“Of all the brutalities that strike us, the one that affects us most is the absurd attempt to live by a model of behaviour incompatible with our tastes, perspectives, and truths. The latent beauty that exists at the core of everyone, always waiting for singular movements so it may blossom, ends up withering when it does not find the fertile ground necessary for its development. We pretend to be satisfied with the rented beauty of a character fitted into a pretentious, preestablished formula of easy success and apparent happiness. And so, we lose who we could become. By renouncing originality, without realizing it, we succumb to continuous acts of betrayal. Of self-betrayal,” said Loureiro, the shoemaker who loved philosophy books and red wines, as he placed a kettle of fresh coffee on the heavy wooden counter of the workshop.
Leila was the daughter of Jean, a childhood friend of the shoemaker, who had returned not long ago to the Highlands. She needed to vent to someone she trusted. She got off the same train I had arrived on. Without knowing each other, we walked from the station to the workshop through the narrow, winding streets of the small town, dimly lit by old cast-iron lampposts. Dawn had not yet ended the night. As if she sensed we were heading to the same place, she turned to me and smiled when she saw Loureiro’s bicycle leaning against the post in front of the atelier. In a veiled way, without words, this side-by-side walk made her comfortable enough to allow me to hear her anguish and sorrows. Since youth, Jean had built a distinctive friendship with Loureiro. As confidants, they talked about their most intimate feelings, ideas, and dreams. At her father’s request, Loureiro had baptized Leila before the girl turned one year old. He had closely followed the young woman’s growth.
Jean had a natural talent for commerce. From an early age, he bought and sold the most diverse products as if he had been born for that purpose. Shortly after adolescence, he set up a small grocery store that, two decades later, had become a large supermarket chain in a nearby metropolis, about an hour away by train. With the profits, he reinvested in opening new branches in the region. Wealth did not rob him of his simplicity or his affectionate way of treating people. A charming man, with an incredible ability to bring people together around him. Leila grew up in a business environment, alongside her twin brothers, Rafael and Gabriel, only one year younger than she was. Passionately devoted to their father, the children strove to please him, dedicating themselves intensely to managing the chain of stores, in a veiled competition for his praise. Although he demanded nothing from his children, Jean was pleased to see them working by his side, sharing the same life project.
As she approached thirty years of age, Leila married Maurice, an economist with a postgraduate degree from the Sorbonne, a prestigious university in Paris. Jean had hired him to take care of the financial investments of the chain, which were becoming more sophisticated as the world changed. The marriage pleased the father. The twins shared a more visceral bond with each other. Not infrequently, under the pretext of supposed forgetfulness, they withheld from their sister some important information, in a subtle movement to gradually exclude her from the management of the business. Jean believed that the marriage would balance the forces in the company’s direction when he was no longer in command.
Until it happened. Despite the sadness over her father’s passing, beyond the absence his physical presence would cause, Leila believed that almost nothing would change, both in the company and in her life. Less than a month later, Maurice announced his departure from the firm. He was leaving for London, where he would work in the financial market. This had been his plan since he entered college, he admitted. In a frank and unpleasant conversation, he confessed that the marriage was merely an inseparable part of the job, indispensable to his long-term professional project. There was no love. There never had been. Employment and matrimony represented the bridge necessary to cross the abyss of difficulties until he acquired the conditions to become a partner in a securities brokerage. He was fascinated by the universe of the stock market. And now, without Jean’s strong presence, the time had come to carry out the old plan, in which, of course, his wife had no place. And so Maurice left without further explanations. Nor did he need to.
As if that were not enough, upon resuming her routine at the company, already without Maurice’s presence, her coexistence with her brothers went from bad to worse. They had reached the point of exchanging mere formal greetings, without any trace of affection or respect. The twins no longer hid their intention to make their sister’s participation merely symbolic. Together, in their father’s absence, they had become the majority partners. They planned for her a board position with great pomp and no power. Something Leila would never accept. She had met with a major law firm regarding her brothers’ segregationist behaviour. What remained was a long and costly legal battle for control of the supermarket chain.
She declared herself cruelly betrayed by her husband and her brothers, precisely those who were closest to her. Her family had collapsed. The life she had chosen for herself had crumbled. She considered herself a warrior. She would build another one, even better. She would not flee the war nor admit defeat. She was willing to find true love, as well as to fight tirelessly until she assumed definitive and absolute command of the company. She would never give up. She would not rest a single day until justice was done to her. An irrevocable decision, she stated before sipping her coffee.
Loureiro listened to her with great attention and without interruption. When she finished, he asked her, “Are you sure this is the battle you want to fight?” Leila said she had no choice. The shoemaker reflected, “We always have choices. However, many times, we believe only the choices others expect from us remain. At other times, we lack the clarity to dismantle the choices consistent with the character we invented to live.” The executive said she did not understand. The shoemaker explained, “When you define yourself as a warrior, and there is nothing wrong with that, it remains to be seen what kind of warrior defines you. Genghis Khan and Mahatma Gandhi were two warriors with diametrically opposed profiles, methods, effectiveness, and luminosity. While the emperor dominated Asia at the cost of a colossal carpet of blood, the monk defeated the powerful British Empire without firing a single shot. Nothing brings them together; nevertheless, both were warriors.” The woman’s features asked him to continue. Loureiro pointed out, “The first choice is to decide whether the priority is to defeat your brothers or to overcome yourself. This will establish your objectives, limits, and methods of action. Whether you will walk in the light or in the shadows. Attitudes of self-respect and self-love are fundamental to emotional balance and to the strength necessary for movements toward your plenitude. Everything else is empty victories.”
Leila asked whether her godfather was advising her to hand over control of the company to her brothers. Loureiro refuted the reasoning, “I did not say that. The issue lies in the image we create to move through life. This image compels us toward certain choices, reducing many of the possibilities available. Then, contrary to what we imagine, we become less when we could be more. For example, if I consider myself weak or meek, I flee or avoid the fight. Thus, possibilities open and are lost. Conversely, if I see myself as a warrior, I cannot give up the battle. I must face my enemies. However, that is not enough. Important questions remain pending: what will be the true fight that awaits me? Who are my greatest adversaries? Where are they, in the world or within me?” He looked at his goddaughter with tenderness and reflected, “It is necessary to answer these questions before initiating any movement, at the risk of succumbing without understanding the war lost before even beginning it. The outcome does not matter. There is no way to win the wrong battle.”
The shoemaker took a sip of coffee and commented, “At other times, we choose based on others, on the character we want to keep alive in the eyes of the people who admire us, completely disregarding what, deep in our soul, we actually wanted to do.” Leila stated that there was no one she wanted to please. Loureiro corrected her, “There is you. Or there should be.” She said she did not understand. He asked, “Who decides the course of your life? The determined and efficient executive, who always strove to please her father; the young woman who grew up seeking the admiration of those around her; or the businesswoman capable of overcoming every crisis with unshakable determination?” He made a deliberate pause to emphasize the conclusion of his reasoning and asked again, “What would happen if, for the first time, you listened to the sensitive and delicate woman, genuine and original, who can be just as strong and powerful, only in a different way, whom you never even dared to get to know?” Stunned, Leila fell silent. Loureiro curved his lips into a gentle smile and ventured, “A woman hitherto unknown because she was abandoned, but who still awaits you in seed form.”
The businesswoman asked Loureiro to explain himself better. The shoemaker pointed out, “When a battle announces itself, some flee, others deny it. There are those who rise to face it. Only those who discover that battles are not wars, but portals of transformation, truly win.” He tapped his finger on the counter to draw our attention to the reasoning and said, “When someone opposes our path, interest, or will, we come up against an antagonist. Etymologically, of Greek origin, the word means the one who prevents us from winning the prize. In literature or in life, when we have an adversary, we have a conflict waiting. I defeat the adversary to win the war. Simple as that, right?” Leila nodded yes. Loureiro corrected her, “Not always. Bringing down the enemy is no guarantee of victory. The true function of antagonists, many times, is not to block access to the prize, but to lead us to discover that the best prize was not the one we imagined when the battle presented itself. If we disregard the underlying issues of the fight, we will waste the best opportunities offered by conflicts: existential transformations.”
Leila asked what underlying issue he was referring to. The shoemaker explained, “Every external conflict signals a potential internal discovery. This is the crucial point of genuine achievements, almost always disregarded in battles. As contemporary warriors, we arm ourselves with lawyers, accountants, experts, reports, among other martial paraphernalia, moved according to the level of economic, political, or social power of the contenders involved. Although the swords, spears, and catapults of Antiquity are no longer used, the idea is still to annihilate the enemy, in the sense of rendering them powerless before our will or interest. This is still the meaning of victory that moves the masses.” Before his goddaughter could ask, Loureiro explained, “Without a doubt, there are situations in which confrontation is necessary. Although it requires better understanding, one does not disregard the natural sense of justice nor negotiate with truth. However, in the vast majority of cases, the adversary merely serves to point out something poorly constructed within us or to signal an angular decision capable of changing, for the better, the route and direction of our lives, whether outwardly in the world or inwardly in the universe.” He paused briefly before concluding, “Although it is not their intention, when their role in our lives is understood, the antagonist makes us understand, accept, and manifest the internal change that had until then been repressed. Never out of fear of standing before anyone, but out of the courage to be reborn before oneself under new existential foundations.”
