'Your story is so interesting it's in danger of killing desire.'

Ralf Hart laughed and agreed. They had finished one bottle of wine and he went into the kitchen to fetch another; and she sat staring into the fire, knowing what the next step would be, but, at the same time, savouring the cosy atmosphere, forgetting about the English executive, and regaining that sense of surrender.

Ralf filled their two gla.s.ses, and Maria said: 'Just out of curiosity, how would you end that story with the museum director?'

'Since I was in the company of an intellectual, I would quote from Plato. According to him, at the beginning of creation, men and women were not as they are now; there was just one being, who was rather short, with a body and a neck, but his head had two faces, looking in different directions.

It was as if two creatures had been glued back to back, with two sets of s.e.x organs, four legs and four arms.

169 'The Greek G.o.ds, however, were jealous, because this creature with four arms could work harder; with its two faces, it was always vigilant and could not be taken bysurprise; and its four legs meant that it could stand or walk for long periods at a time without tiring. Even more dangerous was the fact that the creature had two different sets of s.e.x organs and so needed no one else in order to continue reproducing.

'Zeus, the supreme lord of Olympus, said: "I have a plan to make these mortals lose some of their strength."

'And he cut the creature in two with a lightning bolt, thus creating man and woman.

This greatly increased the population of the world, and, at the same time, disoriented and weakened its inhabitants, because now they had to search for their lost half and embrace it and, in that embrace, regain their former strength, their ability to avoid betrayal and the stamina to walk for long periods of time and to withstand hard work. That embrace in which the two bodies re-fuse to become one again is what we call s.e.x.'

'Is that a true story?'

'According to the Greek philosopher, Plato, yes.'

Maria was gazing at him, fascinated, and the experience of the previous night had vanished completely. She saw that the man before her was full of the same 'light' that he had seen in her, entirely involved in telling her that strange story, his eyes alight now not with desire but with joy.

'Can I ask you a favour?'

Ralf said she could ask anything she wanted.

'Is it possible to know why, after the G.o.ds had split the four-legged creature in two, some of them decided that the 170 embrace could be merely a thing, just another business transaction, which instead of increasing people's energy, diminished it?'

'You mean prost.i.tution?'

'Yes. Could you find out if, in the beginning, s.e.x was something sacred?'

'If you like,' replied Ralf, 'although it's not something I've ever thought about, nor, as far as I know, has anyone else. Perhaps there isn't any literature on the subject.' Maria could stand the pressure no longer: 'Has it ever occurred to you that women, in particular, prost.i.tutes, are capable of love?'

'Yes, it has. It occurred to me on that first day, when we were sitting in the cafe and I saw your light. Then, when I decided to offer you a cup of coffee, I chose to believe ineverything, even in the possibility of you returning me to the world I left a long, long time ago.'

There was no going back now. Maria, the teacher, needed to rush to her own aid, otherwise she would kiss him, embrace him and ask him never to leave her.

'Let's go back to the train station,' she said. 'Or, rather, let's come back to this room, to the day when we sat here together for the first time and you recognised that I existed and gave me a gift. That was your first attempt to enter my soul, and you weren't sure whether or not you were welcome. But, as you say in your story, human beings were once divided and now seek the embrace that will reunite them. That is our instinct. But it is also our reason for putting up with all the difficulties we meet in that search.

171 'I want you to look at me, but I want you to take care that I don't notice. Initial desire is important because it is hidden, forbidden, not permitted.

You don't know whether you are looking at your lost half or not; she doesn't know either, but something is drawing you together, and you must believe that it is true you are each other's "other half".' Where am I getting all this? I'm drawing it up from the bottom of my heart, because this is how I always wanted it to be. I'm drawing up these dreams from my own dream as a woman.

She slipped off the shoulder strap of her dress, so that one part, one tiny part of one nipple was exposed.

'Desire is not what you see, but what you imagine.' Ralf Hart was looking at a woman with dark hair and wearing dark clothes, who was sitting on the floor of his living room, and was full of absurd desires, like having an open fire burning in the middle of summer. Yes, he would like to imagine what those clothes were hiding; he could guess the size of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and he knew that she didn't really need the bra she was wearing, although perhaps she had to wear it for her work. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were neither large nor small, they were simply young. Her eyes gave nothing away; what was she doing here? Why was he encouraging this absurd, dangerous relationship, when he had no problems finding women? He was rich, young, famous, good- looking. He loved his work; he had loved women whom he had subsequently married; he had been loved. He was someone who, according to all the rules 172and norms, should have been able to shout out loud: 'I'm happy-'

But he wasn't. While most of humanity was scrabbling for a piece of bread, a roof over their head and a job that would allow them to live with dignity, Ralf Hart had all of that, and it only made him feel more wretched. If he looked back on what his life had been lately, he had perhaps managed two or three days when he had woken up, looked at the sun - or the rain - and felt glad to see the morning, just happy, without wanting anything, planning anything or asking anything in exchange.

