He bade Manuel goodnight and left him a handsome tip. He would have liked to have a talk with Father António, but Father António was assuredly asleep by that time of night, he got up at six every morning to say Mass in the Church of the Mercês, Pereira maintains.
NINETEEN
The next morning, Pereira maintains, he got up at the crack of dawn and went to pay a call on Father António. He came upon him in his sacristy, just as he was about to disrobe. The sacristy was wonderfully cool, and the walls were covered with religious pictures and ex-votos.
Good morning Father António, said Pereira, here I am at last. Pereira, exclaimed Father António, I haven’t seen you for ages, wherever have you been hiding yourself? I’ve been at Parede, explained Pereira, I spent a week at Parede. At Parede! exclaimed Father António, and what were you doing at Parede? I was at a thalassotherapeutic clinic, replied Pereira, taking seaweed baths and nature cures. Father António asked him to help him remove his stole and said: You certainly get some queer ideas. I’ve lost four kilos, said Pereira, and I met a doctor who told me an interesting theory about the soul. Is that why you’ve come? asked Father António. Partly, admitted Pereira, but I also wanted to talk about other things. Then talk away, said Father António. Well, began Pereira, it’s a theory advanced by two French philosophers who are also psychologists, they hold that we do not have a single soul but a confederation of souls guided by a ruling ego, and every now and then this ruling ego changes, so that although we establish a norm it isn’t a stable norm, but a variable one. Listen here, Pereira, said Father António, I’m a Franciscan, I’m a simple person, but it seems to me you’re becoming a heretic, the human soul is one and indivisible, and it was given us by God. Very well, replied Pereira, but if instead of soul, as the French philosophers have it, we use the word personality, there’s an end of heresy, and I’m convinced that we don’t have a single personality, but a lot of personalities living together under the leadership of a ruling ego. That sounds to me a dangerously insidious theory, objected Father António, the personality depends on the soul, and the soul is one and indivisible, what you’re saying smacks of heresy. All the same I feel a changed person from what I was a few months ago, said Pereira, I think things I would never have thought and do things I would never have done. Something must have happened in your life, said Father António. I’ve met two people, said Pereira, a young man and a girl, and maybe meeting them has changed me. It could be, replied Father António, other people influence us, it can happen. I really don’t see how they can influence me, said Pereira, they’re just two benighted romantics without a future, if anything I ought to influence them. I’m the one who supports them, in fact the young man practically lives at my expense, I do nothing but give him money out of my own pocket, I’ve taken him on as my assistant but he doesn’t write a single article I can publish, I say Father António, do you think I ought to make a proper confession? Have you committed any sins of the flesh? asked Father António. The only flesh I know is the flesh I lug around with me, replied Pereira. Then come, Pereira, don’t waste my time, because to hear a confession I have to concentrate and I don’t want to tire myself out, in a little while I have to visit my sick parishioners, let’s by all means talk of this and that and your affairs in general, but not under confession, just as friends.
Father António sat down on a bench in the sacristy and Pereira sat beside him. Listen Father António, said Pereira. I believe in Almighty God, I receive the sacraments, I obey the Ten Commandments and try not to sin, and even if I sometimes don’t go to Mass on Sundays it’s not for lack of faith but just laziness, I think of myself as a good Catholic and have the teachings of the Church at heart, but at the moment I’m a little confused and also, although I’m a journalist, I’m not well informed about what’s going on in the world, and just now I’m very perplexed because it seems there’s a lot of argument about the position of the French Catholic writers with regard to the civil war in Spain, I’d like you to put me in the picture Father António, because you know about things and I’d like to know how to behave so as to avoid falling into heresy. But Pereira, exclaimed Father António, you must be living in another world! Pereira tried to justify himself: Well, the fact is I’ve been a week in Parede and what’s more I haven’t bought a foreign paper all summer, and you can’t learn much from the Portuguese papers, so the only news I get is café gossip.
