Eleven Minutes

by Paulo Coelho

  The Arab was looking around at the paintings by Joan Miro, at the place where Fellini used to have lunch, at the girl who took the coats and at the other customers arriving and leaving.

  "Didn't you realize?"

  "More wine, please," said Maria, still in tears.

  She was praying that the waiter would not come over and realize what was going on, and the waiter, who was watching it all from a distance, out of the corner of his eye, was praying that the man and the girl would hurry up and pay the bill, because the restaurant was full and there were people waiting.

  At last, after what seemed an eternity, she spoke:

  "Did you say a thousand francs for one drink?"

  Maria was surprised by her own tone of voice.

  "Yes," said the man, regretting having suggested it in the first place. "But I really wouldn't want..."

  "Pay the bill and let's go and have that drink at your hotel."

  Again, she seemed like a stranger to herself. Up until then, she had been a nice, cheerful, well-brought-up girl, and she would never have spoken like that to a stranger. But that girl, it seemed to her, had died forever: before her lay another existence, in which drinks cost one thousand francs or, to use a more universal currency, about six hundred dollars.

  And everything happened as expected: she went to the Arab's hotel, drank champagne, got herself almost completely drunk, opened her legs, waited for him to have an orgasm (it didn't even occur to her to pretend to have one too), washed herself in the marble bathroom, picked up the money, and allowed herself the luxury of a taxi home.

  She fell into bed and slept dreamlessly all night.

  From Maria's diary, the next day:

  I remember everything, although not the moment when I made the decision. Oddly enough, I have no sense of guilt. I used to think of girls who went to bed with men for money as people who had no other choice, and now I see that it isn't like that. I could have said "yes" or "no"; no one was forcing me to accept anything.

  I walk about the streets and look at all the people, and I wonder if they chose their lives? Or were they, like me, "chosen" by fate? The housewife who dreamed of becoming a model, the banker who wanted to be a musician, the dentist who felt he should write a book and devote himself to literature, the girl who would have loved to be a TV star, but who found herself instead working at the checkout in a supermarket.

  I don't feel in the least bit sorry for myself. I am still not a victim, because I could have left that restaurant with my dignity intact and my purse empty. I could have given that man sitting opposite me a lesson in morality or tried to make him see that before him sat a princess who should be wooed not bought. I could have responded in all kinds of ways, but--like most people--I let fate choose which route I should take.

  I'm not the only one, even though my fate may put me outside the law and outside society. In the search for happiness, however, we are all equal: none of us is happy--not the banker/musician, the dentist/writer, the checkout girl/actress, or the housewife/model.

  So that was how it worked. As easy as that. There she was in a strange city where she knew no one, but what had been a torment to her yesterday, today gave her a tremendous sense of freedom, because she didn't need to explain herself to anyone.

  She decided that, for the first time in many years, she would devote the entire day to thinking about herself. Up until then, she had always been preoccupied with what other people were thinking: her mother, her schoolfriends, her father, the people at the model agencies, the French teacher, the waiter, the librarian, complete strangers in the street. In fact, no one was thinking anything, certainly not about her, a poor foreigner, who, if she disappeared tomorrow, wouldn't even be missed by the police.

  Fine. She went out early, had breakfast in her usual cafe, went for a stroll around the lake and saw a demonstration held by refugees. A woman out walking a small dog told her that they were Kurds, and Maria, instead of pretending that she knew the answer in order to prove that she was more cultivated and intelligent than people might think, asked:

  "Where do Kurds come from?"

  To her surprise, the woman didn't know. That's what the world is like: people talk as if they knew everything, but if you dare to ask a question, they don't know anything. She went into an Internet cafe and discovered that the Kurds came from Kurdistan, a nonexistent country, now divided between Turkey and Iraq. She went back to the lake in search of the woman and her dog, but she had gone, possibly because the dog had got fed up after half an hour of staring at a group of human beings with banners, headscarves, music and strange cries.

  "I'm just like that woman really. Or rather, that's what I used to be like: someone pretending to know everything, hidden away in my own silence, until that Arab guy got on my nerves, and I finally had the courage to say that the only thing I knew was how to tell the difference between two soft drinks. Was he shocked? Did he change his mind about me? Of course not. He must have been amazed at my honesty. Whenever I try to appear more intelligent than I am, I always lose out. Well, enough is enough!"

  She thought of the model agency. Did they know what the Arab guy really wanted--in which case she had, yet again, been taken for a fool--or had they genuinely thought he was going to find work for her in his country?

  Whatever the truth of the matter, Maria felt less alone on that gray morning in Geneva, with the temperature close to zero, the Kurds demonstrating, the trams arriving punctually at each stop, the shops setting out their jewelry in the windows again, the banks opening, the beggars sleeping, the Swiss going to work. She was less alone because by her side was another woman, invisible perhaps to passersby. She had never noticed her presence before, but there she was.

