Paulo Coelho: A Warrior's Life

by Fernando Morais

  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 Góes 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 classes, 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, God, 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 Gávea, 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 Otávio, 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 Literária Santo Inácio 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 Françoise 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 work–a laudatory quote would work wonders–in the respected weekly literary column ‘Escritores e Livros’, produced by José Condé, from Pernambuco, in the newspaper Correio da Manhã. The waspish Condé, who was able to make or break reputations in one paragraph, was the joint author of Os Sete Pecados Capitais [The Seven Cardinal Sins], a collection published by Civilização Brasileira, the other authors being Guimarães Rosa, Otto Lara Resende, Carlos Heitor Cony and Lygia Fagundes Telles, among other equally important writers. Paulo admired Condé’s dry style and hoped that the critic’s sharp eye would perceive the talent hidden in his work.

  He added new poems to the anthology published by Rota 15, typed it up and sent off the carefully bound volume to the editors of Correio da Manhã. The following Wednesday, when ‘Escritores e Livros’ appeared, he rushed to the newspaper stand, desperate to read Condé’s opinion of his work. His surprise was such that he cut out the column and stuck it in his diary, writing above it: ‘A week ago, I wrote to J. Condé sending him my poetry and asking for his opinion. This is what appeared in the newspaper today.’ The reason for his fury was a ten-line postscript at the foot of the writer’s column: ‘To all young show-offs who are desperate to get themselves a name and publish books, it would be worthwhile recalling the example of Carlos Drummond de Andrade, who only published three volumes totalling 144 poems in 15 years…And only the other day, a critic said that Ernest Hemingway rewrote that small masterpiece The Old Man and the Sea no fewer than twenty times.’

  Paulo took this personally and felt crushed by such an aggressive response. While only a short while before he had been thanking God for the joy of having discovered his vocation, his self-confidence gave way to a sea of doubt. ‘Maybe I’m not cut out to be a writer,’ he wrote. But he soon recovered his self-belief. Like the friend who used to take cold baths in order not to lose faith in God, he had to fight to realize his dream. Condé had dealt him a blow, but he was not prepared to lie down. He spent the whole day thinking of nothing but that literary column. In order to take his mind off it he tried watching an episode of Dr Kildare, about a young doctor, played by Richard Chamberlain, working in a large hospital. He switched off before the end and wrote in his notebook: ‘In today’s episode of Dr Kildare, the director of the hospital says to the doctor: “I shouldn’t have tried to change your life, Jim. We were all born with an ideal.” I’ve applied these words to being a writer and have decided that’s what I’ll be.’ Thrilled by his own determination, he wrote a parody of Kipling’s ‘If…’:

  If you can ask your friends and enemies for a chance.

  If you can hear a ‘no’ and take it as a ‘maybe’.

  If you can start from the bottom and yet still value the little that you have.

  If you can improve yourself each moment and reach the heights without succumbing to vanity.

  Then you’ll be a writer.

  Immersed in these lofty ideas, he viewed with horror the prospect of going back to Andrews College. Tormented by the mere thought of it, he dreamed up a plan which, if it succeeded, would free him from school for a good two years: to get a study grant and leave the country, as several of his schoolfriends had done. His parents found renewed hope when he applied to join the American Field Service, a cultural exchange programme that was much in vogue at the time. Judging by his marks, he wasn’t entirely useless at English (a subject in which, by his standards, he always did fairly well), and that would certainly help in obtaining the grant. For two weeks, he dedicated his free time to getting together all the necessary documents: school certificates, passport-size photos, references. When the exams came around, the seven other applicants in his group for the one place were whittled down until there remained only Paulo and two others who were to take the decisive test–the interview in English with someone from the United States.

  On the day, he was so nervous that as he sat down in front of the examiner–a girl his own age–he felt a jolt, as though he had been punched in the chest. He set aside his atheism and silently begged God to let this be a false alarm. It was not: he was having an asthma attack. A dry whistle rose from his lungs while, eyes bulging, he patted his pockets, searching for his inhaler. He tried to talk, but all that came out was a whisper. The American girl didn’t know what to do. After a few minutes, the attack subsided. Pulling himself together, he managed to complete the interview, but he left with misgivings: ‘I think that asthma attack has ruined my chances.’ Indeed, a month before he would have been due to leave for the United States, a telegram arrived informing him that he had not been selected. Instead of feeling downhearted at this failure, Paulo attributed it not to
his poor performance but to the fact that his mother had visited the States earlier. ‘I think they’d prefer people whose relatives have never been to the United States,’ he wrote, finishing with a statement worthy of the fox in the fable when faced with the bunch of grapes he cannot reach: ‘They believe, at least this is how I interpret it, that I’m too much of an intellectual for America.’

