Eleven Minutes Part 14

The flight attendant asked to see her ticket and said that, unfortunately, it didn't allow for that kind of stopover. Maria consoled herself with the thought that visiting such a beautiful city all on her own would only depress her. She was still managing to cling on to her sang-froid, to her willpower, and didn't want to ruin it all by seeing a beautiful view and missing someone intensely.

She got off the plane and went through the security checks; her luggage would go straight on to the next plane, so she didn't have to bother with that. The doors opened, the pa.s.sengers emerged and embraced whoever was waiting for them, wife, mother, children. Maria pretended not to notice, at thesame time pondering her own loneliness, except that this time she had a secret, a dream, which would make her solitude less bitter, and life would be easier.

'We'll always have Paris.'

The voice didn't belong to a tourist guide or to a taxi driver. Her legs shook when she heard it.

'We'll always have Paris?'

286 'It's a quote from one of my favourite films. Would you like to see the Eiffel Tower?'

Oh, yes, she would, she would love to. Ralf was holding a bunch of roses, and his eyes were full of light, the light she had seen on that first day, when he was painting her while the cold wind outside had made her feel awkward to be sitting there.

'How did you manage to get here before me?' she asked, merely to disguise her amazement; she wasn't in the least interested in the answer, but she needed a breathing s.p.a.ce.

'I saw you reading a magazine at Geneva airport. I could have come over, but I'm such an incurable romantic that I thought it would be best to catch the next shuttle to Paris, wander about the airport here for three hours, consult the arrivals screen over and over, buy some flowers, say the words that Rick says to his beloved in Casablanca and see the look of surprise on your face.

And to be utterly sure that this was what you wanted, that you were expecting me, that all the determination and willpower in the world would not be enough to prevent love from changing the rules of the game from one moment to the next. It's really easy being as romantic as people in the movies, don't you think?'

She had no idea whether it was easy or difficult, and she didn't honestly care, even though she had only just met this man, even though they had made love for the first time only a few hours before, even though she had only been introduced to his friends the previous evening, even though he had been a regular at the nightclub where she had worked, 287 even though he had been married twice. These were not exactly impeccable credentials.

On the other hand, she now had enough money to buy a farm, she had her youth ahead of her, a great deal of experience of life and a great independence of soul. Nevertheless, as always happened when fate chose for her, she thought, once again, that she would take the risk.She kissed him, utterly indifferent now to what happens after the words 'The End'

appear on the cinema screen.

But if, one day, someone should decide to tell her story, she would ask them to begin it just as all the fairy tales begin: Once upon a time ...

288 Afterword Like everyone else - and in this case I have no qualms about generalising - it took me a long time to discover the sacred nature of s.e.x. My youth coincided with an age of enormous freedom, great discoveries and many excesses, which was followed by a period of conservatism and repression - the price to be paid for extremes that brought with them some very harsh consequences indeed.

In that decade of excess (the 1970s), the writer Irving Wallace wrote a book about censors.h.i.+p in America, describing the legal shenanigans involved in preventing the publication of a book about s.e.x: The Seven Minutes.

In Wallace's novel, the contents of the book which provokes the discussion about censors.h.i.+p are merely hinted at, and the subject of s.e.xuality itself is rarely mentioned.

I wondered what that banned book would be like; perhaps I could have a go at writing it myself.

However, in his novel, Wallace makes many references to this non-existent book, and this necessarily limited the task I had imagined, indeed, made it impossible. I was left with just the t.i.tle (although I felt Wallace had made a rather conservative estimate of the time involved, and so decided to increase it) and the idea of how important it was to treat s.e.xuality seriously - like many writers before me.

289 In 1997, after a lecture I gave in Mantua, Italy, I went back to my hotel and found that someone had left a ma.n.u.script for me in reception. Now, I never normally read unsolicited ma.n.u.scripts, but I did read that one - the true story of a Brazilian prost.i.tute, her marriages, her problems with the law, and her various adventures. In 2000, when I was pa.s.sing through Zurich, I met that prost.i.tute - known professionally as Sonia - and said how much I had liked what I had read. I suggested she send it to my Brazilian publisher, who, however, decided, in the end, not to publish it. Sonia was living in Italy at the time, but had travelled up on the train to meet me in Zurich. She invited us - myself, a friendand a female journalist from the newspaper Blick, who had just interviewed me - to go to Langstra.s.se, the local red light district. I didn't know that Sonia had already forewarned her colleagues of our visit, and to my surprise, I ended up signing several of my books, translated into various languages.

At that point, I had already decided to write about s.e.x, but I still didn't have a plot or a princ.i.p.al character; I was thinking of something much more along the lines of the conventional search for sacredness, but that visit to Langstra.s.se taught me something: in order to write about the sacred nature of s.e.x, it was necessary to understand why it had been so profaned.

In conversation with a journalist from the Swiss magazine, L'lll.u.s.tree, I described that spontaneous booksigning in Langstra.s.se, and he wrote a long article about it. The result was that, at a book-signing in Geneva, several 290 prost.i.tutes turned up to have their copies of my books duly signed. I was very struck by one of them in particular, and afterwards - with my agent and friend, Monica Antunes we went for a coffee that turned into supper that turned into other meetings in the days that followed. Thus was born the connecting thread of Eleven Minutes.