  She smiled at the invisible woman beside her who looked like the Virgin Mary, Jesus's mother. The woman smiled back and told her to be careful, things were not as simple as she imagined. Maria ignored the advice and replied that she was a grown-up, responsible for her own decisions, and she couldn't believe that there was some cosmic conspiracy being hatched against her. She had learned that there were people prepared to pay one thousand Swiss francs for one night, for half an hour between her legs, and all she had to decide over the next few days was whether to take her thousand Swiss francs and buy a plane ticket back to the town where she had been born, or to stay a little longer, and earn enough to be able to buy her parents a house, some lovely clothes for herself and tickets to all the places she had dreamed of visiting one day.

  The invisible woman at her side said again that things weren't that simple, but Maria, although glad of this unexpected company, asked her not to interrupt her thoughts, because she needed to make some important decisions.

  She began to analyze, more carefully this time, the possibility of going back to Brazil. Her schoolfriends, who had never left the town they were born in, would all say that she had been fired from the job, that she had never had the talent to be an international star. Her mother would be sad never to have received her promised monthly sum of money, although Maria, in her letters, had assured her that the post office must be stealing it. Her father would, forever after, look at her with that "I told you so" expression on his face; she would go back to working in the shop, selling fabrics, and she would marry the owner--she who had travelled in a plane, eaten Swiss cheese, learned French and walked in the snow.

  On the other hand, there were those drinks that had earned her one thousand Swiss francs. It might not last very long--after all, beauty changes as swiftly as the wind--but in a year, she could earn enough money to get back on her feet and return to the world, this time on her own terms. The only real problem was that she didn't know what to do, how to start. She remembered from her days at the "family nightclub" where she had first worked that a girl had mentioned somewhere called Rue de Berne--in fact, it had been one of the first things she had said, even before she had shown her where to put her suitcases.

  She went over to one of the large panels that can be found everywher
e in Geneva, that most tourist-friendly of cities, which cannot bear to see tourists getting lost. For this reason the panels have advertisements on one side and maps on the other.

  A man was standing there, and she asked him if he knew where Rue de Berne was. He looked at her, intrigued, and asked if it was the street she was looking for or the road that went to Berne, the capital of Switzerland. No, said Maria, I want the street in Geneva. The man looked her up and down, then walked off without a word, convinced that he was being filmed by one of those TV programs that delight in making fools of people. Maria studied the map for fifteen minutes--it's not a very big city--and finally found the place she was looking for.

  Her invisible friend, who had remained silent while she was studying the map, was now trying to reason with her; it wasn't a question of morality, but of setting off down a road of no return.

  Maria said that if she could earn enough money to go back home, then she could earn enough to get out of any situation. Besides, none of the people she passed had actually chosen what they wanted to do. That was just a fact of life.

  "We live in a vale of tears," she said to her invisible friend. "We can have all the dreams we like, but life is hard, implacable, sad. What are you trying to say: that people will condemn me? No one will ever know--this is just one phase of my life."

  With a sad, sweet smile, the invisible friend disappeared.

  Maria went to the funfair and bought a ticket for the roller coaster; she screamed along with everyone else, knowing that there was no real danger and that it was all just a game. She ate in a Japanese restaurant, even though she didn't understand quite what she was eating, knowing only that it was very expensive and feeling in a mood to indulge herself in every luxury. She was happy, she didn't need to wait for a phone call now or to watch every centime she spent.

  Later that day, she left a message with the agency to thank them and to tell them that the meeting had gone well. If they were genuine, they would ask about the photos. If they were procurers of women, they would arrange more meetings.

  She walked across the bridge back to her little room and decided that, however much money and however many future plans she had, she would definitely not buy a television: she needed to think, to use all her time for thinking.

  From Maria's diary that night (with a note in the margin saying: "Not sure"):

  I have discovered the reason why a man pays for a woman: he wants to be happy.

  He wouldn't pay a thousand francs just to have an orgasm. He wants to be happy. I do too, everyone does, and yet no one is. What have I got to lose if, for a while, I decide to become a...it's a difficult word to think or even write...but let's be blunt...what have I got to lose if I decide to become a prostitute for a while?

  Honor. Dignity. Self-respect. Although, when I think about it, I've never had any of those things. I didn't ask to be born, I've never found anyone to love me, I've always made the wrong decisions--now I'm letting life decide for me.

  The agency phoned the next day and asked about the photos and when the fashion show was being held, since they got a percentage of every job. Maria, realizing that they knew nothing about what had happened, told them that the Arab gentleman would be in touch with them.

  She went to the library and asked for some books about sex. If she was seriously considering the possibility of working--just for a year, she had told herself--in an area about which she knew nothing, the first thing she needed to know was how to behave, how to give pleasure and receive money in return.

  She was most disappointed when the librarian told her that, since the library was a government-funded institution, they only had a few technical works. Maria read the index of one of these books and immediately returned it: they said nothing about happiness, they talked only about dull things such as erection, penetration, impotence, precautions.... She did for a moment consider borrowing The Psychology of Frigidity in Women, since, in her own case, although she very much enjoyed being possessed and penetrated by a man, she only ever reached orgasm through masturbation.

