She decided to say 'goodbye' just once, when the moment came for her to leave, rather than have to suffer every time she thought: 'Soon I won't be here any more'. So she played a mind on her heart and, that morning, she walked around Geneva as if she had always known those streets, that hill, the road to Santiago, the Montblanc bridge, the bars she used to go to. She watched the seagulls flying over the river the market traders taking down their stalls, people leaving their offices to go to lunch, noticed the colour and taste of the apple she was eating, the planes landing in the distance, the rainbow in the column of water rising up from the middle of the lake, the shy, concealed joy of passers-by, the looks she got, some full of desire, some expressionless. She had lived for nearly a year in a small town, like so many other small towns in the world, and if it hadn't been for the architecture peculiar to the place and the excessive number of banks, it could have been the interior of Brazil. There was a fair. There was a market. There were housewives haggling over prices. There were students who had skipped a class at school, on the excuse perhaps that their mother or their father was ill, and who were now strolling by the river, exchanging kisses. There were people who felt at home and people who felt foreign. There were tabloid newspapers full of scandals and respectable magazines for businessmen, who, however, were only ever to be seen reading the scandal sheets.

She went to the library to return the manual on farm management. She hadn't understood a word of it, but, at times when she felt she had lost control of herself and of her destiny, the book had served as a reminder of her objective in life. It had been a silent companion, with its peach yellow cover, its series of graphs, but, above all, it had been a lighthouse in the dark nights of recent weeks.

Always making plans for the future, and always be surprised by the present, she thought to herself. She felt had discovered herself through independence, despair, love, pain, and back again to love - and she would like things to end there.

The oddest thing of all was that, while some of her work colleagues spoke of the wonder or the ecstasy of going to bed with certain men, she had never discovered anything either good or bad about herself through sex. She had not solved her problem, she could still not have an orgasm through penetration, and she had vulgarised the sexual act so much that she might never again find the 'embrace of recognition'

- as Ralf Hart called it - or the fire and joy she sought. Or perhaps (as she occasionally thought, and as mothers, fathers and romances all said) love was necessary if one was to experience pleasure in bed.

The normally serious librarian (and Maria's only friend, although she had never told her so) was in a good mood. She was having a bite to eat and invited her to share a sandwich. Maria thanked her and said that she had just eaten. 'You took a long time to read this.' 'I didn't understand a word.' Do you remember what you asked me once?' No, she didn't, but when she saw the mischievous look in the other woman's face, she guessed. Sex. know, after you came here in search of books on the subject, I decided to make a list of what we had. It wasn't much, and since we need to educate our young people in such matters, I ordered a few more books. At least, this way they won't need to learn about sex in that worst of all possible ways - by going with prostitutes.' The librarian pointed to a pile of books in a corner, all discreetly covered in brown paper.

'I haven't had time to catalogue them yet, but I had a quick glance through and I was horrified by what I read.' Maria could imagine what the woman was going to say:

embarrassing positions, sadomasochism, things of that sort.

She had better tell her that she had to get back to work (she couldn't remember whether she had told her she worked in a bank or in a shop - lying made life so complicated, she was always forgetting what she had said).

She thanked her and was about to leave, when the other woman said:

'You'd be horrified too. Did you know, for example, that the clitoris is a recent invention?'

An invention? Recent? Just this week someone had touched hers, as if it had always been there and as if those hands knew the terrain they were exploring well, despite the total darkness.

'It was officially accepted in 1559, after a doctor, Reald° Columbo, published a book entitled De re anatomica. If was officially ignored for fifteen hundred years or tn Christian era. Columbo describes it in his book as “a pretty and a useful thing”. Can you believe it?'

They both laughed.

'Two years later, in 1561, another doctor, Gabrie Fallopio, said that he had “discovered” it. Imagine tha • Two men - Italians, of course, who know about such things.

- arguing about who had officially added the clitoris to the history books!'

It was an interesting conversation, but Maria didn't want to think about these things, mainly because she could already feel the juices flowing and her vagina getting wet just remembering his touch, the blindfolds, his hands moving over her body. No, she wasn't dead to sex; that man had managed to rescue her. It was good to be alive.

The librarian, however, was warming to her subject.

'Its “discovery” didn't mean it received any more respect, though.' The librarian seemed to have become an expert on clitorology, or whatever that science is called. 'The mutilations we read about now in certain African tribes, who still insist on removing the woman's right to sexual pleasure, are nothing new. In the nineteenth century, here in Europe, they were still performing operations to remove it, in the belief that in that small, insignificant part of the female anatomy lay the root of hysteria, epilepsy, adulterous tendencies and sterility.'

Maria held out her hand to say goodbye, but the librarian showed no signs of tiring.

