Adultery

by Paulo Coelho

  It's my lunch hour--my only free time during the day, and when the most interesting things in my life always seem to happen--like meetings with friends, politicians, sources, and drug dealers.

  The classrooms should be empty. I can't go to the campus restaurant, where Marianne--or Mme Konig--is probably casually flipping her blond hair to the side while the boys who study there imagine how they could seduce such an interesting woman and the girls gaze at her as a model of elegance, intelligence, and good behavior.

  I go to the reception desk and ask for directions to Mme Konig's classroom. I am told that it is lunchtime (something there is no way I couldn't already know). I say that I don't want to interrupt her during her break, so I will wait for her outside her classroom door.

  I am dressed normally, like a person you look at and immediately forget. The only suspicious thing is that I am wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day. I let the receptionist catch a glimpse of the bandages I put under the lenses. She will certainly conclude that I have recently had plastic surgery.

  I walk toward the room where Marianne teaches, surprised by my composure. I imagined that I would be afraid, that I would give up halfway, but no. I'm here and I feel quite at ease. If I ever have to write about myself, I will do it for the same reason as Mary Shelley and her Victor Frankenstein: I just wanted to get out of a rut, find a better reason for my boring, unchallenging life. Her result was a monster capable of implicating the innocent and saving the guilty.

  Everyone has a dark side. Everyone wants a taste of absolute power. I read stories of torture and war and see that those who inflict suffering are driven by an unknown monster when they are able to exert power, but turn into docile fathers, servants of the homeland, and excellent husbands when they return home.

  I remember when I was young a boyfriend asked me to take care of his poodle. I hated that dog. I had to share the attention of the man I loved with it. I wanted all his love.

  One day I decided to take revenge on that irrational animal, an animal that in no way contributed to the growth of humanity, but whose helplessness aroused love and affection. I began attacking him in a way that would leave no trace by prodding him with a pin stuck on the end of a broomstick. The dog whined and barked, but I didn't stop until I got tired.

  When my boyfriend arrived, he hugged and kissed me like always. He thanked me for taking care of his poodle. We made love, and life continued as before. Dogs can't talk.

  I think of this as I make my way to Marianne's office. How could I have ever been capable of that? Because everyone is. I've seen men madly in love with their wives lose their heads and beat them, only to beg and sob for forgiveness immediately after.

  We are incomprehensible animals.

  But why do this to Marianne, when all she did was snub me at a party? Why come up with a plan and take the risk of buying drugs and planting them in her desk?

  Because she's attained what I cannot: Jacob's love and attention.

  Is that a good enough answer? If it were, 99.9 percent of people would be conspiring to destroy one another right now.

  Maybe it's because I am tired of complaining. Because these sleepless nights are driving me mad. Because I feel comfortable in my madness. Because I won't get caught. Because I want to stop obsessing about this. Because I am seriously ill. Because I am not the only one. Frankenstein has never gone out of print, because everyone sees a bit of themselves in both the scientist and the monster.

  I stop. I'm seriously ill. It's a real possibility. Maybe I should get out of here right now and find a doctor. I need to finish the task I've set out to do, but I will, even if the doctor then tells the police--he'll protect me with patient confidentiality, but at the same time expose an injustice.

  I arrive at the classroom door, reflecting on the "whys" I've listed along the way. I go in anyway, without hesitation.

  I find a cheap desk with no drawers. Just a wooden tabletop on turned legs. Something for laying down a few books, a bag, and nothing more.

  I should have guessed. I'm frustrated and relieved at the same time.

  The halls, previously silent, begin to show signs of life; people are returning to class. I leave without looking back, walking in the direction from where they came. There is a door at the end of the hall. I open it and exit at the top of a small hill across from the hospital for the elderly with its massive walls and--I'm sure--the heating running smoothly. I walk over and, at the reception desk, I ask for someone who doesn't exist. I am told the person must be somewhere else--Geneva must have more nursing homes per square meter than any other city. The nurse offers to look around for me. I say there's no need, but she insists:

  "It's no trouble."

  To avoid further suspicion, I agree to let her search. While she sits busily at her computer, I pick a book off the counter and leaf through it.

  "They're children's stories," says the nurse, without taking her eyes off the screen. "The patients love them."

  It makes sense. I open to a page at random:

  A mouse was always depressed because he was afraid of cats. A great wizard took pity on him and turned him into a cat. Then he started to be afraid of dogs, and so the wizard turned him into a dog. Then he began to fear tigers. The wizard, who was very patient, used his powers to turn him into a tiger. Then he was afraid of hunters. Finally, the wizard gave up and turned him back into a mouse, saying:

  "Nothing I do will help you, because you never understood your growth. You are better being what you always were."

  The nurse is unable to find the imaginary patient. She apologizes. I thank her and prepare to leave, but apparently she is happy to have someone to talk to.

  "Do you think plastic surgery helps?"

  Plastic surgery? Ah, right. I remember the small pieces of adhesive tape under my sunglasses.

