomes, the psychiatrist at the Dr Eiras clinic. Luckily for Paulo, this time the doctor decided to replace electric shocks with daily sessions of a.n.a.lysis, which, during the first weeks, were held at his home. Paulo's persecution mania had become so extreme that, on one outing, he became so frightened that he fainted in the street in front of a bookshop in Copacabana and was helped by pa.s.sers-by. When Philips sent him the proofs for the record sleeve for Gita Gita, which was about to be released, he couldn't believe his eyes: it was a photo of Raul with a Che Guevara beret bearing the red five-pointed star of the communists. Appalled, he immediately phoned Philips and demanded that they change the image; if they didn't, he would not allow any of his songs to appear on the record.

When they asked why, he replied so slowly that he seemed to be spelling out each word: 'Because I don't want to be arrested again and with that photo on the record sleeve, they'll arrest me again. Understood?'

After much discussion, he accepted that Raul could be shown wearing the Che beret, but he demanded a written statement from Philips stating that the choice was the entire responsibility of the company. In the end, a suggestion by a graphic artist won the day: the red star was simply removed from the photo, so that it looked as though the beret was merely an innocent beret with no sinister communist connotations.

Since Gisa refused to answer his calls, Paulo began to write her letters each day, asking forgiveness for what he had done in the prison and suggesting that they live together again. In one of these letters he wrote of his feelings of insecurity during the three years they had spent together: I didn't understand why, when you moved in with me, you brought just the bare minimum of clothes. I never understood why you insisted on continuing to pay the rent on the other empty apartment. I wanted to put pressure on you with money, saying I wouldn't pay any more, but you still kept on the other apartment. The fact that the other apartment existed made me really insecure. It meant that from one moment to the next you could escape my grasp and regain your freedom.

Gisa never replied, but he continued to write. One day, his father, clearly upset, took him to one side. 'Look, Gisa phoned me at the office,' he told him, his hand on his son's shoulder. 'She asked me to tell you not to write to her again.' Paulo ignored the request and went on writing: 'Today my father told me that you don't want to see me again. I also learned that you're working, which is good, and I felt both hurt and happy. I had just heard "Gita" on the radio. I was wondering whether you think of me when you hear that song. I think they were the most beautiful lyrics I've written so far. It contains all of me. Now I don't read, don't write and I've no friends.'

This was one of the symptoms of his paranoia, that all his friends had supposedly abandoned him for fear of being close to someone who had been seized and imprisoned by the security police. Whether this was real or imagined, what mattered was his belief that, apart from Raul, only two people held out a hand to him: the journalist Hildegard Angel and Roberto Menescal, one of the creators of the bossa nova and, at the time, a director of Polygram. Together with Phonogram, Polydor and Elenco, the company was one of the Brazilian arms of the Dutch multinational Philips, and one of its greatest rivals in Brazil was CBS, a subsidiary of the American company Columbia. Hilde, as she was and is known, continued to be a friend to Paulo even though she had painful reasons to avoid risking any more confrontations with the dictators.h.i.+p: three years earlier, her youngest brother, Stuart Angel, who was a member of the guerrilla group MR-8, had been brutally asphyxiated at an air force barracks, with his mouth pressed to the exhaust pipe of a moving jeep. His wife, the economist Sonia Moraes Angel, a member of the ALN (National Liberationist Movement), had also died while being tortured by the DOI-Codi in So Paulo a few months earlier, at the end of 1973. As if these two tragedies were not enough for one family, Hilde and Stuart's mother, the designer Zuzu Angel, was to die two years later in a car accident that had all the hallmarks of an a.s.sa.s.sination attempt and became the subject of the film Zuzu Angel Zuzu Angel.

It was Hilde who, after much insistence, convinced Paulo to get back into circulation. She invited him to attend the debate 'Women and Communication' at which she was to partic.i.p.ate with the feminist Rose Marie Muraro at the Museu Nacional de Belas-Artes. Paulo's justified paranoia would have reached unbearable levels had he known that among the audience was a spy, Deuteronomio Rocha dos Santos, who wrote a report on the meeting for the Section of Special Searches (part of the Dops) in which he said: 'among those present was the journalist and writer Paulo Coelho, a personal friend of Hildegard Angel'.

