Eleven Minutes (18 page)

'Stop.'

Ralf stopped. It was the right moment to change the
subject, and he started showing her drawing after drawing. At first, it all seemed rather confusing: there were a few
outlines of people, but also scrawls and scribbles, geometric shapes and colours. Gradually, though, she began to
understand what he was saying, because each word he spoke was accompanied by a gesture of the hand, and each phrase placed
her in the world which, up until then, she had always denied she was part of - telling herself that it was just one stage
in her life, a way of earning money, nothing more.

'Yes, I discovered that there is not just one history of prostitution, but two. The first one you know all too well, because it is your history too: a pretty young girl, for reasons which she has chosen or which have chosen her, decides that the only way she can survive is by selling her body. Some end up ruling nations, as Messalina did in Rome, others become legendary figures, like Madame du Barry, still others chase after adventure and misfortune, like the spy, Mata Hari. But the majority never have their moment of glory, are never faced by a great challenge: they will always be
young girls from the interior in search of fame, a husband, adventure, but who end up discovering quite a different
reality, into which they plunge for a time, and to which they become accustomed, always believing that they are in control
and ultimately unable to do anything else.

'Artists have been making sculptures and paintings and writing books for more than three thousand years. In just
the same way, throughout all that time, prostitutes have carried on their work as if nothing very much ever changes. Would you like to know details?'

Maria nodded. She needed time in order to understand about pain, although she was starting to feel as if something very bad had left her body during that walk in the park.

'Prostitutes appear in classical texts, in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in Sumerian writings, in the Old and New Testament. But the profession only started to become organised in the sixth century bc, when a Greek legislator, Solon, set up state-controlled brothels and began imposing taxes on “the skin trade”. Athenian businessmen were
pleased because what was once prohibited became legal. The prostitutes, on the other hand, started to be classified according to how much tax they paid.

'The cheapest were the pornai, slaves who belonged to the owners of the establishment. Next came the peripatetica, who picked up her clients in the street. Lastly, the most
expensive and highest quality, was the hetaera, the female companion, who accompanied businessmen on their trips, dlned
in chic restaurants, controlled her own money, gave advice and meddled in the political life of the city. As you See' what happened then still happens now.

in the Middle Ages, because of sexually transmitted diseases ...'

fear of catching a cold, the heat of the fire cessary now to warm her body and her soul ... Maria
didn't
want to hear any more history, it gave her a sense
that the world had stopped, that everything was being
endlessly repeated, and that mankind would never give sex the respect it deserved.

'You don't seem very interested.'

She pulled herself together. After all, he was the man to whom she had decided to give her heart, although now she wasn't so sure.

'I'm not interested in what I know about; it just makes me sad. You said there was another history.'

'The other history is exactly the opposite: sacred prostitution.'

She had suddenly emerged from her somnolent state and was listening to him intently. Sacred prostitution? Earning money from sex and yet still able to approach God?

'The Greek historian, Herodotus, wrote of Babylonia: “They have a strange custom here, by which every woman born in Sumeria is obliged, at least once in her lifetime, to go to
the temple of the goddess Ishtar and give her body to a stranger, as a symbol of hospitality and for a symbolic price.”'

She would ask him about that goddess later; perhaps she would help her to recover something she had lost, although just what that was she did not know.

'The influence of the goddess Ishtar spread throughout the Middle East, as far as Sardinia, Sicily and the Mediterranean ports. Later, during the Roman Empire' another goddess, Vesta, demanded total virginity or total surrender. In order
to keep the sacred fire burning, the women serving her temple were responsible for initiating
young
men and kings on the path of sexuality - they sang
rotic hymns, entered trance-like states and gave their ecstasy to the universe in a kind of communion with the divinity.'

Ralf Hart showed her a photocopy of some ancient lyrics, with a translation in German at the foot of the page. He read slowly, translating each line as he went:

'When I am sitting at the door of a tavern, I, Ishtar, the goddess, Am prostitute, mother, wife, divinity.

