by Paulo Coelho
Whenever I suggested going with her, be it to the Monday evening celebrations at her apartment, to Romania, or to get-togethers with friends, she always asked me not to. She wanted to be free, and people, she said, find policemen intimidating. Faced by someone like me, even the innocent feel guilty.
However, I went to the Portobello warehouse twice without her knowledge. Again without her knowledge, I arranged for various colleagues to be around to protect her when she arrived and left, and at least one person, later identified as a militant member of some sect, was arrested for carrying a knife. He said he'd been told by spirits to acquire a little blood from the Witch of Portobello, who was a manifestation of the Great Mother. The blood, he said, was needed to consecrate certain offerings. He didn't intend to kill her, he merely wanted a little blood on a handkerchief. The investigation showed that there really was no intention to murder, but nevertheless, he was charged and sentenced to six months in prison.
It wasn't my idea to make it look as if she'd been murdered. Athena wanted to disappear and asked me if that would be possible. I explained that if the courts decided that the state should have custody of her child, I couldn't go against the law, but when the judge found in her favor, we were free to carry out her plan.
Athena was fully aware that once the meetings at the warehouse became the focus of local gossip, her mission would be ruined for good. There was no point standing up in front of the crowd and denying that she was a queen, a witch, a divine manifestation, because people choose to follow the powerful and they give power to whomever they wish. And that would go against everything she preached--freedom to choose, to consecrate your own bread, to awaken your particular gifts, with no help from guides or shepherds.
Nor was there any point in disappearing. People would interpret such a gesture as a retreat into the wilderness, an ascent into the heavens, a secret pilgrimage to meet teachers in the Himalayas, and they would always be awaiting her return. Legends and possibly a cult could grow up around her. We started to notice this when she stopped going to Portobello. My informants said that, contrary to everyone's expectations, her cult was growing with frightening speed: other similar groups were being created, and people were turning up claiming to be the "heirs" of Hagia Sofia. The newspaper photograph of her holding Viorel was being sold on the black market, depicting her as a victim, a martyr to intolerance. Occultists started talking about an "Order of Athena," through which--upon payment--one could be put in touch with the founder.
All that remained was "death," but the death had to take place in completely normal circumstances, like the death of any other person murdered in a big city. This obliged us to take certain precautions.
The crime could not in any way be associated with martyrdom for religious reasons, because, if it was, we would only aggravate the very situation we were trying to avoid;
The victim would have to be so badly disfigured as to be unrecognizable;
The murderer could not be arrested;
We would need a corpse.
In a city like London, dead, disfigured, burned bodies turn up every day, but normally we find the culprit. So we had to wait nearly two months until the Hampstead murder. We found a murderer too, who was also conveniently dead--he had fled to Portugal and committed suicide by blowing his brains out. Justice had been done, and all I needed was a little cooperation from my closest friends. One hand washes the other: they sometimes asked me to do things that were not entirely orthodox, and as long as no major law was broken, there was--shall we say--a certain degree of flexibility in interpreting the facts.
That is what happened. As soon as the body was found, I and a colleague of many years' standing were given the case, and almost simultaneously, we got news that the Portuguese police had found the body of a suicide in Guimaraes, along with a note confessing to a murder whose details fitted the case we were dealing with, and giving instructions for all his money to be donated to charitable institutions. It had been a crime of passion--love often ends like that.
In the note he left behind, the dead man said that he'd brought the woman from one of the ex-Soviet republics and done everything he could to help her. He was prepared to marry her so that she would have the same rights as a British citizen, and then he'd found a letter she was about to send to some German man, who had invited her to spend a few days at his castle.
In the letter, she said she couldn't wait to leave and asked the German to send her a plane ticket at once so that they could meet again as soon as possible. They had met in a London cafe and had only exchanged two letters.
We had the perfect scenario.
My friend hesitated--no one likes to have an unsolved crime on their files--but when I said that I'd take the blame for this, he agreed.