Apart from those few days, the rest of his existence had been wasted on dreams, both frustrated and realised - a desire to go beyond himself, to go beyond his limitations; he had spent his life trying to prove something, but he didn't know what or to whom.

He looked at the beautiful woman before him, who was discreetly dressed in black, someone he had met by chance, although he had seen her before at the nightclub and thought that she seemed out of place.

She had asked him to desire her, and he desired her intensely, far more than she could imagine, but it wasn't her b.r.e.a.s.t.s or her body, it was her company he desired. He wanted to put his arms around her and to sit in silence, staring into the fire, drinking wine, smoking the occasional cigarette; that would be enough. Life was made up of simple things; he was weary of all the years he had spent searching for something, though quite what he didn't know.

And yet, if he did that, if he touched her, all would be lost. For, despite the 'light' he could see in Maria, he wasn't 173 suure she realised how good it was for him to be by her side. Was he paying? Yes, and he would continue paying for as long as it took to win her, to sit with her by the lakeside and speak of love, and to hear her say the same thing. It was best not to take any chances, not to rush things, not to say anything.

Ralf Hart stopped tormenting himself and concentrated once more on the game they had just created together. The woman before him was right; the wine, the fire, the cigarettes and the company were not enough in themselves; another kind of intoxication, another kind of flame was required.

She was wearing a dress with shoulder straps; she was revealing one breast; he could see her skin, more dark thanpale. He desired her. He desired her intensely.

Maria noticed the change in Ralf's eyes. Knowing that she was desired excited her more than anything else. It had nothing to do with the automatic formula - I want to make love with you, I want to get married, I want you to have an o.r.g.a.s.m, I want you to have my child, I want commitment. No, desire was an entirely free sensation, loose in the air, vibrating, filling life with the will to have something - and that was enough, that will carried all before it, moved mountains, made her wet.

Desire was the source of everything else - leaving her country, discovering a new world, learning French, overcoming her prejudices, dreaming of having a farm, 174 loving without asking for anything in return, feeling that she was a woman simply because a man was looking at her. With calculated slowness, she slipped off the other strap, and the dress slid down her body. Then she undid her bra. There she was, with the upper part of her body completely bare, wondering if he would leap on her, touch her, utter vows of love, or if he was sensitive enough simply to feel s.e.xual pleasure in desire itself.

Things around them began to change, all sound disappeared, the fire, the paintings and the books gradually vanished, to be replaced by a kind of trance-like state, in which only the object of desire exists, and nothing else is important.

The man did not move. At first, she felt a certain shyness in his eyes, but that did not last long. He was looking at her, and in the world of his imagination, he was caressing her with his tongue, they were making love, sweating, clinging to each other, mingling tenderness and violence, calling out and moaning together.

In the real world, though, they said nothing, neither of them moved, and that made her even more excited, because she too was free to think what she liked. She was asking him to touch her gently, she was opening her legs, she was masturbating in front of him, saying the most romantic things and the lewdest things, as if they were one and the same; she had several o.r.g.a.s.ms, waking the neighbours, waking the whole world with her cries. Here was her man, who was giving her pleasure and joy, with whom she could be the person she really was, with whom she could talk 175 about her s.e.xual problems, and tell him how much shewould like to stay with him for the rest of the night, for the rest of the week, for the rest of her life.

Beads of sweat began to appear on their foreheads. It was the heat from the fire, one said mentally to the other. But both the man and the woman in that room had reached their limit, exhausted their imagination, experienced together an eternity of good moments. They needed to stop, because if they took one more step, the magic would be undone by reality.

Very slowly, because endings are always more difficult than beginnings, she put on her bra and hid her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The universe returned to its normal place, the things around them re-emerged, she pulled up the dress that had fallen about her waist, smiled and very gently touched his face. He took her hand and pressed it to his cheek, not knowing for how long he should hold it there, or how tightly.

She wanted to tell him that she loved him. But that would spoil everything, it might frighten him or, worse, might make him say that he loved her too. Maria didn't want that: the freedom of her love depended on asking nothing and expecting nothing.

'Anyone capable of feeling knows that it is possible to experience pleasure before even touching the other person. The words, the looks, all contain the secret of the dance. But the train has arrived, we each go our separate ways. I hope to be able to join you on this journey to ... where?'