I am what people call life, Although you call it death. I am what people call Law, Although you call it Delinquency. I am what you seek
And what you find.

I am what you scattered
And the pieces you now gather up.'

Maria was sobbing softly, and Ralf Hart laughed; his vital energy was returning, his 'light' was beginning to shine a8ain. It was best to continue the history, to show her the drawings, to make her feel loved.

No one knows why sacred prostitution disappeared, lnce it had lasted not centuries, perhaps, but for at least millennia. Maybe it was disease or because society changed its rules when it changed religions. Anyway, it no
longer exists, and will never exist again; nowadays, men
control the world, and the term serves only to create a
stigma, and any woman who steps out of line is automatically
dubbed a prostitute.'

'Could you come to the Copacabana tomorrow?' Ralf didn't understand why she was asking this, but he agreed at once. From Maria's diary, after the night she walked barefoot in the Jardin Anglais in Geneva:

I don't care whether it was once sacred or not, I HATE
WHAT I DO. It's destroying my soul, making me lose touch with myself, teaching me that pain is a reward, that money buys everything and justifies everything.

No one around me is happy; the clients know they are paying for something that should be free, and that's
depressing. The women know that they have to sell something which they would like to give out of pleasure and affection, and that is destructive. I've struggled long and hard before
writing this, before accepting how unhappy and dissatisfied I am - I needed and I still need to hold out for a few more weeks.

But I cannot simply do nothing, pretend that everything is normal, that it's just a stage, a phase of my life. I want to forget it, I need to love - that's all, I need to love.

Life is too short, or too long, for me to allot myself the luxury of living it so badly.

It isn't his house. It isn't her house. It isn't Brazil
or Switzerland. It's a hotel, which could be anywhere in the world, furnished, like all hotel rooms, in a way that tries
to create a familiar atmosphere, but which only makes it seem all the more impersonal.

It isn't the hotel with the lovely view of the lake and
the memory of pain, suffering and ecstasy; it looks out onto the road to Santiago, a route of pilgrimage not penance, a
place where people meet in the cafes along the road, discover each other's 'light', talk, become friends, fall in love.

It's raining, and at this time of night, no one is walking there, although they have for years, decades, centuries - perhaps the road needs to breathe, to rest from the many steps that trudge along it every day.

Turn out the light. Close the curtains.

She asks him to take his clothes off and she does the
Same- Darkness is never absolute, and as soon as her eyes become accustomed to it, she can see the man's silhouette, outlined against the faintest of lights coming from who knows where. The last time they met for this purpose, she left only part of her body naked.

She takes two carefully folded handkerchiefs, which have been
washed and rinsed several times to get rid of the
slightest trace of perfume or soap. She goes over to him
and asks him to blindfold himself. He hesitates for a moment
and makes some remark about various hells he has been through before. She says it's nothing to do with that, she just needs total darkness; now it is her turn to teach him something, just as yesterday he taught her about pain. He gives in and puts on the blindfold. She does the same; now there is not a glimmer of light, they are in absolute darkness, and they
have to hold hands in order to reach the bed.

'No, we mustn't lie down. Let's sit as we always do, face
to face, only a little closer, so that my knees touch your knees.'

She has always wanted to do this, but she never had what
she most needed: time. Not with her first boyfriend, or with the man who penetrated her for the first time. Not with the Arab who paid her a thousand francs, perhaps hoping for more than she was able to give him, although a thousand francs wouldn't be enough for her to buy what she wanted. Not with
the many men who had passed through her body, who have come and gone between her legs, sometimes thinking about themselves, sometimes thinking about her too, sometimes
harbouring romantic dreams, sometimes instinctively repeating certain words because they have been told that that is what
men do, and that if they don't, they are not real men.

