A Warrior's Life Part 5

It was the psychiatrist Dr Antonio Ovidio Clement Fajardo, who often used to send patients for treatment at the Dr Eiras clinic. When Lygia and Pedro had heard the first sounds of things being broken in their son's room, they had called Dr Benjamim, but when he couldn't be found and since it was an urgent matter, they had contacted Dr Fajardo. When he spoke on the telephone to Pedro, the doctor had asked for basic information about Paulo.

'Is he armed?'

'No.'

'Is he an alcoholic?'

'No.'

'Is he a drug addict?'

'No.'

This made matters simpler.

Fajardo asked again: 'May I come in?'

Hearing this unusual question repeated, Paulo didn't know how to respond. 'Come in? But haven't you come to take me to the clinic?'

The doctor replied: 'Only if you want me to. But you haven't answered my question: may I come in?'

Seated on the bed, the doctor looked around the room, as though a.s.sessing the extent of the damage, and continued quite naturally: 'You've broken everything, haven't you? Excellent.'

Paulo couldn't understand what was going on. The doctor went on, explaining in professorial tones: 'What you've destroyed is your past. That's good. Now that it's no longer here, let's begin to think about the future, all right? My suggestion is that you start coming to see me twice a week so that we can talk about your future.'

Paulo was astonished. 'But doctor, I've just smashed up my room again. Aren't you going to send me to the clinic?'

The doctor replied dispa.s.sionately: 'Everyone has their mad side. I probably do, but you don't put people away just like that. You're not mentally ill.'

Only after this episode did peace return to the Coelho household. Much later, he wrote: 'I think my parents were convinced I was a hopeless case and preferred to keep an eye on me and to support me for the rest of my life. They knew I would get into "bad company" again, but it didn't enter their heads to have me re-admitted to the clinic.' The problem was that their son was not prepared to continue living under parental control. He was ready to accept anything but a return to his grandfather's depressing studio flat in the city centre. The short-term solution, which would last for a few months, came once again from his grandparents. Some years earlier, Tuca and Lilisa had moved into a house near by, which had over the garage a small apartment with a bedroom, bathroom and independent entrance. If Paulo wishedand if his father was in agreementtheir grandson could move in there.

Their grandson wanted this so much that, before his father had time to say no, he had moved everything that remained from the wreck of his room into his new homehis bed, his desk, his few clothes and his typewriter, which he had carefully protected from his frenzy. He soon realized that the apartment was like a gateway to paradise: given his grandparents' extreme liberality, he could come and go as he pleased and, within the broad limits of decency, he could entertain whomever he wanted, day or night. His grandparents' tolerance was such that, years later, Paulo vaguely recalled that it was probably there that he tried cannabis for the first time.

With no control over their son and with his grandparents making no attempt to control his behaviour either, some months later, Paulo's father suggested he should move somewhere more comfortable. If interested, he could go back to living alone, not in Tuca's studio but in a comfortable apartment Pedro had been given in payment for a building he had constructed in Rua Raimundo Correa in Copacabana. Paulo was suspicious of this generosity, and discovered that the offer concealed another reason: his father wanted to get rid of a tenant who was frequently late in paying his rent. Since the law said that a contract could only be broken by the landlord if the dwelling was to be used by a close relative of the owner, this was the solution to two problems, both Paulo's and his father's. Like almost any offer coming from Pedro, it had its drawbacks: Paulo could use only one of the three bedrooms, since the other two were permanently locked and empty. Also, access was always to be by the door in the bas.e.m.e.nt, since the main entrance was to be kept locked and the key to remain with his father. Paulo had only to go to a local second-hand shop to buy some lamps and a bookcase and the place was ready to live in.

Paulo retained happy memories of the days he spent in Rua Raimundo Correa. Other affairs with other girls began and ended, but Fabiola remained faithful to him. She swallowed her jealousy and, as she later recalled, put up with the 'Renatas, Genis and Marcias...but in the difficult times, I was there for him, it was pure lovepure love.' Many years later, when he was famous, Paulo recalled that time with nostalgia: 'I experienced a period of enormous happiness, enjoying the freedom I needed in order, finally, to live the "artist's life". I stopped studying and devoted myself exclusively to the theatre and to going to bars frequented by intellectuals. For a whole year, I did exactly what I wanted. That was when Fabiola really came into my life.'

Now a full-time playwrighthe had managed to complete his course at Guanabara, but had no plans as yet to take the university entrance examhe turned the dining room of his new apartment into a workshop for scenery, costumes, compositions and rehearsals. He annoyed his neighbours by painting in Italian over the front doorwhich he never usedthe words written above the gates of Dante's Inferno: 'Lasciate ogni speranza, voi che entrate' ['Abandon hope all ye who enter here']. He translated plays, directed and worked as an actor. The more successful productions made up for the failures, and so he was able to live without depending exclusively on support from his parents. When he needed more funds, he tried to make money at poker and snooker tables and by betting on horses at the Jockey Club.

At the end of 1968, he resolved to try the only aspect of theatre he had not yet worked on: production. He adapted the cla.s.sic Peter Pan Peter Pan, which he wanted to direct and in which he also wanted to perform, but he was shocked to find that his savings were not nearly enough to cover the production's costs. He was still pondering how to resolve the problem when Fabiola came to his apartment one night, opened her bag and took out bundles of notes in rubber bandsmore than 5,000 cruzeiros (US$11,600), which she scattered over the bed, explaining: 'This is my present for your production of Peter Pan Peter Pan.'

Fabiola told him that as she was about to turn eighteen, she had decided to tell her mother, grandmother and all her other relatives and friends that instead of clothes and presents she would prefer money. She had contacted people everywhereher mother's rich clients and G.o.dparents whom she hadn't seen for yearsand here was the result: the bundles on the bed were not a fortune, but the money was more than enough to make putting on the play a viable proposition. Paulo was overwhelmed by the gift: 'One girlfriend swapped me for two dresses and now you've exchanged all the dresses and presents for me. Your action has entirely changed my view of women.'

Fabiola not only got the money for the production but also sold advertising s.p.a.ce in the programme and came to an agreement with the restaurants around the Teatro Santa Terezinha in the Botanical Gardens: in exchange for their names being printed on any advertising material, they would allow the actors and technicians to have dinner for free. Paulo repaid all he owed her by inviting her to take the t.i.tle role. He was to be Captain Hook. With a score by Kakiko, Peter Pan Peter Pan played to packed houses throughout its run, which meant that every cent invested was recovered. And contrary to the notion that says that public success means critical failure, the play went on to win a prize at the first Children's Theatre Festival in the state of Guanabara. Paulo's dream remained the sameto be a great writerbut meanwhile, he had no alternative but to live by the theatre. These cheering results made him decide to turn professional, and soon he was a proud member of the Brazilian Society of Theatre Writers (SBAT). played to packed houses throughout its run, which meant that every cent invested was recovered. And contrary to the notion that says that public success means critical failure, the play went on to win a prize at the first Children's Theatre Festival in the state of Guanabara. Paulo's dream remained the sameto be a great writerbut meanwhile, he had no alternative but to live by the theatre. These cheering results made him decide to turn professional, and soon he was a proud member of the Brazilian Society of Theatre Writers (SBAT).