'Back to Geneva,' replied Ralf.

176 'Anyone who is observant, who discovers the person they have always dreamed of, knows that s.e.xual energy comes into play before s.e.x even takes place. The greatest pleasure isn't s.e.x, but the pa.s.sion with which it is practised. When the pa.s.sion is intense, then s.e.x joins in to complete the dance, but it is never the princ.i.p.al aim.'

'You're talking about love like a teacher.'

Maria went on talking, because this was her defence, her way of saying everything without committing herself to anything.

'Anyone who is in love is making love the whole time, even when they're not. When two bodies meet, it is just the cup overflowing. They can stay together for hours, even days.

They begin the dance one day and finish it the next, or - such is the pleasure they experience - they may never finish it. No eleven minutes for them.''What?'

'I love you.'

'I love you too.'

'I'm sorry, I don't know what I'm saying.'

'Nor do I.'

She got up, kissed him and left. This time she opened the front door herself, since, according to the Brazilian superst.i.tion, the owner of the house only has to open the door on the first occasion that a guest leaves.

177 From Maria's diary, written the next morning: Last night, when Ralf Hart looked at me, he opened a door, as if he were a thief; but when he left, he took nothing from me, on the contrary, he left behind him the scent of roses - he wasn't a thief, he was a bridegroom visiting me.

Every human being experiences his or her own desire; it is part of our personal treasure and, although, as an emotion, it can drive people away, generally speaking, it brings those who are important to us closer. It is an emotion chosen by my soul, and it is so intense that it can infect everything and everyone around me.

Each day I choose the truth by which I try to live. I try to be practical, efficient, professional. But I would like to be able always to choose desire as my companion. Not out of obligation, not to lessen my loneliness, but because it is good. Yes, very good.

178 On average, thirty-eight women worked at the Copacabana on a regular basis, but only one of them, the Filipino, Nyah, was what Maria would consider a friend. Women stayed there an average of six months minimum and three years maximum, because they would either get a proposal of marriage, be set up as a mistress, or no longer pull in the clients, in which case, Milan would delicately ask them to find somewhere else to work.

That is why it was important to respect each other's clientele and never try to seduce men who always headed for a particular girl as soon as they came in. Apart from being dishonest, it could also be very dangerous. The previous week, a Colombian woman had quietly taken a cutthroat razor out of her pocket, placed it on the gla.s.s being used by one of the Yugoslav girls, and said, in the calmest of voices, that she would mark her face if she persisted in giving in to the advances of a certain bank manager who was a regularcustomer. The Yugoslav said that the man was a free agent and that, if he chose her, she couldn't really say no.

That night, the man came in, greeted the Colombian woman, but went over to the Yugoslav's table. They had a drink, danced and the Yugoslav winked at the Colombian 179 a provocation too far in Maria's view), as if saying: 'See? He chose me!'

But that wink contained many unspoken things: he chose me because I'm prettier, because I went with him last week and he enjoyed it, because I'm young. The Colombian said nothing. When the Yugoslav came back, two hours later, the Colombian sat down beside her, took the razor out of her pocket and made a cut on the Yugoslav's face, near her ear. It wasn't a deep cut, and it wasn't dangerous, but it was enough to leave a small scar to remind her of that night. The two started righting, blood spurted everywhere and the frightened customers fled.

When the police arrived, wanting to know what was going on, the Yugoslav said that she had cut her face on a gla.s.s that had fallen from a shelf (there are no shelves in the Copacabana). This was the law of silence, or what Italian prost.i.tutes like to call omerta: any problem to be resolved in Rue de Berne, from love to death, would be resolved, but without the interference of the law. They made their own laws there.

The police knew about the omerta and could see that the woman was lying, but they didn't insist - arresting someone, trying them and then keeping them in prison would cost the Swiss taxpayer far too much money. Milan thanked the police for their prompt response, but, he said, it was all a misunderstanding or else a rival nightclub owner trying to make trouble.

As soon as they left, he asked the two women not to come back to his club. After all, the Copacabana was a 180 family place (a statement Maria found hard to grasp) and had a reputation to keep up (this left her still more intrigued). There were no fights there, because the first law was to respect another woman's client.

The second law was total discretion, 'just like a Swiss bank', he said. This was largely because, there, the womencould trust the clients, who were selected much as a bank selects its clients, based on the state of their current account and on personal references. Mistakes were occasionally made; there were a few rare cases of nonpayment, of girls being threatened or roughed up, but in the many years he had spent struggling to create and develop his club's reputation, Milan had become an expert at recognising who should or shouldn't be invited in. None of the women knew exactly what these criteria were, but they had often seen some well-dressed man being told that the club was full that night (even though it was empty) and that it would be full the following nights too please don't come back). They had also seen unshaven men dressed in casual clothes being enthusiastically invited by Milan to a gla.s.s of champagne.

