Читать книгу Eleven Minutes - Пауло Коэльо - Страница 12

She arrived feeling exhausted and, while still in the airport, her heart contracted with fear: she realised that she was completely dependent on the man at her side – she had no knowledge of the country, the language or the cold. Roger’s behaviour changed as the hours passed; he no longer made any attempt to be pleasant, and although he had never tried to kiss her or to fondle her breasts, the look in his eyes grew more and more distant. He installed her in a small hotel, introducing her to another young Brazilian woman, a sad creature called Vivian, who would be in charge of preparing her for the work.

Vivian looked her coolly up and down, without the least show of sympathy for someone who had clearly never been abroad before. Instead of asking her how she was feeling, she got straight down to business.

‘Don’t delude yourself. He flies off to Brazil whenever one of his dancers gets married, something which seems to be happening more and more frequently. He knows what you want, and I assume you do too: you’re probably looking for one of three things – adventure, money or a husband.’

How did she know? Was everyone looking for the same thing? Or could Vivian read other people’s thoughts?

‘All the girls here are looking for one of those three things,’ Vivian went on, and Maria was convinced that she really could read her thoughts. ‘As for adventure, it’s too cold to do anything and, besides, you won’t earn enough to go off travelling. And as for money, once the cost of room and board has been deducted, you’ll have to work for nearly a whole year just to pay for your flight back home.’

‘But…’

‘I know, that isn’t what you agreed. But the truth is that, like everyone else, you forgot to ask. If you had been more careful, if you had read the contract you signed, you would know exactly what you were getting yourself into, because the Swiss don’t lie, they just rely on silence to help them.’

Maria felt the ground shifting beneath her.

‘And as for a husband, every time a girl gets married, that represents a great financial loss for Roger, so we’re forbidden to talk to the customers. If your interests lie in that direction, you’ll have to run great risks. This isn’t a pick-up place, like in Rue de Berne.’

Rue de Berne?

‘Men come here with their wives, and the few tourists who turn up get one whiff of the family atmosphere and go looking for women elsewhere. I presume you know how to dance; well, if you can sing as well, your salary will increase, but so will the other girls’ envy, so I’d suggest that, even if you’re the best singer in Brazil, forget all about it and don’t even try. Above all, don’t use the phone. You’ll spend everything you earn on it, and that won’t be much.’

‘He promised me five hundred dollars a week!’

‘Oh yeah.’

From Maria’s diary, during her second week in Switzerland:

I went to the nightclub and met the dance director who comes from somewhere called Morocco, and I had to learn every step of what he – who has never set foot in Brazil – thinks is the samba. I didn’t even have time to recover from the long flight, I had to start smiling and dancing on the very first night. There are six of us, and not one of us is happy and none of us knows what we’re doing here. The customers drink and applaud, blow kisses and privately make obscene gestures, but that’s as far as it goes.

I got paid yesterday, barely a tenth of what we agreed, the rest, according to the contract, will be used to pay for my flight and my stay here. According to Vivian’s calculations, that will take a year, which means that during that time there’s no escape.

And what’s the point of escaping anyway? I’ve only just arrived. I haven’t seen anything yet. What’s so awful about having to dance seven nights a week? I used to do that for pleasure, now I do it for money and fame; my legs don’t ache, the only difficult thing is maintaining that fixed smile.

I can choose either to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It’s all a question of how I view my life.