As soon as he felt strong enough to go around without fear of being kidnapped again, Paulo's first important step after what he referred to as the 'black week' was to search out the OTO. He had two reasons for going to see Frater Zaratustra: first, he wanted to understand what had happened in his apartment on that dreadful Sat.u.r.day and, second, whatever the explanation, he was going to distance himself permanently from the sect. His fear of the Devil was such that he asked Euclydes-Zaratustra to meet him during the day at his parents' house, where he had gone back to live, and, for good measure, he invited Roberto Menescal to be there as a witness. This turned out to be a good idea: to his surprise, on the appointed day, who should appear at the house in Gavea but Parzival XI, the self-crowned world head of the sectthe sinister and uncouth Marcelo Ramos Motta. Paulo decided to come straight to the point. After summarizing what had happened at his home and in prison, he asked: 'I want to know what happened to me that Sat.u.r.day and on the following days.'

Parzival XI eyed him scornfully. 'You always knew that with us what counts is the law of the strongest. I taught you that, remember? According to the law of the strongest, whoever holds out succeeds. Those who don't, fail. That's it. You were weak and failed.'

Menescal, who was listening to the conversation from a distance, threatened to attack the visitorsomething that would have endangered the Coelhos' china and crystal, since Menescal practised aikido and the Crowleyite Ramos Motta was a black belt in ju-jitsu.

But Paulo restrained him and, for the first time, addressed the high priest by his real name: 'So is that what the OTO is, Marcelo? On Sat.u.r.day, the Devil appears in my house, on Monday, I'm arrested and on Wednesday, I'm abducted? That's the OTO, is it? Well, in that case, my friend, I'm out of it.'

As soon as he found himself free from the sect, it was with great relief, as though he had sloughed off a great burden, that Paulo sat down at his typewriter and wrote an official doc.u.ment formalizing his rejection of the mysterious Ordo Templi Orientis. His brief and dramatic incursion into the kingdom of darkness had lasted less than two months: Rio de Janeiro, 6 July 1974I, Paulo Coelho de Souza, who signed my declaration as a Probationer in the year LXX, 19 May, with the sun in the sign of Taurus, 1974 e.v., ask and consider myself to be excluded from the Order because of my complete incompetence in realizing the tasks given me.I declare that, in taking this decision, I am in a perfect state of physical and mental health.93 93 / 93As witness my hand,Paulo Coelho What Paulo believed to be a break with the Devil and his followers did not mean the end of his paranoia. In fact he felt safe only when at home with his parents and with the doors locked. It was during this period of despair that the idea of leaving Brazil for a while, at least until the fear subsided, first surfaced. With Gisa out of his life there was nothing to keep him in Brazil. The sales of Gita Gita had outstripped even the most optimistic expectations and the money kept pouring into his bank account. had outstripped even the most optimistic expectations and the money kept pouring into his bank account.

This coincided with another important moment in Paulo's progress: the launch of his first book. Although it was not the Great Work he dreamed of producing, it was nevertheless a book. It had been published at the end of 1973 by the highly regarded Editora Forense, which specialized in educational books, and was ent.i.tled O Teatro na Educaco O Teatro na Educaco [ [Theatre in Education]. In it he explained the programme of courses he had given in state schools in Mato Grosso. Not even an admiring review by Gisa published on their weekly page in Tribuna Tribuna had been able to get sales moving: a year after its launch, the book had sold only 500 copies out of an initial print run of 3,000. Although it was predictable that the work would pa.s.s almost unnoticed in the world of letters, this was still his first book and therefore deserved to be celebrated. When Gisa had arrived home on the day it came out, on the dining table stood two gla.s.ses and a miniature of Benedictine liqueur that Paulo had won at the age of fifteen and kept all that time, promising not to open it until he published his first book. had been able to get sales moving: a year after its launch, the book had sold only 500 copies out of an initial print run of 3,000. Although it was predictable that the work would pa.s.s almost unnoticed in the world of letters, this was still his first book and therefore deserved to be celebrated. When Gisa had arrived home on the day it came out, on the dining table stood two gla.s.ses and a miniature of Benedictine liqueur that Paulo had won at the age of fifteen and kept all that time, promising not to open it until he published his first book.

Not even this initial lack of success as an author or the wealth that came with fame, however, could shake the dream that he himself admitted had become an obsession: to be a writer known throughout the world. Even after he had become well known as a lyricist, that dream would return as strongly as ever when he was alone. A rapid flick through his diaries reveals, in sentences dotted here and there, that public recognition as a lyricist had not changed his plan one jot: he wanted to be not just another writer but 'world-famous'. He regretted that by the time they were his age, The Beatles 'had already conquered the world', but Paulo didn't lose hope that, one day, his dreams would be realized. 'I'm like a warrior waiting to make his entrance on the scene,' he wrote, 'and my destiny is success. My great talent is to fight for it.'