'Worse still, dear Dr Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, said that in a normal woman, the female orgasm should move from the clitoris to the vagina. His most faithful Freud went further and said that if a woman's sexuality asure remained concentrated in the clitoris, this was a infantilism or, worse, bisexuality. and yet, as we all know, it is very difficult to have an organism through penetration. It's good to have sex with a man, but pleasure lies in that little nub discovered by an Italian!'

Distracted, Maria realised that she had that problem diagnosed by Freud: she was still in the infantile stage, her orgasm had not moved to the vagina. Or was Freud wrong?

'And what do you think about the G-spot?'

'Do you know where it is?'

The other woman blushed and coughed, but managed to say:

'As you go in, on the first floor, the back window.' Brilliant! She had described the vagina as if it were a building! Perhaps she had read that explanation in a book for young girls, to say that if someone knocks on the door and comes in, you'll discover a whole universe inside your own body. Whenever she masturbated, she preferred to concentrate on her G-spot rather than on the clitoris, since the latter made her feel rather uncomfortable, a pleasure mingled with real pain, rather troubling.

She always went straight to the first floor, to the back window!

Seeing that the librarian was clearly never going to stop talking, perhaps because she had discovered in Maria an accomplice to her own lost sexuality, she gave a wave of hand and left, trying to concentrate on whatever nonsense came into her head, because this was not a day to think about farewells, clitorises, restored virginities or G-spotsfocused on what was going on around her - bells ri dogs barking, a tram rattling over the tracks, footstep » own breathing, the signs offering everything under She did not feel like going back to the Copacabana, and yet she felt an obligation to work until the end, although she had no real idea why - after all, she had saved enough money. She could spend the afternoon doing some shopping, talking to the bank manager, who was a client of hers, but who had promised to help her manage her savings, having a cup of coffee somewhere, sending off the clothes that wouldn't fit into her suitcases. It was strange, for some reason, she was feeling rather sad; perhaps because it was still another two weeks before she would leave, and she needed to get through that time, to look at the city with different eyes and feel glad for what she had experienced there.

She came to a crossroads where she had been hundreds of time before; you could see the lake from there and the water spout, and, on the far pavement, in the middle of the public gardens, the lovely floral clock, one of the city's symbols ... and that clock would not allow her to lie, because ... Suddenly, time and the world stood still.

What was this story she had been telling herself since the orning, something about her recently restored virginity? The world seemed frozen, that second would never end, as face to face with something very serious and very important in her life, she could not just forget about it, she could not do as she did with her night-time dreams, which she has promised herself she would write down and whenever did...

she 'Don't think about anything! The world has stopped. What's going on?'

ENOUGH!

The bird, the lovely story about the bird she had just written - was it about Ralf Hart?

No, it was about her! FULL STOP!

It was two o'clock in the morning, and she was frozen in that moment. She was a foreigner inside her own body, she was rediscovering her recently restored virginity, but its rebirth was so fragile that if she stayed there, it would be lost forever. She had experienced Heaven perhaps, certainly Hell, but the Adventure was coming to an end. She couldn't wait two weeks, ten days, one week - she needed to leave now, because, as she stood looking at the floral clock, with tourists taking pictures of it and children playing all around, she had just found out why she was sad.

And the reason was this: she didn't want to go back. And the reason she didn't want to go back wasn't Ralf Hart, Switzerland or Adventure. The real reason couldn't have been simpler: money.

Money! A special piece of paper, decorated in sombre colours, which everyone agreed was worth something - and she believed it, everyone believed it - until you took a piece of that paper to a bank, a respectable, traditional, highly confidential Swiss bank and asked: 'Could I buy back a few hours of my life?' 'No, madam, we don't sell, we only buyMaria was woken from her delirium by the sound ° screeching brakes, a motorist shouting, and a smiling °

gentleman, speaking English, telling her to step back onto the pavement - the pedestrian light was red.

'But this can't be exactly an earth-shattering discovery. Everyone must feel what I feel. They must know.'

But they didn't. She looked around her. People were walking along, heads down, hurrying off to work, to school, to the employment agency, to Rue de Berne, telling themselves: 'I can wait a little longer. I have a dream, but there's no need to realise it today, besides, I need to earn some money.' Of course, everyone spoke ill of her profession, but, basically, it was all a question of selling her time, like everyone else. Doing things she didn't want to do, like everyone else. Putting up with horrible people, like everyone else. Handing over her precious body and her precious soul in the name of a future that never arrived, like everyone else. Saying that she still didn't have enough, like everyone else. Waiting just a little bit longer, like everyone else. Waiting so that she could earn just a little bit more, postponing the realisation of her dreams; she was too busy right now, she had a great opportunity ahead of her, loyal clients who were waiting for her, who could pay between three hundred and fifty and one thousand francs a session.

And for the first time in her life, despite all the good things she could buy with the money she might earn - who knows, she might only have to work another year - she decided consciously, lucidly and deliberately to let an opportunity pass her by.