  "Most patients here have had plastic surgery. If I were you, I would stay away. It creates an imbalance between the mind and body." I didn't ask her opinion, but she seems overcome with humanitarian duty and continues: "The aging process is more traumatic for those who think they can control the passage of time."

  I ask her nationality: Hungarian. Of course. Swiss people never give their opinion without being asked.

  I thank her for her trouble and leave, taking off the sunglasses and bandages. The disguise worked, but the plan did not. The campus is empty again. Now everyone is busy learning how to care, how to think, and how to make others think.

  I take the long way back to my car. From a distance, I can see the psychiatric hospital. Should I be in there?

  ARE WE all like this? I ask my husband after the kids have fallen asleep and we are getting ready for bed.

  "Like what?"

  Like me, who either feels great or feels awful.

  "I think so. We're always practicing self-control, trying to keep the monster from coming out of his hiding place."

  It's true.

  "We aren't who we want to be. We are what society demands. We are what our parents choose. We don't want to disappoint anyone; we have a great need to be loved. So we smother the best in us. Gradually, the light of our dreams turns into the monster of our nightmares. They become things not done, possibilities not lived."

  As I understand it, psychiatry used to call it "manic-depressive psychosis," but now they call it "bipolar disorder" to be more politically correct. Where did they get that name? Is there something different between the north and south poles? It must be a minority ...

  "Of course people who express those dualities are a minority. But I bet almost every person has that monster inside of them."

  On one side, I'm a villain who goes to a campus to incriminate an innocent person without understanding the motive behind my hatred. On the other, I'm a mother who takes loving care of her family, working hard so that my loved ones want for nothing, but still without understanding where I get the strength to keep these feelings strong.

  "Do you remember Jekyll and Hyde?"

  Apparently, Fran
kenstein isn't the only book that has stayed in print since it was first published: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in three days, follows suit. The story is set in London in the nineteenth century. Physician and researcher Henry Jekyll believes that good and evil coexist in all people. He is determined to prove his theory, which was ridiculed by almost everyone he knows, including the father of his fiancee, Beatrix. After working tirelessly in his laboratory, he manages to develop a formula. Not wanting to endanger anyone's life, he uses himself as a guinea pig.

  As a result, his demonic side--whom he calls Mr. Hyde--is revealed. Jekyll believes he can control Hyde's comings and goings, but soon realizes that he is sorely mistaken; when we release our dark side, it will completely overshadow the best in us.

  The same is true for all individuals. That is how dictators are born. In the beginning they generally have excellent intentions, but little by little, in order to do what they think is for the "good" of their people, they make use of the very worst in human nature: terror.

  I'm confused and scared. Can this happen to anyone?

  "No. Only a minority lack a clear notion of right or wrong."

  I don't know if this minority is all that small; something similar happened to me in school. I had a teacher who was the best person in the world, but suddenly he changed and left me completely bewildered. All the students lived in fear, because it was impossible to predict how he would be from day to day. But no one dared complain. Teachers are always right, after all. Besides, everyone thought he had some problem at home, and that it would soon be resolved. Until one day, this Mr. Hyde lost control and attacked one of my classmates. The case went to the school board and he was removed.

  Since that time, I've become afraid of people who seem excessively sensitive.

  "Like the tricoteuses."

  Yes, like those hardworking women who wanted justice and bread for the poor, and who fought to free France from the excesses committed by Louis XVI. When the reign of terror began, they would go down to the guillotine square bright and early, guarding their front-row seats and knitting as they waited on those who had been condemned to die. Possible mothers, who spent the rest of their day looking after their children and husbands.

  Knitting to pass the time between one severed head and the next.

  "You're stronger than me. I always envied that. Maybe that's the reason I've never shown my feelings--so I won't seem weak."

  He doesn't know what he's saying. But the conversation has already ended. He rolls over and goes to sleep.

  And I'm left alone with my "strength," staring at the ceiling.

  ONE week later, I do what I promised myself I would never do: see a psychiatrist.

  I make three appointments with different doctors. Their schedules are packed--a sign there are more unbalanced people in Geneva than imagined. I say it's urgent, but the secretaries contend that everything is urgent, thank me for my interest and apologize, but they can't cancel other patients' appointments.

  I resort to the trump card that never fails: I say where I work. The magic word "journalist," followed by the name of a major newspaper, can open as many doors as it closes. In this case, I already knew the outcome would be favorable. The appointments are made.

  I don't tell anyone--not my husband, not my boss. I visit the first one--a strange sort of man with a British accent, who is adamant that he does not accept national health insurance. I suspect he is working in Switzerland illegally.

  I explain, with all the patience in the world, what is happening to me. I use the examples of Frankenstein and his monster, of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I beg him to help me control the monster that is rising up and threatening to escape my control. He asks me what that meant. I don't want to provide details that might put me in a compromising situation, such as my attempt to have a certain woman wrongfully arrested for drug trafficking.

  I decide to tell a lie: I explain that I am having murderous thoughts, thinking about killing my husband in his sleep. He asks if one of us has a lover, and I say no. He understands completely and thinks it is normal. One year of treatment, three sessions per week, will reduce this drive by fifty percent. I am shocked! And what if I kill my husband before then? He replies that what is happening is a "transference," a "fantasy," and that real murderers never seek help.