In 1969, he was invited to work as an actor in the play Viuva porem Honesta Viuva porem Honesta [ [A Widow but Honest], by Nelson Rodrigues. In a break in rehearsals, he was drinking a beer in the bar beside the Teatro Sergio Porto when he noticed that he was being watched by an attractive blonde woman seated at the counter. He pretended to look away, but when he turned round again, there she was, with her eyes fixed on him and with a discreet smile on her lips. This flirtation cannot have lasted more than ten minutes, but she made such an impression on Paulo that he wrote in his diary: 'I can't say how it all started. She appeared suddenly. I went in and immediately felt her looking at me. Despite the crowd, I knew that she had her eyes fixed on me and I didn't have the courage to look straight back at her. I had never seen her before. But when I felt her gaze something happened. It was the beginning of a love story.'

The beautiful mysterious blonde was Vera Prnjatovic Richter, eleven years Paulo's senior, who at the time was trying to end her fifteen-year marriage to a rich industrialist. She was always well dressed, she had a carwhich was still fairly rare among women at the timeand she lived in a huge apartment in one of the most expensive areas of Brazil, Avenida Delfim Moreira, in Leblon. From Paulo's point of view she had only one obvious defectshe was going out with the actor Paulo Elisio, a bearded Apollo known for his bad temper and for being a karate black belt. However, the feelings recorded in his diary were to prove stronger than any martial arts.

CHAPTER 10.

Vera.

BRAZIL BEGAN 1969 immersed in the most brutal dictators.h.i.+p of its entire history. On 13 December 1968, the President of the Republic, Artur da Costa e Silvathe 'superannuated marshal' to whom Paulo had referred in his interviewhad pa.s.sed Inst.i.tutional Act number 5, the AI-5, which put paid to the last remaining vestiges of freedom following the military coup of 1964. Signed by the President and countersigned by all his ministers, including the Minister of Health, Leonel Miranda, the owner of the Dr Eiras clinic, the AI-5 suspended, among other things, the right to 1969 immersed in the most brutal dictators.h.i.+p of its entire history. On 13 December 1968, the President of the Republic, Artur da Costa e Silvathe 'superannuated marshal' to whom Paulo had referred in his interviewhad pa.s.sed Inst.i.tutional Act number 5, the AI-5, which put paid to the last remaining vestiges of freedom following the military coup of 1964. Signed by the President and countersigned by all his ministers, including the Minister of Health, Leonel Miranda, the owner of the Dr Eiras clinic, the AI-5 suspended, among other things, the right to habeas corpus habeas corpus and gave the government powers to censor the press, the theatre and books, as well as closing down the National Congress. and gave the government powers to censor the press, the theatre and books, as well as closing down the National Congress.

It was not only Brazil that was about to erupt. In its sixth year of war in Vietnam, where more than half a million soldiers had been sent, the United States had elected the hawkish Richard Nixon as president. In April 1968, the black civil right's leader Martin Luther King, Jr, had been a.s.sa.s.sinated, and sixty-three days later it was the turn of Robert Kennedy. One of the symbols of counterculture was the musical Hair Hair, in which, at one point, the actors appeared naked on stage. In May, French students had occupied the Sorbonne and turned Paris into a battlefield, forcing General Charles de Gaulle to hold talks with the French military chiefs in Baden-Baden, Germany. This worldwide fever had crossed the Iron Curtain and reached Czechoslovakia in the form of the Prague Spring, a liberalizing plan proposed by the Secretary General of the Czech Communist Party, Alexander Dubek, which was crushed in August by the tanks of the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet Union's military alliance with its political satellites.

In Brazil, opposition to the dictators.h.i.+p was beginning to grow. Initially, this took the form of peaceful student marches, in which Paulo rarely partic.i.p.ated and, when he did so, it was more for fun and for the adventure of 'confronting the police' than as an act of political commitment. The political temperature rose with a rash of strikes called by workers in So Paulo and Minas Gerais, and reached alarming levels when the military intelligence services detected a growth in the number of guerrilla groups, which the regime loosely termed 'terrorists'. By the end of the year, there were, in fact, at least four armed urban guerrilla organizations: the Vanguarda Armada Revolucionaria (VAR-Palmares), Aco Libertadora Nacional (ALN), Vanguarda Popular Revolucionaria (VPR) and the Comando de Libertaco Nacional (Colina). The Brazilian Communist Party, which took its inspiration from the Chinese Communist Party, had sent its first militants to Xambioa, in the north of Goias (now on the frontier with the state of Tocantins), to mount a rural guerrilla a.s.sault in the region of the Araguaia River, on the edge of the Amazon rain forest. The extreme left attacked banks and set off bombs in barracks, while the extreme right organized attacks on one of the most visible centres of opposition to the regime: the theatre. Theatres in So Paulo and Rio were attacked or destroyed and there were an increasing number of arrests at street demonstrations as well as arrests of prominent people such as the ex-governor of Guanabara and civil leader of the 1964 coup, Carlos Lacerda, the composers Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, and the journalist Carlos Heitor Cony, whose article Paulo had plagiarized in Aracaju.

Although he boasted of being 'the communist in the group', and although he was a witness to the violence being perpetrated on his professionhe was, after all, a playwright now and a member of the theatre unionPaulo seemed quietly indifferent to the political storm ravaging Brazil. As with the military coup, the new law and its consequences didn't merit a mention in his diaries. The first words he wrote in 1969 are revealing as to the focus of his energies: 'It's New Year's Day. I spent the evening with adulterers, h.o.m.os.e.xuals, lesbians and cuckolds.'

In 1964, he could have attributed his lack of interest in politics to his youth, but now he was nearly twenty-two, the average age of most of those leading the political and cultural movements rocking the country. If any important change was occurring in his life, it was due not to the political maelstrom Brazil found itself in but to his new pa.s.sion, Vera Richter.

Pet.i.te, blonde and elegant, she had been born in 1936 in Belgrade, the capital of the then kingdom of Yugoslavia (now the capital of Serbia), the daughter of a wealthy landowning family. Until the age of twenty, she had lived a normal upper-cla.s.s life; then, when she was in her first year at the theatre studies department of the university, she began to sense political changes occurring across Central Europe. That, and the collectivization program begun in Yugoslavia by t.i.to, seemed to indicate that it was time for the rich to leave the country.