Maria waited for the light to change, she crossed the street and paused in front of the floral clock; she thought of Ralf, saw again the look of desire in his eyes on the night when she had slipped off the top half of her dress, felt his hands touching her breasts, her sex, her face, and she became wet; and as she looked at the vast column of water in the distance, without even having to touch any part of her own body, she had an orgasm right there, in front of everyone.

Not that anyone noticed; they were all far too busy.

J Nyah, the only one of her work colleagues with whom she had a relationship that could be described as friendship, called her over as soon as she came in. She was sitting with an oriental gentleman, and they were both laughing.

'Look at this,' she said to Maria. 'Look what he wants me to do with him!'

The oriental gentleman gave a knowing look and, still smiling, opened the lid of what looked like a cigar box. Milan was watching from a distance in case it contained syringes or drugs. It did not, it was something that even he didn't know quite what to do with, but it wasn't anything very special.

'It looks like something from the last century!' said Maria.

'It is,' said the oriental gentleman indignantly. 'It's over a hundred years old and it cost a fortune.'

What Maria saw was a series of valves, a handle, electric lrcuits, small metal contacts and batteries. It looked like the inside of an ancient radio, with two wires sticking out, at the ends of which were small glass rods, about the thickness o°f a finger. It certainly didn't look like something that had cost a fortune. How does it work?'

had L Nyah didn't like Maria's question. Although she trusted Maria, people could change from one moment to the next and she might have her eye on her client.

'He's already explained. It's the Violet Rod.'

And turning to the oriental man, she suggested that they leave, because she had decided to accept his invitation. However, the man seemed pleased that his toy should have aroused such interest.

'Around 1900, when the first batteries came onto the market, traditional medicine started experimenting with electricity to see if it could cure mental illness or hysteria. It was also used to get rid of spots and to stimulate the skin. You see these two ends? Well, they were placed here,' he indicated his temples, 'and the battery created the same sort of static electricity that you get in Switzerland when the air's very dry.'

Static electricity was something that never happened in Brazil, but was very common in Switzerland. Maria had discovered it one day when she opened the door of a taxi; she had heard a crack and received a shock. She thought there must be something wrong with the car and had complained, saying that she wasn't going to pay the fare' and the driver had insulted her and told her she was stupid. He was right;

it wasn't the car, it was the dry air. Ane receiving several more shocks, she began to be arrai touching anything made of metal, until she discovered 1 supermarket a bracelet she could wear that discharge electricity accumulated in the body.

She turned to the man:

'But that's really nasty.'

Nyah was getting more and more irritated by Maria's remarks. In order to avoid future conflicts with her only possible friend, she kept her arm around the man's shoulder, thus leaving no room for doubt as to who he belonged to.

'It depends where you put it,' said the man, laughing loudly.

He turned the little handle and the two rods seemed to turn violet. He quickly placed them on the two women; there was a crack, but the shock was more ticklish than painful. Milan came over.

'Would you mind not using that in here, please.'

The man put the rods back inside the box. Nyah seized the moment and suggested that they go straight to the hotel. The man seemed rather disappointed, since the new arrival seemed far more interested in his machine than the woman who was now suggesting they go back to his hotel. He put on his jacket and stowed the box away inside a leather briefcase, saying:

'They've started making them again now; they've become quite fashionable amongst people in search of sPecial pleasures. But you'd only find ones like this in rare medical collections, museums and antique shops.'

Milan and Maria just stood there, not knowing what to say. Have you ever seen one before?'

Not like that, no. It probably did cost a fortune, but he s a top executive with an oil company ... I've seen mod^rn ones, though.'

'What do they do with them?'

'The man puts them inside his body ... and then asks the woman to turn the handle. He gets an electric shock inside.'

'Couldn't he do that on his own?'

'You can do most kinds of sexual activity on your own, but if they stopped believing that it was more fun with another person, my bar would go bankrupt and you would have to find work in a greengrocer's shop. By the way, your special client said that he would be here tonight, so make sure you turn down any other offers.'

'Oh, I will, including his. I came to say goodbye. I'm leaving.'

Milan appeared not to react.

'Is it the painter?'

'No, it's the Copacabana. There's a limit to everything, and I reached mine this morning when I was looking at that floral clock near the lake.'

'And what is the limit?'

'The price of a farm in the interior of Brazil. I know I could earn more money, that I could work for another year - after all, what difference would it make?

'Well, I know what difference it would make; I would be caught in this trap forever, just as you are and the clients the are, the businessmen, the air stewards, the talent scouts, the record company executives, the many men I have known to whom I have sold my time and which they can't sell to me. If I stay another day, I'll be here for another year and if I stay another year, I'll never leave.'

Milan nodded discreetly, as if he understood and agree with everything she had said, although he couldn't actually say anything, for fear of infecting all the other girls who worked for him. He was a good man, and although he didn't give her his blessing, neither did he try to convince Maria that she was wrong.

