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She sat at a safe distance, so as to allow her to keep an eye on him and not let him out of her sight before proposing he join her on a trip to Nepal. If he’d already been to Brazil and South America, as his bag suggested, why wouldn’t he be interested in going further yet? He must have been about her age, as inexperienced, and it wasn’t likely to be difficult to convince him. It didn’t matter whether he was ugly or good-looking, fat or thin, tall or short. The only thing that interested her at all was having company on her personal adventure.
Paulo, too, had noted the pretty hippie girl who had passed by, and had it not been for his crippling shyness, perhaps he would have dared to flash her a smile. But he lacked the courage—she seemed far away; perhaps she was waiting on someone or wanting only to contemplate the morning free from the sun but not without the threat of rain.
He went back to focusing on the building in front of him, a true architectural marvel, which Europe on 5 Dollars a Day described as a royal palace, constructed upon 13,659 piles (also, the guide noted, the entire city was constructed on piles, though no one ever noticed). No guards stood at the door, and tourists went in and out—hordes of them, endless lines, the type of place he would never visit while he was there.
We can always sense when someone is watching us. Paulo could sense that the pretty hippie was now sitting just outside his field of vision, that she hadn’t taken her eyes off him. He turned his head, and she was indeed there but began to read as soon as their eyes met.
What to do? For almost a half hour, he sat thinking whether he ought to get up and go sit at her side—which was what would have been expected in Amsterdam, where people met others without need for excuses and explanations, merely the desire to talk and exchange stories. At the end of this half hour, after repeating a thousand times that he had nothing to lose, that it wouldn’t be the first or the last rejection he’d face, he stood up and walked in her direction. Her eyes did not move from her book.
* * *
—
Karla saw him approaching—something unusual in a place where everyone respected others’ individual space. He sat down beside her and said the dumbest thing one could say:
“Excuse me.”
She sat there looking at him, waiting for him to finish—which he did not. Five awkward minutes later she decided to take the initiative.
“Excuse me what, exactly?”
“Nothing.”
But, to her joy and relief, he didn’t say any of the usual stupid things like “I hope I’m not bothering you,” or “What’s that building there?” or “You’re so beautiful” (foreigners loved to use that one), or “What country are you from?” “Where did you buy these clothes?” that sort of thing.
She decided to help him a bit since she was much more interested in the young man than he could imagine.
“Why the coat of arms with ‘Brasil’ on your sleeve?”
“In case I come across Brazilians—that’s where I come from. I don’t know anyone in the city, and this way they can help me find interesting people.”
So this young man, who looked to be intelligent and had dark eyes that shone with an intense energy and a weariness that was even more intense had crossed the Atlantic to meet other Brazilians abroad?
That seemed the very epitome of stupid, but she decided to cut him some slack. She could jump straight to the subject of Nepal and continue the conversation or abandon it once and for all, move to another spot in the square, say she had to meet someone, or even leave without so much as an explanation.
But she decided not to move, and the fact that she stayed sitting there next to Paulo—that was his name—while he considered his options would end up changing her life completely.
That’s what love affairs are like—though the last thing she was thinking about at that moment was this secret word and the dangers it brought with it. There they were together, the clairvoyant had been right, the interior and exterior worlds were quickly merging. He could have been feeling the same thing, but he was too shy, it seemed—or perhaps he was only thinking about finding someone to smoke hashish with or, what was worse, saw her as a companion to take to Vondelpark to make love and then go their separate ways as if nothing very important had happened beyond an orgasm.
How to determine what someone is or isn’t in a matter of minutes? Of course, we know when a person repulses us, and we quickly distance ourselves, but this certainly wasn’t the case. He was crazy skinny, and he seemed to wash his hair. He must have showered that morning, she could still smell the soap on his body.
The second he sat down beside her and uttered that stupid phrase “Excuse me,” Karla had felt a deep sense of well-being, as though she were no longer alone. She was with him, and he with her, and they both knew this—even though nothing more had been said and neither of them was sure what was happening. Their unconfessed sentiments had yet to be revealed, but they would not remain unknown for long, Paulo and Karla were merely waiting for the right moment to make their feelings clear. That was the instant when many relationships that could have resulted in great love stories were lost—or because when two souls meet on the face of the earth, they already know where their journeys will lead them and this terrifies them, or because we are so focused on our own things that we don’t even allow two souls the time to get to know each other. We set off in search of “something better” and lose the opportunity of a lifetime.
Karla was allowing her soul to bare itself. At times, we are fooled by t
heir words because our souls aren’t exactly very faithful and end up accepting situations that in reality don’t have anything to do with anything; they try to please the mind and ignore the thing into which Karla was plunging deeper and deeper: Understanding. The outer self, that which you believe yourself to be, is nothing more than a limiting place, a stranger to the true self. This is why people have such a hard time listening to what their souls are telling them; they try to control the soul so that it does exactly as they have already decided—their wants, their hopes, their futures, the desire to say to friends, “I finally found the love of my life,” the dread of ending up alone in an old folks’ home.
She could no longer pretend. She didn’t know what she was feeling and sought to leave things as they were, without any detailed justifications or explanations. She was aware that she ought to finally lift the veil concealing her heart, but she didn’t know how and wasn’t about to find out so soon. It would be ideal to keep him at a safe distance until she could see what happened between the two in the coming hours, days, or years—no, she wasn’t thinking of years, because her destination was a cave in Kathmandu, alone, in touch with the universe.
Paulo’s soul had not yet bared itself, and he had no way of knowing if the girl before him would disappear from one moment to the next. He didn’t know what else to say, she too got quiet, and they both had accepted that silence and kept their gazes straight ahead, without actually noting anything. Around them, people were on their way to lunch counters and restaurants, packed trolleys rolled on by, but both Paulo and Karla looked lost, their emotions in some other dimension.
“Would you like to get lunch?”
Taking that as an invitation, Paulo was pleasantly surprised. He couldn’t understand why such a beautiful girl was asking him to lunch—his first few hours in Amsterdam were off to a good start.
He hadn’t planned anything like that, and when things happen without planning or expectations they are that much more enjoyable and worthwhile—talking to a stranger without an eye to any romantic connection had allowed things to flow more naturally.
Was she alone? How long would she continue to pay attention to him? What did he need to do to keep her by his side?
