Antonio Tabucchi - Pereira Maintains

They left the flat. In the little square outside the building a soldier was sleeping stretched out on a bench. Pereira admitted that he was in no fit state to make it up the hill on foot, so they waited for a taxi. The sun was implacable, Pereira maintains, and the wind had dropped. A taxi came cruising past and Pereira hailed it. During the ride not a word was spoken. They alighted beside a granite cross towering over a tiny chapel. Pereira entered the hotel, advising Monteiro Rossi to wait outside but taking the bloke Rossi in with him and presenting him to the desk-clerk, a little old man with pebble glasses who was dozing behind the counter. I have here an Argentine friend, said Pereira, he is Señor Bruno Lugones, here’s his passport, he would like to remain incognito, he is here for sentimental reasons. The old man took off his spectacles and leafed through the register. Someone telephoned this morning to make a booking, he said, was that you? It was me, confirmed Pereira. We have a double room without bath, said the old man, I don’t know if that would do for the gentleman. It will do very well, said Pereira. Cash in advance, said the old man, you know how things are. Pereira took out his wallet and produced a couple of banknotes. I’ll pay for three days in advance, he said, and good morning to you. He waved a hand at Bruno Rossi but decided not to shake hands, he didn’t want to seem on such intimate terms. I hope you’ll be comfortable, he said.

He left the place and crossed the square to where Monteiro Rossi was sitting waiting on the edge of the fountain. Call in at the office tomorrow, he told him, I’ll read your article today, we have things to talk about. Well actually I …, began Monteiro Rossi. Actually what? asked Pereira. Well you know, said Monteiro Rossi, as things stand I thought it would be better for us to meet in some quiet spot, perhaps at your flat. I agree, said Pereira, but not at my flat, enough of that, let us meet at one o’clock tomorrow at the Café Orquídea, would that suit you? Right you are, replied Monteiro Rossi, the Café Orquídea at one o’clock. Pereira shook hands and said: See you tomorrow. Since it was downhill all the way he thought he’d go home on foot. It was a splendid day and luckily a bracing Atlantic breeze had now sprung up. But he felt in no mood to appreciate the weather. He felt uneasy and would have liked to have a talk with someone, perhaps Father António, but Father António spent all day at the bedsides of his sick parishioners. He then bethought himself of having a chat with the photograph of his wife. So taking off his jacket he made his way slowly homewards, he maintains.