She thanked him and asked for a drink - a glass of champagne, she couldn't stand another fruit juice cocktail. She could drink now that she wasn't working. Milan told her to phone him if ever she needed anything; she would always be welcome.

She made to pay for the drink, and he said it was on the house. She accepted: she had, after all, given that house a great deal more than one drink.

From Maria's diary, when she got home:

I don't remember exactly when, but one Sunday recently, I decided to go to church to attend mass. After some time, I realised that I was in the wrong church - it was a Protestant church.

I was about to leave, but the vicar was just beginning his sermon, and I thought it would be rude to get up at that point, and it was a real blessing, because that day I heard things I very much needed to hear.

He said something like:

'In all the languages in the world, there is the same proverb: “What the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't grieve over.” Well, I say that there isn't an °unce of truth in it. The further off they are, the closer to the heart are all those feelings that we try to repress and forget. If we're in exile, we want to store away every tiny memory of our roots. If we're far from the person we love, everyone we pass in the street reminds us of them.

'The gospels and all the sacred texts of all religions were written in exile, in search of God's understanding, of the faith that moves whole peoples, of the pilgrimage of souls wandering the face of the Earth. Our ancestors did not know, as we do not know, what the Divinity expects from our lives and it is out of that doubt that books are written, pictures painted, because we don't want to forget who we are - nor can we.'

At the end of the service, I went up to him and thanked him: I said that I was a stranger in a strange land, and I thanked him for reminding me that what the eyes don't see, the heart does grieve over. And my heart has grieved so much, that today I'm leaving.

She picked up her two suitcases and put them on the bed; they had always been there, waiting for the day when everything would come to an end. She had imagined that she would fill them with presents, new clothes, photographs of snow and of the great European capitals, souvenirs of a happy time when she had lived in the safest and most generous country in the world. She had a few new clothes, it was true, and a few photos taken in the snow that fell one day in Geneva, but apart from that, nothing was as she had imagined it would be.

She had arrived with the dream of earning lots of money, learning about life and who she was, buying a farm for her parents, finding a husband, and bringing her family over to see where she lived. She was returning with just enough money to realise one of those dreams, without ever having visited the mountains and, worse still, a stranger to herself. But she was happy; she knew the time had come to stop.

Not many people do.

She had had only four adventures - being a dancer in a cabaret, learning French, working as a prostitute and falling hopelessly in love. How many people can boast of exPeriencing so much excitement in one year? She was happy, despite the sadness, and that sadness had a name:

it wasn't prostitution, or Switzerland or money - it was Ralf Hart. Although she had never acknowledged it to herself, deep down, she would like to have married him, that man who was now waiting for her in a church, ready to take her off to see his friends, his paintings, his world.

She considered standing him up and getting a room in a hotel near the airport, since the flight left early the next morning; from now on, every minute spent by his side would be a year of suffering in the future, for everything she could have said to him and didn't, for her memories of his hands, his voice, his loving support, and his stories.

She opened one suitcase and took out the little carriage from the electric train set that he had given her on that first night in his house. She looked at it for a few minutes, then threw it in the bin; it didn't deserve to go to Brazil, and it had proved useless and unfair to the child who had always wanted it.

No, she wouldn't go to the church; he might ask her something about tomorrow, and if she was honest and told him that she was leaving, he would beg her to stay and promise her everything in order not to lose her at that moment, he would openly declare all the love he had already shown to her during the time they had spent together. But their relationship was based on freedom, and no other sort of relationship would work - perhaps that was the only reason they loved each other, because they knew they did not need each other. Men always take offence when a woman says: 'I need you', and Maria wanted take away with her the image of a Ralf Hart who was utterly in love and utterly hers, and ready to do anything for her.

She still had time to decide whether or not to go and meet him; at the moment, she needed to concentrate on more practical matters. She looked at all the things she couldn't pack and which she had no idea what to do with. She decided that the owner could decide on their fate when he came to check the apartment and found all the household appliances in the kitchen, the pictures bought in a second-hand market, the towels and the bedclothes. She couldn't take any of that with her to Brazil, even though her parents had more need of them than any Swiss beggar; they would always remind her of everything she had risked.

She left the apartment and went to the bank and asked to withdraw all her money. The manager - who had been to bed with her in the past - said that this really wasn't a good idea, since her francs would continue earning money and she could receive the interest in Brazil. Besides, what if she were mugged, that would mean months of work wasted. Maria hesitated for a moment, thinking - as she always did - that he really was trying to help. However, after reflecting a moment, she concluded that the point of the money was not that it should be transformed into more paper, but into a farm, a home for her parents, a few cattle and a lot more work.

She withdrew every last centime, put it in a small bag she had bought specially for the occasion and attached it to a belt beneath her clothes.

She went to the travel agency, praying that she would have the courage to go through with her decision. When she said she wanted to get a different flight, she was told that if she went on tomorrow's flight, she would have to change planes in Paris. That didn't matter - all she needed was to get far enough away from there before she had second thoughts.