The owner of the Copacabana did not judge by appearances, and he was always right.

It- was a good working relationship, and seemed to suit Parties involved. The great majority of the clientele were married, or held important positions in some company or power - Some of the women who worked there were also married and had children and went to parents' evenings at their children's schools, but knew that they ran no risk of 181 being exposed; if one of the other parents turned up at the Copacabana, they would be compromised too and so could say nothing: that is how omerta worked.

There was comradeship amongst the women, but not friendship; no one talked much about their lives. In the few conversations she had had, Maria found no bitterness, guilt or sadness amongst her colleagues, only a kind of resignation, and a strangely defiant glint in the eye, as if they were proud of the way they confronted the world, independently and confidently. After a week, any new arrival was considered a 'fellow professional' and received instructions always to help keep marriages intact (a prost.i.tute cannot be seen as a threat to the stability of the home), never to accept invitations to meet outside working hours, to listen to confessions without offering an opinion, to moan at the moment of climax (Maria learned that everyone did this, but that they hadn't told her on her very first day because it was one of the tricks of the trade), to say h.e.l.lo to the police in the street, to keep her work permit up to date as well as any health checks, and, finally, not to probetoo deeply into the moral or legal aspects of what she was doing; they were what they were, and that was that.

Before it got busy, Maria could always be seen with a book in her hand, and she soon became known as the intellectual of the group. At first, they wanted to know if she was reading a love story, but when they saw that the books were about dry-as-dust subjects like economics, psychology and - recently - farm management, they left 182 her alone to continue her researches and her note-taking in peace.

Because she had a lot of regular clients and because she went to the Copacabana every night, even when it wasn't busy, Maria earned both Milan's confidence and her colleagues'

envy; they said she was ambitious, arrogant and thought only about earning money - the last bit was true, but she felt like asking if they weren't all there for the very same reason.

Anyway, remarks like that never killed anyone - they were part of the life of any successful person, and it was best to get used to them, rather than let herself be diverted from her two goals: going back to Brazil on the chosen date and buying a farm.

Ralf Hart was in her thoughts from morning to night now, and for the first time she was able to feel happy with an absent love - although she slightly regretted having confessed her love, thus running the risk of losing everything. But what had she got to lose, if she was asking for nothing in exchange? She remembered how her heart had beat faster when Milan mentioned that Ralf was - or had been - a special client. What did that mean? She felt betrayed and jealous.

It was normal to feel jealous, although life had taught her that it was pointless thinking you could own another person - anyone who believes that is just deceiving themselves. Despite this, she could not stop herself having these feelings of jealousy, or of having grand intellectual 183 thoughts about it, or even thinking it was a proof of fragility.'The strongest love is the love that can demonstrate its fragility. Anyway, if my love is real (and not just a way of distracting myself, deceiving myself, and pa.s.sing the time, that never seems to pa.s.s in this city), freedom will conquer jealousy and any pain it causes me, since pain is also part of the natural process. Anyone who practises sport knows this: if you want to achieve your objectives, you have to be prepared for a daily dose of pain or discomfort. At first, it's unpleasant and demotivating, but in time you come to realise that it's part of the process of feeling good, and the moment arrives when, if you don't feel pain, you have a sense that the exercises aren't having the desired effect.' The danger lies in focusing on that pain, giving it a particular person's name, and keeping it always present in your thoughts. Maria, thank G.o.d, had managed to free herself from that.

Even so, she sometimes found herself wondering where he was, why he didn't come and see her, if he had found that whole story about the train station and repressed desire stupid, if he had gone away forever because she had confessed her love for him.

To avoid beautiful thoughts turning into suffering, she developed a method: when something positive to do with Ralf Hart came into her head - and this could be the fire and the wine, an idea she would like to discuss with him, or simply the pleasurable longing involved in wanting to know when he would come back - Maria would stop what she 184 was doing, smile up at the sky and give thanks for being alive and to be expecting nothing from the man she loved. On the other hand, if her heart began to complain about his absence or about things she shouldn't have said while they were together, she would say to herself: 'Oh, so you want to think about that, do you? All right, then, you do what you like, while I get on with more important things.'

She would continue to read or, if she was out, she would focus her attention on everything around her: colours, people, sounds - especially sounds, the sound of her own footsteps, of the pages turning, of cars, of fragments of conversations, and the unfortunate thought would eventually go away. If it came back five minutes later, she would repeat the process, until those thoughts, finding themselves accepted but also gently rejected, would stay away for quiteconsiderable periods of time.

