Pereira maintains that he sat down at the table feeling ill at ease. He thought to himself that this was not the place for him at all, that it was absurd to meet a stranger at this nationalist festival, that Father António would not have approved of his conduct, and that he wished he were already on his way home to talk to his wife’s picture and ask its forgiveness. These thoughts nerved him to put a direct question, simply to start the ball rolling, and without much weighing his words he said to Monteiro Rossi: This is a Salazarist Youth festival, are you a member of the Salazarist Youth?
Monteiro Rossi brushed back his lock of hair and replied: I am a graduate in philosophy, my interests are philosophy and literature, but what has your question got to do with the Lisboa? It has this to do with it, replied Pereira, that we are a free and independent newspaper and don’t wish to meddle in politics.
Meanwhile the two old musicians had struck up again, and from their melancholy strings they elicited a song in praise of Franco, but at that point Pereira, despite his uneasiness, realized he had let himself in for it and it was his business to take the initiative. And strangely enough he felt up to doing so, felt he had the situation in hand, simply because he was Dr Pereira of the Lisboa and the young man facing him was hanging on his lips. So he said: I read your article on death and found it very interesting. Yes, I did write a thesis on death, replied Monteiro Rossi, but let me say at once that it’s not all my own work,the passage they printed in the magazine was copied, I must confess, partly from Feuerbach and partly from a French spiritualist, and not even my own professor tumbled to it, teachers are more ignorant than people realize, you know. Pereira maintains that he thought twice about putting the question he’d been preparing all evening, but eventually he made up his mind, not without first ordering something to drink from the young green-shirted waiter in attendance. Forgive me, he said to Monteiro Rossi, but I never touch alcohol, only lemonade, so I’ll have a lemonade. And while sipping his lemonade he asked in a low voice, as if someone might overhear and reprove him for it: But are you, please forgive me but, well, what I want to ask is, are you interested in death?
Monteiro Rossi gave a broad grin, and this, Pereira maintains, disconcerted him. What an idea, Dr Pereira, exclaimed Monteiro Rossi heartily, what I’m interested in is life. Then, more quietly: Listen, Dr Pereira, I’ve had quite enough of death, two years ago my mother died, she was Portuguese and a teacher and she died suddenly from an aneurism in the brain, that’s a complicated way of saying a burst blood vessel, in short she died of a stroke, and last year my father died, he was Italian, a naval engineer at the Lisbon dockyard, and he left me a little something but I’ve already run through that, I have a grandmother still alive in Italy but I haven’t seen her since I was twelve and I don’t fancy going to Italy, the situation there seems even worse than ours, and I’m fed up with death, Dr Pereira, you must excuse me for being frank with you but in any case why this question?
Pereira took a sip of his lemonade, wiped his lips with the back of his hand and said: Simply because in a newspaper one has to have memorial articles on dead writers or an obituary every time an important writer dies, and an obituary can’t be written at the drop of a hat, one has to have it ready beforehand, and I’m looking for someone to write advance obituaries on the great writers of our times, imagine if Mauriac were to die tomorrow how do you think I’d manage?
Monteiro Rossi ordered another beer, Pereira maintains. Since he’d arrived the young man had drunk at least three and at that point, in Pereira’s opinion, he ought to be already rather tight, or at least slightly tipsy. Monteiro Rossi swept back his lock of hair and said: Dr Pereira, I am a good linguist and I know the work of modern writers; what I love is life, but if you want me to write about death and you pay me for it, as they’ve paid me this evening to sing a Neapolitan song, then I can do it, for the day after tomorrow I’ll write you a funeral oration for García Lorca, what d’you think of Lorca? after all he created the avant-garde in Spain just as here in Portugal Pessoa created our modernist movement, and what’s more he was an all-round artist, he was a poet, a musician and a painter too.
Pereira said Lorca didn’t seem to him the ideal choice, he maintains, but he could certainly give it a try, as long as he dealt with Lorca tactfully and with due caution, referring exclusively to his personality as an artist and without touching on other aspects which in view of the current situation might pose problems. And then, without batting an eyelid, Monteiro Rossi said: Look here, excuse my mentioning it, I’ll do you this article on Lorca but d’you think you could give me something in advance? I’ll have to buy some new trousers, these are terribly stained, and tomorrow I’m going out with a girl I knew at university who’s on her way here now, she’s a good chum of mine and I’m very fond of her, I’d like to take her to the cinema.