She walked to one of the bridges and bought an ice cream, even though the weather had started to get cold again, and she took one last look at Geneva. Everything seemed different to her, as if she had just arrived and needed to visit the museums, the historical monuments, the fashionable bars and restaurants. It's odd how, when you live in a city, you always postpone getting to know it and usually end up never knowing it at all.

She thought she would feel happy because she was going home, but she wasn't. She thought she would feel sad because she was leaving a city that had treated her so well, but she didn't. The only thing she could do now was to shed a few tears, feeling rather afraid of herself, an intelligent young woman, who had everything going for her, but who tended to make the wrong decisions.

She just hoped that this time she was right.

*

The church was completely empty when she went in, and she was able to examine in silence the splendid stained-glass windows, lit from outside by the light of a day washed clean by last night's storm. Before her stood an empty cross; she was confronted not by an instrument of torture, by the bloodied body of a dying man, but by a symbol of resurrection, in which the instrument of torture had lost all its meaning, its terror, its importance. She remembered the whip on that night of thunder and lightning; it was the same thing. 'Dear God, what am I saying?'

She was pleased too not to see any images of suffering saints, covered in bloodstains and open wounds - this was simply a place where people gathered to worship something they could not understand.

She stood in front of the monstrance, in which was kept the body of a Jesus in whom she still believed, although she had not thought about him for a long time. She knelt down and promised God, the Virgin, Jesus and all the saints that whatever happened that day, she would not change her mind and would leave anyway. She made this promise cause she knew love's traps all too well, and knew how y they can change a woman's mind.

shortly afterwards, she felt a hand touch her shoulder and she inclined her head so that her face rested on the hand.

'How are you?'

'I'm fine,' she said in a voice without a trace of anxiety in it. 'I'm fine. Let's go and have a coffee.'

They left the church hand-in-hand, as if they were two lovers meeting again after a long time. They kissed in public, and a few people shot them scandalised looks; but they both smiled at the unease they were causing and at the desires they were provoking by their scandalous behaviour, because they knew that, in fact, those people wished they could be doing the same thing. That was the real scandal. They went into a cafe which was the same as all the others, but that afternoon, it was different, because they were there together and because they loved each other. They talked about Geneva, the difficulties of the French language, the stained-glass windows in the church, the evils of smoking - both of them smoked and hadn't the slightest intention of giving up.

She insisted on paying for the coffee and he accepted.

They went to the exhibition and she got to know his world:

the artists, the rich who looked richer than they actually were, the millionaires who looked poor, the people discussing things she had never even heard about. They all liked her and praised her French; they asked about Carnival, football, Brazilian music. They were nice, polite, kind, charming. When they left, he said that he would come to the club that night to see her. She asked him not to, she had the night off and would like to invite him out to supper.

He accepted and they said goodbye, arranging to meet at his house before going to have supper at a delightful restaurant in the little square in Cologny, which they had often driven past in the taxi, and where she had always wanted to stop, but had never asked to.

Then Maria remembered her one friend and decided to go to the library to tell her that she would not be coming back. She got caught up in the traffic for what seemed like an eternity, until the Kurds had (once more!) finished their demonstration and the cars could move freely again. Now, however, she was the mistress of her own time, and it didn't matter.

By the time she reached the library, it was just about to close.

'Forgive me if I'm being too personal, but I haven't anyone else, any woman friend, I can talk to about certain things,' said the librarian as soon as Maria came in.

She didn't have any women friends? After spending her whole life in the same place and meeting all kinds of people at work, did she really have no one she could talk to? Maria had found someone like herself, or, rather, like everyone else.

'I was thinking about what I read about the clitoris ...' Didn't she ever think about anything else!

It's just that, although I used to enjoy sex with my Usband, I always found it very difficult to reach orgasm during intercourse. Do you think that's normal?'

'Do you find it normal that there are daily demonstrations by Kurds? That women in love run away from their Prince Charming? That people dream about farms rather than love? That men and women sell their time, but can never buy it back again? And yet, all these things happen, so it really doesn't matter what I believe or don't believe; all these things are normal. Everything that goes against Nature, against our most intimate desires, is normal in our eyes, even though it's an aberration in God's eyes. We seek out our own inferno, we spend millennia building it, and after all that effort, we are now able to live in the worst possible way.'

She looked at the woman standing in front of her and, for the first time, she asked what her name was (she only knew her surname). Her name was Heidi, she was married for thirty years and never - never! - during that time had she asked herself if it was normal not to have an orgasm during intercourse with her husband.

'I don't know if I should have read all those things! Perhaps it would have been better to live in ignorance, believing that a faithful husband, an apartment with a view of the lake, three children and a job in the public sector were all that a woman could hope for. Now, ever since you arrived, and since I read the first book, I'm obsessed with what my life has become. Is everyone the same?'

