Brenda Costa, from Brazil, introduces herself in her book as deaf-and-dumb from birth and international top model. Her portrait on the cover does justice to the introduction. “Silent Beauty” is the title of the book. But she soon tells us that physical beauty is not enough to become a model. (In mathematics we would say it is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the theorem.) Once, in the waiting room for a casting, she finds other twenty candidates for the job, all of them real beauties. It is not only face and figure that count, but character and personality, firmness and security, the mind behind the face and the soul within the body, and here comes her handicap at being deaf-and-dumb, and her triumph through her energy and her moral strength. In that early casting she experienced the difficulty her condition brought her:

“They go on calling one by one the applicants for models in the waiting room. The casting comes to an end without me being called. I begin to ask myself whether I’ve mistaken the appointment, since, even though I don’t hear anything, I read lips fairly well, and I’d told me companions to tell me when my name was called. Finally a worker approaches me, places herself right before my face and tells me: ‘You’ve been called a short time ago.’ I then realise that the models have not told me. One applicant less is one rival less. The fun was that at the end they chose me.”

Her parents discover little by little her total deafness from birth, which prevents her from speaking. As she does not hear any sounds, she cannot reproduce them, and they painstakingly try to teach her to speak. Doctors, exercises, speech therapists. They try to get her to say “papa” and “mama” to break into speech. One day at long last,

“One morning, while mummy was in the kitchen, she hears Celeste’s voice in her excitement: ‘Dona Fatima! Dona Fatima! Come at once! Brenda has just pronounced her first word!’ My mother rushes to the room, sits down on the floor in front of me, looks at Celeste, looks at me, looks again at Celeste… My ayah has wet eyes, is smiling from ear to ear, but remains silent. I’m sitting on my little stool, my lips shaped as a heart to try to make sounds, cheerful as always. Nothing happens. My mother pronounces softly ‘papa’, ‘mama’ to help me. ‘Come on, my love, say it. I know you can do it. Mama… papa…’. And suddenly, after a truly superhuman effort, I let go in full strength: ‘Coca-Cola!’ Mummy, disconcerted, turns to Celeste who bursts out laughing while I turn to the audience and repeat like a broken record: ‘Coca-Cola! Coca-Cola!’ My mother weeps, Celeste weeps, and I rock with laughter. I’m speaking! Isn’t that wonderful! The next weeks, before every member of the family and friends assembled for the occasion, I become a living advertisement of the famous cold drink. Coca-Cola! Coca-Cola! This anecdote, which so much joy gives me whenever my mother or Celeste tell it, closes a first stage of my life, full of laughter and tears, but happy, and hopeful.”

“It’s all clear in my little head. I’m going to be a model. I’m only five years old and I want to be a model! I’m sure of it! I notice all those beauties that appear on the cover of fashion magazines, with photographs taken in Rome, in Paris, in New York. I travel in my imagination. I’ll be a model.”

When she grows up, and after many efforts, she gets an interview for a test in the Mega Agency for fashion models. She goes with her mother, the technician takes all the tests, and at the end he tells her mother, as Brenda doesn’t hear anything, and the technician knows it. This is the verdict: “It’s true, your daughter has the qualities to be a model, she is very beautiful, but I would have great difficulty in selling her. I would never be able to assure my clients that everything will go well with her. She does not hear anything at all, and in our work it is essential to be able to communicate with the photographers. She can hardly utter some strange sounds difficult to understand. Whether it be for magazines or for posters, there is much money involved. We cannot take such a big risk. I have no doubt about Brenda’s talents; she is breathtakingly beautiful. But she is stone deaf.”

“Mother and I get up. What had to be said, has been said. I wait till I am in the corridor to give rein to my tears. I lean on the wall and cry, and cry… Mother hugs me and rocks me like a child: ‘Brenda, please, calm down, this is not so important…’ Between breath and breath, with my own distorted sounds, I answer her, ‘Yes, yes, it is very important, very important.’ At that moment a man about fifty approaches us. He asks me, ‘Why do you cry, little one?’. I don’t answer him as I am unable to utter any sound. He turns towards my mother: ‘I know this is not for me to ask, but, please, can you tell my why your daughter is in such a state?’ Mother answers him: ‘She wants to be a model. The problem is that she is deaf-and-dumb from birth. The Mega Agency’s director has just told her she will never be able to hold that job.’ The man answers: ‘My name is Antonio Velásquez and I’m the president of the Mega Agency. I have a son who is deaf-and-dumb from birth. I understand your daughter’s suffering. Come with me.’ And Brenda signs her contract with the Mega Agency.”

New York, Paris. She learns lip reading, not only in Portuguese but in English and French. Quite a feat. She is in Paris with her mother. She sees something in the street, points it out to her mother and manages to shout, “Look there, mummy!” – “My mother, who is still under the jetlag from our flight from Brazil, has not noticed it. I shout as I can, ‘Mummy, it is me! There, on the publicity poster!’ Mother turns to look. I’ll never forget the expression on her face the moment she recognises me in the huge poster in the middle of the street. That is my photograph. Her little deaf one that one day, more than twenty years ago, managed to say ‘Coca-Cola!’ In Paris. As a model. We’ll now go shopping or we’ll seat down to a coffee on a terrace, full of joy. A dream come true.”

(Brenda Costa, Bella del Silencio,Styria, 2007, pp. 47, 67, 90, 102, 130, 217)