Paulo Coelho: A Warrior's Life

by Fernando Morais

  To add to my persecution mania, I wasn’t even invited to the launch of Nelson Motta’s book. He’s pretty much avoided me, and I’ve never been able to conceal my dislike of him.

  I think people only tolerate me because I’m a friend of Menescal’s. It really winds me up.

  His dual role–as lyricist and Philips executive–also became a source of irrepressible fears. Paulo often had to produce lengthy reports for the Philips board containing critical appraisals of the most important artists contracted to the company, namely, his colleagues. Although only Midani, Menescal, Armando Pittigliani and one or two other directors read this information, it made him go cold just to think of that material falling into the hands or reaching the ears of the artists he had assessed. His fear was justifiable, as he was usually niggardly in his praise and harsh in his criticism. Paulo was nevertheless a more than dedicated worker whose enthusiasm for what he was doing often meant working late into the night. His work with Philips was one of the supports on which his fragile emotional stability was balanced. The second was his somewhat shaky marriage and the third, a new interest into which he threw himself body and soul, yoga. As well as this, and when things got too much, he asked for help from Dr Benjamim Gomes, who would get him back on track with an assortment of antidepressants.

  In January 1977, Paulo had been convinced that Cissa was different from his previous partners. ‘She is what she is, she’s unlikely to change,’ he wrote. ‘I’ve stopped trying to change her because I can see how useless that is.’ Gradually, however, he managed to interest his wife in at least one facet of his world–drugs. Cissa would never become a regular consumer, but it was because of him that she smoked cannabis for the first time and then experimented with LSD. Following a ritual similar to that adopted by Vera Richter when she smoked hashish for the first time, they had their first experiment with LSD on 19 March, St Joseph’s feast day, after first kissing the saint’s image. They turned on a tape recorder when Cissa placed the small tablet on her tongue and from then on she described her initial feelings of insecurity, how she felt, at first, sleepy and then experienced itching all over her body, finally reaching a state of ecstasy. At that moment, she began to hear ‘indescribable’ sounds. Sobbing, she tried unsuccessfully to describe what she felt: ‘No one can stop what’s going in my ears. I’ll never forget what I’m hearing now. I need to try and describe it…I know that you heard what I heard. I was looking at the ceiling of our little home. I don’t know…I think it’s impossible to describe it, but I must…Paulo, it’s such an amazing thing.’ Her husband monitored this ‘research’ and also provided the sound track. The opening was a headline from Jornal Nacional, on TV Globo, announcing high numbers of traffic accidents in Rio. Then came Bach’s Toccata and Fugue, and Wagner’s Wedding March. To calm his guinea pig he promised that should she have a bad trip, a simple glass of freshly squeezed orange juice would quickly reverse the effects of the lysergic acid.

  While drugs may have masked his anxieties, they were not enough to drive them away. It was during one of his deep depressions that a superhero appeared to him in his room, on a mission to save him. This was the heavyweight Rocky Balboa, the character played by Sylvester Stallone in the film Rocky. In the early hours, in March 1977, as he and Cissa sat in bed watching the Oscar awards on TV, Paulo was moved to see Rocky win no fewer than three statuettes, for best film, best director and best editing. Like Balboa, who had come back from nothing to become a champion, he, too, wanted to be a winner and was determined to win his prize. And still the only thing he was interested in becoming was a writer with a worldwide readership. It was already clear in his mind that the first step on the long road to literary glory was to leave Brazil and write his books abroad. The following day he went to Menescal and told him he was leaving. If it had been up to Paulo, the couple’s destination would have been Madrid, but Cissa’s preference won the day and in early May 1977, the two disembarked at Heathrow airport in London, the city chosen as the birthplace of his first book.