'I can guarantee you that they are.' And standing before that woman who was asking her advice, Maria felt hers to be very wise.

'Would you like me to give you details?'

Maria nodded.

'You're obviously too young to understand these things, but that's precisely why I would like to share a little of my life with you, so that you don't make the same mistakes I did.

'But why is it that my husband never noticed my clitoris? He assumed that the orgasm happened in the vagina, and I found it really, really difficult to pretend something that he imagined I must be feeling. Of course, I did experience pleasure, but a different kind of pleasure. It was only when the friction was on the upper part ... do you know what I mean?'

'I know.'

'And now I know why. It's in there,' she pointed to a book on her desk, whose title Maria couldn't see. 'There are lots of nerve endings that connect the clitoris and the Gspot and which are crucial to orgasm. But men think that penetration is all. Do you know what the G-spot is?'

'Yes, we talked about it the other day,' said Maria, slipping into the role of Innocent Girl. 'As you go in, on the first floor, the back window.'

'That's right!' And the librarian's eyes lit up. 'Just you ask how many of your male friends have heard of it. None of them! It's absurd. But just as an Italian discovered the clitoris, the G-spot is a twentieth-century discovery! Soon it will be in all the headlines, and then no one will be able to ignore it any longer! Have you any idea what revolutionary times we're living in?'

Maria glanced at her watch, and Heidi realised that she'd have to talk fast, in order to teach this pretty young woman that all women have the right to be happy and fulfilled, in order that the next generation should benefit from all these extraordinary scientific discoveries.

'Dr Freud didn't agree because he wasn't a woman and, since he experienced his orgasm through his penis, he felt that women must, therefore, experience pleasure in their vagina. We've got to go back to basics, to what has always given us pleasure: the clitoris and the G-spot! Very few women enjoy a satisfactory sexual relationship, so if you have difficulty in getting the pleasure you deserve, let me suggest something: change position. Make your lover lie down and you stay on top; your clitoris will strike his body harder and you - not he - will be getting the stimulus you need. Or, rather, the stimulus you deserve!'

Maria, meanwhile, was only pretending that she wasn't listening to the conversation. So she wasn't the only one!

She didn't have a sexual problem, it was all just a question of anatomy! She felt like kissing the librarian, as if a gigantic weight had been lifted off her heart. How good to have discovered this while she was still young! What a marvellous day she was having! Heidi gave a conspiratorial smile.

'They may not know it, but we have an erection too. The clitoris becomes erect!'

'They' presumably meant men. Since this was such an intimate conversation, Maria decided to risk a question:

'Have you ever had an affair?'

The librarian looked shocked. Her eyes gave off a km of sacred fire, she blushed scarlet, though whether out of rage or shame it was impossible to tell. After a while though, the battle between telling the truth or pretending ended. She simply changed the subject.

'Getting back to our erection, to our clitoris, did you know that it became rigid?'

'Yes, I've known that ever since I was a child.'

Heidi seemed disappointed. Perhaps she had just never noticed. Nevertheless, she resolved to go on:

'Anyway, apparently, if you rub your ringer round it, without touching the actual tip, you can experience even more intense pleasure. So take note! Men who do respect a woman's body immediately touch the tip, not knowing that this can sometimes be quite painful, don't you agree? So, after your first or second encounter, take control of the situation: get on top, decide how and when pressure should be applied, and increase and decrease the rhythm as you see fit. According to the book I'm reading, a frank conversation about it might also be a good idea.'

'Did you ever have a frank conversation with your husband?'

Again, Heidi avoided this direct question, saying that things were different then. Now she was more interested in sharing her intellectual experiences.

'Try to think of your clitoris as the hands of a clock and ask your partner to move it back and forth between eleven and one, do you understand?'

Yes, she knew what the woman was talking about and didn't entirely agree, although the book wasn't far from the truth.

As soon as she mentioned the word 'clock', though, M Maria glanced at her watch, and explained that she had really come to say goodbye, her job placement had come to an end. The woman seemed not to hear her.

'Would you like to borrow this book about the clitoris?'

'No, thanks. I've got other things to think about at the moment.'

'And you don't want to borrow anything else?' 'No. I'm going back to my own country, but I just wanted to thank you for always having treated me with such respect and understanding. Perhaps we'll meet again some time.'

They shook hands and wished each other much happiness.

Heidi waited until the girl had left, then thumped the desk. Why hadn't she seized the opportunity to share something which, the way things were going, would probably go to the grave with her? Since the girl had had the courage to ask if she had ever betrayed her husband, why had she not answered, now that she was discovering a new world in which women were finally acknowledging how difficult it was to achieve a vaginal orgasm?

'Oh well, it doesn't matter. The world isn't just about sex.'

No, it wasn't the most important thing in the world, but it was still important. She looked around her; most of the thousands of books surrounding her were love stories. It was always the same: someone meets someone, falls in love, loses them and finds them again. There are souls speaking unto souls, there are distant places, adventures, sufferings, anxieties, but very rarely anyone saying: 'Excuse me, sir, but why don't you try acquiring a better understanding of the female body?' Why didn't books talk openly about that?

