SEVEN
Arriving at the office on the following Friday, with a package containing his omelette sandwich, Pereira maintains he saw an envelope peeping out of the Lisboa letter-box. He fished it out and put it in his pocket. On the first-floor landing he met the caretaker who said: Good morning Dr Pereira, there’s a letter for you, it’s an express delivery, the postman brought it at nine o’clock and I had to sign for it. Pereira muttered a thank you between his teeth and went on up the stairs. I took the responsibility on myself, continued the caretaker, but I don’t want any trouble, seeing that the sender’s name isn’t on it. Pereira descended three steps, he maintains, and looked her straight in the face. Look here Celeste, said Pereira, you are the caretaker and that’s all well and good, you are paid to be caretaker and receive your wages from the tenants of this building, and one of these tenants is my newspaper, but you have the bad habit of poking your nose into matters that are none of your business, so next time an express letter arrives for me kindly don’t sign for it, don’t even look at it, but ask the postman to come back later and deliver it to me personally. The caretaker was sweeping the landing, and now leant her broom against the wall and put her hands on her hips. Dr Pereira, said she, you think you can address me in that tone because I’m just a humble caretaker, but let me tell you I have friends in high places, people who can protect me from your bad manners. So I imagine, indeed I’m sure of it, Pereira maintains he replied, that’s precisely what I object to, and now good day to you.
By the time he opened the office door Pereira was bathed in sweat and felt weak at the knees. He switched on the fan and sat down at his desk. He dumped his omelette sandwich on a sheet of typing paper and took the letter from his pocket. The envelope was addressed to Dr Pereira, Lisboa, Rua Rodrigo da Fonseca 66, Lisbon. The handwriting was stylish and in blue ink. Pereira placed the letter beside the omelette sandwich and lit a cigar. The cardiologist had forbidden him to smoke, but just now he really needed a couple of puffs, then perhaps he’d stub it out. He thought he would open the letter later, because his first task was to prepare the culture page for tomorrow. He considered revising the article he had written on Pessoa for the ‘Anniversaries’ column, but then decided it was all right as it was. So he began to read over the Maupassant story he had translated, in case there were any corrections to be made. He found none. The story read perfectly and Pereira gave himself a pat on the back. It really perked him up a bit, he maintains. Then from his jacket pocket he took a portrait of Maupassant he had come across in a magazine in the City Library. It was a pencil drawing by an unknown French artist, which showed Maupassant wearing an air of desperation, with beard unkempt and eyes staring into space, and Pereira felt it would suit the story perfectly. After all it was a tale of love and death, it cried out for a portrait with intimations of tragedy. Now what he needed was an insert to appear in bold in the centre of the article, with the basic biographical facts about Maupassant. Pereira opened the Larousse he kept on his desk and began to copy. He wrote: ‘Guy de Maupassant, 1850–1893. In common with his brother Hervé he inherited from his father a disease of venereal origin, which led him to madness and an early death. At the age of twenty he fought in the Franco-Prussian War, and thereafter worked at the Ministry for the Navy. A writer of great talent and satirical vision, in his tales he describes the shortcomings and cowardice of a certain stratum of French society. He also wrote very successful novels such as Bel-Ami and the fantasy-novel Le Horla. Struck down by insanity he was admitted to Dr Blanche’s clinic, where he died penniless and derelict.’
He took three or four mouthfuls of his omelette sandwich. The rest he threw into the wastepaper basket because he didn’t feel hungry, it was too hot, he maintains. Then he opened the letter. It was an article typed on flimsy paper, and the title read: Death of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Pereira felt his heart sink because without looking at the next pagehe knew the writer was Monteiro Rossi and realized at once that the article was no use to him, that it was an unusable article, he could have done with an obituary for Bernanos or Mauriac, who probably believed in the resurrection of the body, but this was an obituary for Filippo Tommaso Marinetti who believed in war, and Pereira set himself to read it. Truly it was an article to dump straight in the rubbish, but Pereira did not dump it, God knows why he kept it but he did, and for this reason he is able to produce it as evidence. It began as follows: ‘With Marinetti dies a man of violence, for violence was his muse. He began his career in 1909 with the publication of a Futurist Manifesto in a Paris newspaper, a manifesto in which he idealized war and violence. An enemy of democracy, bellicose and militaristic, he went on to sing the praises of war in a long eccentric poem entitled Zang Tumb Tumb, an onomatopoeic description of the Italian colonialist wars in Africa. His colonialist beliefs also led him to acclaim the Italian invasion of Libya. Among his writings is another nauseating manifesto: War: the World’s Only Hygiene. His photographs show a man striking arrogant poses, with curled moustaches and an academician’s cloak covered with medals. The Italian Fascists conferred a great many on him because Marinetti was among their most ardent supporters. With him dies a truly ugly customer, a warmonger …’
Pereira gave up on the typed section and turned to the letter, for the article was accompanied by a handwritten letter. It read: ‘Dear Dr Pereira, I have followed the reasons of the heart, but it’s not my fault. In any case you told me yourself that the reasons of the heart are the most important. I don’t know if this is a publishable obituary, and who knows, Marinetti may live for another twenty years. Anyway, if you could let me have something in the way of cash I would be grateful. I can’t come to the office for the moment for motives I won’t explain now. If you would care to send me a small sum at your discretion, perhaps you could put it in an envelope and address it to me at Box 202, Central Post Office, Lisbon. I’ll be giving you a call soon. With best wishes, Yours, Monteiro Rossi.’
Pereira placed the obituary and the letter in a file on which he wrote: ‘Obituaries’. Then he numbered the pages of the Maupassant story, gathered up his papers from the desk, put on his jacket and went to deliver the material to the printer’s. He was sweating, he felt uneasy, and he hoped not to meet the caretaker on the way out, he maintains.
EIGHT
That Saturday morning, on the dot of midday, Pereira maintains, the telephone rang. Pereira had not brought his omelette sandwich to the office that day, partly because he was trying to skip a meal every now and again as the cardiologist had advised him, and partly because even if he failed to stave off the pangs of hunger he could always get an omelette at the Café Orquídea.
Good morning Dr Pereira, said the voice of Monteiro Rossi, this is Monteiro Rossi speaking. I was expecting a call from you, said Pereira, where are you? I am out of town, said Monteiro Rossi. Excuse me, insisted Pereira, but out of town where? Out of town, replied Monteiro Rossi. Pereira maintains he was slightly nettled by such a stiff uninformative response. From Monteiro Rossi he would have liked more cordiality, even gratitude, but he restrained his vexation and said: I have sent a sum of money to your post office box. Thank you, said Monteiro Rossi, I’ll go and pick it up. And he volunteered nothing more. So Pereira asked him: When do you intend to call in at the office? perhaps it would be a good thing to have a tête-à-tête. I’ve no idea when I’ll be able to call on you, replied Monteiro Rossi, to tell the truth I was just writing a note to fix a meeting somewhere, if possible not in the office. It was then that Pereira realized something was up, he maintains, and lowering his voice, as if someone else might be listening in, he asked: Are you in trouble? Monteiro Rossi did not answer and Pereira thought he hadn’t heard. Are you in trouble? repeated Pereira. In a way yes, said the voice of Monteiro Rossi, but it’s not something to talk about over the telephone, I’ll write you a note to fix a meeting for the middle of next week, the fact is I need you, Dr Pereira, I need your help, but I’ll tell you about it when I see you, and now you must excuse me, I’m calling from somewhere very inconvenient and I have to hang up, forgive me Dr Pereira we’ll talk about it when we meet, goodbye for now.