Eleven Minutes (6 page)

Whatever the truth of the matter, Maria felt less alone on that grey morning in Geneva, with the temperature close to
zero, the Kurds demonstrating, the trams arriving punctually at each stop, the shops setting out their jewellery in the windows again, the banks opening, the beggars sleeping, the Swiss going to work. She was less alone because by her side was another woman, invisible perhaps to passers-by. She had never noticed her presence before, but there she was.

She smiled at the invisible woman beside her who
looked like the Virgin Mary, Jesus's mother. The woman smiled back and told her to be careful, things were not as
simple as she imagined. Maria ignored the advice and replied that she was a grown-up, responsible for her own decisions, and she couldn't believe that there was some cosmic
conspiracy being hatched against her. She had learned that there were people prepared to pay one thousand Swiss francs
for one night, for half an hour between her legs, and all she had to decide over the next few days was whether to take her thousand Swiss francs and buy a plane ticket back to the town where she had been born, or to stay a little longer, and earn enough to be able to buy her parents a house, some lovely clothes for herself and tickets to all the places she had dreamed of visiting one day.

The invisible woman at her side said again that things weren't that simple, but Maria, although glad of this
unexpected company, asked her not to interrupt her thoughts, because she needed to make some important decisions.

She began to analyse, more carefully this time, the possibility of going back to Brazil. Her schoolfriends, who
had never left the town they were born in, would all say that she had been fired from the job, that she had never had the talent to be an international star. Her mother would be sad never to have received her promised monthly sum of money, although Maria, in her letters, had assured her that the post office must be stealing it. Her father would, forever
after, look at her with that 'I told you so' expression on his face; she would go back to working in the shop, selling fabrics, and she would marry the owner - she who had travelled in a plane, eaten Swiss cheese, learned French and walked in the snow.

On the other hand, there were those drinks that had earned
her one thousand Swiss francs. It might not last very long - after all, beauty changes as swiftly as the wind - but in a year, she could earn enough money to get back on her feet and return to the world, this time on her own terms. The only
real problem was that she didn't know what to do, how to
start. She remembered from her days at the 'family nightclub'

where she had first worked that a girl had mentioned somewhere called Rue de Berne - in fact, it had been one of
the first things she had said, even before she had shown her where to put her suitcases.

She went over to one of the large panels that can be found everywhere in Geneva, that most tourist-friendly of cities, which cannot bear to see tourists getting lost. For this
reason the panels have advertisements on one side and maps on the other.

A man was standing there, and she asked him if he knew where Rue de Berne was. He looked at her, intrigued, and
asked if it was the street she was looking for or the road that went to Berne, the capital of Switzerland. No, said
Maria, I want the street in Geneva. The man looked her up and down, then walked off without a word, convinced that he was being filmed by one of those TV programmes that delight in making fools of people. Maria studied the map
for fifteen minutes - it's not a very big city - and finally found the place she was looking for.

Her invisible friend, who had remained silent while she
was studying the map, was now trying to reason with her; it wasn't a question of morality, but of setting off down a road
of no return.

Maria said that if she could earn enough money to go back
home, then she could earn enough to get out of any situation. Besides, none of the people she passed had actually chosen
what they wanted to do. That was just a fact of life.

'We live in a vale of tears,' she said to her invisible friend. 'We can have all the dreams we like, but life is hard, implacable, sad. What are you trying to say: that
people will condemn me? No one will ever know - this is just
one phase of my life.'

With a sad, sweet smile, the invisible friend disappeared. Maria went to the funfair and bought a ticket for the
roller coaster; she screamed along with everyone else, knowing that there was no real danger and that it was all just a game. She ate in a Japanese restaurant, even though
she didn't understand quite what she was eating, knowing only that it was very expensive and feeling in a mood to indulge herself in every luxury. She was happy, she didn't need to
wait for a phone call now or to watch every centime she spent.

Later that day, she left a message with the agency to
thank them and to tell them that the meeting had gone well.

If they were genuine, they would ask about the photos. If they were procurers of women, they would arrange more meetings.

She walked across the bridge back to her little room and decided that, however much money and however many future
plans she had, she would definitely not buy a television: she needed to think, to use all her time for thinking.

From Maria's diary that night (with a note in the margin saying: 'Not sure'):

I have discovered the reason why a man pays for a woman:

he wants to be happy.

He wouldn't pay a thousand francs just to have an orgasm.

He wants to be happy. I do too, everyone does, and yet no one is. What have I got to lose if, for a while, I decide to
become a ... it's a difficult word to think or even write ... but let's be blunt ... what
have I got to lose if I decide to become a prostitute for
a while?

Honour. Dignity. Self-respect. Although, when I think
about it, I've never had any of those things. I didn't ask to
be born, I've never found anyone to love me, I've always made the wrong decisions - now I'm letting life decide for me.

The agency phoned the next day and asked about the photos and when the fashion show was being held, since they got a percentage of every job. Maria, realising that they knew nothing about what had happened, told them that the Arab gentleman would be in touch with them.

She went to the library and asked for some books about
sex. If she was seriously considering the possibility of working - just for a year, she had told herself - in an area about which she knew nothing, the first thing she needed to know was how to behave, how to give pleasure and receive
money in return.

She was most disappointed when the librarian told her
that, since the library was a government-funded institution, they only had a few technical works. Maria read the index of one of these books and immediately returned it: they said nothing about happiness, they talked only about dull things
such as erection, penetration, impotence, precautions ... She did for a moment consider borrowing The Psychology of
Frigidity in Women, since, in her own case, although she very much enjoyed being possessed and penetrated by a man, she
only ever reached orgasm through masturbation.

