A Warrior's Life Part 2

Papa,Have you sent my leaflets to be printed? And how is the new house going? When are we going to move in?I'm counting on your presence here the next time you come.Love, Paulo Coelho As time went by, letter-writing became a regular thing for him. He would write to his parents, uncles and aunts, grandparents and friends. If he had no one to write to, he would simply jot down his ideas on small pieces of paper and then hide his scribbled thoughts in a secret place away from prying eyes. When he was about twelve he bought a pocket diary in which he began to make daily entries. He would always write in ink, in a slightly wobbly hand, but with few grammatical errors. He began by recording typical adolescent tasks'tidy my desk', 'Fred's birthday' and 'send a telegram to Grandpa Cazuza'and gradually he also began to record things he had done, seen or merely thought. Sometimes these were short notes to himself, such as 'swap s. with Zeca', 'papa: equations' and 'do part E of the plan'. This was also the first time he sketched a self-portrait: I was born on 24 August 1947 in the So Jose Hospital. I have lived on this estate since I was small. I have attended three schools and in all three I was regarded as a prince because of the way I dressed. I've always had good marks in all the schools I've been to.I really like studying, but I also like playing. I've never been interested in opera or romantic music. I hate rock-and-roll, but I really like popular Brazilian music. I only like carnival when I'm taken to fancy-dress b.a.l.l.s.I really like adventures, but I'm scared of dangerous things [...] I've had several girlfriends already. I love sport. I want to be a chemist when I grow up because I like working with flasks and medicines. I love the cinema, fis.h.i.+ng and making model aeroplanes.I like reading comics and doing crosswords. I hate picnics and outings or anything that's boring.

This regular exercise of writing about himself or things that happened during the day attracted him so much that he began to record everythingeither in a diary kept in a spiral notebook or by dictating into a ca.s.sette recorder and keeping the tapes. Later, with the arrival of computers he put together the entire set of records covering the four decades of confessions that he had acc.u.mulated up until then and stored them in a trunk, which he padlocked. In those 170 handwritten notebooks and 94 ca.s.settes lay hidden the minutiae of his life and soul from 1959, when he was twelve years old, up to 1995, when he was forty-eight and began to write directly on to a computer. He was famous by then, and had stated in his will that immediately following his death, the trunk and its entire contents should be burned. However, for reasons that will be explained later, he changed his mind and allowed the writer of this biography free access to this material. Diaries are records produced almost simultaneously with the emotion or action described, and are often cathartic exercises for the person writing them. This is clear from Coelho's diaries, where he often speaks of the more perverse sides of his personality, often to the detriment of his more generous and sensitive side.

The diary gave the author the freedom to fantasize at will. Contrary to what he wrote in the self-portrait quoted above, Coelho rarely dressed smartly, he loathed studying just as he loathed sport and his love life was not always happy. According to his diary, his cousin Cecilia, his neighbour Monica, who lived on the estate, Dede, with whom he shared his first kiss in Araruama, and Ana Maria, or Tata, a pretty dark-haired girl with braces, were all girlfriends. Young love is often a troubling business, and the appearance of the last of these girls in his life was the subject of dramatically embroidered reports. 'For the first time, I cried because of a woman,' he wrote. At night, unable to sleep, he saw himself as a character in a tragedy: as he cycled past his lover's house, he was run over by a car and fell to the ground covered in blood. Somehow, Tata was there at his side and knelt sobbing beside his body in time to hear him utter his last words: 'This is my blood. It was shed for you. Remember me...'

Although the relations.h.i.+p was purely platonic, Tata's parents took an immediate dislike to Coelho. Forbidden to continue her relations.h.i.+p with that 'strange boy', she nevertheless stood up to her family. She told Paulo that her mother had even hit her, but still she wouldn't give him up. However, when he was holidaying in Araruama, he received a two-line note from Chico, a friend who lived on the estate: 'Tata has told me to tell you it's all over. She's in love with someone else.' It was as though the walls in Uncle Jose's house had fallen in on him. It wasn't just the loss of his girlfriend but the loss of face before his friends for having been so betrayed, cuckolded by a woman. He could take anything but that. He therefore invented an extraordinary story, which he described in a letter to his friend the following day. Chico was told to tell everyone that he had lied about his relations.h.i.+p with Tata he had never actually felt anything for her, but as a secret agent of the CICthe Central Intelligence Center, a US spy agencyhe had received instructions to draw up a dossier on her. This was the only reason he had got close to her. A week later, after receiving a second letter from Chico, he noted in his diary: 'He believed my story, but from now on, I have a whole string of lies to live up to. Appearances have been saved, but my heart is aching.'

Lygia and Pedro also had aching hearts, although not because of love. The first months their son had spent at St Ignatius had been disastrous. The days when he brought back his monthly grades were a nightmare. While his sister, Sonia Maria, was getting top marks at her school, Paulo's marks got steadily worse. With only rare exceptionsusually in unimportant subjects such as choral singing or craftworkhe hardly ever achieved the necessary average of 5 if he was to stay on at the school. It was only when he was forced to study for hours on end at home and given extra tuition in various subjects that he managed to complete the first year, but even then his average was only a poor 6.3. In the second year, things deteriorated still further. He continued to get high marks in choral singing, but couldn't achieve even the minimum average grade in the subjects that matteredmaths, Portuguese, history, geography, Latin and English. However, his parents were sure that the iron hand of the Jesuits would bring their essentially good-natured son back to the straight and narrow.

As time went by, he became more and more timid, retiring and insecure. He began to lose interest even in the favourite sport of his schoolmates, which was to stand at the gates of the Colegio Jacobina, where his sister was a pupil, to watch the girls coming out. This was a delight they would all remember for the rest of their lives, as the author and scriptwriter Ricardo Hofstetter, who was also a pupil at the Jesuit college, was to recall: It was pure magic to walk those two or three blocks to see them coming out. I still have the image in my mind: the girls' slim, exquisite legs, half on view, half hidden by their pleated skirts. They came out in groups, groups of legs and pleated skirts that the wind would make even more exciting. Anyone who experienced this knows that there was nothing more sublime in the world, although I never went out with a girl at the Jacobina.

Nor did Paulo, not at the Jacobina or anywhere else. Apart from innocent flirtations and notes exchanged with the girls on the estate or in Araruama, he reached young adulthood without ever having had a real girlfriend. When his friends got together to brag about their conquestsnever anything more than holding hands or a quick kiss or a squeezehe was the only one who had no adventure to talk of. Fate had not made him handsome. His head was too big for his skinny body and his shoulders narrow. He had fleshy lips, like his father's, and his nose, too, seemed overlarge for the face of a boy of his age.