She thinks of her diary. She has had enough, she wants the remaining weeks to pass quickly, and that is why she was
giving herself to this man, because the light of her own lov
lies hidden there. Original sin was not the apple that
Eve ate, it was her belief that Adam needed to share
precisely the thing she had tasted. Eve was afraid to follow her path without someone to help her, and so she wanted to share what she was feeling.

Certain things cannot be shared. Nor can we be afraid of
the oceans into which we plunge of our own free will; fear cramps everyone's style. Man goes through hell in order to understand this. Love one another, but let's not try to possess one another.

I love this man sitting before me now, because I do not possess him and he does not possess me. We are free in our
mutual surrender; I need to repeat this dozens, hundreds, millions of time, until I finally believe my own words.

She thinks about the other prostitutes who work with her.

She thinks about her mother and her friends. They all believe that man feels desire for only eleven minutes a day, and that they'll pay a fortune for it. That's not true; a man is also
a woman; he wants to find someone, to give meaning to his life.

Does her mother behave just as she does and pretend to
have an orgasm with her father? Or in the interior of Brazil, is it still forbidden for a woman to take pleasure in sex?

She knows so little of life and love, and now - with her eyes
"nndfolded and with all the time in the world, she is discovering the origin of everything, and everything begins where and how she would like it to have begun.

Touch. Forget prostitutes, clients, her mother and her
ner» now she is in total darkness. She has spent the whole
afternoon wondering what she could give to a man who had restored her dignity and made her understand that the search for happiness is more important than the need for pain.

I would like to give him the happiness of teaching me something new, just as yesterday he taught me about suffering, street prostitutes and sacred prostitutes. I saw how much he enjoys teaching me things, so let him teach me, guide me. I would like to know how one reaches the body, without going via the soul, penetration, orgasm.

She holds out her hand and asks him to do the same. She whispers a few words, saying that tonight, in this
no-man'sland, she would like him to discover her skin, the boundary between her and the world. She asks him to touch her, to feel her with his hands, because bodies always understand each other, even when souls do not. He begins touching her, and she touches him too, and, as if by prior
agreement, they both avoid the parts of the body where sexual energy surfaces most rapidly.

His fingers touch her face, and she can smell just a hint
of ink on them, a smell that will stay there forever, even if
he washes his hands thousands and millions of times, a smell which was there when he was born, when he saw his first tree, his first house, and decided to draw them in his dreams. He
must be able to smell something on her hands too, but she doesn't know what, and doesn't want to ask, because at that moment everything is body, and the rest is silence.

She caresses and is caressed. She could stay like this a
night, because it is so pleasurable and won't necessarily en
in sex, and at that moment, precisely because there is no obligation to have sex, she feels hot between her legs and knows that she has become wet. When he touches her there, he will discover this, and she doesn't know if this is good or bad, this is just how her body is reacting, and she doesn't intend telling him to go here or there, more slowly or more
quickly. His hands are touching her armpits now, the hairs on her arms stand on end, and she feels like pushing his hands away, but it feels good, although perhaps it is pain she is feeling. She does the same to him and notices that the skin
in his armpits has a different texture, perhaps because of
the deodorant they both use, but what is she thinking of? She mustn't think. She must touch, that is all.

His fingers trace circles around her breast, like an animal watching. She wants them to move more quickly, to
touch her nipples, because her thoughts are moving faster than his hands, but, perhaps knowing this, he provokes, lingers, takes an age to get there. Her nipples are hard now, he plays with them a little, and that causes more goose pimples, causes her to become hotter and wetter. Now he is moving across her belly, then down to her legs, her feet, he strokes his hands up and down her inner thigh, he feels the heat, but does not approach, his touch is soft, light, and
the ohter it is the more intoxicating.

She does the same, her hands almost floating over his
in touching only the hairs on his legs, and she too feels the need when she approaches his genitals. Suddenly, it is as
if she had mysteriously recovered her virginity, as if she were
discovering a man's body for the first time. She touches
his penis. It is not as hard as she imagined, and yet she is so wet how unfair, but maybe a man needs more time, who
knows.