Part 10 (2/2)

She had said 'our place'. That wasn't what she had planned.

She looked at her feet; apart from a small cut, there were just a few red marks, which would disappear in a few hours' time. With some difficulty, she went downstairs, without really looking around her. She went and sat down on the rug by the fire - she had discovered that she always sit good there, as if that really was her 'place' in the house.

The woodcutter told me that whenever you do some amount of physical exercise, when you demand the maximum from your body, the mind gains a strange spiritual strength, which has to do with the ”light” I saw in you. What did you feel?'

felt that pain is woman's friend.'

215 'That is the danger.'

'I also felt that pain has its limits.'

'That is the salvation. Don't forget that.'

Maria's mind was still confused; she had experienced that'peace' when she had gone beyond her own limits. He had shown her a different kind of suffering that had also given her a strange pleasure.

Ralf picked up a large file and opened it up in front of her. It contained drawings.

'The history of prost.i.tution. That's what you asked me for when we met.'

Yes, she had, but it had only been a way of making conversation, of trying to appear interesting. It was of no importance now.

'All this time, I've been sailing in uncharted waters. I didn't think there was a history, I thought it was just the oldest profession in the world, as people say. But there is a history, or, rather, two histories.'

'And what are these drawings?'

Ralf Hart looked slightly disappointed at her apparent lack of interest in what he had said, but quickly set aside these feelings and went on.

'They're the things I jotted down as I was reading, researching, learning.'

'Let's talk about that another day. I don't want to change the subject today. I need to understand about pain.

'You experienced pain yesterday and you discovered that it led to pleasure. You experienced it today and found peace. That's why I'm telling you: don't get used to it 216 because it's very easy to become habituated; it's a very powerful drug. It's in our daily lives, in our hidden suffering, in the sacrifices we make, blaming love for the destruction of our dreams. Pain is frightening when it shows its teal face, but it's seductive when it comes disguised as sacrifice or self-denial. Or cowardice. However much we may reject it, we human beings always find a way of being with pain, of flirting with it and making it part of our lives.'

'I don't believe that. No one wants to suffer.' 'If you think you can live without suffering, that's a great step forward, but don't imagine that other people will understand you. True, no one wants to suffer, and yet nearly everyone seeks out pain and sacrifice, and then they feel justified, pure, deserving of the respect of their children, husbands, neighbours, G.o.d. Don't let's think about that now; all you need to know is that what makes the world go round is not the search for pleasure, but the renunciation of all that is important.'Does a soldier go to war in order to kill the enemy? No, he goes in order to die for his country. Does a wife want to show her husband how happy she is? No, she wants him to see how devoted she is, how she suffers in order to make him happy. Does the husband go to work thinking he will find personal fulfilment there? No, he is giving his sweat and tears for the good of the family. And so it goes on: sons give up their dreams to please their parents, parents give up their lives in order to please their children; pain and suffering are used to justify the one thing that should bring only love.'

217 '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 prost.i.tution, 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 218 the same way, throughout all that time, prost.i.tutes 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.

'Prost.i.tutes appear in cla.s.sical 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 prost.i.tutes, on the other hand, started to be cla.s.sified according to how much tax they paid.

'The cheapest were the p.o.r.nai, 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 s.e.xually 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 219 that the world had stopped, that everything was being endlessly repeated, and that mankind would never give s.e.x 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 prost.i.tution.'

She had suddenly emerged from her somnolent state and was listening to him intently. Sacred prost.i.tution? Earning money from s.e.x and yet still able to approach G.o.d?

'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 tothe temple of the G.o.ddess Ishtar and give her body to a stranger, as a symbol of hospitality and for a symbolic price.”'

She would ask him about that G.o.ddess 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 G.o.ddess Ishtar spread throughout the Middle East, as far as Sardinia, Sicily and the Mediterranean ports. Later, during the Roman Empire' another G.o.ddess, Vesta, demanded total virginity or total surrender. In order to keep the sacred fire burning, the women serving her temple were responsible for initiating 220 young men and kings on the path of s.e.xuality - 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 G.o.ddess, Am prost.i.tute, 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 s.h.i.+ne a8ain. It was best to continue the history, to show her the drawings, to make her feel loved.

No one knows why sacred prost.i.tution 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 221 control the world, and the term serves only to create a stigma, and any woman who steps out of line is automaticallydubbed a prost.i.tute.'

'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.

222 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.

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