  A few days later, they were settled in a studio flat in 7 Palace Street, halfway between Victoria station and Buckingham Palace, for which they paid £186 a month. It was a tiny apartment, but it was in a good location and there was a further attraction: a bath. When they arrived in London, they opened an account at the Bank of Brazil with US$5,000. Money was not exactly a problem for Paulo, but as well as being known for his parsimony, he had a legal problem, which was the limit of US$300 a month that could be transferred to Brazilians living abroad. In order to get round this, at the end of each month Paulo and Cissa mobilized grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins to each send US$300 to Brazilian friends who were resident in London and they would then deposit the money in the couple’s account in the Bank of Brazil. Thus they received about US$1,500 a month without paying any tax.

  Paulo’s incomings included payment for a music column he wrote in the weekly magazine Amiga. Cissa did some journalistic work for the Brazilian section of the BBC and published the occasional short, signed article in the Jornal do Brasil, as well, of course, as doing all housework, since her husband’s contribution in this area was nil. Worse, he refused to allow any frozen food in the house and politely asked his wife to buy a cookery book. The problem was translating the recipes. The two spent hours trying to understand a recipe so that she could transform it into a meal. A weekly menu listing each day’s meals was solemnly posted in a prominent place on one of the walls of the apartment. From these menus it can be seen that they only allowed themselves meat once a week, although they made up for this with frequent visits to Indian and Thai restaurants.

  They never lacked for money and what they received was enough to cover their expenses, including the classes in yoga, photography and vampirism that Paulo attended, as well as outings, short trips and taking in London’s many cultural highlights. Paulo and Cissa were always first in the queue when something was shown that would have been banned by the censors in Brazil, such as the film State of Siege, directed by Costa-Gavras, which was a denunciation of the dictatorship in Uruguay. Three months went by without any real work being done. Paulo wrote: ‘I have worked a maximum two days a week. That means that, on average, in these three months in Europe I’ve worked less than a month. For someone who wanted to conquer the world, for someone who arrived full of dreams and desires, two days’ work a week is very little.’

  As there seemed no way to write the wretched, longed-for book, Paulo tried to fill his time with productive activity. The classes in vampirism inspired him to write a film script, The Vampire of London. He sent it by post to well-known producers, all of whom replied politely, making it clear that, as far as they were concerned, vampires did not make good box office. One of them very kindly offered ‘to look at the film when it’s finished and give you my opinion as to whether or not we are prepared to distribute it’.

  By July, Paulo and Cissa realized that it would not be easy to find friends in London. To compensate for this lack in their lives they had a short visit from his parents. The exchange of correspondence with Brazil was growing, in the form of letters or, as Paulo preferred, tapes, whenever there was someone who could take them back to Brazil. Piles and piles of cassette tapes collected in the houses of his parents and friends, particularly in that of his dearest friend, Roberto Menescal, from whom he learned that Rita Lee had found a new writing partner–which, added to the rejections from producers and publishers, led to pages of lamentation:

  My partner has found another writing partner. I’ve been forgotten far more quickly than I imagined: in just three months. In just three months I’ve lost any importance I had to cultural life over there. No one’s written to me for several days.

  What’s been going on? What lies behind the mysteries that led me here? The dream I’ve dreamed all my life? Right now I’m close to realizing that dream and yet I feel as though I’m not ready for it.

  At the end of 1977, when it was time to renew the six-month contract with their landlor
d, the couple decided to leave the apartment in Palace Street for a cheaper one. They put a five-line advertisement in the classified column of a London newspaper saying: ‘Young professional couple need flat from November 15th, London area with telephone.’ Days later, they had settled in Bassett Road, in Notting Hill, near Portobello, where Paulo would later set his novel The Witch of Portobello. It was not such a smart address as Palace Street, but they were now living in a far larger apartment that was also better and cheaper than the other one.