One of these 'negative thoughts' was the possibility of never seeing him again. With a little practice and a great deal of patience, she managed to transform this into a 'positive thought': when she left, Geneva would have the face of a man with old-fashioned long hair, a child-like smile and a grave voice. If someone asked her, many years later, what the place she had known in her youth was like, she could reply: 'Very beautiful, and capable of loving and being loved.'

185 From Maria's diary, on a slack night at the Copacabana: After all the time I've spent with the people who come here, I have reached the conclusion that s.e.x has come to be used as some kind of drug: in order to escape reality, to forget about problems, to relax. And like all drugs, this is a harmful and destructive practice.

If a person wants to take drugs, in the form of s.e.x or whatever, that's their problem; the consequences of their actions will be better or worse depending on the choices they make. But if we are talking in terms of making progress in life, we must understand that 'good enough' is very different from 'best'.

Contrary to what my clients think, s.e.x cannot be practised at any time. We all have a clock inside us, and in order to make love, the hands on both clocks have to be pointing to the same hour at the same time. That doesn't happen every day. If you love another person, you don't depend on the s.e.x act in order to feel good. Two people who live together and love each other need to adjust the hands of their clocks, with patience and perseverance, games and 'theatrical representations', until they realise that making love is more than just an encounter, it is a genital 'embrace'.

Everything is important. If you live your life intensely, you experience pleasure all the time and don't feel the need for s.e.x. When you have s.e.x, it's 186 out of a sense of abundance, because the gla.s.s of wine is so full that it overflows naturally, because it is inevitable, because you are responding to the call of life, because at that moment, and only at that moment, you have allowed yourself to lose control.

P.S. I have just re-read what I wrote. Good grief! I'm getting way too intellectual!187 Shortly after writing this, and when she was preparing for another night as Understanding Mother or Innocent Girl, the door of the Copacabana opened and in walked Terence, the record company executive, one of the special clients.

Behind the bar, Milan seemed pleased: Maria had not disappointed him. Maria remembered the words that simultaneously said so much and so little: 'pain, suffering, and a great deal of pleasure'.

'I flew in from London especially to see you. I've been thinking about you a lot.'

She smiled, trying not to look too encouraging. Again he had failed to follow the ritual and hadn't asked if she wanted a drink, but just sat down at her table.

'When a teacher helps someone to discover something, the teacher always learns something new too.'

'I know what you mean,' said Maria, thinking of Ralf Wart and feeling irritated with herself for doing so. She was with another client, and she must respect him and do what she could to please him.

'Do you want to go ahead?'

A thousand francs. A hidden universe. Her boss watched her. The certainty that she could stop whenever she 189 chose. The date set for her return to Brazil. The other man, who never came to see her.

'Are you in a hurry?' Maria asked.

He said no. What was it she wanted?

'I'd like my usual drink and my usual dance, and some respect for my profession.'

He hesitated for a moment, but it was all part of the theatre, dominating and being dominated. He bought her a drink and danced with her, then ordered a taxi and gave her the money while they drove across the city to the same hotel. They went in, he greeted the Italian porter just as he had on the night they first met, and they went up to the same suite with a view over the river.

Terence got up and took out his lighter, and only then did Maria notice that there were dozens of candles arranged around the room. He started lighting them.

'What would you like to know? Why I'm like this? Because, unless I'm very much mistaken, you really enjoyed the other evening we spent together. Do you want to know why you're like this too?''I was just thinking that in Brazil we have a superst.i.tion that you should never light more than three things with the same match. You're not respecting that superst.i.tion.'

He ignored her remark.

'You're like me. You're not here for the thousand francs, but out of a sense of guilt and dependency, because of your various complexes and insecurities. That is neither good nor bad, it's simply human nature.'

190 He picked up the remote control and changed channels several times until he found the TV news and a report on refugees trying to escape a war.

'Do you see that? Have you ever seen those programmes in which people discuss their personal problems in front of everyone? Have you been to a newspaper kiosk and seen the headlines? The world enjoys suffering and pain. There's sadism in the way we look at these things, and masochism in our conclusion that we don't need to know all this in order to be happy, and yet we watch other people's tragedies and sometimes suffer along with them.'

He poured out two gla.s.ses of champagne, turned off the television and continued lighting candles, in contravention of the superst.i.tion Maria had mentioned.

'As I say, it's the human condition. Ever since we were expelled from paradise, we have either been suffering, making other people suffer or watching the suffering of others. It's beyond our control.'