Raul had been very shaken by his friend's imprisonment, and Paulo had no difficulty in convincing him, too, to go abroad for a while. Less than ten days after their decision to leave Brazil, they were ready for departure. The fact that they had to go to the Dops to receive a visa to leave the countrya requirement imposed by the dictators.h.i.+p on anyone wanting to travel abroadso frightened Paulo that he had a serious asthma attack. But on 14 July 1974, a month and a half after his kidnapping, the two partners landed in New York with no fixed return date.

They each had on their arm a new girlfriend. Raul had separated from Edith, the mother of his daughter, Simone, and was living with another American, Gloria Vaquer, the sister of the drummer Jay Vaquer. Abandoned by Gisa, Paulo had started a relations.h.i.+p with the beautiful Maria do Rosario do Nascimento e Silva, a slim brunette of twenty-three. She was an actress, scriptwriter and film producer. She was also the daughter of a judge from Minas Gerais, Luiz Gonzaga do Nascimento e Silva, who, a week before the trip, had been named Minister for Social Services by General Ernesto Geisel, the President of the Republic. Despite her father's political activities, Rosario was a left-wing activist who hid those being persecuted by the regime and who had been arrested when filming statements by workers at the Central do Brasil railway station in Rio. When she met Paulo, through Hilde Angel, she was just emerging from a tempestuous three-year marriage to Walter Clark, the then director-general of the Globo television network.

The bank balance of any of those four travellers was more than enough for them to stay in comfort at the Hotel Plaza opposite Central Park or in the Algonquin, both natural staging posts for stars pa.s.sing through New York. In the crazy 1970s, however, the in thing was to stay in 'exciting' places. So it was that Paulo, Rosario, Raul and Gloria knocked at the door of the Marlton Hotel, or, to be more precise, on the iron bars that protected the entrance of the hotel from the street gangs of Greenwich Village.

Built in 1900, the Marlton was famous for welcoming anyone, be they pimps, prost.i.tutes, drug-dealers, film stars, jazz musicians or beatniks. Such people as the actors John Barrymore, Geraldine Page and Claire Bloom, the singers Harry Belafonte, Carmen McRae and Miriam Makeba and beat writer Jack Kerouac had stayed in some of its 114 rooms, most of which shared a bathroom on the landing. The fanatical feminist Valerie Solanas left one of those rooms in June 1968, armed with a revolver, to carry out an attack on the pop artist Andy Warhol that nearly killed him. Raul and Gloria's apartment, which had a sitting room, bedroom and bathroom, cost US$300 a month. Paulo and Rosario had only a bedroom and bathroom, which cost US$200, but there was no refrigerator, which meant they had to spend their days drinking warm c.o.ke and neat whiskythis, of course, when they weren't smoking cannabis or sniffing cocaine, their main pastimes.

On 8 August 1974, the eyes of the whole world were turned on the United States. After two years and two months of involvement in the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon's Republican government was suffering a very public death. The big decisions were taken in Was.h.i.+ngton, but the heart of America beat in New York. There seemed to be a more-than-usual electric atmosphere in the Big Apple. It was expected that at any moment either the President would be impeached or he would resign. After a night spent in a fas.h.i.+onable nightclub, Paulo and Rosario woke at three in the afternoon, went out for a big breakfast at Child, a rough bar a block away from the Marlton, and then returned to their room. They had a few lines of cocaine and when they came to, it was getting dark. On the radio on the bedside table, the reporter was announcing that in ten minutes there was to be a national radio and television transmission of an announcement by President Nixon.

Paulo jumped off the bed, saying: 'Come on, Maria! Let's go down and record the reactions of the people when he announces his resignation.' He put on a denim jacket but no s.h.i.+rt and his knee-high riding boots, grabbed his portable recordera heavy thing the size of a telephone directoryfilled his pockets with ca.s.sette tapes and hung his cine camera round Rosario's neck, telling her to hurry: 'Come on, Maria! We can't miss this. It's going to be better than the final of the World Cup!'

He turned on the recorder when they got outside and began describing what he could see, as though making a live radio report: PauloToday is 8th August 1974. I am on 8th Street, heading for the Shakespeare restaurant. In five minutes' time the President of the United States is going to resign. Right, we've arrived. We're here in the Shakespeare, the TV is on but the broadcast hasn't started yet...What did you say?RosarioI said I still think the American people aren't cold at all. Quite the contrary!PauloIt's like a football match. The TV's on here in the bar of the Shakespeare restaurant. The broadcast hasn't started yet but there are already loads of people out in the street.RosarioEveryone's shouting, can you hear?PauloI can!