  While the course in vampirism didn’t help Paulo become a screenplay writer, it nevertheless left a mark on his life. There he met and fell in love with a charming twenty-four-year-old Japanese masseuse, Keiko Saito, who was as interested as he was in that lugubrious subject. As well as being his colleague on the course, Keiko became his companion in handing out pamphlets in the street, one day protesting against the mass killings perpetrated by ‘Marshal’ Pol Pot in Cambodia, and another collecting signatures in favour of the legalization of cannabis in Great Britain. Paulo broached the subject with Cissa: ‘I’m in love with Keiko and I want to know how you feel about me inviting her to come and live with us.’ On the only occasion when he spoke publicly about this episode–an interview in 1992 with the journalist W.F. Padovani, who was working for Playboy at the time–Paulo revealed that his wife happily accepted his proposal:

  Playboy–And what about your marriage to Cecília Mac Dowell?

  Paulo–It took place in church.

  Playboy–With the full regalia?

  Paulo–Yes, and Raul Seixas was my best man. Cecília and I then went to live in London, where we enjoyed a ménage à trois.

  Playboy–How did that happen?

  Paulo–I did a course on vampires and fell in love with one of the students, a Japanese girl called Keiko. Since I loved Cecília too, I decided to live with them both.

  Playboy–Did they meet?

  Paulo–Oh, yes, we lived together for a year.

  Playboy–And how was it in bed?

  Paulo–I had sex with them both at the same time, but they didn’t have sex with each other.

  Playboy–Wasn’t one jealous of the other?

  Paulo–No, never.

  Playboy–Wasn’t there a time when you felt you wanted to make love just to one of them alone?

  Paulo–As far as I can remember, no. It was a very intense love affair à trois.

  Playboy–Cecília and Keiko didn’t have sex, but what exactly did they feel for each other?

  Paulo–They were very fond of each other. They knew how much I loved them and I knew how much they loved me.

  Just as the Chinese and Soviet communist leaders used to do with political dissenters in official photos, Paulo airbrushed from the scene described in Playboy an important character in this story, a young, long-haired Brazilian music producer known as Peninha, who was also living in London at the time. Paulo had always believed that Cissa was an easy person to live with, but after living with her for a year he had learned that he had married a woman who would not put up with any excesses. When she realized that he was suggesting living with two women, like an Arabian sheikh, in an apartment that had just one room and one bed, he was astonished at her reaction:

  ‘Keiko can come and live here, as long as you agree that Peninha can move in too, because I’m in love with him as well.’

  Paulo had no alternative but to agree to the involvement of this fourth member of what he came to call ‘the extended family’, or the ‘UN General Assembly’. Whenever a relative of Cissa’s or Paulo’s arrived, Keiko and Peninha had to vanish, as, for example, when Gail, Cissa’s elder sister, spent a week at the apartment.

  To celebrate the New Year–the first and only one they spent in England–the Coelhos travelled by train with the ‘extended family’ to spend a few days in Edinburgh. The end of the year was always a time for Paulo to weigh up triumphs and failures. He clearly wasn’t going to lay his hands on the imaginary Oscar that had been one of his reasons for leaving Brazil in March. Months and months had passed without his producing a single line of the much dreamed-of book. Defeat followed defeat, as he confessed to his diary:

  It’s been a time of rejections. Everything I’ve submitted to the various competitions I was eligible to enter has been rejected. The last remaining results arrived today. All the women I’ve wanted to go out with have rejected me. This isn’t just my imagination. When I say ‘all’ I mean that there is not one exception.

  […] Ever since I was a child I’ve dreamed of being a writer, of going abroad to write and becoming world-famous. Obviously London was the step I dreamed of taking when I was a child. The fact is that the results haven’t been what I was hoping for. My first and greatest disappointment has been with myself. I’ve had six months here to feel inspired and I haven’t had enough discipline to write a single line.