Since they had friends living in Rio de Janeiro, the Prnjatovic familywidowed mother, elder sister and Veradecided this was to be their destination. Her mother and sister went first, and it was only some months later, when they were settled in Copacabana, that they sent a ticket for Vera. Speaking only English and the Italianate dialect of the area in which she had lived, she felt uncomfortable in Brazil. She ended up agreeing to a marriage arranged by her familyto a Yugoslav millionaire twelve years her senior. She recalled years later that even those who didn't know her well noticed how incompatible the two were. Like most twenty-year-old girls, she liked dancing, sports and singing, whereas her husband was shy and quiet and, when he wasn't running his import/export business, loved reading and listening to cla.s.sical music.

When her eyes met Paulo's that night in the theatre bar, Vera's marriage was merely a formality. She and her husband lived under the same roof, but were no longer a couple. She had been attracted to the Teatro Carioca by an announcement in the newspaper saying that a young director from Bahia, alvaro Guimares, was selecting students for a drama course. Almost four decades later, she recalls that her first impression of Paulo was not exactly flattering. 'He looked like Professor Abronsius, the scientist with a big head in Roman Polanski's film Dance of the Vampires Dance of the Vampires an enormous head on a tiny body. Ugly, bony, big lips and protruding eyes, Paulo was no beauty.' But he had other charms: 'Paulo was a Don Quixote! He was crazy. Everything seemed easy for him, everything was simple. He lived in the clouds, he never touched the ground. But his one obsession was to be someone. He would do anything to be someone. That was Paulo.' an enormous head on a tiny body. Ugly, bony, big lips and protruding eyes, Paulo was no beauty.' But he had other charms: 'Paulo was a Don Quixote! He was crazy. Everything seemed easy for him, everything was simple. He lived in the clouds, he never touched the ground. But his one obsession was to be someone. He would do anything to be someone. That was Paulo.'

At the time of Vera's arrival on the scene, Paulo's relations.h.i.+p with Fabiola was doomed anyway, but it finally ended when she caught him with Vera. Fabiola suspected that Paulo was secretly meeting a young Dutch actress who had appeared during rehearsals and she decided to find out if her suspicions were true. One night, she sat on the doorstep of the apartment in Rua Raimundo Correa and did not move until late in the morning when he finally left with Vera. Deeply hurt, she ended the affair. Some months later, she scandalized Lygia and Pedro, to whom she had become quite close, by appearing nude on the cover of the satirical weekly Pasquim Pasquim.

As Paulo was to recall some years later, it was the experienced Vera who really taught him how to make love, to speak a little English and to dress a little better. But she could not help him overcome the trauma of Araruama: he still shook at the mere thought of driving a car. Their convergence of tastes and interests extended to their professional lives, and Vera's money was the one thing that had been lacking in Paulo's attempts to become immersed in the theatre. He divided his time between his Copacabana apartment and Vera's luxurious apartment in Leblon, where he would sleep almost every night, and where he bashed away for weeks on end at his typewriter until he was able to announce proudly to his partner that he had completed his first play for adults, O Apocalipse O Apocalipse [ [The Apocalypse]. The couple seemed made for each other. Vera not only understood the entire play (a feat achieved by very few) but liked it so much that she offered to put it on professionally, acting as its producerthe person investing the moneywhile Paulo would be the director.

Everything went so well that, at the end of April 1969, the critics and editors of the arts sections of newspapers received an invitation to the preview and a copy of the programme listing the cast, in which Vera had the star part. Paulo's friend Kakiko, who had recently qualified as an odontologist and divided his time between his dental practice and his music, was to write the score.

Along with their invitation and the programme, journalists and critics received a press release written in pretentious, obscure language but which gave some idea of what The Apocalypse The Apocalypse would be about. 'The play is a snapshot of the present moment, of the crisis in human existence, which is losing all its individual characteristics in favour of a more convenient stereotype, since it dogmatizes thought,' the blurb began, and it continued in the same incomprehensible vein. It then promised a great revolution in modern drama: the total abolition of characters. The play began with scenes from a doc.u.mentary on the would be about. 'The play is a snapshot of the present moment, of the crisis in human existence, which is losing all its individual characteristics in favour of a more convenient stereotype, since it dogmatizes thought,' the blurb began, and it continued in the same incomprehensible vein. It then promised a great revolution in modern drama: the total abolition of characters. The play began with scenes from a doc.u.mentary on the Apollo 8 Apollo 8 mission to the moon, after which the cast performed dance that was described as 'tribal with oriental influences'. Actors followed one another on to the stage, spouting excerpts from Aeschylus' mission to the moon, after which the cast performed dance that was described as 'tribal with oriental influences'. Actors followed one another on to the stage, spouting excerpts from Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound Prometheus Bound, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar Julius Caesar and the Gospels. At the end, before hurling provocative remarks at the audience, each actor acted himself, revealing traumatic events in his childhood. and the Gospels. At the end, before hurling provocative remarks at the audience, each actor acted himself, revealing traumatic events in his childhood.

The Apocalypse meant that Paulo would, for the first time, experience the thing that would persecute him for the rest of his life: negative criticism. On the days that followed the preview, the play was slated in every Rio newspaper. meant that Paulo would, for the first time, experience the thing that would persecute him for the rest of his life: negative criticism. On the days that followed the preview, the play was slated in every Rio newspaper. The Apocalypse The Apocalypse was as big a disaster with the public as it was with the critics. It played for only a few weeks and left a large hole in the accounts of Paulo's first joint initiative with Veraa hole that she quickly decided to fill. was as big a disaster with the public as it was with the critics. It played for only a few weeks and left a large hole in the accounts of Paulo's first joint initiative with Veraa hole that she quickly decided to fill.

The production coincided with an important change in their life as a couple. Vera's marriage had rapidly deteriorated, but since her husband continued to live in their shared apartment, she decided to put an end to that rather awkward situation and move with her lover to a place that had become a symbolic address in the counterculture movement in Rio at the end of the 1960s: Solar Santa Terezinha. Originally created as a night shelter for beggars, the Solar was a vast rectangular building with a central courtyard around which people had their bedrooms. It had the look of a large, decadent refuge, but it was considered 'hip' to live there. In the majority of cases each tenant had to share a bathroom with half a dozen other residents, but Paulo and Vera occupied a suitea room with a bathroomfor which the monthly rent was about 200 cruzeiros (US$210).

At the end of July 1969, they decided to do something different. In the middle of August, the Brazilian football team was going to play Paraguay in Asuncion in a World Cup qualifier, the finals of which were to be held in Mexico in 1970. Although he wasn't that interested in football, one Sunday, Paulo thrilled his foreign girlfriend by taking her to a match between Flamengo and Fluminense at the packed Maracan stadium. Vera was mesmerized and began to take an interest in the sport, and it was she who suggested that they drive to Paraguay to watch the match. Paulo didn't even know that Brazil was going to play, but he loved the idea and started making plans.