In the crowded restaurant, the two managed to find a place in front of the television that was suspended from the ceiling, its volume on maximum. Wearing a navy-blue suit and red tie, Nixon appeared on the screen, looking very sombre. A church-like silence fell in the bar as he began to read the speech in which he resigned from the most important position in the world. For almost fifteen minutes, the people standing around made not a sound as Nixon explained the reasons that had led him to this dramatic decision. His speech ended on a sad note: 'To have served in this office is to have felt a very personal sense of kins.h.i.+p with each and every American. In leaving it, I do so with this prayer: may G.o.d's grace be with you in all the days ahead.'

As soon as the speech had ended Paulo was out in the street, closely followed by Maria do Rosario, with the microphone to his mouth like a radio announcer.

PauloChrist! I was really moved, Rosario, I really was! If one day I have to resign, I hope it's like that...But look! Nixon has just resigned and there's some guy dancing in the corner.RosarioDancing and playing the banjo. This country's full of madmen!PauloMy feelings, at this moment, are completely indescribable. We're walking along 8th Street.RosarioThe people are really so happy. Oh, it's just too much!PauloThey really are! They're sort of half-surprised, Maria. Really! The television crews are interviewing people in the streets! This is an historic day!RosarioThere's a woman crying, a girl crying. She's genuinely upset.PauloIt's a truly fantastic moment, isn't it? Really, really fantastic!

The two returned to the Marlton, feeling very excited. Rosario got out at the third floor, where their apartment was, and Paulo took the lift up to the seventh, because he wanted Raul to listen to the tapes recording the madness that had taken hold of New York that evening. When he opened the door, without knocking, as was their habit, he found his partner lying flat out on the sofa, sleeping with his mouth open. On the small table next to him was a line of cocaine ready to be sniffed, a half-drunk bottle of whisky and a pile of money amounting to about US$5,000 in one hundred dollar bills. For someone coming from a public celebration as Paulo had, after having been witness to a spontaneous street festival, the shock of seeing his friend lying there, completely out of it, a victim of drugs and alcohol, was a real wake-up call. He was sad not only to see a friend in that statea friend whom he had introduced to the world of drugsbut also because he realized that cocaine was leading him down the same path. Paulo had never confessed this to anyone, not even to his diary, but he knew he was becoming drug-dependent. He returned to his room in a state of shock. He saw Rosario's slim body lying naked on the bed, lit only by the bluish light from the street.

He sat shamefaced beside his girlfriend and gently stroked her back as he announced in a whisper: 'Today is an historic day for me too. On 8 August 1974, I stopped sniffing cocaine.'

CHAPTER 18.

Cissa.

THEIR PLAN TO REMAIN IN NEW YORK for a few months was cut short by an unforeseen incident. One evening, Paulo was trying out an electric can-opener and accidently let the sharp blade slip, catching his right hand. Rosario tried to staunch the flow of blood with a bath towel, and it immediately became a ball of blood. He was taken by ambulance to a first-aid station in Greenwich Village, where he learned that the gadget had sliced the tendon in the third finger of his right hand. He had emergency surgery and ended up with nine st.i.tches in his finger and had to wear a metal splint for several weeks, which immobilized his hand. A few days later, he and Rosario left for Brazil, while Raul and Gloria travelled on to Memphis. for a few months was cut short by an unforeseen incident. One evening, Paulo was trying out an electric can-opener and accidently let the sharp blade slip, catching his right hand. Rosario tried to staunch the flow of blood with a bath towel, and it immediately became a ball of blood. He was taken by ambulance to a first-aid station in Greenwich Village, where he learned that the gadget had sliced the tendon in the third finger of his right hand. He had emergency surgery and ended up with nine st.i.tches in his finger and had to wear a metal splint for several weeks, which immobilized his hand. A few days later, he and Rosario left for Brazil, while Raul and Gloria travelled on to Memphis.

On his return to Rio, Paulo found that he was strong enough to confront his ghosts and decided to live alone in the apartment where he had lived with Gisa. However, his courage was short-lived. On 10 September, after two weeks, he was once again berthed in the secure port of his parents' house in Gavea. Anxious to free himself of everything that might remind him of demons, prisons and abductions, before moving to their house, he sold all his books, records and pictures. When he saw his bare apartment, with nothing on the walls or shelves, he wrote in his diary: 'I have just freed myself from the past.' But it wasn't going to be that easy. His paranoia, fears and complexes continued to trouble him. He frequently confessed that he continued to feel guilty even about things that had happened during his childhood, such as having 'placed my hand on a girl's private parts', or even 'dreaming of doing sinful things with Mama'. But at least at home it was unlikely that anyone could simply abduct him, with no questions asked.