  It was at this time that a new, overwhelming passion entered his life: a flesh-and-blood passion with brown eyes and long legs and answering to the name of Márcia. At seventeen, Paulo was still skinny and rather short, even by Brazilian standards. He weighed 50 kilos, which was at least 10 kilos below the ideal for his height of 1.69 metres (he remains this height to this day). Added to this, he was not an attractive adolescent. ‘I was ugly, skinny, lacking in charm and incapable of getting a girlfriend,’ he has said in various interviews throughout his life. ‘I had an inferiority complex about the way I looked.’ While the majority of boys wore short-sleeved, close-fitting shirts, to show off their muscles, he would always wear a long-sleeved shirt that concealed his narrow shoulders and thin arms. A disproportionately wide leather belt held up his faded jeans which, as fashion decreed, were tight on the legs. He wore the same metal-framed spectacles with tinted lenses that, years later, would become the trademark of the Beatle John Lennon. His hair was almost shoulder-length, and he had started to cultivate a thin moustache and a tuft of hair under his lower lip.

  Márcia was a year younger than Paulo and lived almost next door. She was also a pupil at Andrews College and a member of Rota 15. In spite of vigilance on the part of her parents and older brother, she was seen by her colleagues as a fun-loving girl and was, therefore, in great demand. With his self-confidence at rock bottom, Paulo didn’t even notice her looking at him when he was arguing with the other ‘intellectuals’ in the group about films, books and plays. Although the majority of the group didn’t even know the meaning of the word, they almost all felt that they were ‘existentialists’. Paulo never wore smart clothes, he didn’t have a car and he wasn’t strong, but Márcia melted whenever she heard him talking about books or reciting famous poems. He, however, was oblivious to this until she took the initiative.

  On New Year’s Eve 1964, Paulo closed yet another notebook with the melancholy words: ‘Today is the last day of 1964, a year that’s coming to an end with a sob hidden in the dark night. A year crowned with bitterness.’ And it was in this same downbeat mood that he met up with his friends two days later, on a Saturday, to go to the show Opinião, featuring the singer Nara Leão, at the Arena Theatre in Copacabana. The group took their seats and Márcia happened to sit next to him. When the lights dimmed and Nara began to sing, Márcia felt something brush her hand. She glanced sideways and saw Paulo’s hand lying close to hers. She immediately entwined her fingers in his and squeezed lightly. He was so astonished that his first reaction was one of panic: what if he had an asthma attack right there? However, he calmed down. ‘I was certain that God had guided Márcia’s hand towards mine,’ he recalled later. ‘In that case, why would He give me an asthma attack?’ So he began to breathe like any mortal and the two fell desperately in love.

  When the show came to an end, Nara Leão gave several encores, but, still holding hands, the young couple took advantage of the dark, and escaped from the crowded theatre. They took off their shoes and walked barefoot, hand-in-hand, along Copacabana beach. Paulo put his arms around her and tried to kiss her, but Márcia pulled back gently, saying: ‘I’ve never been kissed on the mouth before.’

  He reacted like a veritable Don Juan: ‘Don’t worry. I’ve kissed lots of girls. You’ll like it.’

  In the suffocating heat and under the starry Rio night, the two liars shared a long kiss, which both would remember warmly more than forty years later. The year 1965 could not have got off to a more encouraging start.

  Paulo’s relationship with Márcia brought him a peace of mind he had never known before, not even during the best times in Araruama and Belém. He wasn’t even upset when he learned that he hadn’t been placed in a poetry competition held by the Instituto Nacional do Mate. ‘Who cares about prizes,’ he wrote magnanimously, ‘when they’re loved by a woman like Márcia?’ He now filled whole pages of his diary with drawings of hearts pierced by love’s arrow and with their two names written on them.