Perhaps people weren't really interested. Men would always go looking for novelty; they were still the troglodyte Unter, obeying the reproductive instinct of the human race.

And what about women? In her personal experience, the desire to have a good orgasm with one's partner lasted only for the first few years; then the frequency of orgasms diminished, but no one talked about it, because every woman thought it was her problem alone. And so they lied, pretending that they found their husband's desire to make love every night oppressive. And by lying, they left other women feeling worried.

They turned their thoughts to other things: children, cooking, timetables, housework, bills to pay, their husband's affairs - which they tolerated - holidays abroad during which they were more concerned with their children than with themselves, their complicity, or even love, but no sex.

She should have been more open with that young Brazilian woman, who seemed to her an innocent creature, old enough to be her daughter, and still incapable of understanding what the world was like. An immigrant, far from home, working hard at a boring job, waiting for a man she could marry, and with whom she could fake a few orgasms, find security, reproduce this mysterious human race, and then forget all about such things as orgasms, the clitoris or the G-spot (which was only discovered in the twentieth century!!). Being a good wife, a good mother, making sure there was nothing lacking in the home, masturbating occasionally in secret, thinking about some man who had passed her in the street and looked at her longingly, Keeping up appearances - why was the world so concerned with appearances?

That is why she had not replied to the question: 'Have you ever had an affair?'

These things go with you to the grave, she thought. Her husband had been the only man in her life, although sex was now a thing of the remote past. He had been an excellent companion, honest, generous and good-humoured, and had struggled to bring up the family and to keep all those who worked with him happy. He was the ideal man that all women dream of, and that is precisely why she felt so bad when she thought of how she had one day desired and been with another man.

She remembered how they had met. She was coming back from the small mountain town of Davos, when all the train services were interrupted for some hours by an avalanche. She phoned home so that no one would be worried, bought a few magazines and prepared for a long wait at the station.

That was when she noticed the man sitting next to her, along with his rucksack and sleeping bag. He had greying hair and sunburned skin, and was the only person in the station who didn't seem concerned about the absence of any trains; on the contrary, he was smiling and looking around him for someone to talk to. Heidi opened one of the Magazines, but - ah, sweet mystery of life! - her eyes happened to catch his and she didn't manage to look away quickly enough to avoid him coming over to her.

Before she could - politely - say that she really needed to finish reading an important article, he began to talk. He told her that he was a writer and was returning from a meeting in Davos and that the delay would mean him missing his flight home. When they got to Geneva, would she mind helping him find a hotel?

Heidi was watching him: how could anyone be so cheerful about missing a plane and having to wait in an uncomfortable train station until things were sorted out?

The man began talking to her as if they were old friends.

He told her about his travels, about the mystique of literary creation and, to her horror, about all the women he had known and loved in his lifetime. Heidi merely nodded and let him talk. Occasionally he would apologise for talking so much and ask her to tell him something about herself, but all she could say was: 'Oh, I'm just an ordinary person, nothing very special.'

Suddenly, she found herself hoping that the train would never arrive; the conversation was so enthralling; she was discovering things that she had only encountered before in fiction. And since she would never see him again, she got up her nerve and (quite why she could never say) began asking him about subjects of particular interest to her. Her marriage was going through a rough patch, her husband was very demanding of her time, and Heidi wanted to know what she could do to make him happy. The man offered her some interesting explanations, told her a story, but didn't seem very comfortable talking about her husband.

'You're a very interesting woman,' he said, something that no one had said to her for years.

Heidi didn't know how to react; he saw her embarrassment and immediately started talking about deserts, mountains, lost cities, women with veiled faces or bare midriffs, about warriors, pirates and wise men.

The train arrived. They sat down next to each other, and she was no longer a married woman who lived in a chalet looking out over the lake and had three children to bring up, she was an adventurer arriving in Geneva for the first time.

She looked at the mountains and the river and felt glad to be sitting beside a man who wanted to go to bed with her (because that's all men think about) and who was doing his best to impress her. She wondered how many other men had felt the same, but to whom she had never given the slightest encouragement; that morning, however, the world had changed, and she was suddenly a thirtyeight-year-old adolescent, dazzled by this man's attempts to seduce her; it was the best feeling in the world.

In the premature autumn of her life, when she thought she had everything she could possibly want, this man appeared at the train station and walked straight into her life without first asking permission. They got off at Geneva and she showed him a hotel (a cheap one, he said, because he should have left that morning and didn't have much money on him for another night in exorbitantly expensive Switzerland); he asked her to go up to the room with him, to see if everything was in order. Heidi knew what to expect, and nevertheless, she accepted his proposal. They shut the door, they kissed each other with wild abandon, he tore off her clothes and -

dear God! - he knew all about the female body, because he had known the sufferings and frustrations of so many women.

