THE SPY
Authour : Paulo Coelho, Translated from the Portuguese by Zoe Perry
Publisher : Penguin Books,
Year 2018; Pages 188
Excerpts :
(
) One day, I took a train to The Hague and went to the French consulate without
anyone knowing – something that demands great intuition and skill. The drums of
war were not yet beating and entering the country was still easy. Holland had
always remained neutral in the conflicts that ravaged Europe, and I had
confidence. I met with the consul, and after two hours in a café, during which
he attempted to seduce me and I pretended to fall into his trap, I got a one
way ticket to Paris. I promised to wait for him there until he could escape for
a few days.
(
) I will always be grateful to Monsieur Guimet. He gave me my first chance to
perform, at his private museum, and in very expensive clothes he had imported
from Asia for his personal collection, although it did cost me half an hour of
sex and very little pleasure. I danced for an audience of three hundred people,
including journalists, celebrities, and at least two ambassadors – one from
Japan and one from Germany. Two days later, it was all the paper could talk about,
this exotic woman who had been born in a remote corner of the Dutch empire and
brought the “religiousness” and “disinhibition” of people from distant lands.
(
) My first piece of advice is the hardest, and it has nothing to do with your
performance. Never fall in love. Love is a poison. Once you fall in love, you
lose control over your life – your heart and mind belong to someone else. Your
existence is threatened. You start to do everything to hold on to your loved
one and lose all sense of danger. Love, that inexplicable and dangerous thing,
sweeps everything you are from the face of the earth and, in its place, leaves
only what your beloved wants you to be.
(
) In any event, I felt completely different from all the other women in that
coach. I was an exotic bird traversing an earth ravaged by humanity’s poverty
of spirit. I was a swan among ducks who refused to grow up, fearing the
unknown. I looked at the couples around me and felt completely vulnerable, many
men were around me, but there I was, alone, with no one to hold my hand. True,
I had turned down many proposals; I had had my experience with that – suffering
for someone undeserving and selling my body for the supposed security of a
home.
(
) One day before I could work up the courage to approach you in Paris, an
embassy official contacted me. He said you kept company with a deputy who,
according to our intelligence service, would be the next minister of war. The
word he was trying to say, but didn’t have the courage to voice, was “spy”.
Something I would never do in all my life. As I’m sure you remember, honourable
Mr Clunet, I said as much during that farce of a trial. “A prostitute, yes, A
spy, never!”
(
) I asked him to go straight to the point. Karl Kramer’s body stiffened and his
tone changed abruptly. I was no longer a guest to whom he owed a bit of
courtesy before addressing more important matters; he began to treat me as his
subordinate. “I need any sort of information you can get in the circles you
frequent. Your allowance shall be twenty thousand francs, which will be
adjusted as the quality of your work becomes apparent.”
( ) I imagined I was playing a much more
important role than any of the ones I had played before. I was someone who
could change the fate of the world, make France win the war while I pretended I
was spying for the Germans. Men think God is a mathematician, but He is not. If
anything, God would be a chess player, anticipating His opponent’s next move
and preparing His strategy to defeat him.
==========
My
take
: There are hundreds of books in several languages which tell the story of Mata Hari the Spy, Paulo Coelho has collected material from the letters
and diary of Mata Hari, which presents her version and point of view. Truly
extraordinary and must read.
=======
Subject
type :
Historical, War crimes
Narrative
Style
: Autobiographical
Readability: Gripping
Reader’s
Interest
: Maintained excellently
======
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Intriguing. Have heard of her name and story in many passing references but never given a thought to reading a book to know the full story. These excerpts chosen by you certainly lead to curiosity. Using direct speech, Coelho has painted a picture of thrill. Thank you for the recco!
ReplyDeleteHow turn of fate behind the curtain takes place remains mystery ?
ReplyDeleteSo fascinating difficult to resist grabbing the book titled The Spy .