Eleven Minutes

"Why the book on farm management?"

"What do you mean?"

"I've been to Rue de Berne. When you said you worked in a nightclub, I remembered that I'd seen you before in that very expensive place. I didn't think of it while I was painting, though: your 'light' was so strong."

Maria felt the floor beneath her feet give way. For the first time, she felt ashamed of what she did, even though she had no reason to; she was working to keep herself and her family. He was the one who should feel ashamed of going to Rue de Berne; all the possible charm of that meeting had suddenly vanished.

"Listen, Mr. Hart, I may be a Brazilian, but I've lived in Switzerland for nine months now. I've learned that the reason the Swiss are so discreet is because they live in a very small country where almost everyone knows everyone else, as we have just discovered, which is why no one ever asks what other people do. Your remark was both inappropriate and very rude, but if your aim was to humiliate me in order to make yourself feel better, you're wasting your time. Thanks for the anisette, which is disgusting, by the way, but which I will drink to the last drop. I will then smoke a cigarette, and, finally, I'll get up and leave. But you can leave right now, if you want; we can't have famous painters sitting at the same table as a prostitute. Because that's what I am, you see. A prostitute. I'm a prostitute through and through, from head to toe, and I don't care who knows. That's my one great virtue: I refuse to deceive myself or you. Because it's not worth it, because you don't merit a lie. Imagine if that famous chemist over there were to find out what I am."

She began to speak more loudly.

"Yes, I'm a prostitute! And do you know what? It's set me free--knowing that I'll be leaving this godawful place in exactly ninety days' time, with loads of money, far better educated, capable of choosing a good bottle of wine, with my handbag stuffed with photographs of the snow, and knowing all there is to know about men!"

The waitress was listening, horrified. The chemist seemed not to notice. Perhaps it was just the alcohol talking, or the feeling that soon she would once more be a woman from the interior of Brazil, or perhaps it was the sheer joy of being able to say what she did and to laugh at the shocked reactions, the critical looks, the scandalized gestures.

"Do you understand, Mr. Hart? I'm a prostitute through and through, from head to toe--and that's my one great quality, my virtue!"

He said nothing. He didn't even move. Maria felt her confidence returning.

"And you, sir, are a painter with no understanding of your models. Perhaps the chemist sitting over there, dozing, lost to the world, is really a railway worker. Perhaps none of the other people in your painting are what they seem. I can't understand otherwise how you could possibly say that you could see a 'special light' in a woman who, as you discovered while you were painting, IS NOTHING BUT A PRO-STI-TUTE!"

These last words were spoken very slowly and loudly. The chemist woke up and the waitress brought the bill.

"This has nothing to do with you as prostitute, but with you as woman." Ralf ignored the proffered bill and replied equally slowly, but quietly. "You have a glow about you. The light

that comes from sheer willpower, the light of someone who has made important sacrifices in the name of things she thinks are important. It's in your eyes--the light is in your eyes."

Maria felt disarmed; he had not taken up her challenge. She had wanted to believe that he was simply trying to pick her up. She was not allowed to think--at least not for the next ninety days--that there were interesting men on the face of the Earth.

"You see that glass of anisette before you?" he went on. "Now, you just see the anisette. I, on the other hand, because I need to be inside everything I do, see the plant it came from, the storms the plant endured, the hand that picked the grain, the voyage by ship from another land, the smells and colors with which the plant allowed itself to be imbued before it was placed in the alcohol. If I were to paint this scene, I would paint all those things, even though, when you saw the painting, you would think you were looking at a simple glass of anisette.

"In just the same way, while you were gazing out at the street and thinking--because I know you were--about the road to Santiago, I painted your childhood, your adolescence, your lost, broken dreams, your dreams for the future, and your will--which is what most intrigues me. When you saw your portrait..."

Maria put up her guard, knowing that it would be very difficult to lower it again later on.

"...I saw that light...even though all that was before me was a woman who looked like you."

Again that constrained silence. Maria looked at her watch.

"I have to go in a moment. Why did you say that sex is boring?"

"You should know that better than me."

"I know because it's my job. I do the same thing every day. But you're a young man of thirty..."

"Twenty-nine."

"...young, attractive, famous, who should be interested in things like that, and who shouldn't have to go to Rue de Berne looking for company."

"Well, I did. I went to bed with a few of your colleagues, but not because I had any problem finding female company. The problem lies with me."

Maria felt a pang of jealousy, and was terrified. She really must leave.

"It was my last try. I've given up now," said Ralf, starting to pick up the painting materials scattered on the floor.

"Have you got some physical problem?"

"No, I'm just not interested."