Pereira spent that night on the final stages of translating and editing Balzac’s Honorine. It was a hard job, but in his opinion it read pretty fluently, he maintains. He slept for three hours, from six until nine in the morning, then got up, had a cold bath, drank a cup of coffee and went to the office. The caretaker, whom he met on the stairs, gave him a surly look and a curt nod. He muttered a good morning, went on up to his room, sat down at the desk and dialled the number of Dr Costa, his medical adviser. Hullo, hullo Dr Costa, said Pereira, this is Pereira speaking. How are you feeling? enquired Dr Costa. I’m awfully short of breath, replied Pereira, I can’t climb stairs and I think I’ve put on several kilos, whenever I go for a stroll my heart starts thumping. I’ll tell you something, Pereira, said Dr Costa, I do a weekly consultancy at a thalassotherapeutic clinic at Parede, why don’t you spend a few days there? In a clinic? asked Pereira, why? Because the clinic at Parede has really good medical supervision, and what’s more they use natural remedies for cardiopathic and rheumatic cases, they give seaweed baths and massages and weight-losing treatment, and they have some first-rate French-trained doctors, it would do you good to have a bit of rest and supervision, Pereira, and the Parede clinic is just the place for you, if you like I can book you a room for tomorrow even, a nice cosy little room with a sea-view, a healthy life, seaweed baths, thalassotherapy, and I’ll be in to see you at least once, there are a few tubercular patients but they’re in a separate wing, there’s no danger of infection. Oh don’t imagine I’m worried about tuberculosis, replied Pereira, I spent most of my life with a consumptive and the disease never affected me at all, but that isn’t the problem, the problem is that they’ve put me in charge of the Saturday culture page and I can’t leave the office. Now then Pereira, said Dr Costa, get this straight, Parede is half-way between Lisbon and Cascais, it’s scarcely ten kilometres from here, if you want to write your articles at Parede and send them to Lisbon someone from the clinic comes to town every morning and could deliver them, and in any case your page only comes out once a week so if you prepare a couple of good long articles the page is ready for two Saturdays ahead, and furthermore let me tell you that health is more important than culture. Oh, very well, said Pereira, but two weeks is too long, one week’s rest is enough for me. Better than nothing, conceded Dr Costa. Pereira maintains that he resigned himself to spending a week in the thalassotherapeutic clinic at Parede, and authorized Dr Costa to book him a room for the following day, but made a point of specifying that he must first notify his editor-in-chief, as a matter of form. He hung up and began by dialling the number of the printer’s. He said he had a story of Balzac’s ready to set up in either two or three instalments, and that the culture page was therefore in hand for several weeks to come. What about the ‘Anniversaries’ column? asked the printer. No anniversaries for the moment, said Pereira, and don’t come to fetch the stuff from the office because I shan’t be here this afternoon, I’ll leave it in a sealed envelope at the Café Orquídea, near the kosher butcher. Then he called the exchange and asked the operator to connect him with the spa at Buçaco. He asked to speak to the editor-in-chief of the Lisboa . The editor is in the garden taking the sun, said the hotel clerk, I don’t know if I ought to disturb him. Disturb away, said Pereira, tell him it’s the culture editor on the line. The editor-in-chief came to the telephone and said: Hullo, chief editor here. Good morning sir, said Pereira, I have translated and edited a story by Balzac and there’s enough of it for two or three issues, and I’m calling because I have a mind to go for treatment at the thalassotherapeutic clinic at Parede, my heart condition is not improving and my doctor has advised this, do I have your permission? But what about the paper? asked the editor-in-chief. As I said sir, it is covered for at least two or three weeks, replied Pereira, and anyway I shall be a stone’s throw from Lisbon and will leave you the telephone number of the clinic, and naturally if there’s any trouble I shall hurry back to the office. But what about your assistant? said the editor-in-chief, could you not leave the assistant in charge? I would prefer not, replied Pereira, he has done me some obituaries but I’m not sure how serviceable they are, if some important writer dies I will look after it myself. Very well, said the editor-in-chief, take your week’s treatment Dr Pereira, after all there’s the assistant editor at the main office and he can deal with any problems that might arise. Pereira said goodbye and asked to be remembered to the gracious lady whose acquaintance he had made. He hung up and glanced at his watch. It was almost time to start for the Café Orquídea, but first he wanted to read that anniversary article on D’Annunzio, which he hadn’t had time for the previous evening. Pereira has kept it by him, so is in a position to produce it as evidence. It reads: ‘Exactly five months ago, at eight in the evening of March 1st 1938, died Gabriele D’Annunzio. At that time this newspaper did not have a culture page, but we are now in a position to speak of him. Was he a great poet, this Gabriele D’Annunzio whose real name incidentally was Rapagnetta? It is hard to give an answer, because we are his contemporaries and his works are still too fresh to us. Perhaps it makes better sense to speak of the figure of the man which intertwines with that of the artist. First and foremost, then, he was a Bard. He was also a lover of luxury, high society, magniloquence, action. He was a great decadent, a despoiler of the laws of morality, a devotee of the morbid and the erotic. From the German philosopher Nietzsche he inherited the myth of the superman, but he reduced it to the will to power of would-be aesthetic ideals which he exploited to construct the colourful kaleidoscope of a unique and inimitable career. In the Great War he was an interventionist, an implacable enemy of peace between nations. He achieved provocative feats of arms such as his flight over Vienna in 1918, when he scattered leaflets in Italian all over the city. After the war he organized the occupation of the city of Fiume, from which he was later expelled by Italian troops. Retiring to Gardone, to a villa which he himself named Vittoriale degli Italiani , he there led a dissolute and decadent life, marked by futile love affairs and erotic adventures. Fernando Pessoa nicknamed him Trombone Solo and maybe he had a point. Certainly the voice which comes over to us is not that of a delicate violin, but a brassy blare, a blustering trumpet. A life far from exemplary, a poet high-sounding and grandiose, a man much tarnished and compromised. Not an example to be followed, and it is for this very reason that we recall him here. Signed, Roxy.’