At a time when s.e.xual promiscuity appeared to carry few risks, he recorded in his diary the women who came and went in his life without saying anything much about them, apart from some statement as to how well this woman or that had performed in bed. Sometimes he set up meetings with ex-girlfriends, but the truth is that he had still not got over the end of his affair with Gisa, to whom he continued to write and from whom he never received a reply. When he learned that Vera Richter was back with her ex-husband he noted: 'Today I went into town to resolve my psychological problem with a few shares in the Bank of Brazil. I was thinking of selling them and giving the money to Mario in exchange for having possessed Vera for more than a year. In fact it was Vera who possessed me, but in my muddled head I always thought it was the other way round.'

His partners.h.i.+p with Raul continued to produce impressive results, but the s.h.i.+p of the Sociedade Alternativa was beginning to let in water. Even before the 'dark night' and Paulo's imprisonment, disagreements between them and Philips as to the meaning of the Sociedade Alternativa had begun to arise. Everything indicates that Raul had been serious about creating a new communitya sect, religion or movementthat would practise and spread the commandments of Aleister Crowley, Parzival XI and Frater Zaratustra. For the executives of the recording company, however, the Sociedade Alternativa was nothing more than a brand name they could use to boost the sales of records. The president of Philips in Brazil, Andre Midani, a Syrian who had become a Brazilian national, had created an informal working group to help the company market its artists better. This dream team, which was coordinated by Midani and the composer Roberto Menescal, consisted of the market researcher Homero Icaza Sanchez, the writer Rubem Fonseca and the journalists Artur da Tavola, Dorrit Harazim, Nelson Motta, Luis Carlos Maciel, Joo Luis de Albuquerque and Zuenir Ventura. The group would meet once a week in a suite in some luxury hotel in Rio and spend a whole day there discussing the profile and work of a particular Philips artist. At the first meeting, they would simply talk among themselves, and then the following week, they would repeat the exercise with the artist present. Those taking part were paid wellZuenir Ventura describes how for each meeting he would receive 'four thousand or four million, I can't remember which, but I know that it was the equivalent of my monthly salary as a director of the Rio branch of the magazine Viso Viso'.

When it was time for Paulo and Raul to face the group, it was Raul who was in the grip of paranoia. He was sure he was being followed by plainclothes policemen and had taken on a bodyguard, the investigator Millen Yunes, from the Leblon police department, who, in his spare time, was to accompany the musician wherever he went. When Paulo told him that Menescal had invited them to be questioned by the select group of intellectuals, Raul declared: 'It's a trick on the part of the police! I bet you the police have infiltrated the group in order to record what we say. Tell Menescal we're not going.'

Paulo a.s.sured his partner that there was no danger, that he knew most of the partic.i.p.ants and that some were even people who were opposed to the dictators.h.i.+p; finally he promised that neither Midani nor Menescal would play such a trick. Since Raul refused to budge, Paulo went alone to the meeting, but because of Raul's concerns, he placed a tape recorder on the table so that he could give the tapes to his partner afterwards. Before the discussion began, someone asked Paulo to explain, in his own words, what exactly the Sociedade Alternativa was. From what he can remember more than three decades later, he hadn't taken any drugs or been smoking cannabis; however, to judge by what he said, which was all captured on tape, you would think he must have taken something: The Sociedade Alternativa reaches the political level, the social level, the social stratum of a people, you see? s.h.i.+t, it also reaches the intellectuals in a country whose people are coming down from a trip, who are being more demanding...So much so that there was a discussion in So Paulo about the magazine Planeta Planeta. I reckon Planeta Planeta is going to go bust in a year from now because everyone who reads is going to go bust in a year from now because everyone who reads Planeta Planeta is bound to think that is bound to think that Planeta Planeta is a stupid magazine, well, it failed in France, and so they invented is a stupid magazine, well, it failed in France, and so they invented Le Nouveau Planete Le Nouveau Planete, then Le Nouveau Nouveau Planete Le Nouveau Nouveau Planete, do you see what I mean? They ended up closing down the magazine. That's what's going to happen with all these people who are into mac.u.mba. No, no, no! I don't mean the proletariat, but what people call the middle cla.s.ses. The bourgeoisie who suddenly decided to take an interest, you know. Intellectually, like. Obviously there's another aspect to the question which is the aspect of faith, of you going there and making a promise, and getting some advantage, you know, things like that. Right, but in cultural terms there's going to be a change, right? And the change is going to come from abroad, just like it always does, do you see what I'm saying? And it's never going to be filtered through a Brazilian product called spiritualism. That's on the spiritual level, of course, because I think on the political level I've been clear enough.

Clarity was obviously not his strong point, but the working group seemed to be used to people like him. Paulo paused a second for breath, and then went on: So...there's going to be this filtering. In my opinion, it's not filtering, but no one's ever going to stop getting a buzz out of Satan, because it's a really fascinating subject. It's a taboo like...like virginity, do you understand? So, when everyone starts talking about Satan, even if you're afraid of the Devil and hate him, you really want to get into it, do you understand? Because it's aggression, State agression turned against itself, the aggression of repression, right? A series of things turn up inside this scheme and you start to get into it...It's not a trip that's going to last very long, it hasn't even happened yet, the Satan trip. But it's a phenomenon. It's the result of aggression, of the same thing as free love, of the s.e.xual taboo that the hippies opened up.[...] I haven't given, like, an overview of the Sociedade Alternativa. I've just noted a few things, but I wanted to give an overview of everything that we created, a general vision of the thing, right? Anyway, where does Raul Seixas fit in with all this? The Sociedade Alternativa serves Raul Seixas and he's not going to change his mind because we've spent two days talking about the Sociedade Alternativa and nothing but, right? The Sociedade Alternativa serves Raul Seixas in the sense that Raul Seixas is a catalyst for this type of movement, all right? It's been judged to be a myth. No one can explain what the Sociedade Alternativa is.Do you see what I mean?

'More or less,' the journalist Artur da Tavola replied. Since most of those present had understood none of this nonsense, the problem the group put to Paulo was a simple one: if this was the explanation he and Raul were going to give to the press, then they should prepare themselves to see the idea made mincemeat of by the media. Dorrit Harazim, who, at the time, was editor of the international section of the magazine Veja Veja, thought that if they wanted to convince the public that the Sociedade Alternativa was not merely a marketing strategy but some kind of mystical or political movement, then they would need far more objective arguments: 'First of all, you need to decide whether the Sociedade Alternativa is political or metaphysical. With the arguments you put to us, it will be very hard for you to explain to anyone what the Sociedade Alternativa actually is.'

This was the first time the working group had reached a unanimous decision about anything, and it fell to Artur da Tavola to remind them that they risked losing a gold mine: 'We need to be very careful because we're pointing out defects in a duo who sell hundreds of thousands of records. We mustn't forget that Raul and Paulo are already a runaway success.'

However, there was another matter bothering the group: Raul and Paulo's insistence on telling the press that they had seen flying saucers. They all believed that this was something that could affect the commercial standing of the duo, and they suggested that Paulo tell Raul to stop it. They had good reason to be concerned. Some months earlier, Raul had given a long interview to Pasquim Pasquim and, inevitably, he was pressed by the journalists to explain the Sociedade Alternativa and his sightings of flying saucers, giving him the chance to ramble on at will. He explained that it was a society that wasn't governed by any truth or any leader, but had arisen 'like a realization of a new tactic, of a new method'. As his reply was somewhat unclear, he made another attempt to explain what he meant: 'The Sociedade Alternativa is the fruit of the actual mechanism of the thing,' he went on, adding that it had already crossed frontiers. 'We're in constant correspondence with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who are also part of the Society.' With no one there to keep a check on him, Raul even made up facts about things that were public knowledge, such as his first meeting with Paulo. 'I met Paulo in Barra da Tijuca,' he told and, inevitably, he was pressed by the journalists to explain the Sociedade Alternativa and his sightings of flying saucers, giving him the chance to ramble on at will. He explained that it was a society that wasn't governed by any truth or any leader, but had arisen 'like a realization of a new tactic, of a new method'. As his reply was somewhat unclear, he made another attempt to explain what he meant: 'The Sociedade Alternativa is the fruit of the actual mechanism of the thing,' he went on, adding that it had already crossed frontiers. 'We're in constant correspondence with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who are also part of the Society.' With no one there to keep a check on him, Raul even made up facts about things that were public knowledge, such as his first meeting with Paulo. 'I met Paulo in Barra da Tijuca,' he told Pasquim Pasquim. 'At five in the afternoon, I was there meditating and he was too, but I didn't know him thenit was then that we saw the flying saucer.' One of the interviewers asked whether he could describe the supposed UFO and he said: 'It was sort of...silver, but with an orange aura round it. It just stood there, enormous it was. Paulo came running over to me, I didn't know him, but he said, "Can you see what I see?" We just sat there and the saucer zigzagged off and vanished.' It was statements like these that made the Philips work group fear that the duo risked exposing themselves to public ridicule.