He became more solitary with each day that pa.s.sed and buried himself in booksnot those the Jesuits had them read at school, which he loathed, but adventure stories and novels. However, while he may have become a voracious reader, this still did not improve his performance at school. At the end of every year, in the public prize-giving ceremonies, he had become used to seeing his colleaguessome of whom went on to become leading figures in Brazilian public lifereceiving diplomas and medals, while he was never once called to go up to the dais. He only narrowly avoided being kept down a year and thus forced to find another school, since at St Ignatius, staying down was synonymous with being thrown out.

While their son proved himself to be a resounding failure, his parents at least lived in hope that he would become a good Christian and, indeed, he appeared to be well on the way to this. While averse to study, he felt comfortable in the heavily religious atmosphere of the college. He would don his best clothes and happily attend the obligatory Sunday ma.s.s, which was celebrated entirely in Latin, and he became familiar with the mysterious rituals such as covering the images of the saints during Lent with purple cloths. Even the dark underground catacombs where the mortal remains of the Jesuits lay aroused his curiosity, although he never had the courage to visit them.

His parents' hopes were re-awakened during his fourth year, when he decided to go on a retreat held by the school. These retreats lasted three or four days, and took place during the week so that they would not seem like a holiday camp or mere recreation. They were always held at the Padre Anchieta Retreat House, or the Casa da Gavea, as it was knowna country house high up in the then remote district of So Conrado, 15 kilometres from the centre of Rio. Built in 1935 and surrounded by woods, it was a large three-storey building with thirty blue-framed windows in the front. These were the windows of the bedrooms where the guests stayed, each with a magnificent view of the deserted beach of So Conrado. The Jesuits never tired of repeating that the silence in the house was so complete that at any hour of the day or night and in any corner of the building you could hear the waves breaking on the beach below.

It was on a hot October morning in 1962 that Paulo left for his encounter with G.o.d. In a small suitcase packed by his mother, he took, as well as his clothes and personal belongings, his new, inseparable companions: a notebook and a fountain pen with which to make the notes that were more and more taking on the form of a diary. At eight in the morning, all the boys were standing in the college courtyard and as they waited for the bus to take them to the retreat house, Coelho was suddenly filled with courage. With two friends he went into the chapel in the dark, and walked round the altar and down the stairs towards the catacombs. Lit only by candles, the crypt, which was full of coffins, looked even gloomier. To his surprise, though, instead of being filled with terror, as he had always imagined he would be, he had an indescribable feeling of wellbeing. He seemed inspired to search for an explanation for his unexpected bravery. 'Perhaps I wasn't seeing death in all its terror,' he wrote in his notebook, 'but the eternal rest of those who had lived and suffered for Jesus.'

Half an hour later, they were all at the Casa da Gavea. During the days that followed, Paulo shared with another young boy a bare cubicle provided with two beds, a wardrobe, a table, two chairs and a little altar attached to the wall. In a corner was a china wash basin and above it a mirror. Once they had unpacked, both boys went down to the refectory, where they were given tea and biscuits. The spiritual guide for the group was Father Joo Batista Ruffier, who announced the rules of the retreat, the first of which would come into force in the next ten minutes: a vow of silence. From then on, until they left at the end of the retreat, no one was allowed to say a single word. Father Ruffier, who was a stickler for the rules, was about to give one of his famous sermons, one that would remain in the memory of generations of those who attended St Ignatius.

'You are here like machines going into the workshop for a service. You can expect to be taken apart piece by piece. Don't be afraid of the amount of dirt that will come out. The most important thing is that you put back each piece in its right place with total honesty.'

The sermon lasted almost an hour, but it was those opening words that went round and round in Paulo's head all afternoon, as he walked alone in the woods surrounding the house. That night he wrote in his diary, 'I have reviewed all my thoughts of the last few days and I'm ready to put things right.' He said a Hail Mary and an Our Father, and fell asleep.

Although Father Ruffier had made it clear what the retreat was for'Here you will drive away the temptations of life and consecrate yourselves to meditation and prayer'not everyone was there for Christian reflection. Everyone knew that once dinner was over and after the final prayer of the day had been said, shadows would creep along the dark corridors of the house to meet secretly in small groups for whispered games of poker and pontoon. If one of the boys had managed to smuggle in a transistor radiosomething that was expressly forbiddensomeone would immediately suggest placing a bet on the races at the Jockey Club. From midnight to dawn the religious atmosphere was profaned by betting, smoking and even drinking contraband whisky concealed in shampoo bottles. Whenever a light in a cubicle warned of suspicious activities, one of the more attentive priests would immediately turn off the electricity. This, however, didn't always resolve the problem, since the heretical game would continue in the light from candles purloined from the chapel during the day.

On the second day, Paulo woke at five in the morning, his mind confused, although his spirits improved a little when he opened the bedroom window and saw the sun coming up over the sea. At six on the dot, still not having eaten, he met his colleagues in the chapel for the daily ma.s.s, prepared to put things right with G.o.d and do something he had been putting off for almost a year: taking communion. The problem was not communion itself but the horror of confession, with which all the boys were familiar. They would arrive at the confessional prepared to reveal only the most ba.n.a.l of sins, but they knew that, in the end, the priest would always ask the inevitable question: 'Have you sinned against chast.i.ty, my son?' Should the reply be in the affirmative, the questions that followed were more probing: 'Alone or with someone else?' If it was with someone else, the priest would continue, to the mortification of the more timid boys: 'With a person or an animal?' If the response was 'with a person', the sinner was not required to reveal the name of the partner, only the s.e.x: 'With a boy or with a girl?'

Paulo found this an extremely difficult topic to deal with and he didn't understand how it could be a sin. He was so convinced that masturbation was not a shameful activity that he wrote in his notebook: 'No one on this earth can throw the first stone at me, because no one has avoided this temptation.' In spite of this, he had never had the courage to confess to a priest that he m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed, and living in a permanent state of sin troubled him deeply. With his soul divided, he preferred merely to say the act of contrition and to receive communion without going to confession.

Following ma.s.s, Father Ruffier returned to the charge with a particularly harsh sermon. Before a terrified audience, he painted a terrifying picture of the place intended for all sinners: 'We are in h.e.l.l! The fire is burning mercilessly! Here one sees only tears and hears only the grinding of teeth in mutual loathing. I come across a colleague and curse him for being the cause of my condemnation. And while we weep in pain and remorse, the Devil smiles a smile that makes our suffering still greater. But the worst punishment, the worst pain, the worst suffering is that we have no hope. We are here for ever.'

