There I was paid a lot of money to keep my clothes on, which should possibly have alerted me that something was wrong, but love can make you blind. In Paris, I met a lot of people, some of whom didn’t try to seduce me, but always my clothes seemed to fall off. To me, that tower had the aura of a tower that existed only for love. How I admired the metal tower put up by M Eiffel. Luckily, I met a rich man who gave me a lot of money when I was naked, which allowed me to fulfil my dreams of moving to Paris, which is the capital of France. An artist called Picasso – I forget his first name – was keen to see me with no clothes on, but I refused because he had very dirty hands.īefore long, I felt constricted in Holland and yearned to go to Paris. We separated soon after and I began to get paid a lot of money for taking my clothes off and being seduced by rich men. “I couldn’t possibly accept your cash,” I would say before pocketing the money, “because all I ever do, I do for love.”Īfter a woman killed herself in front of me, because her husband tried to seduce me when I happened to be wearing no clothes, I persuaded my husband to return to Amsterdam. Unfortunately, every time I did so, all my clothes would invariably fall off and I would end up being seduced by a man who wanted to give me some money. In Indonesia, I learned the sacred dances that I performed to large audiences. I also had a son who was brutally murdered – which was probably just as well, because he cramped my style of doing everything for love. I had a daughter whose name I forget, but hopefully someone has been looking after her these past 15 years. Once there, I could reinvent myself inside my loveless marriage.

Here is a list of some of the things I took with me: one hairbrush, one pair of spurs, two gold watches. I longed to leave Holland and when an older man seduced me into becoming his wife and moving to Java, I leapt at the opportunity. What can I tell you of my life? I was born Margaretha Zelle to parents whose lives did not amount to much.

But I can promise you I am not lying now. I cannot remember his first name, though I did get the feeling his ideas would become popular because I was not a spy and all I ever did, I did for love. On one of my trips to Vienna I met a man called Freud.

SPY, THE by Paulo Coelho