She wasn't there in search of pleasure, however, but work. She thanked the librarian, and went to a shop where she
made her first investment in that possible career looming on the horizon - clothes which she considered to be sexy
enough to arouse men's desire. Then she went straight to the place she had found on the map. Rue de Berne. At the top of
the street was a church (oddly enough, very near the Japanese restaurant where she had had supper the night before), then
some shops selling cheap watches and clocks, and, at the far end, were the clubs she had heard about, all of them closed
at that hour of the day. She went for another walk around the lake, then - without a tremor of embarrassment - bought five pornographic magazines in order to study the kind of thing
she would have to do, waited for darkness to fall and then went back to Rue de Berne. There she chose at random a bar with the alluringly Brazilian name of 'Copacabana'.

She hadn't decided anything, she told herself. It was just
an experiment. She hadn't felt so well or so free in all the time she had been in Switzerland.

'I'm looking for work,' she told the owner, who was washing glasses behind the bar. The place consisted of a
series of tables, a few sofas around the walls and, in one corner, a kind of dance floor. 'Nothing doing. If you want to work here legally you have to have a work permit.'

Maria showed him hers and the man's mood seemed to improve.

'Got any experience?'

She didn't know what to say: if she said yes, he would ask
her where she had worked before. If she said no, he might turn her down.

'I'm writing a book.'

The idea had come out of nowhere, as if an invisible voice
had come to her aid. She saw that the man knew she was lying, but was pretending to believe her.

'Before you make any decision, talk to some of the other girls. We get at least six Brazilian women in every night, that way you can find out exactly what to expect.'

Maria was about to say that she didn't need any advice
from anyone and that, besides, she hadn't come to a decision just yet, but the man had already moved off to the other side
of the bar, leaving her on her own, without even a glass of water to drink.

The women started to arrive, and the owner called over some of the Brazilians and asked them to talk to the new arrival. None of them seemed very willing; fear of
competition, Maria assumed. The sound system was turned on and a few Brazilian songs were played (well, the place was called 'Copacabana'); then some Asiatic-looking women came in, along with others who seemed to have come straight from the snowy, romantic mountains around Geneva. She had been standing there for nearly two hours, with nothing to drink
and just a few cigarettes, filled by a growing sense that she was definitely making the wrong decision - the words 'what am
I doing here?' kept repeating over and over in her head - and feeling increasingly irritated by the complete lack of
interest on the part of both the owner and the other women, when, finally, one of the Brazilian girls came over to her.

'What made you choose this place?'

Maria could have resorted to that story about writing a
book, or she could, as she had with the Kurds, with Miro and with Fellini, simply tell the truth.

'To be perfectly honest, I don't know where to start or if
I want to start.'

The other woman seemed surprised by such a frank, direct answer. She took a sip of what looked like whisky, listened to the Brazilian song they were playing, made some comment
about missing her home, then said that there wouldn't be many customers that night because a big international conference being held near Geneva had been cancelled. In the end, when
she saw that Maria still hadn't left, she said:

'Look, it's very simple, you just have to stick to three basic rules. First: never fall in love with anyone you work
with or have sex with. Second: don't believe any promises and always get paid up front. Third: don't use drugs.'

There was a pause.

'And start now. If you go home tonight without having got your first client, you'll have second thoughts about it and you won't have the courage to come back.'

Maria had gone there more for a consultation, to get some feedback on her chances of finding a temporary job. She found herself confronted by the feeling that so often pushes people into making hasty decisions - despair.

'All right. I'll start tonight.'

She didn't mention that she had, in fact, started
yesterday. The woman went up to the owner, whom she called
Milan, and he came over to talk to Maria.

'Have you got nice underwear on?'

No one - her boyfriends, the Arab, her girlfriends, far
less a stranger - had ever asked her that question. But that
Was what life was like in that place: straight to the point.

'I'm wearing pale blue pants. And no bra,' she added provocatively. But all she got was a reprimand.

'Tomorrow, wear black pants, bra and stockings. Taking off your clothes is all part of the ritual.'

Without more ado, and on the assumption now that he was talking to someone who was about to start work, Milan introduced her to the rest of the ritual: the Copacabana
should be a pleasant place to spend time, not a brothel. The men came into that bar wanting to believe that they would
find a lady on her own. If anyone came over to her table and wasn't intercepted en route (because some clients were
'exclusive to certain girls'), he would probably say:

'Would you like a drink?'

To which Maria could say yes or no. She was free to choose the company she kept, although it wasn't advisable to say
'no' more than once a night. If she answered in the
affirmative, she should ask for a fruit juice cocktail, which just happened to be the most expensive drink on the drinks list. Absolutely no alcohol or letting the customer choose
for her.

Then, she should accept any invitation to dance. Most of the clientele were familiar faces and, apart from the
'special clients', about whom he did not go into any further
detail, none of them represented any danger. The police and the Department of Health demanded monthly blood
samples, to check that they weren't carrying any sexually transmitted diseases. The use of condoms was obligatory, although there was no way of checking if this rule was or wasn't being followed. She should never, on any account, cause any kind of scandal - Milan was a respectable married man, concerned for his reputation and the good name of his club.

He continued explaining the ritual: after dancing, they would return to the table, and the customer, as if he were
saying something highly original, would invite her to go back
to his hotel with him. The normal price was three hundred and fifty francs, of which fifty francs went to Milan, for the
hire of the table (a trick to avoid any future legal complications and accusations of exploiting sex for financial gain).

Maria tried to say: