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unwell, he goes alone. Any friends who stay at the house know that they will have to accompany their host–this is one of the monastic rules. One of his favourite walks takes him to the chapel of Notre Dame de Piétat in the commune of Barbazan-Debat, next to Saint-Martin and Tarbes. Here he kneels, makes the sign of the cross, says a brief prayer, puts a coin in the tin box and lights a candle in front of the small painted wooden image of the Virgin Mary holding the body of her dead son.
    Back at the house, Coelho does some odd jobs in the garden, deadheads the plants and clears any weeds blocking the little stream that runs across the land. Only then does he go and take a shower and, afterwards, turn on his computer for the first time in the day. He reads online versions of at least two Brazilian newspapers and then takes a look at the electronic clippings agency that picks up on anything published about him and his books the previous day. Before pressing the enter key that will open up a site showing the best-seller lists, he places his outspread hands over the screen as though warming himself in front of a fire, closes his eyes and meditates for a moment, seeking, he says, to attract positive energy.
    Today, he hits the key and smiles as the screen shows that, in the countries that matter most, he has only been beaten to number one in Germany and Brazil. In both these countries it is Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code that heads the list. His e-mails also hold no great surprises. There are messages from no fewer than 111 countries, listed inalphabetical order from Andorra to Venezuela, passing through Burkina Faso, in Africa, to Niue off the coast of New Zealand and Tuvalu in Polynesia.
    He says to Christina, who is sitting beside him: ‘What do you make of that, Christina? When we got back from our walk it was 11.11 and the thermometer was showing 11°C. I’ve just opened my mailbox and there are messages from 111 countries. I wonder what that means.’
    It’s not uncommon to hear him say such things: while the majority of people would put something like that down to mere coincidence, Coelho sees such things as signs that require interpretation. Like the invisible fly he’s always trying to drive away with his hand, his preoccupation with names, places, dates, colours, objects and numbers that might, in his view, cause problems, leads one to suspect that he suffers from a mild form of obsessive compulsive disorder. Coelho never mentions Paraguay or the ex-president Fernando Collor (or his Minister of Finance, Zélia Cardoso de Mello), and he felt able to mention the name of Adalgisa Rios, one of his three long-term partners, only after her death in June 2007. Indeed, if anyone says one of the forbidden names in his presence he immediately knocks three times on wood in order to drive away any negative energy. He crosses the road whenever he sees a pigeon feather on the pavement, and will never tread on one. In April 2007, in an eight-page article about him in The New Yorker magazine, he candidly confessed to the reporter Dana Goodyear that he refuses to dine at tables where thirteen people are seated. Christina not only understands this eccentric side of Coelho but shares his fears and interpretations and is often the one to warn him of potential risks when deciding whether or not to do something.
    One afternoon a week is set aside for reading correspondence that arrives via ordinary mail. Once a week, he receives packages in the post from his Rio office and from Sant Jordi in Barcelona. These are stacked up on a table on the lawn and opened with a bone-handled penknife, and the letters arranged in piles according to size. From time to time, the silence is broken by a cow mooing or by the distant sound of a tractor. Any manuscripts or disks from aspiring authors go straight into the wastepaper bin, precisely as his various websites say will happen. At a time when letter bombs and envelopes containing poisonous substances