Paulo was in no doubt: Father Ruffier was talking about him. After twelve months without going to confessionso as not to have to touch on the taboo subject of masturbationhe realized that if he were to die suddenly, his final destiny would be h.e.l.l. He imagined the Devil looking into his eyes and snickering: 'My dear boy, your suffering hasn't even begun yet.' He felt helpless, powerless and confused. He had no one to turn to, but he knew that a Jesuit retreat was a place of certainties, not of doubts. Faced with a choice between suffering in the flames for all eternity as described by the priest and giving up his solitary pleasure, he chose faith. Deeply moved and kneeling alone on the stone floor of the mirador, he turned to G.o.d and made a solemn promise never to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e again.

His decision gave him courage and calmed him, but that feeling of calm was short-lived. The following day, the Devil counter-attacked with such force that he could not resist the temptation and, defeated, he m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed. He left the bathroom as though his hands were covered in blood, knelt in front of the altar and implored: 'Lord! I want to change, but I can't stop myself! I've said endless acts of contrition, but I can't stop sinning. I sin in thought, word and deed. Give me strength! Please! Please! Please!' Full of despair, he only felt relief when, in a whispered conversation in the woods, he found that he had a companion in eternal suffering: a fellow pupil who had also been masturbating during the retreat.

Ashamed of his own weakness, Paulo was subjected to two more sermons from Father Ruffier, which seemed to have been chosen especially to instil fear into the minds of the boys. Once again, the priest deployed dramatic and terrifying images, this time to alert the boys to the perils of clinging on to material values. From the pulpit Father Ruffier gesticulated like an actor, shaking his short, muscular arms and saying: 'Truly, truly I say unto you, my children: the time will come when we shall all be laid low. Imagine yourselves dying. In the hospital room, your relatives white with fear. The bedside table is crammed with different medicines, all useless now. It is then that you see how powerless you are. You humbly recognize that you are powerless. What good will fame, money, cars, luxuries be at the fatal hour? What use are those things if your death lies in the hands of the Creator?' With his fists clenched, and as though possessed by divine fury, he declared vehemently: 'We must give up everything, my sons! We must give up everything!'

These words should not be confused with an exhortation to embrace socialism or anything of the sort. Not only were the sons of some of the wealthiest families in Rio de Janeiro in the congregation, but the college was politically conservative and was always showing films of executions by firing squads in Fidel Castro's Cuba in order to show the boys 'the bloodthirsty nature of communism'. And Father Ruffier himself was proud of the fact that he had had to leave Colombia in a hurry 'to flee communism' (he was referring to the popular uprising in Bogota in 1948, known as the Bogotazo).

While the boys stared at each other in astonishment, the priest spoke again. The subject was, once again, h.e.l.l. Just in case he had not made himself clear in the first part of his sermon, he once more described the eternal state of suffering to which sinners would be condemned: 'h.e.l.l is like the sea that is there before us. Imagine a swallow coming along every hundred years and taking a drop of water each time. That swallow is you and that is your penance. You will suffer for millions and millions of years, but one day the sea will be empty. And you will say: at last, it's over and I can rest in peace.' He paused, then concluded: 'But then the Creator will smile from the heights and will say: "That was just the beginning. Now you will see other seas and that is how it will be for all eternity. The swallow empties the sea and I fill it up again."'

Paulo spent the rest of the day with these words echoing in his head. He went into the woods that surrounded the retreat house and tried to distract himself with the beauty of the view, but Father Ruffier's words only resonated inside him more loudly. That night, he set down his thoughts before finally falling asleep, and the notes he made appear to demonstrate the efficacy of the spiritual retreat.

Here, I've completely forgotten the world. I've forgotten that I'm going to fail maths, I've forgotten that Botafogo is top of the league and I've forgotten that I'm going to spend next week on the island of Itaipu. But I feel that with every moment spent forgetting, I'm learning to understand the world better. I'm going back to a world that I didn't understand before and which I hated, but which the retreat has taught me to love and understand. I've learnt here to see the beauty that lies in a piece of gra.s.s and in a stone. In short, I've learnt how to live.

Most important was the fact that he returned home certain that he had acquired the virtue whichthrough all the highs and lows of his lifewould prove to be the connecting thread: faith. Even his parents, who appeared to have lost all hope of getting him back on the straight and narrow, were thrilled with the new Paulo. 'We're very happy to see that you finally appear to have got back on the right track,' Lygia declared when he returned. Her son's conversion had been all that was missing to complete domestic bliss, for a few months earlier, the family had finally moved into the large pink house built by Pedro Coelho with his own hands.

In fact, the move to Gavea happened before the building was completed, which meant that they still had to live for some time among tins of paint, sinks and baths piled up in corners. However, the house astonished everyone, with its dining room, sitting room and drawing room, its ensuite bathrooms in every bedroom, its marble staircase and its verandah. There was also an inner courtyard so large that Paulo later thought of using it as a rehearsal s.p.a.ce for his plays. The move was a shock to Paulo. Moving from the estate in Botafogo, where he was born and where he was the unchallenged leader, to Gavea, which, at the time, was a vast wasteland with few houses and buildings, was a painful business. The change of district did nothing to lessen his parents' earlier fears, or, rather, his father's, and, obsessively preoccupied with the harm that the 'outside world' might do to his son's character and education, Pedro thought it best to ban him from going out at night. Suddenly, Paulo no longer had any friends and his life was reduced to three activities: sleeping, going to cla.s.ses at St Ignatius and reading at home.

Reading was nothing new. He had even managed to introduce a clause concerning books in the Arco statutes, stating that, 'besides other activities, every day must include some recreational reading'. He had begun reading the children's cla.s.sics that Brazilian parents liked to give their children; then he moved on to Conan Doyle and had soon read all of Sherlock Holmes. When he was told to read the annotated edition of The Slum The Slum by Aluisio Azevedo at school, he began by ridiculing it: 'I'm not enjoying the book. I don't know why Aluisio Azevedo brings s.e.x into it so much.' Some chapters later, however, he radically changed his mind and praised the work highly: 'At last I'm beginning to understand the book: life without ideals, full of betrayal and remorse. The lesson I took from it is that life is long and disappointing. by Aluisio Azevedo at school, he began by ridiculing it: 'I'm not enjoying the book. I don't know why Aluisio Azevedo brings s.e.x into it so much.' Some chapters later, however, he radically changed his mind and praised the work highly: 'At last I'm beginning to understand the book: life without ideals, full of betrayal and remorse. The lesson I took from it is that life is long and disappointing. The Slum The Slum is a sublime book. It makes us think of the sufferings of others.' What had initially been a scholastic exercise had become a pleasure. From then on, he wrote reviews of all the books he read. His reports might be short and sharp, such as 'weak plot' when writing about is a sublime book. It makes us think of the sufferings of others.' What had initially been a scholastic exercise had become a pleasure. From then on, he wrote reviews of all the books he read. His reports might be short and sharp, such as 'weak plot' when writing about Aimez-vous Brahms? Aimez-vous Brahms? by Francoise Sagan, or, in the case of by Francoise Sagan, or, in the case of Vuzz Vuzz by P.A. Hourey, endless paragraphs saying how magnificent it was. by P.A. Hourey, endless paragraphs saying how magnificent it was.