  The image Paulo gave to other people was of a successful lyricist whose hobby was writing about London for Brazilian magazines. His old friend Menescal, however, with whom he corresponded frequently, began to suspect that his protégé was not very happy and thought that it was time for him to end his stay in London. Paulo agreed to return to Brazil, but he didn’t want to return with his tail between his legs, as though defeated. If Philips invited him to go back to work there, he would return to Rio de Janeiro the next day. Menescal not only flew to London to make the offer but took with him Heleno Oliveira, a top executive of the multinational company. The job would not begin until March 1978, but it was the invitation Paulo needed, not the job. The day before leaving, he collected together the few pieces of writing he had managed to produce during those sterile months in London and put them in an envelope on which, after sealing it, he wrote his own name and address. Then, as he was drinking a whisky with Menescal in a modest pub in the Portobello Road, he ‘accidentally’ left the envelope on the bar. On his last night in the city, he explained to his diary the reason for this act: ‘I’ve left everything I’ve written this year in that bar. It’s the last chance for someone to discover me and say: this guy’s brilliant. So there’s my name and address. If they want to, they can find me.’

  Either the package was lost or whoever found it did not consider its contents particularly brilliant. The couple returned to Brazil in February 1978. During the flight, Cissa broke down in tears and Paulo summarized the situation thus: ‘In London all my hopes of becoming a world-famous writer were dashed.’

  As various of the characters he created later on would say: this was just another defeat, not a failure. He and Cissa returned to the apartment in Rua Barata Ribeiro, which had seemed unsuitable even before their trip to England. As soon as they were back, Paulo began to predict dark times for his marriage, if the ‘emotional flexibility’ that had prevailed in London did not extend to Brazil:

  My relationship with Cissa could prove lasting if she showed the same emotional flexibility that existed in London. We have already advanced far enough for a small step back to be acceptable. On the other hand, there will be no opportunities. It is just going to be a question of time. Let’s hope that everything turns out all right. Although I think that our return to Brazil means that we’re more likely to split up than to stay together, because here we’re less forgiving of each other’s weaknesses.

  Some months later, they moved to the fourth property that Paulo had added to his small urban portfolio. Bought with the royalties that had accumulated during his absence, this was a comfortable three-bedroom apartment in Rua Senador Eusébio in Flamengo, two blocks from the Paissandu cinema, three from the home of his ex-fiancée Eneida and a few metres from where Raul Seixas lived. They decorated half the sitting-room wall with photos and souvenirs of their trip to London, which began to take on another meaning: while on the one hand, they reminded the couple of the happy times they had spent there, on the other, they were, for Paulo, a permanent reminder that he had not succeeded in writing ‘the book’.

  In March he took up his job as artistic producer with
Philips and during the months that followed, he resumed his routine as executive at a recording company. Since he disliked getting up early, he was frequently woken at ten in the morning with a telephone call from his secretary, telling him that someone had been asking for him. He would drive from home to Barra da Tijuca in his own car and spend the rest of the day in endless meetings, many out of the office, with artists, directors of the company and journalists from the music world. In his office he ended up dealing with everything. In between fielding numerous telephone calls, he would sort out administrative matters, approve record sleeves and write letters to fans on behalf of famous artists.

  The fact that Raul Seixas was near by didn’t mean that the partners became close again. Indeed, at the end of the year, the two ‘close enemies’ were invited by WEA, Raul’s new recording company, to try to recreate the partnership that had taken Brazil by storm, but the attempt failed. The LP Mata Virgem, for which Paulo wrote five lyrics (‘Judas’, ‘As Profecias’, ‘Tá na Hora’, ‘Conserve seu Medo’ and ‘Magia de Amor’), was released at the beginning of 1979, but did not achieve even a tenth of the sales of such albums as Gita and Há Dez Mil Anos Atrás.

  The fame that the two had experienced between 1973 and 1975 became a thing of the past, but Paulo had absorbed the lesson that Raul had taught him–‘Writing music is like writing a story in twenty lines that someone can listen to ten times without getting bored’–and was no longer dependent on his partner. Besides the five songs he wrote for Mata Virgem, in 1978 he wrote almost twenty songs in partnership with all the performers who were making a mark on the popular Brazilian music of the time. He had become a sort of jack-of-all-trades in show business, writing songs, directing and scripting shows, and when Pedro Rovai, a director of porn films, decided to make Amante Latino, he invited Paulo to write the script for that.