by Paulo Coelho
Tonight she would be the Understanding Mother. Ralf Hart was just another desperate man, like millions of others. If she played her role well, if she managed to follow the rules she had laid down for herself since she began working at the Copacabana, there was no reason to worry. It was very dangerous, though, having that man so near, now that she could smell him--and she liked the way he smelled--now that she could feel his touch--and she liked his touch--now that she realized she had been waiting for him--she did not like that.
Within forty-five minutes they had fulfilled all the rules, and the man went over to the owner of the bar and said:
"I'm going to spend the rest of the night with her. I'll pay you as if I were three clients."
The owner shrugged and thought again that the Brazilian girl would end up falling into the trap of love. Maria, for her part, was surprised: she hadn't realized that Ralf Hart knew the rules so well.
"Let's go back to my house."
Perhaps that was the best thing to do, she thought. Although it went against all of Milan's advice, she decided, in this case, to make an exception. Apart from finding out once and for all whether or not he was married, she would also find out how famous painters live, and one day she would be able to write an article for her local newspaper, so that everyone would know that, during her time in Europe, she had moved in intellectual and artistic circles.
"What an absurd excuse!" she thought.
Half an hour later, they arrived at a small village near Geneva, called Cologny; there was a church, a bakery, a town hall, everything in its proper place. And he really did live in a two-storey house, not an apartment! First reaction: he really must be rich. Second reaction: if he were married, he wouldn't dare to do this, because they would be bound to be seen by someone.
So, he was rich and single.
They went into a hall from which a staircase ascended to the second floor, but they went straight ahead to the two rooms at the back that looked onto the garden. There was a dining table in one of the rooms, and the walls were crowded with paintings. In the other room were sofas and chairs, packed bookshelves, overflowing ashtrays and dirty glasses that had clearly been there for a long time.
"Would you like a coffee?"
Maria shook her head. No, she wouldn't. You can't treat me differently just yet. I'm confronting my own demons, doing exactly the opposite of what I promised myself I would do. But let's take things slowly; tonight I'll play the part of prostitute or friend or Understanding Mother, even though in my soul I'm a Daughter in need of affection. When it's all over, then you can make me a coffee.
"At the bottom of the garden is my studio, my soul. Here, amongst all these paintings and books, is my brain, what I think."
Maria thought of her own apartment. She had no garden at the back. She did not even have any books, apart from those she borrowed from the library, since there was no point in spending money on something she could get for free. There were no paintings either, apart from a poster for the Shanghai Acrobatic Circus, which she dreamed of going to one day.
Ralf picked up a bottle of whisky and offered her a glass.
"No, thank you."
He poured himself a drink and swallowed it down in one--without ice, without time to savor it. He started talking about intelligent things, but, however interesting the conversation, she knew that he too was afraid of what was going to happen, now that they were alone. Maria had regained control of the situation.
Ralf poured himself another whisky and, as if he were making some utterly inconsequential remark, he said:
"I need you."
A pause. A long silence. Don't help to break that silence, let's see what he does next.
"I need you, Maria. Because you have a light, although I don't really think you believe me yet, and think I'm just trying to seduce you with my words. Don't ask me: 'Why me? What's so special about me?' There isn't anything special about you, at least, nothing I can put my finger on. And yet--and here's the mystery of life--I can't think of anything else."
"I wasn't going to ask you," she lied.
"If I were looking for an explanation, I would say: the woman in front of me has managed to overcome suffering and to transform it into something positive, something creative, but that doesn't explain everything."
It was becoming difficult to escape. He went on:
"And what about me? I have my creativity, I have my paintings, which are sought after by galleries all over the world, I have realized my dream, my village thinks of me as a beloved son, my ex-wives never ask me for alimony or anything like that, I have good health, reasonable looks, everything a man could want.... And yet here I am saying to a woman I met in a cafe and with whom I have spent one afternoon: 'I need you.' Do you know what loneliness is?"
"I do."
"But you don't know what loneliness is like when you have the chance to be with other people all the time, when you get invitations every night to parties, cocktail parties, opening nights at the theater...when women are always ringing you up, women who love your work, who say how much they would like to have supper with you--they're beautiful, intelligent, educated women. But something pushes you away and says: 'Don't go. You won't enjoy yourself. You'll spend the whole night trying to impress them and squander your energies proving to yourself how you can charm the whole world.'
"So I stay at home, go into my studio and try to find the light I saw in you, and I can only see that light when I'm working."
"What can I give you that you don't already have?" she asked, feeling slightly humiliated by that remark about other women, but remembering that he had, after all, paid to have her at his side.
He drank a third glass of whisky. Maria accompanied him in her imagination, the alcohol burning his throat and his stomach, entering his bloodstream and filling him with courage, and she too began to feel drunk, even though she hadn't touched a drop. When Ralf spoke again, his voice sounded steadier:
"I can't buy your love, but you did tell me that you knew everything about sex. Teach me, then. Or teach me something about Brazil. Anything, just as long as I can be with you."