He immediately discounted the idea of just the two of them driving the almost 2,000 kilometres to Asuncion, a marathon journey on which Vera would be the only driver, since he had still not summoned up the courage to learn to drive. The solution was to call on two other friends for the adventure: the musician-dentist Kakiko and Arnold Bruver, Jr, a new friend from the theatre. They thought of Kakiko for another reason too: as well as being able to drive, he could guarantee hospitality for all in Asuncion, in the home of a Paraguayan girlfriend of his father's. Bruver, like almost all those in Paulo's circle, was an unusual fellow. The son of a Latvian father and a Galician mother, he was thirty-three, a dancer, musician, actor and opera singer, and had been ejected from the navy, in which he had reached the rank of captain, for alleged subversion. It was only after accepting the invitation that Arnold revealed that he couldn't drive either. The next precaution was to ask Mestre Tuca, who had travelled with Lilisa by car to Foz do Iguacu, on the frontier with Paraguay, to give them a route with suggestions of places to fill up the car with petrol, have meals and sleep.

On the cold, sunny morning of Thursday, 14 August, the four got into Vera's white Volkswagen. The journey pa.s.sed without incident, with Vera and Kakiko taking turns at the wheel every 150 kilometres. It was evening when the car stopped at the door of the small hotel in Registro in the state of So Paulo. After twelve hours on the road they had covered 600 kilometres, about a third of the total distance. The locals eyed any strangers with understandable suspicion. Since the Department of Political and Social Order (the political police of the time, known as Dops) had disbanded the Student Union Congress some months earlier in Ibiuna, 100 kilometres from there, the small towns in the region were often visited by strangers and the locals had no way of telling if they were police or something else entirely. However, the four travellers were so tired that there was no time for their presence to arouse anyone's curiosity, for, on arriving, they went straight to bed.

On the Friday, they woke early, because the next stretch of the journey was the longest and they hoped to cover it in just a day. If all went well, by suppertime they would be in Cascavel, in the western region of Parana, a 750-kilometre drive from there, and the last stop before reaching Asuncion. But all did not go well: they were slowed down by the number of trucks on the road. The result was that, by ten o'clock that night, they were all starving and still had 200 kilometres to go.

It was at this point that Vera stopped the car in a lay-by and asked Kakiko to get out to see whether there was a problem with one of the tyres, because the car seemed to be skidding. As there was no sign of anything wrong, they decided that it must be the thick mist covering the area that was making the road slippery. Kakiko suggested that Vera should sit in the back and rest while he drove the rest of the way to Cascavel. After travelling for a further hour, he stopped at a petrol station to fill up. All their expenses were to be shared among the four, but when Vera looked for her purse, she realized that she had lost her bag with her money and all her doc.u.ments, including her driving licence and car registration papers. She concluded that she must have dropped it when she had handed over the driving to Kakiko. They had no alternative but to go back to the place where they had stopped, 100 kilometres back, to try to find the bag. It took three hours to get there and back, without success. They looked everywhere, with the help of the car headlights, but there was no sign of the bag and no one in the local bars and petrol stations had seen it either. Convinced that this was a bad omen, a sign, Paulo suggested that they turn back, but the other three disagreed. They continued the journey and didn't reach Cascavel until early on the Sat.u.r.day morning, by which time the car had a problemthe clutch wasn't working, and so it was impossible to carry on.

Because of the Brazil game, on the following day, almost everything in Cascavel was closed, including all the garages. They decided that they would continue on to Asuncion by bus. They bought tickets to Foz do Iguacu and, as Vera had no doc.u.ments, they had to mingle with the crowds of tourists and supporters in order to cross the bridge separating Brazil from Paraguay. Once in Paraguay, they took another bus to the capital.

Immediately after settling into the home of Kakiko's father's girlfriend, they discovered that all tickets for the match had been sold, but they didn't mind. They spent the weekend visiting tribes of Guarani Indians on the outskirts of the city and taking tedious boat trips on the river Paraguay. On the Monday morning they began to think about getting the car repaired in Cascavel. With the disappearance of Vera's bag, they would have to take special care on the return journey: without the car doc.u.ments they mustn't get caught breaking any laws and, without Vera's money, their expenses would have to be divided by three, which meant eating less and spending the night in cheaper places. They rejigged Tuca's route map and decided to go to Curitiba, where they would sleep and try to get a duplicate copy of the car doc.u.ments and of Vera's driving licence.

At about ten at nightnone of them remembers quite what time it washunger forced them to stop before reaching Curitiba. They parked the car by a steak house, just outside Ponta Grossa, having driven about 400 kilometres. To save money they used a ruse they had been practising since Vera had lost her bag: she and Paulo would sit alone at the table and ask for a meal for two. When the food arrived, Kakiko and Arnold would appear and share the meal with them.

Duly fed and watered, they were just about to resume their journey when a group of soldiers belonging to the Military Police entered the restaurant, armed with machine guns.

The man who appeared to be the head of the group went over to their table and asked: 'Is the white VW with Guanabara number plates parked outside yours?'

Kakiko, who was the only one officially allowed to drive, replied: 'Yes, it's ours.'

When the soldier asked to see the certificate of owners.h.i.+p, Kakiko explained in detail, watched by his terrified friends, how Vera had left her bag next to the car door and lost her purse and everything in it, and how the plan was to stay in Curitiba and see whether they could get a duplicate of the lost doc.u.ments.

The man listened, incredulous, then said: 'You're going to have to explain all this to the police chief. Come with us.'

They were taken to a police station, where they spent the night in the freezing cold, sitting on a wooden bench until six in the morning, when the police chief arrived to give them the news himself: 'You are accused of terrorist activities and carrying out a bank raid. It's nothing to do with me nowit's up to the army.'

Although none of them had been taking much interest in the matter, the political situation had been getting worse in Brazil in the previous few months. Since the publication of the new law, AI-5, in December 1968, more than two hundred university professors and researchers had been compulsorily suspended, arrested or exiled. In the National Congress, 110 Members of Parliament and four senators had been stripped of their mandate and, elsewhere, about five hundred people had been removed from public office, either directly or indirectly accused of subversion. With the removal of three ministers from the Supreme Federal Tribunal, violence in the country had reached its height. In January, Captain Carlos Lamarca had deserted an army barracks in Quitauna, a district of Osasco, taking with him a vehicle containing sixty-three automatic guns, three sub-machine guns and other munitions for the urban guerrilla movement. In So Paulo, the recently nominated governor Abreu Sodre had created Operaco Bandeirantes (Oban), a unit that combined police and members of the armed forces, which was intended to crush any opposition. It immediately became a centre for the torture of enemies of the regime.

