He already believed himself to be a poet of sufficient standing not to have to depend any more on insignificant little magazines produced locally or by small groups. With the self-confidence of an old hand he felt that the time had come for him to fly higher. His dream was to be praised for his work – a laudatory quote would work wonders – in the respected weekly literary column ‘Escritores e Livros’, produced by José Condé, from Pernambuco, in the newspaper Correio da Manhã. The waspish Condé, who was able to make or break reputations in one paragraph, was the joint author of Os Sete Pecados Capitais [The Seven Cardinal Sins], a collection published by Civilização Brasileira, the other authors being Guimarães Rosa, Otto Lara Resende, Carlos Heitor Cony and Lygia Fagundes Telles, among other equally important writers. Paulo admired Condé’s dry style and hoped that the critic’s sharp eye would perceive the talent hidden in his work.
He added new poems to the anthology published by Rota 15, typed it up and sent off the carefully bound volume to the editors of Correio da Manhã. The following Wednesday, when ‘Escritores e Livros’ appeared, he rushed to the newspaper stand, desperate to read Condé’s opinion of his work. His surprise was such that he cut out the column and stuck it in his diary, writing above it: ‘A week ago, I wrote to J. Condé sending him my poetry and asking for his opinion. This is what appeared in the newspaper today.’ The reason for his fury was a ten-line postscript at the foot of the writer’s column: ‘To all young show-offs who are desperate to get themselves a name and publish books, it would be worthwhile recalling the example of Carlos Drummond de Andrade, who only published three volumes totalling 144 poems in 15 years … And only the other day, a critic said that Ernest Hemingway rewrote that small masterpiece The Old Man and the Sea no fewer than twenty times.’
Paulo took this personally and felt crushed by such an aggressive response. While only a short while before he had been thanking God for the joy of having discovered his vocation, his self-confidence gave way to a sea of doubt. ‘Maybe I’m not cut out to be a writer,’ he wrote. But he soon recovered his self-belief. Like the friend who used to take cold baths in order not to lose faith in God, he had to fight to realize his dream. Condé had dealt him a blow, but he was not prepared to lie down. He spent the whole day thinking of nothing but that literary column. In order to take his mind off it he tried watching an episode of Dr Kildare, about a young doctor, played by Richard Chamberlain, working in a large hospital. He switched off before the end and wrote in his notebook: ‘In today’s episode of Dr Kildare, the director of the hospital says to the doctor: “I shouldn’t have tried to change your life, Jim. We were all born with an ideal.” I’ve applied these words to being a writer and have decided that’s what I’ll be.’ Thrilled by his own determination, he wrote a parody of Kipling’s ‘If …’:
If you can ask your friends and enemies for a chance.
If you can hear a ‘no’ and take it as a ‘maybe’.
If you can start from the bottom and yet still value the little that you have.
If you can improve yourself each moment and reach the heights without succumbing to vanity.
Then you’ll be a writer.
Immersed in these lofty ideas, he viewed with horror the prospect of going back to Andrews College. Tormented by the mere thought of it, he dreamed up a plan which, if it succeeded, would free him from school for a good two years: to get a study grant and leave the country, as several of his schoolfriends had done. His parents found renewed hope when he applied to join the American Field Service, a cultural exchange programme that was much in vogue at the time. Judging by his marks, he wasn’t entirely useless at English (a subject in which, by his standards, he always did fairly well), and that would certainly help in obtaining the grant. For two weeks, he dedicated his free time to getting together all the necessary documents: school certificates, passport-size photos, references. When the exams came around, the seven other applicants in his group for the one place were whittled down until there remained only Paulo and two others who were to take the decisive test – the interview in English with someone from the United States.
On the day, he was so nervous that as he sat down in front of the examiner – a girl his own age – he felt a jolt, as though he had been punched in the chest. He set aside his atheism and silently begged God to let this be a false alarm. It was not: he was having an asthma attack. A dry whistle rose from his lungs while, eyes bulging, he patted his pockets, searching for his inhaler. He tried to talk, but all that came out was a whisper. The American girl didn’t know what to do. After a few minutes, the attack subsided. Pulling himself together, he managed to complete the interview, but he left with misgivings: ‘I think that asthma attack has ruined my chances.’ Indeed, a month before he would have been due to leave for the United States, a telegram arrived informing him that he had not been selected. Instead of feeling downhearted at this failure, Paulo attributed it not to his poor performance but to the fact that his mother had visited the States earlier. ‘I think they’d prefer people whose relatives have never been to the United States,’ he wrote, finishing with a statement worthy of the fox in the fable when faced with the bunch of grapes he cannot reach: ‘They believe, at least this is how I interpret it, that I’m too much of an intellectual for America.’
It was at this time that a new, overwhelming passion entered his life: a flesh-and-blood passion with brown eyes and long legs and answering to the name of Márcia. At seventeen, Paulo was still skinny and rather short, even by Brazilian standards. He weighed 50 kilos, which was at least 10 kilos below the ideal for his height of 1.69 metres (he remains this height to this day). Added to this, he was not an attractive adolescent. ‘I was ugly, skinny, lacking in charm and incapable of getting a girlfriend,’ he has said in various interviews throughout his life. ‘I had an inferiority complex about the way I looked.’ While the majority of boys wore short-sleeved, close-fitting shirts, to show off their muscles, he would always wear a long-sleeved shirt that concealed his narrow shoulders and thin arms. A disproportionately wide leather belt held up his faded jeans which, as fashion decreed, were tight on the legs. He wore the same metal-framed spectacles with tinted lenses that, years later, would become the trademark of the Beatle John Lennon. His hair was almost shoulder-length, and he had started to cultivate a thin moustache and a tuft of hair under his lower lip.
Márcia was a year younger than Paulo and lived almost next door. She was also a pupil at Andrews College and a member of Rota 15. In spite of vigilance on the part of her parents and older brother, she was seen by her colleagues as a fun-loving girl and was, therefore, in great demand. With his self-confidence at rock bottom, Paulo didn’t even notice her looking at him when he was arguing with the other ‘intellectuals’ in the group about films, books and plays. Although the majority of the group didn’t even know the meaning of the word, they almost all felt that they were ‘existentialists’. Paulo never wore smart clothes, he didn’t have a car and he wasn’t strong, but Márcia melted whenever she heard him talking about books or reciting famous poems. He, however, was oblivious to this until she took the initiative.
On New Year’s Eve 1964, Paulo closed yet another notebook with the melancholy words: ‘Today is the last day of 1964, a year that’s coming to an end with a sob hidden in the dark night. A year crowned with bitterness.’ And it was in this same downbeat mood that he met up with his friends two days later, on a Saturday, to go to the show Opinião, featuring the singer Nara Leão, at the Arena Theatre in Copacabana. The group took their seats and Márcia happened to sit next to him. When the lights dimmed and Nara began to sing, Márcia felt something brush her hand. She glanced sideways and saw Paulo’s hand lying close to hers. She immediately entwined her fingers in his and squeezed lightly. He was so astonished that his first reaction was one of panic: what if he had an asthma attack right there? However, he calmed down. ‘I was certain that God had guided Márcia’s hand towards mine,’ he recalled later. ‘In that case, why would He give me an asthma attack?’ So he began to breathe like any mortal and the two fell desperately in love.
When