I went to the place where Athena was in hiding--a delightful house in Oxford. I used a syringe to take some of her blood. I cut off a lock of her hair and singed it slightly. Back at the scene of the crime, I scattered this "evidence" around. I knew that since no one knew the identity of her real mother and father, no DNA identification would be possible, and so all I needed was to cross my fingers and hope the murder didn't get too much coverage in the press.
A few journalists turned up. I told them the story of the murderer's suicide, mentioning only the country, not the town. I said that no motive had been found for the crime, but that we had completely discounted any idea that it was a revenge killing or that there had been some religious motive. As I understood it (after all, the police can make mistakes too), the victim had been raped. She had presumably recognized her attacker, who had then killed and mutilated her.
If the German ever wrote again, his letters would have been sent back marked "Return to sender." Athena's photograph had appeared only once in the newspapers, during the first demonstration in Portobello, and so the chances of her being recognized were minimal. Apart from me, only three people know this story--her parents and her son. They all attended the burial of "her" remains, and the gravestone bears her name.
Her son goes to see her every weekend and is doing brilliantly at school.
Of course, Athena may one day tire of this isolated life and decide to return to London. Nevertheless, people have very short memories, and apart from her closest friends, no one will remember her. By then, Andrea will be the catalyst and--to be fair--she is better able than Athena to continue the mission. As well as having all the necessary gifts, she's an actress and knows how to deal with the public.
I understand that Andrea's work is spreading, although without attracting unwanted attention. I hear about people in key positions in society who are in contact with her, and when necessary, when the right critical mass is reached, they will put an end to the hypocrisy of the Reverend Ian Bucks of this world.
And that's what Athena wants, not fame for herself, as many (including Andrea) thought, but that the mission should be completed.
At the start of my investigations, of which this transcript is the result, I thought I was reconstructing her life so that she would see how brave and important she had been. But as the conversations went on, I gradually discovered my own hidden side, even though I don't much believe in these things. And I reached the conclusion that the real reason behind all this work was a desire to answer a question to which I'd never known the answer: Why did Athena love me, when we're so different and when we don't even share the same worldview?
I remember when I kissed her for the first time, in a bar near Victoria Station. She was working for a bank at the time, and I was a detective at Scotland Yard. After we'd been out together a few times, she invited me to go and dance at her landlord's apartment, but I never did--it's not really my style.
And instead of getting annoyed, she said that she respected my decision. When I reread the statements made by her friends, I feel really proud, because Athena doesn't seem to have respected anyone else's decisions.
Months later, before she set off to Dubai, I told her that I loved her. She said that she felt the
same way but added that we must be prepared to spend long periods apart. Each of us would work in a different country, but true love could withstand such a separation.
That was the only time I dared to ask her: "Why do you love me?"
She replied: "I don't know and I don't care."
Now, as I put the finishing touches to these pages, I believe I may have found the answer in her last conversation with the journalist.
Love simply is.
February 25, 2006 19:47:00
Revised version completed on St. Expeditus's Day, 2006
About the Author
PAULO COELHO is one of the most beloved writers of our time. With sales of over 85 million copies worldwide, his books have been translated into 63 languages and published in 150 countries. He is the recipient of numerous prestigious international awards and was inducted into the Brazilian Academy of Letters in 2002. Mr. Coelho also writes a weekly column syndicated throughout the world.
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Other Books by Paulo Coelho
THE ALCHEMIST
THE PILGRIMAGE
THE VALKYRIES
BY THE RIVER PIEDRA I SAT DOWN AND WEPT
THE FIFTH MOUNTAIN
VERONIKA DECIDES TO DIE
WARRIOR OF THE LIGHT: A MANUAL
ELEVEN MINUTES
THE ZAHIR
THE DEVIL AND MISS PRYM
Credits
Jacket photograph (c) Artem Efimov/Shutterstock
Copyright
THE WITCH OF PORTOBELLO. Copyright (c) 2006 by Paulo Coelho. English translation copyright (c) 2007 by Margaret Jull Costa. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition (c) MAY 2007 ISBN: 9780061828898
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