Two days before Paulo and his friends had been arrested, four guerrillas armed with machine gunsthree men and a blonde womanand driving a white Volkswagen with Guanabara number plates had attacked a bank and a supermarket in Jandaia do Sul, a town 100 kilometres north of Ponta Grossa. The police were now a.s.suming that Paulo and his friends must be those people. s.h.i.+vering with cold and fear, the four were taken in a prison van guarded by heavily armed soldiers to the headquarters of the 13th Battalion of the Armed Infantry (BIB), in the district of Uvaranas, on the other side of the city. Scruffy, dirty and cold, they climbed out of the van and found themselves in an enormous courtyard where hundreds of recruits were doing military exercises.

Half an hour after being placed in separate cells, made to undress and then dress again, interrogation began. The first to be called was Kakiko, who was taken to a cell furnished only with a table and two chairs, one of which was occupied by a tall, dark, well-built man in boots and combat gear with his name embroidered on his chest: 'Maj. indio'. Major indio ordered Kakiko to take a chair and then sat down in front of him. Then he spoke the words that Kakiko would remember for the rest of his life: 'So far no one has laid a finger on you, but pay very close attention to what I'm going to say. If you give just one bit of false informationjust oneI'm going to stick these two fingers in your left eye, and rip out your eyeball and eat it. Your right eye will be preserved so that you can witness the scene. Understood?'

The first of the crimes of which Paulo and his friends were accusedan armed raid on a supermarket in Jandaia do Sulhad left no victims. But during the attempted raid on a bank in the same city, the guerrillas had shot the manager. The similarities between the four travellers and the guerrillas appeared to justify the suspicions of the military in Ponta Grossa. Although the raiders used nylon stockings to cover their faces, there was no doubt that they were three white men, one of them with long hair, like Paulo, and a blonde woman, like Vera, and that, like Paulo and his friends, they were driving a white Volkswagen with Guanabara number plates. Paulo's map also seemed to the authorities to be too careful and professional to have been produced by a grandfather eager to help his hippie grandson. Besides this, the chosen route could not have been more compromising: information from military intelligence had reported that the group led by Captain Carlos Lamarca might be preparing to establish a guerrilla nucleus in Vale do Ribeirawhich was on the very route the friends had taken on their journey to Asuncion. A dossier containing files on all four plus information on the car had been sent to the security agencies in Brasilia, Rio and So Paulo.

Besides their illegal arrest and the ever more terrifying threats, none of the four had as yet experienced physical violence. Major indio had repeated his promise to eat one of their eyeb.a.l.l.s to each of the others, insisting that this was not a mere empty threat: 'Up to now no one has laid a finger on you. We're giving you food and blankets on the a.s.sumption that you are innocent. But don't forget: if there's a word of a lie in your statements, I'll carry out my promise. I've done it before to other terrorists and I'll have no problems doing the same to you.'

The situation worsened on the Tuesday morning, when some of the supermarket employees were taken to the barracks to identify the suspects. With Paulo and Vera, the identification was made through a small opening in the cell doors, without their knowing that they were being observed. In the case of Arnold and Kakiko, the doors were simply opened, allowing the peoplewho were as terrified as the prisonersa quick look inside. Although the a.s.sailants had had their faces covered when committing the crimes, and despite the very cursory identification procedure, in unlit cells, the witnesses were unanimous: those were the four who had committed the crime. The interrogations became more intense and more intimidating, and the same questions were repeated four, five, six, ten times. Vera and Arnold had to explain over and over to the succession of civil and military authorities who entered the cells to ask questions just what a Yugoslav woman and a naval officer suspended for subversion were doing in the area. Coelho cannot recall how often he had to answer the same questions: after such a long journey, how come they hadn't even bothered to see the match? How had Vera managed to cross the frontier with Paraguay in both directions without doc.u.ments? Why did the map suggest so many alternative places to stay and fill up the car with petrol? Paulo commented to Arnold, in one of the rare moments they were alone in the same cell, that this was a Kafkaesque nightmare: even the presence of his nebulizer to relieve his asthma attacks had to be explained in detail several times.

The nightmare continued for five days. On the Sat.u.r.day morning, armed soldiers entered the cells and gave orders for the prisoners to collect their things because they were being 'moved'. Squashed in the back of the same olive-green van, the four were sure that they were going to be executed. When the vehicle stopped minutes later, much to their surprise, they got out in front of a bungalow surrounded by a garden of carefully tended roses. At the top of the stairs, a smiling soldier with grey hair and a bouquet of flowers in his hands was waiting for them. This was Colonel Lobo Mazza, who explained to the dazed travellers that everything had been cleared up and that they were indeed innocent. The flowers, which the officer had picked himself, were given to Vera by way of an apology. The colonel explained the reasons for their imprisonmentthe growth of the armed struggle, their similarity to the a.s.sailants in Jandaia do Sul, the drive through Vale do Ribeiraand he made a point of asking each whether they had suffered any physical violence. Seeing their dirty, ragged appearance, he suggested they use the bathroom in the house and then offered them canapes accompanied by some good Scotch whisky. So that they would have no problems getting back to Rio, they were given a safe-conduct pa.s.s signed by Colonel Mazza himself. The journey was over.

CHAPTER 11.

The marijuana years.

ONCE HE WAS BACK IN RIO, Paulo entered the 1970s propelled by a new fuel: cannabis. This would be followed by other drugs, but initially he only used cannabis. Once they had tried the drug together for the first time, he and Vera became regular consumers. Being new to the experience, they had little knowledge of its effects, and before starting to smoke they would lock away any knives or other sharp household objects in a drawer 'to prevent any accidents', as she said. They smoked every day and on any pretext: in the afternoon so that they could better enjoy the sunsets, at night to get over the fact that they felt as if they were sleeping on the runway of Santos Dumont airport, with the deafening noise of aeroplanes taking off and landing only a few metres away. And, if there was no other reason, they smoked to allay boredom. Paulo recalled later having spent days in a row under the effect of cannabis, without so much as half an hour's interval. Paulo entered the 1970s propelled by a new fuel: cannabis. This would be followed by other drugs, but initially he only used cannabis. Once they had tried the drug together for the first time, he and Vera became regular consumers. Being new to the experience, they had little knowledge of its effects, and before starting to smoke they would lock away any knives or other sharp household objects in a drawer 'to prevent any accidents', as she said. They smoked every day and on any pretext: in the afternoon so that they could better enjoy the sunsets, at night to get over the fact that they felt as if they were sleeping on the runway of Santos Dumont airport, with the deafening noise of aeroplanes taking off and landing only a few metres away. And, if there was no other reason, they smoked to allay boredom. Paulo recalled later having spent days in a row under the effect of cannabis, without so much as half an hour's interval.

