Gisele Bündchen

The last time I saw Gisele Bundchen, she was lying on a pile of rubbish, looking out over a dry African field full of plastic bags and litter. Those all-seeing blue eyes. That fairytale hair. She was advertising shampoo. As my friend Sibu bent down to pick up the carton that bore her image, he held it in his hand a moment. ‘Wow,’ he said. Even on that scorching day, it was hard not to be captivated by her. I was living in a tent in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, writing “Il Respiro della Notte” and working to reforest a devastated hillside and found a green farming school. It was a world away from the affluent West, where so much of the rubbish we were picking up that day is generated. I never thought I’d meet the radiant beauty on the shampoo bottle, and probably our paths would not have crossed had Vogue Italia not set us up on a blind ‘friend date’. We were asked to meet in Boston, at Gisele’s home. But both Gisele and I take the planet’s health seriously. It didn’t seem wise to generate two tons of CO2 – the annual limit any individual should generate if we wish to avoid calamitous climate change - to fly me to meet her in person, so we agreed to speak on video. I set up my iPad, hear the familiar ringtone, and suddenly she’s there: the woman I’ve seen on countless billboards, incarnated in high definition. In the days before our date, I have resisted the temptation to Google Gisele. I want to see what she’s like for myself. I’m not prepared for the immediate wave of her energy. She’s articulate and passionate, and doesn’t look at her own image on the screen. She looks right into the camera, so our eyes connect across the vast distance that separates us. She radiates a quality – a heady mix of sincerity, purposefulness, and optimism – that makes it clear why she is the world’s most powerful supermodel: a woman whose endorsement doesn’t just raise a brand’s profile; it lifts the company’s share price. There are, after all, many beautiful women in the world. There is only one Gisele. We jump right into the major questions of life. Gisele has been meditating since her early 20s. “I’ve studied all different forms of religion. Buddhism, Taoism, Kabbalah. I’m always in search of trying to figure it out – Who am I? Why am I here?” I ask her if, at the age of 37, she has any preliminary conclusions to share. “I believe we are spiritual beings having a human experience. I believe the earth is a beautiful school for us.” But she, like me, is worried about how we are treating our school. “Any living being that loses a third of their skin, even if rushed to intensive care, will go into a high fever and may die. The Earth has lost over a third of her skin, which are the trees and all the biodiversity that exist around them, and instead of doing our best to nourish and replenish the Earth, we just continue to pillage her.” I agree. Sometimes I feel paralysed by the crazy abandon with which our civilization is consuming the world’s finite resources. But Gisele lifts my spirits. ‘I’m an optimist and believe we can change.” How? “Be mindful of what we consume. How is it made? Where does it come from? What is the impact of the products we buy on our health and on Earth?” She believes we can be the change the planet needs. “Eat seasonally and buy from your local organic farmers. Don’t create unnecessary travel for our food. Get a water filter. Reduce food waste – buy only what you need, and eat leftovers. Spend more time in Nature – because if we reconnect with it, we’ll understand the vital importance of preserving it for our lives.” Suddenly, this seems manageable. Something any

of us could do. And if all of us do it, miracles become possible. “I feel very much, like you, the pressure to make the world a better place because I can,” she says. “Each of us is a special, unique being with a special gift that only we can give.” What’s hers? “I can communicate things, and hopefully bring more awareness. When we lose connection to the Earth, we lose connection to ourselves.” This sounds like standard supermodel speak, but Gisele lives it. Ten years ago, with her father, she funded and completed a pilot project in her native Brazil to clean the water sources of city of Horizontina, where she was born. In the process over 40,000 trees were planted. Now she’s working to scale this first success into a massive project – the cleaning of the Jacuí River, one of the most important in her home state. The first project cost R$1 million, and she paid for it herself. The second will impact over 3 million people – she can’t afford to pay for it all, but she can bring the right people together. “We the people have to act if we want to create a different world. We can’t sit here waiting for a government to do it. Most of the wars in the world happen because natural resources are scarce. If we don’t address these issues, while we still have a chance, they’re going to get much worse.” I’m intrigued to know where this sense of purpose comes from, and how she sustains it. And also, of course, how a girl from a small town in Brazil ends up as one of the most famous people on the planet. What happened was this. Her mother, with six daughters, was concerned that Gisele – already 5’10” at 13, “a foot taller than every single person in my class” – was walking with a hunched back. “She said: ‘No, you can’t walk like this. You have to stand straight.’” So Gisele and her sisters attended a modeling course in their home town, to teach them to walk with confidence. It took 27 hours on a bus to get to the finals in Sao Paolo. Soon Gisele was taking part in the Elite Model Look contest – a 27 hour bus journey away. She came second. I ask her what happened to the winner. “I’m not sure. I haven’t seen her. Her name is Claudia. She’s very nice.” Gisele’s generous about everyone who comes up – about Claudia, her early rival; about each of her five sisters, four of whom work with her. The one who doesn’t is a Federal Judge. Aged 14, she left home by herself and went to Sao Paolo; then to Japan. I ask her if anyone took care of her. Did the modeling agencies send people to shoots to keep an eye on her? Apparently not. And yet she didn’t feel lonely. “I always had my guardian angels with me.” Her angels and some sound parental advice: “My mom always said ‘Take nothing from strangers.’ The values I’d learned from my parents kept me safe.” Her biggest challenge, which melts my heart, was a fear of the dark. “It was hard to be without my sisters. I slept in a room with all of them back home. When I woke up, if I got scared I could go and jump in one of my sisters’ beds. I couldn’t do that with strangers I’d just met, who changed all the time because I was living in the models’ apartment.” The story she tells has the quality of a legend: a warrior princess setting out into the world, on a quest to change it, with her guardian angels to protect her. I’m not prepared to love Gisele, but I do. As we speak, she makes me feel like it’s possible to be a better human being, and a better custodian of our planet’s resources. When we say goodbye, I find myself in drought-stricken Cape Town, happy and full of life, her words ringing in my ears: “God is an energy, and that energy is Love. The radio station is there. It’s up to you if you want to tune in.” • *British novelist and philanthropist. In 2017 he published the novel “Who Killed Piet Barol?” (Random House). original text page 82