When the session ended, Paulo took the recorded tapes to his partner. Since the working group's comments had not been exactly flattering, instead of telling Raul to his face what had happened, Paulo preferred to record another tape on arriving home, in which he gave Raul his version of the meeting: The working group's great fear is that the Sociedade Alternativa might work out and that you, Raullistening to this tapewon't be up to the challenge. They're afraid that the Sociedade Alternativa will grow and that when you go to give an interview on what the Sociedade Alternativa is...as Artur da Tavola said, you'll talk a lot but won't explain things. And the press will fall about laughing, will say it's a farce and your career will go up in smoke. What I mean is, Philips' main concern is that you're not up to it. The meeting was extremely tense. There's one point I really feel they won't budge on: your inability, Raul, to hold out. You'll hear that on the tape and I'm talking about it now because that's the impression I got.Another thing that came up was the problem of the flying saucer, with everyone saying that it's stupid. They said, for example, that every time you repeat the story about the flying saucer, the press will just laugh at you. I decided to stay quiet and not say whether it was true or false. But the working group reckon that the flying saucer story should gradually be abandoned. I didn't say as much, but I left it open at least to the working group that we might deny the story about the flying saucer.

Although the idea of the Sociedade Alternativa proved alluring enough to attract hundreds of thousands of record buyers and an unknown number of Devil-wors.h.i.+ppers from all over Brazil, time would prove the working group right. As time went on, the expression 'Sociedade Alternativa' would be remembered only as the chorus of a song from the 1970s.

Now, not long after his return from New York with his hand strapped up, and at the height of the success of Gita Gita (which had been released in their absence), Paulo was invited by Menescal to join the working group as a consultant, with the same pay as the other members, which meant an additional US$11,600 per month. Money was flooding in from all sides. When he received the first set of accounts from the recording company for initial sales of (which had been released in their absence), Paulo was invited by Menescal to join the working group as a consultant, with the same pay as the other members, which meant an additional US$11,600 per month. Money was flooding in from all sides. When he received the first set of accounts from the recording company for initial sales of Gita Gita, he wondered whether to invest the money in shares or to buy a summer house in Araruama, but finally decided upon an apartment in the busy Rua Barata Ribeiro, in Copacabana. At this time, Paulo also wrote three sets of lyrics'Carto Postal', 'Esse Tal de Roque Enrow' and 'O Toque'for the LP Fruto Proibido Fruto Proibido, that the singer Rita Lee released at the beginning of 1975, and he also produced film scripts for Maria do Rosario. In between, he acted in the p.o.r.n movie Tangarela Tangarela, a Tanga de Cristal a Tanga de Cristal. In December 1974, the recording company abandoned the working group, but then, at Menescal's suggestion, Andre Midani contracted Paulo Coelho to work as a company executive, managing the creative department.

His new financial and professional security did not, however, have the effect of comforting his tortured soul. Until May 1974, he had just about managed to live with his feelings of persecution and rejection, but following his imprisonment, these appeared to reach an unbearable level. Of the 600 pages of his diary written during the twelve months following his release, more than 400 deal with the fears resulting from that black week. In one notebook of 60 pages chosen at random, the word 'fear' is repeated 142 times, 'problem' 118 times, and there are dozens of instances of words such as 'solitude', 'despair', 'paranoia' and 'alienation'. He wrote at the bottom of one page, quoting Guimares Rosa: 'It is not fear, no. It's just that I've lost the will to have courage.' In May 1975, on the first anniversary of his release from the DOI-Codi, he paid for a ma.s.s of thanksgiving to be celebrated at the church of St Joseph, his protector.