They made love all afternoon and only when evening fell did the charm dissipate, and she said the words she would have preferred not to have said:

'I must go home, my husband's expecting me.'

He lit a cigarette and they lay in silence for a few moments, and neither of them said 'goodbye'. Heidi got up and left without looking back, knowing that, whatever either of them might say, no word or phrase would make any sense.

She would never see him again, but, for a few hours, in the autumn of her despair, she had ceased to be a faithful wife, housewife, loving mother, exemplary public servant and constant friend, and reverted to being simply a woman.

For a few days, her husband kept saying that she seemed different, either happier or sadder, he couldn't quite put his finger on it. A week later, everything was back to normal.

'What a shame I didn't tell that young woman,' she thought. 'Not that she would have understood, she still lives in a world in which people are faithful and vows of love are forever.'

From Maria's diary:

I don't know what he must have thought when he opened the door that night and saw me standing there, carrying two suitcases.

'Don't worry,' I said. 'I'm not moving in. Shall we go to supper?'

He didn't say anything, just helped me in with my luggage. Then, without saying 'what's going onV or 'how lovely to see you', he simply put his arms around me and started kissing me and touching my body, my breasts, my crotch, as if he had been waiting for this a long time and was now afraid that the moment would never come.

He pulled off my jacket and my dress, leaving me naked, and there in the hall, without any ritual or preparation, without even time to say what would be good and what bad, with the cold wind blowing in under the front door, we made love for the first time. I thought perhaps I should tell him to stop, so that we could find somewhere more comfortable, so that we could have time to explore the immense world of our sensuality, but, at the same time, I wanted him inside me, because he was the man I had never possessed and would never possess again. That is why I could love him with all my energy, and have, at least for one night, what I'd never had before and what I would possibly never have again.

He lay me down on the floor and entered me before I was aroused and ready, but the pain didn't bother me; on the contrary, I liked it like that, because he obviously understood that I was his and that he didn't need to ask permission. I wasn't there in order to teach him anything or to prove that I was more sensitive or more passionate than other women, I was there to say yes, you're welcome, that I too had been waiting for this, that I was pleased about his total disregard for the rules we had created between f us and that he was now demanding that we should be guided solely by our instincts, male and female.

We were in the most conventional of positions — me underneath him, with my legs spread, and him on top of me, moving in and out, while I looked at him, with no desire to pretend or to moan or to do anything, just wanting to keep my eyes open so that I could remember every second, watch his face changing, his hands grabbing my hair, his mouth biting me, kissing me. No preliminaries, no caresses, no preparations, no sophistication, just him inside me and me inside his soul.

He came and went, quickening and slowing the rhythm, stopping sometimes to look at me too, but he didn't ask if I was enjoying it, because he knew that this was the only way our souls could communicate at that moment. The rhythm increased, and I knew that the eleven minutes were coming to an end, and I wanted them to last forever, because it was so good - ah, dear God, it was good - to be possessed and not to possess! And we had our eyes wide open all the time, until I noticed that at one point we were no longer seeing clearly any more and we seemed to move into a dimension in which 1 was the great mother, the universe, the beloved, the sacred prostitute of the ancient rituals that he had told me about over wine and beside an open fire. I saw that he was about to come, and his arms gripped mine, his movements increased in intensity, and it was then that he shouted - he didn't moan, he didn't grind his teeth, he shouted. He yelled. He roared like an animal! A thought flashed through my mind that the neighbours might call the police, but it didn't matter, and I felt immense pleasure, because this was how it had been since the beginning of time, when the first man met the first woman and they made love for the first time: they shouted.

Then his body collapsed onto mine, and I don't know how long we stayed there, our arms around each other; I stroked his hair as I had done only once before, on the night when we locked ourselves up in the darkness of the hotel room; I felt his racing heart gradually slow to its normal rate; his hands began delicately to move up and down my arms, making all the hairs on my body prickle.

He must have had a practical thought - the weight of his body on mine - because he rolled over, took my hand, and we lay there staring up at the ceiling and the chandelier with its three light bulbs lit.

'Good evening,' I said.

He drew me over so that my head was resting on his chest.

For a long time, he just stroked me, and then he said 'Good evening' too.

'The neighbours must have heard everything,' I said, not knowing quite what to say next, because saying I love you' at that juncture didn't make much sense; he knew that already, and so did I.

'There's a terrific draught from under the door,' he said, when he could have said: 'Good!'

'Let's go into the kitchen.'

We got up and I saw that he hadn't even taken off his trousers, he was dressed just as I had found him, only with his penis exposed. I put my jacket over my bare shoulders. We went into the kitchen; he made some coffee-, he smoked two cigarettes and I smoked one. Sitting at the table, he said 'thank you' with his eyes, and I replied 'thank you too', but our mouths remained shut.