Completely free of parental control, he had become a true hippie: someone who not only dressed and behaved like a hippie but thought like one too. He had stopped being a communistbefore he had ever become onewhen he was lectured in public by a militant member of the Brazilian Communist Party for saying that he had really loved the film Les Parapluies de Cherbourg Les Parapluies de Cherbourga French musical starring Catherine Deneuve. With the same ease with which he had crossed from the Christianity of the Jesuits to Marxism, he was now a devout follower of the hippie insurrection that was spreading throughout the world. 'This will be humanity's final revolution,' he wrote in his diary. 'Communism is over, a new brotherhood is born, mysticism is invading art, drugs are an essential food. When Christ consecrated the wine, he was consecrating drugs. Drugs are a wine of the most superior vintage.'

After spending a few months at the Solar Santa Terezinha, he and Vera rented, together with a friend, a two-bedroom apartment in Santa Teresa, a bohemian district at the top of a hill near the Lapa, in the centre of the city, which had a romantic little tramway running through it that clanked as it went up the hill. In between moves, they had to live for some weeks in the Leblon apartment, along with Vera's husband, who had not yet moved out.

Cannabis usually causes prolonged periods of lethargy and exhaustion in heavy users, but the drug seemed to have the opposite effect on Paulo. He became positively hyperactive and in the first months of 1970, he adapted for the stage and produced The War of the Worlds The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, took part in theatre workshops with the playwright Amir Haddad and entered both the Parana Short Story Compet.i.tion and the Esso Prize for Literature. He even found time to write three plays: by H.G. Wells, took part in theatre workshops with the playwright Amir Haddad and entered both the Parana Short Story Compet.i.tion and the Esso Prize for Literature. He even found time to write three plays: Os Caminhos do Misticismo Os Caminhos do Misticismo [ [The Paths of Mysticism], about Father Cicero Romo Batista, a miracle worker from the northeast of Brazil; A Revolta da Chibata: Historia a Beira de um Cais A Revolta da Chibata: Historia a Beira de um Cais [ [The Chibata Revolt: History on the Dockside], about the sailors' revolt in Rio de Janeiro in 1910; and Os Limites da Resistencia Os Limites da Resistencia [ [The Limits of Resistance], which was a dramatized compilation of various texts. He sent the latter off to the National Book Inst.i.tute, an organ of the federal government, but it failed to get beyond the first obstacle, the Reading Commission. His book fell into the hands of the critic and novelist Octavio de Faria who, while emphasizing its good points, sent the originals straight to the archives with the words: I won't deny that this strange book, The Limits of Resistance The Limits of Resistance, left me completely perplexed. Even after reading it, I cannot decide which literary genre it belongs to. It claims to comprise 'Eleven Fundamental Differences', bears an epigraph by Henry Miller, and sets out to 'explain' life. It contains digressions, surrealist constructions, descriptions of psychedelic experiences, and all kinds of games and jokes. It is a hotchpotch of 'fundamental differences', which, while undeniably well written and intelligent, does not seem to me the kind of book that fits our criteria. Whatever Sr. Paulo Coelho de Souza's literary future may be, it's the kind of work that 'avant-garde' publishers like, in the hope of stumbling across a 'genius', but not the publishers of the National Book Inst.i.tute.

At least he had the consolation of being in good company. The same Reading Commission also rejected at least two books that would become cla.s.sics of Brazilian literature: Sargento Getulio Sargento Getulio, which was to launch the writer Joo Ubaldo Ribeiro in Brazil and the United States, and Objeto Gritante Objeto Gritante, by Clarice Lispector, which was later to be published as agua Viva agua Viva.

As if some force were trying to deflect him from his idee fixe idee fixe of becoming a writer, drama continued to offer Paulo more recognition than prose. Although he had high hopes for his play about Father Cicero, foreseeing a brilliant future for it, only of becoming a writer, drama continued to offer Paulo more recognition than prose. Although he had high hopes for his play about Father Cicero, foreseeing a brilliant future for it, only A Revolta da Chibata A Revolta da Chibata went on to achieve any success. He entered it in the prestigious Concurso Teatro Opinio, more because he felt that he should than with any hope of winning. The prize offered was better than any amount of money: the winning play would be performed by the members of the Teatro Opinio, which was the most famous of the avant-garde theatre groups in Brazil. When Vera called to tell him that went on to achieve any success. He entered it in the prestigious Concurso Teatro Opinio, more because he felt that he should than with any hope of winning. The prize offered was better than any amount of money: the winning play would be performed by the members of the Teatro Opinio, which was the most famous of the avant-garde theatre groups in Brazil. When Vera called to tell him that A Revolta A Revolta had come second, Paulo reacted angrily: 'Second? s.h.i.+t! I always come second.' First prize had gone to had come second, Paulo reacted angrily: 'Second? s.h.i.+t! I always come second.' First prize had gone to Os Dentes do Tigre Os Dentes do Tigre [ [Tiger's Teeth] by Maria Helena Kuhner, who was also starting out on her career.

However, if his objective was fame, he had nothing to complain about. Besides being quoted in all the newspapers and praised by such critics as Joo das Neves and Jose Arrabal, that despised second prize brought A Revolta A Revolta a place in the Teatro Opinio's much-prized series of readings, which were open to the public and took place every week. Paulo may have been upset about not winning first prize, but he was very anxious during the days that preceded the reading. He could think of nothing else all week and was immensely proud when he watched the actress Maria Pompeu reading his play before a packed house. a place in the Teatro Opinio's much-prized series of readings, which were open to the public and took place every week. Paulo may have been upset about not winning first prize, but he was very anxious during the days that preceded the reading. He could think of nothing else all week and was immensely proud when he watched the actress Maria Pompeu reading his play before a packed house.

Months later, his acquaintance with Teatro Opinio meant that he metvery brieflyone of the international giants of counterculture, the revolutionary American drama group the Living Theatre, which was touring Brazil at the time. When Paulo learned that he had managed to get tickets to see a production by the group, he was so excited that he felt 'quite intimidated, as though I had just taken a big decision'. Fearing that he might be asked to give his opinion on something during the interval or after the play, he read a little Nietzsche before going to the theatre 'so as to have something to say'. In the end, he and Vera were so affected by what they saw that they w.a.n.gled an invitation to the house where the groupheaded by Julian Beck and Judith Malinawere staying, and from there went on to visit the shantytown in Vidigal. Judging by the notes in his diary, however, the meeting did not go well: 'Close contact with the Living Theatre. We went to the house where Julian Beck and Judith Malina are staying and no one talked to us. A bitter feeling of humiliation. We went with them to the favela favela. It was the first time in my life that I'd been to a favela favela. It's a world apart.'