Since leaving prison, the person who gave him the greatest sense of securitymore even than Dr Benjamim and even perhaps his fatherwas the lawyer Antonio Claudio Vieira, whom Paulo considered responsible for his release. As soon as he returned from the United States, he asked his father to make an appointment for him to thank Vieira for his help. When he arrived at the lawyer's luxurious apartment with its spectacular view of Flamengo, Paulo was completely bowled over by the lawyer's dark, pretty daughter, Eneida, who was a lawyer like her father and worked in his office. During that first meeting, the two merely flirted, but exactly forty-seven days later, Paulo proposed to Eneida, and she immediately accepted. According to the social values of the time, not only was he in a position to marry, but he was also a good prospectsomeone with enough money to maintain a wife and children. The new alb.u.m he had made with Raul, Novo Aeon Novo Aeon, had been released at the end of 1975. The two had written four of the thirteen tracks ('Rock do Diabo', 'Caminhos I', 'Tu es o MDC da Minha Vida' and 'A Verdade sobre a Nostalgia'). The record also revealed Raul's continued involvement with the satanists of the OTO: the ill-mannered Marcelo Motta had written the lyrics of no fewer than five of the tracks ('Tente Outra Vez', 'A Mac', 'Eu Sou Egoista', 'PeixuxaO Amiguinho dos Peixes' and 'Novo Aeon'). Although Raul and his followers considered the record a masterpiece, Novo Aeon Novo Aeon was not a patch on the previous alb.u.ms, and sold only a little over forty thousand copies. was not a patch on the previous alb.u.ms, and sold only a little over forty thousand copies.

Paulo clearly had enough money to start a family, but asking for the girl's hand so quickly could only be explained by a burning pa.s.sion, which, however, was not the case. As far as Paulo was concerned, he had not only found a woman he could finally marry and 'settle down' withas he had been promising himself he would do since leaving prisonbut he would also have the guarantor of his emotional security, Antonio Claudio Vieira, as his father-in-law. On the evening of 16 June 1975, after smoking a joint, Paulo decided that it was time to resolve the matter. He called Eneida, asking her to tell her parents that he was going to formalize his offer of marriage: 'I just need time to go home and pick up my parents. Then we'll come straight over.'

His parents were fast asleep, but were hauled out of their beds by their crazy son who had suddenly decided to become engaged. Whether it was the effects of the cannabis, or whether it was because he had never before played such a role, the fact is that when it came to speaking to his future father-in-law, Paulo's mouth went dry, and he choked and stammered and was unable to say a single word.

Vieira saved the situation by saying: 'We all know what you want to say. You're asking for Eneida's hand in marriage, aren't you? If so, the answer is "Yes".'

As they all toasted the engagement with champagne, Paulo produced a beautiful diamond ring that he had bought for his future wife. The following day, Eneida reciprocated Paulo's present by sending to his house an Olivetti electric typewriter, which the author continued to use until 1992, when he changed to working on a computer.

Not even three weeks had pa.s.sed before his diary began to reveal that the engagement had perhaps been over-hasty: 'I have serious problems with my relations.h.i.+p with Eneida. I chose her for the security and emotional stability that she would give me. I chose her because I was looking for a counter-balance to my naturally unbalanced temperament. Now I understand the price I have to pay for this: castration. Castration in my behaviour, castration in my conversation, castration in my madness. I can't take it.'

To go back on his word and break off the engagement did not even enter his head, because it would mean not only losing the lawyer but gaining an enemythe mere thought of which made his blood run cold. But Paulo realized that Eneida was also getting fed up with his strange habits. She didn't mind if he continued to smoke cannabis, but she didn't want to use it herself, and Paulo was constantly at her to do just that. As for his 's.e.xual propositions', she made it quite clear: he could forget any ideas of having a menage a trois menage a trois. Eneida was not prepared to allow his girlfriends to share their bed. A split was, therefore, inevitable. When the engagement was only forty days old Paulo recorded in his diary that it had all come to an end: Eneida simply left me. It's been very difficult, really very difficult. I chose her as a wife and companion, but she couldn't hack it and suddenly disappeared from my life. I've tried desperately to get in touch with her mother, but both her parents have disappeared as well. I'm afraid that she has told her parents about my Castaneda-like ideas and my s.e.xual propositions. I know that she told them about those. The break-up was really hard for me, much harder than I had imagined. My mother and father are going to be very shocked when they hear. And it's going to be difficult for them to accept another woman in the way they accepted my ex-fiancee. I know that, but what can I do? Go off again and immediately start looking for another companion.

The companion on whom he had his eye was a trainee, Cecilia Mac Dowell, who was working on the press team at Philips. But before declaring himself to Cissa, as she was known, Paulo had a lightning romance with Elisabeth Romero, who was also a journalist and had interviewed him for a music magazine. They started going out together, and the affair took off. Beth rode a large Kawasaki 900 motorbike, and Paulo took to riding pillion. Although the affair was short-lived, it allowed Beth to witness an episode which Paulo was to describe dozens, if not hundreds of times in interviews publish