He read anything and everything, from Michel Quoist's lyrical poems to Jean-Paul Sartre. He would read best-sellers by Leon Uris, Ellery Queen's detective stories and pseudo-scientific works such as O Homem no Cosmos O Homem no Cosmos by Helio Jaguaribe, which he cla.s.sed in his notes as 'pure, poorly disguised red propaganda'. Such condensed reviews give the impression that he read with one eye on the aesthetic and the other on good behaviour. Remarks such as 'His poetry contains the more degrading and entirely unnecessary aspects of human morality' (on by Helio Jaguaribe, which he cla.s.sed in his notes as 'pure, poorly disguised red propaganda'. Such condensed reviews give the impression that he read with one eye on the aesthetic and the other on good behaviour. Remarks such as 'His poetry contains the more degrading and entirely unnecessary aspects of human morality' (on Para Viver um Grande Amor Para Viver um Grande Amor by Vinicius de Moraes) or 'Brazilians aren't yet ready for this kind of book' (referring to the play by Vinicius de Moraes) or 'Brazilians aren't yet ready for this kind of book' (referring to the play Bonitinha, mas Ordinaria Bonitinha, mas Ordinaria by Nelson Rodrigues) were frequent in his listings. He had even more to say on Nelson Rodrigues: 'It's said that he's a slave to the public, but I don't agree. He was born for this type of literature, and it's not the people who are making him write it.' by Nelson Rodrigues) were frequent in his listings. He had even more to say on Nelson Rodrigues: 'It's said that he's a slave to the public, but I don't agree. He was born for this type of literature, and it's not the people who are making him write it.'

Politically his reactions were no less full of preconceptions. When he saw the film Seara Vermelha Seara Vermelha, which was based on the book of the same name by Jorge Amado, he regretted that it was a work that was 'clearly communist in outlook, showing man's exploitation of man'. He was pleasantly surprised, however, when he read Amado's best-seller Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon; indeed, he was positively intoxicated: 'It's so natural...There's not a trace of communism in its pages. I really liked it.' He felt that Manuel Bandeira was the greatest Brazilian poet ('because he leaves aside unhealthy aspects of life, and because of his simple, economical style'); he loathed Joo Cabral de Melo Neto ('I read some of his verses and I shut the book immediately'); and he confessed that he didn't understand Carlos Drummond de Andrade ('He has a confused, abstract style, which makes it hard to interpret his poetry').

It was apparently at this time, when he was thirteen or fourteen, that Paulo showed the first signs of an undying idee fixe idee fixe, a real obsession that he would never loseto be a writer. Almost half a century later, as one of the most widely read authors of all time, he wrote in The Zahir The Zahir: I write because when I was an adolescent, I was useless at football, I didn't have a car or much of an allowance, and I was pretty much of a weed...I didn't wear trendy clothes either. That's all the girls in my cla.s.s were interested in, and so they just ignored me. At night, when my friends were out with their girlfriends, I spent my free time creating a world in which I could be happy: my companions were writers and their books.

In fact, he saw himself as a writer well before he said as much. Besides being the winner of the writing compet.i.tion at Our Lady Victorious, from the time he could read he had become a full-time poet. He would write short verses and poems for his parents, grandparents, friends, cousins, girlfriends and even the saints revered by his family. Compositions such as 'Our Lady, on this febrile adolescent night/I offer you my pure childhood/That the fire is now devouring/And transforming into smoke so that it may rise up to you/And may the fire also free me from the past', which was inspired by the Virgin Mary; or four-line verses written for his parents: 'If the greatest good in the world/Is given to those who are parents/Then it is also a certain truth/That it is they who suffer most.' If there was no one to whom he could dedicate his verses, he would write to himself: 'The past is over/And the future has not yet arrived/I wander through the impossible present/Full of love, ideals and unbelief/As if I were simply/Pa.s.sing through life.'

When, at a later age, he grew to know more about books and libraries, he came across a quote attributed to emile Zola, in which the author of J'Accuse J'Accuse said something along the lines of 'My poetic muse has turned out to be a very dull creature; from now on, I shall write prose'. Whether or not these words were true of Zola, Paulo believed that the words were written precisely for him. He wrote in his diary: 'Today I ended my poetic phase in order to devote myself solely to the theatre and the novel.' He made a bonfire in the garden of everything he had written up to thenvast quant.i.ties of poems, sonnets and verses. said something along the lines of 'My poetic muse has turned out to be a very dull creature; from now on, I shall write prose'. Whether or not these words were true of Zola, Paulo believed that the words were written precisely for him. He wrote in his diary: 'Today I ended my poetic phase in order to devote myself solely to the theatre and the novel.' He made a bonfire in the garden of everything he had written up to thenvast quant.i.ties of poems, sonnets and verses.

Such a promise, if meant seriously, would have been a proof of great ingrat.i.tude to the art of verse, for it was a poem he wrote'Mulher de Treze Anos' ['Thirteen-year-old Woman']that rescued him from anonymity among the 1,200 students at St Ignatius. One of the Jesuit traditions was the Academy of Letters of St Ignatius (ALSI), which had been created in 1941 and was responsible for cultural development of the students. Great names in Brazilian culture attended the events held by the ALSI. At the age of fourteen, Paulo appeared for the first time in the pages of the magazine Vitoria Colegial Vitoria Colegial, the official publication of the ALSI, with a small text ent.i.tled 'Why I Like Books'. It was an unequivocal defence of writers, whom he portrayed dramatically as people who spent sleepless nights, 'without eating, exploited by publishers', only to die forgotten: What does a book represent? A book represents an unequalled wealth of culture. It is the book that opens windows on to the world for us. Through a book we experience the great adventures of Don Quixote and Tarzan as though we ourselves were the characters; we laugh at the hilarious tales of Don Camilo, we suffer as the characters in other great works of world literature suffer. For this reason, I like to read books in my free time. Through books we prepare ourselves for the future. We learn, just by reading them, theories that meant sacrifice and even death for those who discovered them. Every didactic book is a step in the direction of the country's glorious horizon. This is why I like books when I'm studying. But what did it take for that book to arrive in our hands? Great sacrifice on the part of the author, whole nights spent starving and forgotten, their room sometimes lit only by the spluttering flame of a candle. And then, exploited by their publishers, they died forgotten, unjustly forgotten. What willpower on the part of others was needed for them to achieve a little fame! This is why I like books.