The following day, although they had had lunch with the group and been present at rehearsals, the Americans' att.i.tude towards them remained unchanged. 'Julian Beck and Judith Malina continue to treat us with icy indifference,' he wrote. 'But I don't blame them. I know it must have been very difficult to get where they are.' The next Paulo heard of the group and its leaders was some months later, when he heard that they had been arrested in Ouro Preto, in Minas Gerais, accused of possession and use of cannabis. The couple had rented a large house in the city and turned it into a permanent drama workshop for actors from all over Brazil. A few weeks later, the police surrounded the house and arrested all eighteen members of the group and took them straight to the Dops prison in Belo Horizonte.

In spite of protests from the famous across the worldJean-Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jean-Luc G.o.dard and Umberto Eco among othersthe military government kept the whole group in prison for sixty days, after which they expelled all the foreign members, accusing them of 'drug trafficking and subversion'.

As for Paulo, some months after he and Vera had first been introduced to cannabis, the artist Jorge Mouro gave them a tiny block the size of a packet of chewing gum that looked as though it were made of very dark, almost black, wax. It was has.h.i.+sh. Although it comes from the same plant as cannabis, has.h.i.+sh is stronger and was always a drug that was consumed more in Europe and North Africa than in South America, which meant that it was seen as a novelty among Brazilian users. Obsessive as ever about planning and organizing everything he did, Paulo decided to convert a mere 'puff' into a solemn scientific experiment. From the moment he inhaled the drug for the first time he began to record all his sensations on tape, keeping a note of the time as well. He typed up the final result and stuck it in his diary: Brief notes on our Experiment with Has.h.i.+shTo Edgar Allan PoeWe began to smoke in my bedroom at ten forty at night. Those present: myself, Vera and Mouro. The has.h.i.+sh is mixed with ordinary tobacco in a ratio of approximately one to seven and put into a special silver pipe. This pipe makes the smoke pa.s.s through iced water, which allows for perfect filtration. Three drags each are enough. Vera isn't going to take part in the experiment, as she's going to do the recording and take photos. Mouro, who's an old hand at drugs, will tell us what we must do.3 minutesA feeling of lightness and euphoria. Boundless happiness. Strong inner feelings of agitation. I walk backwards and forwards feeling totally drunk.6 minutesMy eyelids are heavy. A feeling of dizziness and sleepiness. My head is starting to take on terrifying proportions, with images slightly distorted into a circular shape. At this phase of the experiment, certain mental blocks (of a moral order) surfaced in my mind. Note: the effects may have been affected by over-excitement.10 minutesAn enormous desire to sleep. My nerves are completely relaxed and I lie down on the floor. I start to sweat, more out of anxiety than heat. No initiative whatsoever: if the house caught fire, I'd rather die than get up from here.20 minutesI'm conscious, but have lost all sense of where sounds come from. It's a pleasant phase that leads to total lack of anxiety.28 minutesThe sense of the relativity of time is really amazing. This must be how Einstein discovered it.30 minutesSuddenly, I lose consciousness entirely. I try to write, but I fail to realize that this is just an attempt, a test. I begin to dance, to dance like a madman; the music is coming from another planet and I exist in an unknown dimension.33 minutesTime is pa.s.sing terribly slowly. I wouldn't have the courage to try LSD...45 minutesThe fear of flying out of the window is so great that I get off my bed and lie on the floor, at the back of the room, well away from the street outside. My body doesn't require comfort. I can stay lying on the floor without moving.1 hourI look at my watch, unable to understand why I'm trying to record everything. For me this is nothing more than an eternity from which I will never manage to escape.1 hour 15 minutesA sudden immense desire to come out of the trance. In the depths of winter, I'm suddenly filled by courage and I decide to take a cold bath. I don't feel the water on my body. I'm naked. But I can't come out of the trance. I'm terrified that I might stay like this for ever. Books I've read about schizophrenia start parading through the bathroom. I want to get out. I want to get out!1 hour and a halfI'm rigid, lying down, sweating with fear.2 hoursThe pa.s.sage from the trance to a normal state takes place imperceptibly. There's no feeling of sickness, sleepiness or tiredness, but an unusual hunger. I look for a restaurant on the corner. I move, I walk. One foot in front of the other.

Not satisfied with smoking has.h.i.+sh and recording its effects, Paulo was brave enough to try something which, in the days when he was under his father's authority, would have ended in a session of electroshock therapy in the asylum: he made a copy of these notes and his parents almost died of shock when he gave it to them to read. From his point of view, this was perhaps not simply an act of provocation towards Lygia and Pedro. Although he confessed to his diary that he had 'discovered another world' and that 'drugs are the best thing in the world', Paulo considered himself to be no ordinary cannabis user but, rather, 'an activist ideologue of the hippie movement' who never tired of repeating to his friends the same extravagant claim: 'Drugs are to me what the machine gun is to communists and guerrillas.' As well as cannabis and has.h.i.+sh, the couple had become frequent users of synthetic drugs. Since the time when he had first been admitted to the clinic, he had been prescribed regular doses of Valium. Unconcerned about the damage these drug c.o.c.ktails might cause to their nervous systems, the lovers became enthusiastic users of Mandrix, Artane, Dexamil and Pervitin. Amphetamines were present in some of these drugs and acted on the central nervous system, increasing the heartbeat and raising blood pressure, producing a pleasant sensation of muscular relaxation, which was followed by feelings of euphoria that would last up to fourteen hours. When they became tired, they would take some kind of sleeping drug such as Mandrix, and crash out. Drugs used in the control of epileptic fits or the treatment of Parkinson's disease guaranteed never-ending 'trips' that lasted days and nights without interruption.

One weekend at Kakiko's place in Friburgo, 100 kilometres from Rio, Paulo carried out an experiment to find out how long he could remain drugged without stopping even to sleep, and was overjoyed when he managed to complete more than twenty-four hours, not sleeping and completely 'out of it'. Only drugs seemed to have any importance on this dangerous path that he was following. 'Our meals have become somewhat subjective,' he wrote in his diary. 'We don't know when we last ate and anyway we don't seem to miss food at all.'

Just one thing seemed to be keeping him connected to the world of the normal, of those who did not take drugs: the stubborn desire to be a writer. He was determined to lock himself up in Uncle Jose's house in Araruama and just write. 'To write, to write a lot, to write everything' was his immediate plan. Vera agreed and urged him on, but she suggested that before he did this, they should relax and take a holiday. In April 1970, the couple decided to go to one of the Meccas of the hippie movement, Machu Picchu, the sacred city of the Incas in the Peruvian Andes, at an alt.i.tude of 2,400 metres. Still traumatized by his journey to Paraguay, Paulo feared that something evil would happen to him if he left Brazil. It was only after much careful planning that the couple finally departed. Inspired by the 1969 film Easy Rider Easy Rider, they had no clear destination or fixed date of return.