  This happiness was short-lived. Before the summer was over, Márcia’s parents found out the name of her boyfriend, and they were adamant that he was not the one for her. And when she wanted to know the reason for this ban, her mother was disconcertingly frank: ‘In the first place he’s really ugly. I can’t understand what a pretty girl like you could see in such an ugly, awkward boy. You’re someone who likes parties, and he doesn’t even know how to dance and would be embarrassed to ask a girl to dance. The only thing he’s interested in is books. Added to that, he looks rather sickly…’

  Márcia retorted that he was perfectly healthy. He had asthma, like millions of others, but it could be cured and certainly wasn’t a blot on his character. Her mother feared that he might have other, contagious illnesses: ‘I’ve even been told that he’s an existentialist and a communist. So we’re not going to discuss it any further.’

  For her daughter, the matter was far from being closed. She recounted the entire episode to her boyfriend and the two decided to deal with the situation as best they could. They began to meet secretly in the homes of mutual friends, but because there were very few safe places, their intimate moments together were exceedingly rare and usually occurred in a pedalo on Lake Rodrigo de Freitas. Not that they ever went beyond the preliminaries. Paulo pretended to be experienced, but in fact up until then he had had only one sexual relationship, some months earlier, when, taking advantage of his parents’ absence, he had managed to convince Madalena, a pretty maid whom his mother had recently employed, to go up to his room with him. Although she was only eighteen, Madá–as she was known–was experienced enough for the boy to retain a happy memory of that first night.

  When they learned that their daughter was still meeting ‘that creature’ behind their backs, Márcia’s parents increased their vigilance and refused to allow her to speak to Paulo on the phone. However, it was soon discovered that they had each put an alarm clock under their pillow to wake them at four in the morning when, in the silence of the night, they could whisper words of love, their mouths pressed to the receiver. The punishment for this disobedience was still harsher: she was to remain in the house for a month. Márcia refused to give up. With the help of the maid she would send notes to her boyfriend in which she would say when he should go and stand beneath the window of her room, where she was shut away. One morning, she woke to find a declaration of love scrawled in the tarmac in enormous letters: ‘M: I love you. P.’

  Márcia’s mother returned to the charge: Paulo wasn’t right for her, it wouldn’t work out, he had no future and no prospects. The girl responded, undaunted, that she would certainly not break up with her boyfriend. She planned to marry Paulo one day. On hearing this, one of her aunts suggested that a sickly boy like him might not have the physical strength to fulfil his conjugal obligations. ‘You know what I’m talking about, don’t you, my dear,’ she went on. ‘Marriage, sex, children…Do you think that, weak as he is, he’ll be able to lead a normal life?’ Márcia appeared unconcerned by such threats. As soon as she had served her term of punishment, she went back to meeting Paulo. They had discovered an ideal spot: the church of Our Lady of the Conception, which was close to both their houses. They never sat next to each other, but one would sit in front of the other so that they wouldn’t arouse suspicion, and there they would talk in whispers. Despite all their precautions, they were caught by Márcia’s father, who dragged her home screaming and punished her by beating her with a belt.

  She, however, seemed firmly determined to love, become engaged to and marry her Prince Charming. His parents weren’t over-enthusiastic about their son’s choice either. Since it was usual
for his friends to hold small parties in their homes, Paulo managed to persuade his parents to allow him to hold one in theirs. It was a disaster. When they saw their son dancing cheek-to-cheek with his girlfriend, his father stood, arms crossed, beside them, staring angrily until Márcia, embarrassed, moved away and joined a group of girlfriends. And he did the same with Paulo’s other guests. If he saw a boy and girl dancing too close or with the boy’s hand below the girl’s waist, he would stand right next to them until they ‘showed some manners’. In addition, the master of the house had forbidden all alcohol, even an innocent beer.

  This was the first and last party held in the Coelhos’ large pink house. But nothing could shake Paulo’s happiness. Márcia’s birthday was approaching, and their love was not yet two months old, when her mother suggested they have a talk. Not being a believer in corporal punishment, she tried another tack: ‘If you break up with him, you can go to the best boutique in Rio and buy all the clothes you want.’ Her mother knew her daughter’s weak spot: vanity. Márcia’s initial reaction was that the suggestion was unacceptable–‘downright blackmail’. However, after some reflection, she decided that she had more than proved her love and that they both knew that they couldn’t pursue their love against their parents’ wishes. They were both under age and dependent–there was no future in it. If she had to give in, then at least it was at a good price. She accepted. When he read Márcia’s letter telling him that their romance was over, Paulo burst into tears and wrote of his frustration: ‘For someone like me, who dreamed of transforming Gávea into a Brazilian Verona, there could be no sadder end than being thrown over for a couple of dresses.’