Months later, the ALSI announced the date for entries for its traditional annual poetry prize. Paulo had just seen the Franco-Italian film Two Women Two Women, directed by Vittorio de Sica, and left the cinema inspired. Based on the novel La Ciociara La Ciociara, by Alberto Moravia, the film tells the story of Cesira (Sophia Loren) and her thirteen-year-old daughter Rosetta (Eleanora Brown), both of whom have been raped by Allied soldiers during the Second World War. Paulo based his poem 'Thirteen-year-old Woman' on the character of Rosetta, and it was that poem which he then entered for the compet.i.tion.

The day the poems were to be judged was one of endless agony. Paulo could think of nothing else. That evening, before the meeting when the three prize-winners were to be announced, he overcame his shyness and asked a member of the jury, a Portuguese teacher, whom he had voted for. He blushed at the response: 'I voted for you, atila and Chame.'

Twenty poems were selected for the final. Paulo knew at least one of the chosen poems, 'Introduce', by Jose atila Ramos, which, in his opinion, was the favourite. If his friend won, that would be fine, and if he himself managed at least third place, that would be wonderful. At nine in the evening, the auditorium was full of nervous boys soliciting votes and calculating their chances of winning. There was total silence as the jury, comprising two teachers and a pupil, began to announce in ascending order the three winners. When he heard that in third place was 'Serpentina and Columbina' and in second 'Introduce', he felt sure he hadn't been placed at all. So he almost fell off his chair when it was announced: 'The winner, by unanimous vote, is the poem..."Thirteen-year-old Woman", by Paulo Coelho de Souza!'

First place! He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Heart pounding and legs shaking, the slight young boy crossed the room and stepped up on to the stage to receive the certificate and the prize, a cheque for 1,000 cruzeirosabout US$47. Once the ceremony was over, he was one of the first to leave the college, desperate to go straight home and for once give his parents some good news. On the tram on the way back to Gavea, he began to choose his words and work out the best way to tell his father that he had discovered his one and only vocationto be a writer.

He was therefore somewhat surprised on reaching the house to find his father standing outside on the pavement, angrily tapping his watch and saying: 'It's almost eleven o'clock and you know perfectly well that in this house the doors are closed at ten, no argument.'

This time, though, Paulo had up his sleeve a trump card that would surely move his father's cold heart. Smiling, he brandished the trophy he had just wonthe cheque for 1,000 cruzeirosand told his father everything: the prize, the unanimous vote, the dozens of contestants, the discovery of his vocation.

But even this failed to win over his grim father. Apparently ignoring everything his son had said, Pedro poured cold water on the boy's excitement, saying: 'I'd prefer it if you got good marks at school and didn't come home so late.'

The thought that at least his mother would be thrilled by his win was dispelled in an instant. When he saw her waiting at the front door, he told her, eyes s.h.i.+ning, what he had just told his father. To her son's dismay, Lygia quietly gave him the same lecture: 'My boy, there's no point dreaming about becoming a writer. It's wonderful that you write all these things, but life is different. Just think: Brazil is a country of seventy million inhabitants, it has thousands of writers, but Jorge Amado is the only one who can make a living by writing. And there's only one Jorge Amado.'

Desperately unhappy, depressed and close to tears, Paulo did not get to sleep until dawn. He wrote just one line in his diary: 'Mama is stupid. Papa is a fool.' When he woke, he had no doubt that his family was determined to bury for ever what he dramatically called 'my only reason for living'being a writer. For the first time, he seemed to recognize that he was prepared to pay dearly to realize his dream, even if this meant clas.h.i.+ng with his parents. Lygia and Pedro Queima Coelho were not going to have long to wait.

CHAPTER 4.

First play, first love.

AT THE END OF 1962, at his father's insistence, Paulo was forced to enrol in the science stream rather than the arts as he had hoped. His scholastic performance in the fourth year had been disastrous, and he had finished the year having to re-sit maths, the subject at which his father so excelled. In the end, he pa.s.sed with a 5not a decimal point more than the mark required to move on to the next year and remain at St Ignatius. In spite of this and Paulo's declared intention to study the arts, his parents insisted that he study engineering and, following his appalling scholastic performance, he was in no position to insist. 1962, at his father's insistence, Paulo was forced to enrol in the science stream rather than the arts as he had hoped. His scholastic performance in the fourth year had been disastrous, and he had finished the year having to re-sit maths, the subject at which his father so excelled. In the end, he pa.s.sed with a 5not a decimal point more than the mark required to move on to the next year and remain at St Ignatius. In spite of this and Paulo's declared intention to study the arts, his parents insisted that he study engineering and, following his appalling scholastic performance, he was in no position to insist.

However, from his point of view, the practical Pedro Coelho had reasons for hoping that his son might yet be saved and become an engineer. These hopes lay not only in the interest Paulo had shown in his grandfather's success as a mechanicprofessional and amateur. As a boy, Paulo had frequently asked his parents to buy him copies of the magazine Mecanica Popular Mecanica Popular, a publication dating from the 1950s that taught readers how to do everything from fixing floor polishers to building boats and houses. When he was ten or eleven he was so pa.s.sionate about aeroplane modelling that any father would have seen in this a promising future as an aeronautical engineer. The difference was that, while lots of children play with model aeroplanes, Paulo set up the Clube Sunday, of which he and his cousin Fred, who lived in Belem, were sole members. Since a distance of 3,000 kilometres separated them and their aeroplanes, the club's activities ended up being a chronological list of the models each had acquired. At the end of each month, Paulo would record all this information in a notebookthe names and characteristics of the small planes they had acquired, the serial number, wing span, date and place of purchase, general construction expenses, the date, place and reason for the loss of the plane whenever this occurred. Not one of these pieces of information served any purpose, but 'It was best to keep things organized,' Paulo said. When the glider Chiquita smashed into a wall in Gavea, it was thought worthy of special mention: 'It only flew once, but since it was destroyed heroically, I award this plane the Combat Cross. Paulo Coelho de Souza, Director.'