On 1 May they took a Lloyd Aero Boliviano aeroplane to La Paz for a trip that involved many novelties, the first of which Paulo experienced as soon as he got out at El Alto airport, in the Bolivian capital: snow. He was so excited when he saw everything covered by such a pure white blanket that he could not resist throwing himself on the ground and eating the snow. It was the start of a month of absolute idleness. Vera spent the day in bed in the hotel, unable to cope with the rarefied air of La Paz at 4,000 metres. Paulo went out to get to know the city and, accustomed to the political apathy of a Brazil under a dictators.h.i.+p, he was shocked to see workers' demonstrations on Labour Day. Four months later, Alfredo Ovando Candia, who had just named himself President of the Republic for the third time, was ousted.

Taking advantage of the low cost of living in Bolivia, they rented a car, stayed in good hotels and went to the best restaurants. Every other day, the elegant Vera made time to go to the hairdresser's, while Paulo climbed the steep hills of La Paz. It was there that they encountered a new type of drug, which was almost non-existent in Brazil: mescalito, also known as peyote, peyotl or mescala hallucinogenic tea distilled from cut, dried cactus. Amazed by the calmness and tranquillity induced by the drink, they wallowed in endless visual hallucinations and experienced intense moments of synaesthesia, a confusion of the senses that gives the user the sense of being able to smell a colour or hear a taste.

They spent five days in La Paz drinking the tea, visiting clubs to listen to local music and attending diabladas diabladas, places where plays in which the Inca equivalent of the Devil predominated. They then caught a train to Lake t.i.ticaca, the highest navigable lake in the world, where they took a boat across and then the train to Cuzco and Machu Picchu, after which they went by plane to Lima.

In Lima, they rented a car and headed for Santiago de Chile, pa.s.sing through Arequipa, Antof.a.gasta and Arica. The plan was to spend more time on this stretch, but the hotels were so unprepossessing that they decided to carry on. Neither Paulo nor Vera enjoyed the Chilean capital'a city like any other', he wrotebut they did have the chance to see Costa-Gavras's film Z Z, which denounced the military dictators.h.i.+p in Greece and was banned in Brazil. At the end of their three-week trip, still almost constantly under the influence of mescalito, they found themselves in Mendoza, in Argentina, on the way to Buenos Aires. Paulo was eaten up with jealousy when he saw the attractive Vera being followed by men, particularly when she began to speak in English, which he still could not understand that well. In La Paz it had been the sight of snow that had taken him by surprise; in Buenos Aires it was going on the metro for the first time. Accustomed to low prices in the other places they had visited, they decided to dine at the Michelangelo, a restaurant known as 'the cathedral of the tango', where they were lucky enough to hear a cla.s.sic of the genre, the singer Roberto 'Polaco' Goyeneche. When they were handed a bill for $20the equivalent of about US$120 todayPaulo almost fell off his chair to discover that they were in one of the most expensive restaurants in the city.

Although his asthma had coped well with the Andean heights, in Buenos Aires, at sea level, it reappeared in force. With a temperature of 39C and suffering from intense breathing difficulties, he had to remain in bed for three days and began to recover only in Montevideo, on 1 June, the day before they were to leave for Brazil. At his insistence, they would not be making the return journey on a Lloyd Aero Boliviano flight. This change had nothing to do with superst.i.tion or with the fact that they would have to travel via La Paz. Paulo had seen the bronze statue of a civilian pilot at La Paz airport in homage 'to the heroic pilots of LAB who have died in action': 'I'd be mad to travel with a company that treats the pilots of crashed planes as heroes! What if our pilot has ambitions to become a statue?' In the end, they flew Air France to Rio de Janeiro, where they arrived on 3 June in time to watch the first round of the 1970 World Cup, when the Brazilian team beat Czechoslovakia 41.

The dream of becoming a writer would not go away. Paulo placed nowhere in the short story competions he entered. He wrote in his diary: 'It was with a broken heart that I heard the news...that I had failed to win yet another literary compet.i.tion. I didn't even get an honourable mention.' However, he did not allow himself to be crushed by these defeats and continued to note down possible subjects for future literary works, such as 'flying saucers', 'Jesus', 'the abominable snowman', 'spirits becoming embodied in corpses' and 'telepathy'. All the same, the prizes continued to elude him, as he recorded in his notes: 'Dear So Jose, my protector. You are witness to the fact that I've tried really hard this year. I've lost in every compet.i.tion. Yesterday, when I heard I'd lost in the compet.i.tion for children's plays, Vera said that when my luck finally does arrive, it will do so all in one go. Do you agree?'

On his twenty-third birthday, Vera gave him a sophisticated microscope and was pleased to see what a success it was: hours after opening the gift, Paulo was still hunched over it, carefully examining the gla.s.s plates and making notes. Curious to know what he was doing, she began to read what he was writing: 'It's twenty-three years today since I was born. I was already this thing that I can see under the microscope. Excited, moving in the direction of life, infinitesimally small but with all my hereditary characteristics in place. My two arms, my legs and my brain were already programmed. I would reproduce myself from that sperm cell, the cells would multiply. And here I am, aged twenty-three.' It was only then that she realized that Paulo had put his own s.e.m.e.n under the microscope. The notes continue: 'There goes a possible engineer. Another one that ought to have become a doctor is dying. A scientist capable of saving the Earth has also died, and I'm impa.s.sively watching all this through my microscope. My own sperm are furiously flailing around, desperate to find an egg, desperate to perpetuate themselves.'

Vera was good company, but she could be tough too. When she realized that, if he had anything to do with it, Paulo would never achieve anything beyond the school diploma he had got at Guanabara, she almost forced him to prepare for his university entrance exams. Her vigilance produced surprising results. By the end of the year, he had managed to be accepted by no fewer than three faculties: law at Candido Mendes, theatre direction at the Escola Nacional de Teatro and media studies at the Pontificia Universidade Catolica (PUC) in Rio.

This success, needless to say, could not be attributed entirely to Vera: it had as much to do with Paulo's literary appet.i.te. Since he had begun making systematic notes of his reading four years earlier, he had read more than three hundred books, or seventy-five a yeara vast number when one realizes that most Brazilians read, on average, one book a year. He read a great deal and he read everything. From Cervantes to Kafka, from Jorge Amado to Scott Fitzgerald, from Aeschylus to Aldous Huxley. He read Soviet dissidents such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Brazilians who were on police files such as the humourist Stanislaw Ponte Preta. He would read, make a short commentary on each