The businesswoman fell silent. For long minutes, no one said a word. Until Leila asked whether the shoemaker’s arguments were meant to demonstrate the pointlessness of a war between siblings. If that were the case, she wanted to make it clear that she was not willing to give up her rights and her assets. Loureiro brought her reasoning back into line, “I did not say that.” Then he asked her, “You have always shown yourself very firm in your choices and in the conduct of your own life. If this legal battle is truly necessary, what brought you here? Did you come in an attempt to hear words that could muffle the voices overflowing from your heart? If so, it will not happen.” Leila asked what he believed she was refusing to hear. The shoemaker was categorical, “Only you will know how to answer that.” The goddaughter looked at him tenderly, as if to say do not do this. He furrowed his brows and pointed out, “There is no other way. Only full responsibility for the consequences of each choice creates the indispensable conditions for maturity. Only then does the beauty of life blossom.”
Leila fell silent again for a few moments. She tried to fit new ideas into her old way of thinking. Then she questioned Loureiro only with her gaze: Could it be? The shoemaker smiled, satisfied, and shrugged as if answering I do not know. Moved, she smiled back, not without letting a defiant tear escape. In this brief, wordless dialogue, they were referring to one of Leila’s hobbies. In her free time, Leila liked to study and read about fashion. She was fascinated by the subject. Out of passion and pleasure, she had set up an artisanal tailoring shop to design and make the clothes she wore. A style of dress as a reflection of her way of thinking and feeling about life. Over time, she began to give gifts to friends who shared her taste. She enjoyed taking care of the tailoring more than managing the supermarket. However, despite the praise she received, she had never considered turning the tailoring into a brand. From a hobby into a professional activity. “Why?” Loureiro asked. Leila rehearsed some answers but was unable to offer any with consistent arguments.
At that moment, as she listened to the fragility of her own arguments, Leila realized the betrayal she was committing against herself. It was the point of conscious mutation. Her choices could no longer serve to sustain the expectations she had created to keep alive a character who no longer served her. For justifiable reasons of acceptance, belonging, and validation, especially from the father she so loved and admired, the chosen narrative had guided her up to that moment. From then on, if she wanted to move forward, she would need to kill the character. Otherwise, the true author would never take control of the story.
Speaking as thoughts bubbled in her mind, Leila considered the possibility of, instead of fighting indefinitely for control of the company, leaving the administration to the twins. Although she would receive a smaller share of the profits, she would have all the time necessary to do what she had always wanted, but had never had the clarity to accept nor the courage to carry out. She smiled at the imagined scenario. In a brief moment of slip, common to evolutionary transitions, she lamented having to throw away the twenty years devoted to the supermarket chain. Loureiro reminded her, “They were twenty years of intense coexistence by your father’s side. This has an immeasurable emotional value. Moreover, the experience accumulated in managing a large business will be useful and indispensable to the new undertaking. Nothing will be lost.”
I noticed that her hands were trembling. I asked whether it was fear of the future. She replied that it was not. Leila was moved by realizing that she stood on the boarding platform of the most important journey of her life. A one-way journey, for it would lead to an encounter with the other face of the woman she still did not know within herself. That possibility enchanted her. She kissed her godfather on the cheek, thanked him for the conversation, and left. Much awaited her. Without knowing it, I had witnessed the bursting forth of the embryo of a hugely successful fashion brand some years later.
Alone, Loureiro got up to prepare a little more coffee. Meanwhile, I praised Leila’s mettle. It was not an easy decision. That was when the shoemaker drew upon the arguments cited at the opening of this story: “Of all the brutalities that strike us, the one that affects us most is the absurd attempt to live according to a model of behaviour incompatible with our tastes, perspectives, and truths. The latent beauty that exists at the core of everyone, always waiting for singular movements so that it may blossom, ends up withering when it does not find the fertile soil necessary for its development. We pretend to be satisfied with the rented beauty of a character fitted into a pretentious, preestablished formula of easy success and apparent happiness. Then, we lose who we could become. By relinquishing originality, without realizing it, we succumb to continuous acts of betrayal. Of self-betrayal,” said Loureiro, the shoemaker who loved philosophy books and red wines, as he set a kettle of fresh coffee on the heavy wooden counter of the workshop. He then concluded, “By understanding this process, the difficulty dissolves. What is complicated becomes simple.”
Translated by: Cazmilian Zórdic