  She wasn't there in search of pleasure, however, but work. She thanked the librarian, and went to a shop where she made her first investment in that possible career looming on the horizon--clothes which she considered to be sexy enough to arouse men's desire. Then she went straight to the place she had found on the map. Rue de Berne. At the top of the street was a church (oddly enough, very near the Japanese restaurant where she had had supper the night before), then some shops selling cheap watches and clocks, and, at the far end, were the clubs she had heard about, all of them closed at that hour of the day. She went for another walk around the lake, then--without a tremor of embarrassment--bought five pornographic magazines in order to study the kind of thing she would have to do, waited for darkness to fall and then went back to Rue de Berne. There she chose at random a bar with the alluringly Brazilian name of "Copacabana."

  She hadn't decided anything, she told herself. It was just an experiment. She hadn't felt so well or so free in all the time she had been in Switzerland.

  "I'm looking for work," she told the owner, who was washing glasses behind the bar. The place consisted of a series of tables, a few sofas around the walls and, in one corner, a kind of dance floor. "Nothing doing. If you want to work here legally you have to have a work permit."

  Maria showed him hers and the man's mood seemed to improve.

  "Got any experience?"

  She didn't know what to say: if she said yes, he would ask her where she had worked before. If she said no, he might turn her down.

  "I'm writing a book."

  The idea had come out of nowhere, as if an invisible voice had come to her aid. She saw that the man knew she was lying, but was pretending to believe her.

  "Before you make any decision, talk to some of the other girls. We get at least six Brazilian women in every night, that way you can find out exactly what to expect."

  Maria was about to say that she didn't need any advice from anyone and that, besides, she hadn't come to a decision just yet, but the man had already moved off to the other side of the bar, leaving her on her own, without even a glass of water to drink.

  The women started to arrive, and the owner called over some of the Brazilians and asked them to talk to the new arrival. None of them seemed very willing; fear of competition, Maria assumed. The sound system was turned on and a few Brazilian songs were played (well, the place was called "Copacabana"); then some Asiatic-looking women came in, along with others who seemed to have come straight from the snowy, romantic mountains around Geneva. She had been standing there for nearly two hours, with nothing to drink and just a few cigarettes, filled by a growing sense that she was definitely making the wrong decision--the words "what am I doing here?" kept repeating over and over in her head--and feeling increasingly irritated by the complete lack of interest on the part of both the owner and the other women, when, finally, one of the Brazilian girls came over to her.

  "What made you choose this place?"

  Maria could have resorted to that story about writing a book, or she could, as she had with the Kurds, with Miro and with Fellini, simply tell the truth.

  "To be perfectly honest, I don't know where to start or if I want to start."

  The other woman seemed surprised by such a frank, direct answer. She took a sip of what looked like whisky, listened to the Brazilian song they were playing, made some comment about missing her home, then said that there wouldn't be many customers that night because a big international conference being held near Geneva had been cancelled. In the end, when she saw that Maria still hadn't left, she said:

  "Look, it's very simple, you just have to stick to three basic rules. First: never fall in love with anyone you work with or have sex with. Second: don't believe any promises and always get paid up front. Third: don't use drugs."

  There was a pause.

  "And start now. If you go home tonight without having got your first client, you'll have second thoughts about it a
nd you won't have the courage to come back."

  Maria had gone there more for a consultation, to get some feedback on her chances of finding a temporary job. She found herself confronted by the feeling that so often pushes people into making hasty decisions--despair.

  "All right. I'll start tonight."

  She didn't mention that she had, in fact, started yesterday. The woman went up to the owner, whom she called Milan, and he came over to talk to Maria.

  "Have you got nice underwear on?"

  No one--her boyfriends, the Arab, her girlfriends, far less a stranger--had ever asked her that question. But that was what life was like in that place: straight to the point.

  "I'm wearing pale blue panties. And no bra," she added provocatively. But all she got was a reprimand.

  "Tomorrow, wear black panties, bra and stockings. Taking off your clothes is all part of the ritual."

  Without more ado, and on the assumption now that he was talking to someone who was about to start work, Milan introduced her to the rest of the ritual: the Copacabana should be a pleasant place to spend time, not a brothel. The men came into that bar wanting to believe that they would find a lady on her own. If anyone came over to her table and wasn't intercepted en route (because some clients were "exclusive to certain girls"), he would probably say:

  "Would you like a drink?"

  To which Maria could say yes or no. She was free to choose the company she kept, although it wasn't advisable to say "no" more than once a night. If she answered in the affirmative, she should ask for a fruit juice cocktail, which just happened to be the most expensive drink on the drinks list. Absolutely no alcohol or letting the customer choose for her.

  Then, she should accept any invitation to dance. Most of the clientele were familiar faces and, apart from the "special clients," about whom he did not go into any further detail, none of them represented any danger. The police and the Department of Health demanded monthly blood samples, to check that they weren't carrying any sexually transmitted diseases. The use of condoms was obligatory, although there was no way of checking if this rule was or wasn't being followed. She should never, on any account, cause any kind of scandal--Milan was a respectable married man, concerned for his reputation and the good name of his club.