Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho Read Free Book Online Page B

order to ask for the bill, but Maria stopped him.
    'No, don't do that. Pour me some more wine and just let me
     cry for a while.'
    And Maria thought about the little boy who had asked to borrow a pencil, about the young man who had kissed her and how she had kept her mouth closed, about her excitement at
     seeing Rio for the first time, about the men who had used her and given nothing back, about the passions and loves lost
     along the way. Despite her apparent freedom, her life consisted of endless hours spent waiting for a miracle, for
     true love, for an adventure with the same romantic ending she had seen in films and read about in books. A writer once said that it is not time that changes man, nor knowledge; the only thing that can change someone's mind is love. What nonsense!
    The person who wrote that clearly knew only one side of the coin.
    Love was undoubtedly one of the things capable of
     changing a person's whole life, from one moment to the
     next. But there was the other side of the coin, the second thing that could make a human being take a totally different course from the one he or she had planned; and that was
     called despair. Yes, perhaps love really could transform someone, but despair did the job more quickly. What should she do? Should she run back to Brazil, become a teacher of French and marry her former boss? Should she take a small step forward; after all, it was only one night, in a city where she knew no one and no one knew her. Would that one night and that easy money mean that she would inevitably carry on until she reached a point in the road where there was no turning back? What was happening here - a great opportunity or a test set her by the Virgin Mary?
    The Arab was looking around at the paintings by Joan Miro, at the place where Fellini used to have lunch, at the girl who took the coats and at the other customers arriving and leaving.
    'Didn't you realise?'
    'More wine, please,' said Maria, still in tears.
    She was praying that the waiter would not come over and realise what was going on, and the waiter, who was watching it all from a distance, out of the corner of his eye, was
     praying that the man and the girl would hurry up and pay the bill, because the restaurant was full and there were people waiting.
    At last, after what seemed an eternity, she spoke:
    'Did you say a thousand francs for one drink?'
    Maria was surprised by her own tone of voice.
    'Yes,' said the man, regretting having suggested it in the first place. 'But I really wouldn't want...'
    'Pay the bill and let's go and have that drink at your hotel.'
    Again, she seemed like a stranger to herself. Up until
     then, she had been a nice, cheerful, well-brought-up girl, and she would never have spoken like that to a stranger. But that girl, it seemed to her, had died forever: before her lay another existence, in which drinks cost one thousand francs
     or, to use a more universal currency, about six hundred dollars.
    And everything happened as expected: she went to the
     Arab's hotel, drank champagne, got herself almost completely drunk, opened her legs, waited for him to have an orgasm (it didn't even occur to her to pretend to have one too), washed herself in the marble bathroom, picked up the money, and allowed herself the luxury of a taxi home. She fell into bed and slept dreamlessly all night.
    From Maria's diary, the next day:
    I remember everything, although not the moment when I made
     the decision. Oddly enough, I have no sense of guilt. I used to think of girls who went to bed with men for money as
     people who had no other choice, and now I see that it isn't like that. I could have said 'yes' or 'no'; no one was forcing me to accept anything.
    walk about the streets and look at all the people, and I
     wonder if they chose their lives? Or were they, like me, 'chosen' by fate? The housewife who dreamed of becoming a model, the banker who wanted to be a musician, the dentist who felt he should write a book and devote