This fascination for model aeroplanes rapidly disappeared, but it gave way to another mania, even more auspicious for anyone wanting his son to be an engineer: making rockets. For some months Paulo and Renato Dias, a cla.s.smate at St Ignatius, spent all their spare time on this new activity. No one can say how or when it begannot even Paulo can rememberbut the two spent any free time during the week in the National Library reading books about such matters as 'explosive propulsion', 'solid fuels' and 'metallic combustibles'. On Sundays and holidays, the small square in front of the Coelho house became a launch pad. As was almost always the case with Paulo, everything had to be set down on paper first. In his usual meticulous way, he started a small notebook ent.i.tled 'AstronauticsActivities to be Completed by the Programme for the Construction of s.p.a.ce Rockets'. Timetables stated the time taken on research in books, the specifications of materials used in the construction and the type of fuel. On the day of the launch, he produced a typewritten doc.u.ment with blank s.p.a.ces to be filled in by hand at the time of the test, noting date, place, time, temperature, humidity and visibility.

The rockets were made of aluminium tubing about 20 centimetres in length and weighing 200 grams and had wooden nose cones. They were propelled by a fuel the boys had concocted out of 'sugar, gunpowder, magnesium and nitric acid'. This concentrated mixture was placed in a container at the base of the rocket, and the explosive c.o.c.ktail was detonated using a wick soaked in kerosene. The rockets were given ill.u.s.trious names: G.o.ddard I, II and III, and Von Braun I, II and III, in homage, respectively, to the American aeronautics pioneer Robert H. G.o.ddard and the creator of the German flying bombs that devastated London during the Second World War, Werner von Braun. However, although the rockets were intended to rise up to 17 metres, they never did. On launch days, Paulo would take over a part of the pavement outside their house 'for the public' and convert a hole that the telephone company had forgotten to close up into a trench where he and his friend could shelter. He then invited his father, the servants and pa.s.sers-by to sign the flight reports as 'representatives of the government'. The rockets failed to live up to the preparations. Not one ever rose more than a few centimetres into the air and the majority exploded before they had even got off the ground. Paulo's astronautical phase disappeared as fast as it had arrived and in less than six months the s.p.a.ce programme was abandoned before a seventh rocket could be constructed.

Apart from these fleeting fanciesstamp-collecting was anotherPaulo continued to nurture his one constant dreamto become a writer. When he was sixteen, his father, in a conciliatory gesture, offered him a flight to Belem, which, to Paulo, was a paradise on a par with Araruama. Nevertheless, he turned it down, saying that he would rather have a typewriter. His father agreed and gave him a Smith Corona, which would stay with him until it was replaced, first, by an electric Olivetti and, then, decades later, by a laptop computer.

His total lack of interest in education meant that he was among the least successful students in his cla.s.s in the first year of his science studies and at the end of the year he once again sc.r.a.ped through with a modest 5.2 average. His report arrived on Christmas Eve. Paulo never quite knew whether it was because of his dreadful marks or an argument over the length of his hair, but on Christmas Day 1963, when the first group of relatives was about to arrive for Christmas dinner, his mother told him bluntly: 'I've made an appointment for the 28th. I'm taking you to a nerve specialist.'

Terrified by what that might meanwhat in G.o.d's name was a nerve specialist?he locked himself in his room and scribbled a harsh, almost cruel account of his relations.h.i.+p with his family: I'm going to see a nerve specialist. My hands have gone cold with fear. But the anxiety this has brought on has allowed me to examine my home and those in it more closely.Mama doesn't punish me in order to teach me, but just to show how strong she is. She doesn't understand that I'm a nervous sort and that occasionally I get upset, and so she always punishes me for it. The things that are intended to be for my own good she always turns into a threat, a final warning, an example of my selfishness. She herself is deeply selfish. This year, she has never, or hardly ever, held my hand.Papa is incredibly narrow-minded. He is really nothing more than the house financier. Like Mama, he never talks to me, because his mind is always on the house and his work. It's dreadful.Sonia lacks character. She always does what Mama does. But she's not selfish or bad. The coldness I feel towards her is gradually disappearing.Mama is a fool. Her main aim in life is to give me as many complexes as possible. She's a fool, a real fool. Papa's the same.

The diary also reveals that the fear induced by the proposed visit to the specialist was unjustified. A day after the appointment he simply mentions the visit along with other unimportant issues: Yesterday I went to the psychiatrist. It was just to meet him. No important comment to make.I went to see the play Pobre Menina Rica Pobre Menina Rica, by Carlos Lyra and Vinicius de Moraes and then I had a pizza.I decided to put off my whole literary programme until 1965. I'm going to wait until I'm a bit more mature.

He managed to achieve the required grades to pa.s.s the year and, according to the rules of the house, he therefore had the right to a holiday, which, this time, was to be in Belem. His holidays with his paternal grandparents, Cencita and Cazuza, had one enormous advantage over those spent in Araruama. At a time when a letter could take weeks to arrive and a long-distance phone call sometimes took hours if not days to put through, the distancemore than 3,000 kilometresbetween Rio and Belem meant that the young man was beyond the control of his parents or from any surprise visits. Adventures that were unthinkable in Rio were routine in Belem: drinking beer, playing snooker and sleeping out of doors with his three cousins, whose mother had died and who were being brought up by their grandparents. Such was the excitement and bustle of life there that within the first few days of his holiday, he had lost his penknife, his watch, his torch and the beloved Sheaffer fountain pen he had bought with his prize money. One habit remained: no matter what time he went to bed, he devoted the last thirty minutes before going to sleep to writing letters to his friends and reading the eclectic selection of books he had taken with himbooks ranging from Erle Stanley Gardner's detective story The Case of the Calendar Girl The Case of the Calendar Girl, to the encyclical Pacem in Terris Pacem in Terris, published in March 1963 by Pope John XXIII ('Reading this book is increasing my understanding of society,' he wrote).

He filled his letters to friends with news of his adventures in Belem, but in his letters to his father there was only one subject: money.

You've never put your money to such good use as when you paid for this trip for me. I've never had such fun. But if all the money you've spent on the trip is to produce real benefits, I need more cash. There's no point in you spending 140,000 on a trip if I'm not going to have fun. If you haven't got any spare money, then no problem. But it isn't right to spend all your money on the house while my short life pa.s.ses me by.

Belem appears to have been a city destined to provoke strong feelings in him. Three years before, on another trip there, he had at last had the chance to clarify a question that was troubling him: how were babies made? Earlier, he had plucked up the courage to ask Rui, a slightly older friend, but the reply, which was disconcertingly stark, appalled him: 'Simple: the man puts his d.i.c.k in the woman's hole and when he comes, he leaves a seed in her stomach. That seed grows and becomes a person.' He didn't believe it. He couldn't imagine his father being capable of doing something so perverted with his mother. As this was not something that could be written about in a letter, he waited for the holidays in Belem so that he could find out from an appropriate personhis cousin, Fred, who as well as being older, was a member of the family, someone whose version he could trust. The first chance he had to speak to his cousin alone, he found a way of bringing the subject up and repeated the disgusting story his friend in Rio had told him. He almost had an asthma attack when he heard what Fred had to say: 'Your friend in Rio is right. That's how it is. The man enters the woman and deposits a drop of sperm in her v.a.g.i.n.a. That's how everyone is made.'