I would like to thank Anna von Planta, my Swiss publisher, who supplied me with important facts about the legal situation of prost.i.tutes in her country. I would also like to thank the following women in Zurich (using their noms de guerre): Sonia, whom I met for the first time in Mantua (who knows, maybe one day, someone will publish your book!), Martha, Antenora and Isabella. And in Geneva (again using their noms de guerre)-. Amy, Lucia, Andrei, Vanessa, Patrick, Therese and Anna Christina.

Many thanks also to Antonella Zara, who allowed me to use pa.s.sages from her book, The Science of Pa.s.sion, in certain sections of Maria's diary.

Finally, I must thank Maria (nom de guerre), who now lives in Lausanne with her husband and her two lovely daughters and who, during various meetings with myself and Monica, told us her story, on which this book is based. Paulo Coelho 291 The Alchemist Poulo CoelhoEvery few decades a book is published that changes the lives of its readers forever. Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist is such a book. With over 27 million copies sold worldwide, The Alchemist has already achieved the status of a modern cla.s.sic.

This is the story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who dreams of travelling the world in search of a treasure as extravagant as any ever found.

From his home in Spain he journeys to the exotic markets of Tangiers and then into the Egyptian desert, where a fateful encounter with the alchemist awaits him.

The Alchemist is a transforming novel about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, learning to read the omens strewn along life's path and, above all, following our dreams.

By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept Paulo Coelho By the River Piedra tells the story of Pilar, an independent and practical yet restless young woman, who is frustrated by the daily grind of university life and looking for greater meaning in her life. Pilar is transformed forever by an encounter with a childhood friend, now a mesmerising and handsome spiritual teacher - and a rumoured miracle worker - who leads her on a journey through the French Pyrenees, a magical landscape that has been home to holy visions and miracles through the ages.

The Fifth Mountain Paulo Coelho Fleeing his home from persecution, 23-year-old Elijah takes refuge with a young widow and her son in the beautiful town of Akbar. Already struggling to maintain his sanity in a chaotic world of tyranny and war, he is now forced to choose between his new-found love and his overwhelming sense of duty.

Evoking all the drama and intrigue of the colourful, chaotic world of the Middle East, Paulo Coelho turns the trials of Elijah into an intensely moving and inspiring story - one that powerfully brings out the universal themes of how faith and love can ultimately triumph over suffering.

The Pilgrimage Paulo Coelho On a legendary road across Spain, travelled by pilgrims ofSan Tiago, we find Paulo Coelho on a contemporary quest for ancient wisdom. This journey becomes a truly initiatory experience, and Paulo is transformed forever as he learns to understand the nature of truth through the simplicity of life.

The Pilgrimage has a very important place in the work of Paulo Coelho, not just because it is the first of his major books, but because of the way in which it expresses the humanity of Paulo's philosophy and the depth of his search. The Valkyries Paulo Coelho This true record of an exotic odyssey is a profound work that will enchant and thrill the reader.

Haunted by a devastating curse, Paulo is instructed by his mysterious spiritual teacher to embark upon a journey to find and speak to his guardian angel in an attempt to confront and overcome his dark past. The Valkyries is a compelling account of this journey, which takes him, with his wife Chris, on a forty-day quest into the searing heat of the Mojave Desert. At once a modern-day adventure, a metaphysical battle with self-doubt and fear and a true story of two people striving to understand one another, The Valkyries is ultimately a story about forgiving our past and believing our future. Veronika Decides to Die Paulo Coelho Veronika seems to have everything she could wish for. She is young and pretty, has plenty of attractive boyfriends, goes dancing, has a steady job, a loving family. Yet Veronika is not happy; something is lacking in her life. On the morning of November nth, 1997, she decides to die. She takes an overdose of sleeping pills, only to wake up some time later in Villete, the local hospital. There she is told that although she is alive now her heart is damaged and she has only a few days to live ...

This story follows Veronika through these intense days as, to her surprise, she finds herself drawn into the enclosed world of Villete. She begins to notice more, to become interested in the other patients. She starts to see her past relations.h.i.+ps much more clearly and understand why she had felt her life had no meaning. In this heightened state, Veronika discovers things she has never really allowed herself to feel before: hatred, fear, curiosity, love - even s.e.xual awakening. Against all odds, she finds she is falling in love and wanting, if at all possible, to live again ...The Devil and Miss Prym Paulo Coelho A stranger arrives in the small mountain village of Viscos. He carries with him a backpack containing a notebook and eleven gold bars. He comes searching for the answer to a question that torments him: are human beings, in essence, good or evil? In welcoming the mysterious foreigner, the whole village become accomplices to his sophisticated plot, which will forever mark their lives.

In this stunning new novel, Paulo Coelho's unusual protagonist sets the town a moral challenge from which they may never recover. A fascinating meditation on the human soul, The Devil and Miss Prym illuminates the reality of good and evil within us all, and our uniquely human capacity to choose between them.

Manual of the Warrior of Light Paulo Coelho Manual of the Warrior of Light is an invitation to each of us to live our dream, to embrace the uncertainty of life and to rise to meet our own unique destiny. In his inimitable style, Paulo Coelho helps us to discover the warrior of light within each of us.

With inspiring short pa.s.sages, we are invited to embark upon the way of the warrior: the one who appreciates the miracle of being alive, the one who accepts failure, and the one whose quest leads him to become the person he wants to be. http://www.esnips.com/web/eb00ks