What next?
"I only know two places in my own country: the town I was born in and Rio de Janeiro. As for sex, I don't think I can teach you anything. I'm nearly twenty-three, you're about six years older, but I know you've lived life very intensely. I know men who pay me to do what they want, not what I want."
"I've done everything a man could dream of doing with one, two, even three women at the same time. And I don't think I learned very much."
Silence again, except that this time it was Maria's turn to speak. And he did not help her, just as she had not helped him before.
"Do you want me as a professional?"
"I want you however you want to be wanted."
No, he couldn't have said that, because that was precisely what she had wanted to hear. The earthquake, the volcano, the storm returned. It was going to be impossible to escape her own trap, she would lose this man without ever really having him.
"You know what I mean, Maria. Teach me. Perhaps that will save me, perhaps it will save you and bring us both back to life. You're right, I am only six years older than you, and yet I've lived enough for several lives. Our experiences have been entirely different, but we are both desperate people; the only thing that brings us any peace is being together."
Why was he saying these things? It wasn't possible, and yet it was true. They had only met once before and yet they already needed each other. Imagine what would happen if they continued seeing each other; it would be disastrous! Maria was an intelligent woman, with many months behind her now of reading and of observing humankind; she had an aim in life, but she also had a soul, which she needed to know in order to discover her "light." She was becoming tired of being who she was, and although her imminent return to Brazil was an interesting challenge, she had not yet learned all she could. Ralf Hart was a man who had accepted challenges and had learned everything, and now he
was asking this woman, this prostitute, this Understanding Mother, to save him. How absurd!
Other men had behaved like this with her. Many of them had been unable to have an erection, others had wanted to be treated like children, others had said that they would like her to be their wife because it excited them to know that she had had so many lovers. Although she had still not met any of the "special clients," she had already discovered the vast universe of fantasies that fills the human soul. But they were all used to their own worlds and none of them had said to her: "take me away from here." On the contrary, they wanted to take Maria with them.
And even though those many men had always left her with money, but drained of energy, she must have learned something. If one of them had really been looking for love, and if sex really was only part of that search, how would she like to be treated? What did she think should happen on a first meeting?
What would she really like to happen?
"I'd like a gift," said Maria.
Ralf Hart didn't understand. A gift? He had already paid for that night in advance, while they were in the taxi, because he knew the ritual. What did she mean?
Maria had suddenly realized that she knew, at that moment, what a man and a woman needed to feel. She took his hand and led him into one of the sitting rooms.
"We won't go up to the bedroom," she said.
She turned out almost all the lights, sat down on the carpet and asked him to sit down opposite her. She noticed that there was a fire in the room.
"Light the fire."
"But it's summer."
"Light the fire. You asked me to guide our steps tonight and that's what I'm doing."
She gave him a steady look, hoping that he would again see her "light." He obviously did, because he went out into the garden, collected some wood still wet with rain, and picked up some old newspapers so that the fire would dry the wood and get it to burn. He went into the kitchen to fetch more whisky, but Maria called him back.
"Did you ask me what I wanted?"
"No, I didn't."
"Well, the person you're with has to exist too. Think of her. Think if she wants whisky or gin or coffee. Ask her what she wants."
"What would you like to drink."
"Wine. And I'd like you to keep me company."
He put down the whisky bottle and returned with a bottle of wine. By this time, the fire was already beginning to burn; Maria turned out the few remaining lights, so that the flames were the only illumination in the room. She behaved as if she had always known that this was the first step: recognizing the other person and knowing that he or she was there.
She opened her handbag and found inside a pen she had bought in a supermarket. Anything would do.
"This is for you. I bought it so that I could note down some ideas about farm management. I used it for two days, I worked until I was too tired to work anymore. It contains some of my sweat, some of my concentration and my willpower, and I'm giving it to you now."
She placed the pen gently in his hand.
"Instead of buying something that you would like to have, I'm giving you something that is mine, truly mine. A gift. A sign of respect for the person before me, asking him to understand how important it is to be by his side. Now he has a small part of me with him, which I gave him with my free, spontaneous will."
Ralf got up, went over to a shelf and returned, carrying something. He held it out to Maria.
"This is a carriage belonging to an electric train set I had when I was a child. I wasn't allowed to play with it on my own, because my father said it had been imported from the United States and was very expensive. So I had to wait until he felt like setting up the train in the living room, but he spent most Sundays listening to opera. That's why the train survived my childhood, but never gave me any happiness. I've still got all the track, the engine, the houses, even the manual, because I had a train that wasn't mine and with which I never played.