Paulo reacted angrily. 'You're only telling me that because you haven't got a mother and so you don't have a problem with it. Can you really imagine your father penetrating your mother, Fred? You're out of your mind!'

That loss of innocence was not the only shock Belem had in store for him. The city also brought him his first contact with death. Early on the evening of Carnival Sat.u.r.day, when he arrived at his grandparents' house after a dance at the Clube Tuna Luso, he was concerned to hear one of his aunts asking someone, 'Does Paulo know?' His grandfather Cazuza had just died unexpectedly of a heart attack. Paulo was extremely upset and shocked by the news, but he felt very important when he learned that Lygia and Pedrosince they were unable to get there in timehad named him the family's representative at his grandfather's funeral. As usual, he preferred to keep his feelings to himself, in the notes he made before going to sleep: Carnival Sat.u.r.day, 8th FebruaryThis night won't turn into day for old Cazuza. I'm confused and overwhelmed by the tragedy. Yesterday, he was laughing out loud at jokes and today he's silent. His smile will never again spread happiness. His welcoming arms, his stories about how Rio used to be, his advice, his encouraging wordsall over. There are samba groups and carnival floats going down the street, but it's all over.

That same night he wrote 'Memories', a poem in three long stanzas dedicated to his grandfather. The pain the adolescent spoke of in prose and verse appeared sincere, but it was interwoven with other feelings. The following day, with his grandfather's corpse still lying in the drawing room, Paulo caught himself sinning in thought against chast.i.ty several times, when he looked at the legs of his female cousins, who were there at the wake. On the Sunday evening, Cazuza's funeral took place'a very fine occasion', his grandson wrote in his diarybut on Shrove Tuesday, during the week of mourning, the cousins were already out having fun in the city's clubs.

That holiday in Belem was not only the last he would spend there: it also proved to be a watershed in his life. He knew he was going to have a very difficult year at school. He felt even more negative about his studies than he had in previous years; and it was clear that his days at St Ignatius were numbered and equally clear that this would have consequences at home. There were not only dark clouds hanging over his school life either. At the end of the month, the day before returning to Rio, he flipped back in his diary to the day when he had written of his grandfather's death and wrote in tiny but still legible writing: 'I've been thinking today and I've begun to see the terrible truth: I'm losing my faith.'

This was not a new feeling. He had experienced his first religious doubtsgnawing away at him implacably and silentlyduring the retreat at St Ignatius when, troubled by s.e.xual desire and tortured by guilt, he had been gripped by panic at the thought of suffering for all eternity in the apocalyptic flames described by Father Ruffier. He had turned to his diary to talk to G.o.d in a defiant tone ill suited to a true Christian: 'It was You who created sin! It's Your fault for not making me strong enough to resist! The fact that I couldn't keep my word is Your fault!' The following morning, he read this blasphemy and felt afraid. In desperation, he took his fellow pupil Eduardo Jardim to a place where they would not be seen or heard and broke his vow of silence to open up his heart to him.

His choice of confidant was a deliberate one. He looked up to Jardim, who was intelligent, read a lot and was a good poet without being a show-off. A small group of boys from St Ignatius to which Paulo belonged would meet in the garage at Jardim's house to discuss what each had been reading. But it was mostly the strength of Jardim's religious convictions that made him not only a good example but also the perfect confidant for a friend with a troubled soul. Paulo told him that everything had started with one doubt: if G.o.d existed and if this G.o.d had created him in His own image and likeness, then why did He delight in his suffering? As he asked these questions Paulo had arrived at the really big onethe unconfessable doubt: did G.o.d really exist? Fearing that others might hear him, Jardim whispered, as though in the confessional, words that were like salt being rubbed into his friend's wounds: 'When I was younger and was scared that my faith in G.o.d would disappear, I did everything I could to keep it. I prayed desperately, took cold baths in winter, but my faith was very slowly disappearing, until, finally, it disappeared completely. My faith had gone.'

This meant that even Jardim had succ.u.mbed. The more Paulo tried to drive away this thought, the less he was able to rid his mind of that image of a small boy taking cold baths in the middle of winter just so that G.o.d would not disappearand G.o.d simply ignoring him. That day Paulo Coelho hated G.o.d. And so that there would be no doubt regarding his feelings he wrote: 'I know how dangerous it is to hate G.o.d.'

A perfectly ba.n.a.l incident when he was returning from the retreat had soured his relations with G.o.d and His shepherds still more. On the way from the retreat house to the school, Paulo judged that the driver of the bus was driving too fast and putting everyone's life at risk. What started out merely as a concern became a horror movie: if the bus had an accident and he were to die, his soul would be burning in h.e.l.l before midday. That fear won out over any embarra.s.sment.

He went to the front of the bus, where his spiritual guide was sitting, and said: 'Father Ruffier, the driver is driving too fast. And I'm terrified of dying.'

Furious, the priest snarled at the boy: 'You're terrified of dying and I'm outraged that you're such a coward.'

As time pa.s.sed, Paulo's doubts became certainties. He began to hate the priests ('a band of retrogrades') and all the duties, whether religious or scholastic, that they imposed on the boys. He felt the Jesuits had deceived him. Seen from a distance, sermons he had once believed to contain solid truths were now remembered as 'slowly administered doses of poison to make us hate living', as he wrote in his diary. And he deeply regretted ever having taken those empty words seriously. 'Idiot that I was, I even began to believe that life was worthless,' he wrote, 'and that with death always watching, I was obliged to go to confession on a regular basis so as to avoid going to h.e.l.l.' After much torment and many sleepless nights, at almost seventeen years of age, Paulo knew that he no longer wanted to hear about church, sermons or sin. And he hadn't the slightest intention of becoming a good student during his second year on the science course. He was equally convinced that he would invest all his beliefs and energy in what he saw not as a vocation but as a professionthat of being a writer.

One term was more than enough for everyone to realize that the college had lost all meaning for him. 'I have gone from being a bad pupil to being a dreadful pupil.' His school report shows that this was no exaggeration. He was always near the bottom of the cla.s.s, and he managed to do worse in each exam he sat. In the first monthly tests he got an average of just over 5, thanks to a highly suspect 9 in chemistry. In May, his average fell to 4.4, but alarm bells only started to ring in June, when his average fell to 3.7.