  Before I leave, he charges me 250 Swiss francs and asks the secretary to make regular appointments for me starting the following week. I thank him, say I need to check my schedule, and shut the door, never to return.

  The second appointment is with a woman. She takes insurance and is more open to hearing what I have to say. I repeat the same story about wanting to kill my husband.

  "Well, sometimes I also think about killing mine," she tells me with a smile. "But we both know that if every woman went through with her secret wishes, nearly all children would be fatherless. This is a normal impulse."

  Normal?

  After a long conversation, during which she explains that I am being "bullied" in my marriage, that without a doubt "I have no room to grow," and that my sexuality "is causing hormonal disturbances widely addressed in medical literature," she takes her prescription pad and writes down the name of a known antidepressant. She adds that until the medication takes effect, I will still be facing one month of hell, but soon all of this will be nothing more than an unpleasant memory.

  As long as I continued taking the pills, of course. For how long?

  "It really varies. But I believe that in three years you'll be able to reduce the dosage."

  The big problem with using insurance is that the bill is sent to the patient's home. I pay in cash, close the door, and swear never to return to that place, either.

  Finally, I go to the third appointment, another man in an office that must have cost a fortune to decorate. Unlike the first two, he listens to me attentively and seems to agree with me. I do indeed run the risk of killing my husband. I am a potential killer. I am losing control of a monster that I can't put back into its cage.

  Finally, with great care, he asks if I use drugs.

  Just once, I reply.

  He doesn't believe me. He changes the subject. We talk a bit about the conflicts we're all forced to deal with on a daily basis, and then he returns to the drugs.

  "You need to trust me. No one uses drugs just once. We're protected by doctor-patient confidentiality. I'll lose my medical license if I mention anything about this. It's better if we speak openly, before making your next appointment. Not only do you have to accept me as your doctor, but I also have to accept you as my patient. That's the way it works."

  No, I insist. I don't use drugs. I know the laws and I didn't come here to lie. I just want to resolve this problem quickly, before I do any harm to people I love or who are close to me.

  His pensive face is bearded and handsome. He nods before replying:

  "You've spent years accumulating these tensions and now you want to get rid of them overnight. That does not exist in psychiatry or psychoanalysis. We're not shamans who magically drive out evil spirits."

  Of course, he is being ironic, but he has just given me an excellent idea. My days of seeking psychiatric help are over.

  POST Tenebras Lux. After darkness, light.

  I am standing in front of the old city wall, a monument one hundred meters wide with towering statues of four men who are flanked by two smaller statues. One stands out from the rest. His head is covered, he has a long beard, and he holds in his hands what, in his time, was more powerful than a machine gun: the Bible.

  While I wait, I think: If that man in the middle had been born today, everyone--especially Catholics, in France and around the world--would call him a terrorist. His tactics for implementing what he believed to be the ultimate truth remind me of the perverted mind of Osama bin Laden. Both men had the same goal: to install a theocratic state in which all who disobeyed what was understood to be the law of God should be punished.

  And
neither of the two hesitated to use terror to achieve their goals.

  His name is John Calvin, and Geneva was his field of operations. Hundreds of people were sentenced to death and executed not far from here. Not only Catholics who dared to keep their faith, but also scientists who, in search of truth and the cures for diseases, challenged the literal interpretation of the Bible. The most famous case was that of Michael Servetus, who discovered pulmonary blood circulation and died at the stake because of it.

  Whoever maintains that wrong is done to heretics and blasphemers in punishing them makes himself an accomplice in their crime and as guilty as they. There is no question here of man's authority; it is God who speaks [...]. Wherefore does he demand of us a so extreme severity, if not to show us that due honor is not paid him, so long as we set not his service above every human consideration, so that we spare not kin, nor blood of any, and forget all humanity when the matter is to combat for His glory.

  The death and destruction were not limited to Geneva; Calvin's apostles, likely represented by the monument's smaller statues, spread his word and his intolerance throughout Europe. In 1566 several churches in the Netherlands were destroyed and "rebels"--in other words, people of a different faith--were murdered. An enormous amount of artwork was thrown in the fire on the pretext of "idolatry." Part of the world's historical and cultural heritage was destroyed and lost forever.

  And today my children study Calvin at school as if he were a great Illuminist, a man with new ideas who "freed" us from the yoke of Catholicism. A revolutionary who deserves to be revered by future generations.

  After the darkness, light.

  What went on in that man's head? I wonder. Did he lie awake at night knowing that families were being wiped out, that children were being separated from their parents, or that blood flooded the pavement? Or was he so convinced of his mission that there was no room for doubt?

  Did he think everything he did could be justified in the name of love? Because that is what I doubt, and the crux of my current problems.

  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. People who knew him said that, in private, Calvin was a good man, capable of following the words of Jesus and making amazing gestures of humility. He was feared, but also loved--and could ignite crowds with that love.