"I wish I'd destroyed it along with all the other toys I was given and which I've since forgotten all about, because that passion for destruction is part of how a child discovers the world. But this pristine train set always reminds me of a part of my childhood that I never lived, because it was too precious and it meant too much work for my father. Or perhaps it was just that whenever he set the train up, he was afraid he might show his love for me."
Maria began staring into the fire. Something was happening, and it wasn't just the wine or the cozy atmosphere. It was that exchange of gifts.
Ralf turned to the fire too. They said nothing, listening to the crackle of the flames. They drank their wine, as if it didn't matter that they said nothing, did nothing. They were just there, together, staring in the same direction.
"I have a lot of pristine train sets in my life too," said Maria, after a while. "One of them is my heart. And I only played with it when the world set out the tracks, and then it wasn't always the right moment."
"But you loved."
"Oh, yes, I loved, I loved very deeply. I loved so deeply that when my love asked me for a gift, I took fright and fled."
"I don't understand."
"You don't have to. I'm teaching you because I've discovered something I didn't know before. The giving of gifts. Giving something of one's own. Giving something important rather than asking. You have my treasure: the pen with which I wrote down some of my dreams. I have your treasure: the carriage of a train, part of your childhood that you did not live.
"I carry with me part of your past, and you carry with you a little of my present. Isn't that lovely?"
She said all this without blinking, and without surprise, as if she had known for ages that this was the best and only way to behave. She got lightly to her feet, took her jacket from the coat rack and kissed Ralf on the cheek. Ralf Hart did not make any move to get up, hypnotized by the fire, perhaps thinking about his father.
"I never understood why I kept that carriage. Now I do: it was in order to give it to you one night before an open fire. Now the house feels lighter."
He said that the next day he would give the rest of the tracks, engines, smoke pills, to some children's home.
"It could be a rarity, of a kind that isn't made any more; it could be worth a lot of money," said Maria, but immediately regretted her words. That wasn't what mattered, the point was to free yourself from something that cost your heart even more.
Before she said anything else that did not quite chime with the moment, she again kissed him on the cheek and walked to the front door. He was still gazing into the fire, and she had to ask him softly if he would open the door for her.
Ralf got up, and she explained that, although she was glad to see him staring into the fire, Brazilians have a strange superstition: when you visit someone for the first time, you must not be the one to open the door when you leave, because if you do, you will never return to that house.
"And I want to come back."
"Although we didn't take our clothes off and I didn't come inside you, or even touch you, we've made love."
She laughed. He offered to take her home, but she refused.
"I'll come and see you tomorrow, then, at the Copacabana."
"No, don't Wait a week. I've learned that waiting is the most difficult bit, and I want to get used to the feeling, knowing that you're with me, even when you're not by my side."
She walked back through the cold and the dark, as she had so many times before in Geneva; normally, these walks were associated with sadness, loneliness, the desire to go back to Brazil, financial calculations, timetables, nostalgia for the language she hadn't spoken freely for ages.
Now, though, she was walking in order to find herself, to find that woman who had sat with a man by a fire for forty minutes and who was full of light, wisdom, experience and charm. She had seen that woman's face a long time ago, when she was walking by the lakeside wondering whether or not she should devote herself to a life that wasn't hers--on that afternoon, the woman had a terribly sad smile
on her face. She had seen her for a second time on that folded canvas, and now she was with her again. She only caught a taxi after she had walked quite a way, when the magic presence had gone, leaving her alone again, as usual.
It was best not to think too much about it all, so as not to spoil it, so as not to let the beauty of what she had just experienced be replaced by anxiety. If that other Maria really existed, she would return when the moment was right.
An extract from the diary Maria wrote on the night she was given the train carriage:
Profound desire, true desire is the desire to be close to someone. From that point onwards, things change, the man and the woman come into play, but what happens before--the attraction that brought them together--is impossible to explain. It is untouched desire in its purest state.
When desire is still in this pure state, the man and the woman fall in love with life, they live each moment reverently, consciously, always ready to celebrate the next blessing.
When people feel like this, they are not in a hurry, they do not precipitate events with unthinking actions. They know that the inevitable will happen, that what is real always finds a way of revealing itself. When the moment comes, they do not hesitate, they do not miss an opportunity, they do not let slip a single magic moment, because they respect the importance of each second.
In the days that followed, Maria found herself once more caught in the trap she had tried so hard to avoid, but she felt neither sad nor concerned. On the contrary, now that she had nothing to lose, she was free.
She knew that, however romantic the situation, one day, Ralf Hart would realize that she was just a prostitute, while he was a respected artist, that she lived in a far-off country that was in a state of permanent crisis, while he lived in paradise, with his life organized and protected from birth. He had received his education in the best schools, museums and art galleries of the world, while she had barely finished secondary school. Dreams like theirs never lasted long, and Maria had enough experience of life to know that reality usually chose not to fit in with her dreams. And that was now her great joy: to say to reality that she didn't need it, that she was no longer dependent on what happened in order to be happy.