That month, Pedro and Lygia were called to a meeting at the school and asked to bring his report book. The news they received could not have been worse. A priest read out the fifth article of the school rules, which all parents had to sign when their son was admitted to the school and in which it was stated that those who did not achieve the minimum mark required would be expelled. If Paulo continued along the same path, he would undoubtedly fail and his subsequent expulsion from one of the most traditional schools in the country would thereafter blot his scholastic record. There was only one way to avoid expulsion and to save both student and parents from such ignominy. The priest suggested that they take the initiative and move their son at once to another school. He went on to say that St Ignatius had never done this before. This exception was being made in deference to the fact that the pupil in question was the grandson of one of the first pupils at the college, Arthur Araripe Junior, 'Mestre Tuca', who had gone there in 1903.

Pedro and Lygia returned home, devastated. They knew that their son smoked in secret and they had often smelled alcohol on his breath, and some relatives had complained that he was becoming a bad example for the other children. 'That boy's trouble,' his aunts would whisper, 'he's going to end up leading all his younger cousins astray.' What, up until then, had been termed Paulo's 'strange behaviour' was restricted to the family circle. However, if he were to leave St Ignatius, even without being expelled, this would bring shame upon his parents and reveal them as having failed to bring him up properly. And if, as his father was always saying, a son was a reflection of his family, then the Coelhos had more than enough reason to feel that their image had been tarnished. At a time when corporal punishment was commonplace among Brazilian parents, Pedro and Lygia had never lifted a hand against Paulo, but they were rigorous in the punishments they meted out. So when Pedro announced that he had enrolled Paulo at Andrews College, where he would continue in the science stream, he also told his son that any future holidays were cancelled and that his allowance was temporarily suspendedif he wanted money for cigarettes and beer he would have to work.

If this was meant as a form of punishment, then it backfired, because Paulo loved the change. Andrews was not only a lay college and infinitely more liberal than St Ignatius but co-educational, which added a delightful novelty to the schoolday: girls. Besides this, there were political discussions, film study groups and even an amateur drama group, which he joined before he even met any of his teachers. He had ventured into the world of the theatre a year earlier, when, during the long end-of-year holiday, he had locked himself in his room, determined to write a play. He would only come out for lunch and dinner, telling his parents that he was studying. After four days, he finished The Ugly Boy The Ugly Boy, which he pretentiously referred to as 'a pet.i.t guignol pet.i.t guignol a la Aluisio Azevedo', a synopsis of which he recorded in his diary: a la Aluisio Azevedo', a synopsis of which he recorded in his diary: In this play, I present the ugly person in society. It's the story of a young man rejected by society who ends up committing suicide. The scenes are played out by silhouettes, while four narrators describe the feelings and actions of the characters. During the interval between the first and second acts, someone at the back of the stalls sings a really slow bossa nova [a style of Brazilian music that has its roots in samba and cool jazz] whose words relate to the first act. I think it will work really well. This year it's going to be put on at home in the conservatory.

Fortunately, his critical sense won out over his vanity, and a week later, he tore up this first incursion into play-writing and gave it a six-word epitaph: 'Rubbish. I'll write another one soon.' And it was as a playwright (as yet unpublished) that he approached the amateur theatre group at Andrews College, known as Taca.

As for schoolwork, teachers and exams, none of these seemed to have concerned him. On the rare occasions when these topics merited a mention in his diary, he would dismiss them with a short, usually negative sentence: 'I'm doing badly at school, I'm going to fail in geometry, physics and chemistry' 'I can't even get myself to pick up my schoolbooks: anything serves as a distraction, however stupid' 'Cla.s.ses seem to get longer and longer' 'I swear I don't know what's wrong with me, it's beyond description.' Admitting that he was doing badly at school was a way of hiding the truth: he was on the slippery slope.

Up until October, two months before the end of the year, all his marks in every subject had been below 5. His father thought that it was time to rein him in once and for all and carry out his earlier threat: his cousin, Hildebrando Goes Filho, found Paulo work in a dredging company that operated at the entrance to the port of Rio de Janeiro. The pay wasn't even enough to cover Paulo's travel and cigarettes. Every day after morning cla.s.ses, he would rush home, have lunch and take a bus to Santo Cristo, an area by the docks. A tugboat would take him over to the dredger, where he would spend the rest of the day with a slate in his hand, making a cross each time the machine picked up the rubbish from the seabed and deposited it in a barge. It seemed to him utterly pointless and reminded him of the Greek myth of Sisyphus, who is forced to push a stone up to the top of a mountain only to have the stone roll back down to the bottom, so that he has to begin his task all over again. 'It's never-ending,' Paulo wrote in his diary. 'Just when I think it's finished, it starts again.'

The punishment had no positive result. He continued to do badly at school and when he knew he ran the risk of failing the whole year, he recorded the fact quite shamelessly: 'A friend has told me I'm going to be kept down in maths,' he wrote. 'And meanwhile the morning is so beautiful, so musical, that I'm even rather happy. Oh, G.o.d, what a life. What a life, what a life.' At the end of the year, his report confirmed the expected results: his final average of 4.2 meant that he had failed in every subject.

Paulo seemed to be growing ever more indifferent to the world in which he found himself. He accepted uncomplainingly the work on the dredger and didn't even care when all he received from his parents at Christmas was a penknife. The only thing that interested him was writing, whether in the form of novels, plays or poetry. He had recently returned to poetry and was writing furiously. After some thought, he had concluded that it was no disgrace to write verses if he was not yet ready to start writing his novel. 'I have so many things to write about! The problem is that I can't get started and I haven't got the patience to carry on with it,' he moaned, and went on: 'All the same, that is my chosen profession.'

As he settled into the house in Gavea, he discovered that there were others among the young who were interested in books and literature. Since there were fifteen boys and girls, they created a literary club, which they called Rota 15, the name Rota being derived from Rua Rodrigo Otavio, which crossed Rua Padre Leonel Franca, where Paulo's house was, and at the corner of which they would all meet. Paulo's poetic output was such that when Rota 15 decided to produce a mimeographed booklet of poetry he contributed an anthology of thirteen poems (among them the award-winning 'Thirteen-year-old-Woman'), and he added at the end his biography: 'Paulo Coelho began his literary career in 1962, writing short articles, then moved on to poetry. He entered a poem in the Academia Literaria Santo Inacio in 1963 and in the same year won the top prize.' Rota 15 collapsed amid scandal when Paulo accused the treasurer of stealing the petty cash in order to go and see the French singer Francoise Hardy in concert in Rio.

He already believed himself to be a poet of sufficient standing not to have to depend any more on insignificant little magazines produced locally or by small groups. With the self-confidence of an old hand he felt that the time had come for him to fly higher. His dream was to be praised for his worka laudatory quote would work w