The Spy: A novel by Paulo Coelho

Author:Paulo Coelho [Coelho, Paulo]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781524732066
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2016-11-21T16:00:00+00:00

Before I bring this chapter of my life to a close, my dearest, detested Mr. Clunet, I would like to speak a bit more about myself, because that was why I began writing these pages, which have turned into a record where, in many parts, my memory may have betrayed me.

Do you really think—in your heart—that if they were to choose someone to spy for Germany, France, or even Russia, they would choose someone who was constantly watched by the public? Does that not seem utterly ridiculous to you?

When I took that train to Berlin, I thought I had left my past behind. With each kilometer, I moved farther away from everything I had experienced, even the good memories like the discovery of what I was capable of doing onstage and off and the moments in which every street and every party in Paris were a great novelty. Now I understand that I cannot run from myself. In 1914, instead of returning to Holland, it would have been very easy to change my name again, find someone to take care of what was left of my soul, and go to one of the many places in this world where my face was unknown to start anew.

But that meant living the rest of my life split in two: as a woman who could be anything and one who was never anything, one who wouldn’t have even a single story to tell her children and grandchildren. Though at the moment I am a prisoner, my spirit remains free. While everyone is fighting a never-ending battle to see who will survive amid so much bloodshed, I don’t need to fight anymore, only wait for people I’ve never met to decide who I am. If they find me guilty, one day the truth will come out, and a mantle of shame will be draped over their heads, and that of their children, their grandchildren, their country.

I sincerely believe that the president is a man of honor.

I believe that my friends, always gentle and willing to help me when I had everything, are still by my side now that I have nothing. The day has just dawned, and I can hear birds and noise from the kitchen downstairs. The rest of the prisoners are sleeping, some afraid, some resigned to their fate. I slept until the first ray of sun, and that ray of sun, though it did not enter my cell, only showed its strength in the sliver of sky I can see, brought me hope for justice.

I don’t know why life made me go through so much in so little time.

To see if I could withstand the hard times.

To see what I was made of.

To give me experience.

But there were other methods, other ways to achieve this. It did not need to drown me in the darkness of my own soul or make me cross through this forest filled with wolves and other wild animals without a single hand to guide me.

The only

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