Pereira maintains that Father António got to his feet and towered over him with an expression which seemed to him menacingly stern. Pereira, he said, this is a very grave moment and everyone has to make up his own mind, I am a churchman and have to obey my religious superiors, but you are free to make personal decisions, even though you are a Catholic. Then explain me everything, implored Pereira, because I’d like to make my own decisions but I’m not in the know. Father António blew his nose, crossed his hands on his breast and asked: Have you heard of the problem of the Basque clergy? No, I haven’t, admitted Pereira. Well, said Father António, it all began with the Basque clergy, because after the bombing of Guernica the Basque clergy, who are considered quite the most Christian people in Spain, took sides with the Republic. Father António blew his nose as if deeply stirred and continued: In the spring of last year two famous French Catholic writers, Francois Mauriac and Jacques Maritain, published a manifesto in defence of the Basques. Mauriac! exclaimed Pereira, I said not long ago that we ought to have an obituary ready for Mauriac, he’s worth his salt that man, but Monteiro Rossi didn’t manage to write me one. Who is Monteiro Rossi? asked Father António. He’s the assistant I’ve taken on, replied Pereira, but he can’t seem to write me obituaries for the Catholic writers who have taken up decent political stances. But why do you want an obituary for him, asked Father António, poor Mauriac, let him live, we need him, why d’you want to kill him off? Oh, that’s not what I meant at all, said Pereira, I hope he lives to be a hundred, but suppose he were to die suddenly, then there’d be at least one paper in Portugal ready to give him his due, and that paper would be the Lisboa, but forgive the interruption Father António, please go on. Well, said Father António, the problem was complicated by the Vatican, which claimed that thousands of the Spanish clergy had been killed by the republicans, that the Basque Catholics were ‘Red Christians’ and deserved to be excommunicated, and sure enough it excommunicated them, and to make matters worse Claudel, the famous Paul Claudel, a Catholic writer himself, wrote an ode ‘Aux Martyrs Espagnols’ as the preface in verse to a swinish propaganda leaflet produced by a Spanish nationalist agent in Paris. Claudel! exclaimed Pereira, Paul Claudel? Father António blew his nose yet again. The very same, said he, and how would you define Paul Claudel, Pereira? Well, on the spur of the moment I couldn’t presume to say, replied Pereira, he’s a Catholic but he’s taken a different stance, he has made his decisions. On the spur of the moment you couldn’t presume to say, Pereira! exclaimed Father António in turn, well let me tell you that Claudel is a son of a bitch, that’s what he is, I’m sorry to utter these words in a holy place because what I’d really like to do is shout them from the housetops. What happened next? enquired Pereira. Then, continued Father António, the hierarchy of the Spanish Church, led by Cardinal Gomá, Archbishop of Toledo, decided to send an open letter to all the bishops in the world, you get that Pereira? all the bishops in the world, as if all the bishops in the world were damn great Fascists like them, saying that thousands of Christians in Spain had taken up arms of their own accord in defence of the principles of religion. Yes, said Pereira, but what about these Spanish martyrs, all these murdered clergy? Father António was silent for a moment and then said: Martyrs they may possibly be, but the fact remains they were plotting against the Republic, and don’t forget that the Republic was constitutional, it had been elected by the people, Franco has made a coup d’état, he’s a bandit. And Bernanos, asked Pereira, what’s Bernanos got to do with all this? he’s a Catholic writer too. He’s the only one with first-hand knowledge of Spain, said Father António, from ’Thirty-Four until last year he was in Spain himself, he has written about the massacres by Franco’s troops, the Vatican can’t abide him because they know he’s a genuine witness. You know, Father António, said Pereira, it has occurred to me to publish a chapter or two of the Journal d’un curé de campagne on the culture page of the Lisboa, what do you think? I think it’s a splendid idea, replied Father António, but I don’t know if they’ll let you do it, there’s no love lost for Bernanos in this country, he’s made some pretty harsh comments on the Viriato Battalion, that’s the Portuguese military contingent fighting for Franco in Spain, and now you must excuse me Pereira, I must be off to the hospital, my sick parishioners are expecting me.