Pereira Maintains

SIXTEEN

By eight o’clock on the dot Dr Cardoso was seated at table in the restaurant. Pereira also arrived on time, he maintains, and before making his way to their table, wearing his grey suit and black tie, he stood for a moment taking in the scene. There were about fifty people in the room, all of them older than him, he was pretty certain of that, mostly elderly couples dining at tables for two. The thought that he was one of the youngest there made him feel a bit better, he maintains, it bucked him up to think he wasn’t that old after all. Dr Cardoso gave him a smile and began to get to his feet, but Pereira held up a restraining hand. Well Dr Cardoso, said Pereira, I am in your hands as regards this meal as well. In that case a glass of mineral water on an empty stomach is always a good rule of health, said Dr Cardoso. Fizzy, pleaded Pereira. Fizzy let it be then, conceded Dr Cardoso, and he filled his glass for him. Pereira drank it down, felt slightly sick, and longed for a lemonade. Dr Pereira, said Dr Cardoso, I’d be interested to know your future plans for the culture page of the Lisboa, I really enjoyed the anniversary article on Pessoa, and also the Maupassant story (extremely well translated, incidentally). I translated it myself, admitted Pereira, but I don’t care to sign my work. You’re wrong there, said Dr Cardoso, you ought to sign it, especially the best pieces, but what does your paper have up its sleeve for us now? As things stand, Dr Cardoso, said Pereira, for the next three or four issues there’s a story by Balzac, it’s called Honorine, I wonder if you know it. Dr Cardoso shook his head. It’s a story about repentance, said Pereira, a beautiful story that has to do with repentance, so much so that I read it as autobiography. What! our great Balzac repented! exclaimed Dr Cardoso. Pereira was silent for a moment, wrapped in thought, then: Forgive me for asking, Dr Cardoso, he said, but you told me earlier this evening that you got your degree in France, what exactly did you get it in, if I may ask? I qualified in medi-cine and then specialized in two fields, dietology and psychology, replied Dr Cardoso. I don’t see the connection between the two, said Pereira, please forgive me but I simply don’t see it. There may be more connection than most people think, said Dr Cardoso, I don’t know if you can begin to conceive the interplay between our bodies and our psyches, there’s a lot more of it than I think you realize, but you were telling me that this story of Balzac’s is an autobiographical story. Oh that’s not what I meant at all, replied Pereira, I meant that I read it as having a bearing on myself, that I recognized myself in it. In the repentance? asked Dr Cardoso. Yes, said Pereira, I did in a way, even if rather obliquely, or perhaps marginally is the word I want, let’s say that I recognized myself marginally.

Dr Cardoso beckoned to the waitress. Let’s have fish this evening, said Dr Cardoso, I would rather you had it grilled or boiled, but you can have it some other way if you like. I had grilled fish for lunch, pleaded Pereira, and plain boiled it really doesn’t appeal to me, it smacks too much of hospitals and I don’t like to think of myself as being in a hospital, I prefer to think I’m in a hotel, what I’d really like would be a sole meunière. Perfect, said Dr Cardoso, sole meunière with buttered carrots, I’ll join you. Then he came right back to the subject and said: What exactly is marginal repentance? Well, your having studied psychology makes it easier for me to talk to you, said Pereira, perhaps I’d do even better to discuss it with my friend Father António, who after all is a priest, but then again he might not understand, because priests are people we have to confess our sins to, and I don’t feel guilty of anything in particular, I just have this desire for repentance, I feel a real yearning for repentance. Maybe you ought to go more deeply into the matter Dr Pereira, said Dr Cardoso, and if you care to do so with me I am at your service. Well, said Pereira, it’s a strange sort of feeling there on the very edge of myself, and that’s why I call it marginal, the fact is that on the one hand I’m happy to have lived the life I have, happy to have taken my degree at Coimbra, to have married a sick woman who spent her life in and out of sanatoriums, to have been a crime reporter for so many years on a leading paper and finally to have accepted this job of editing the culture page of a second-rate evening paper, and yet at the same time it’s as if I had an urge to repent of my life, if you see what I mean.

Dr Cardoso took a forkful of sole meunière and Pereira followed suit. I would need to know more about these last few months of your life, said Dr Cardoso, perhaps there has been some event. Event in what sense, asked Pereira, how exactly do you mean? Event is a term used in psycho-analysis, said Dr Cardoso, personally I don’t believe all that much in Freud because I’m a syncretist, but I do believe that on this question of the event he is certainly right, and by an event he means something that actually happens in our lives to upset or disturb our convictions and peace of mind, in short an event is something which occurs in our everyday life and has an impact on the life of our psyche, and I am asking you to consider whether there has not recently been such a thing in your own life. Yes, said Pereira, I have met someone, in fact two people, a young man and a girl. Tell me about them, said Dr Cardoso. Well, said Pereira, the fact is that for my culture page I needed advance obituaries of any leading writers who might possibly die, and the person in question had written a thesis on death, it’s true that he copied some of it, but it seemed to me at first that he understood what death is all about, so I took him on as an assistant to do the advance obituaries, and he actually has done me a few, and I’ve paid him out of my own pocket because I haven’t wanted to charge it to the Lisboa, but his stuff is all unpublishable, because that lad has his head full of politics and writes every obituary thinking of nothing but politics, though honestly I think it’s his girl who’s putting these ideas into his head, you know, fascism, socialism, civil war in Spain and things of that sort, and they’re all unpublishable articles as I said, and so far I’ve paid him out of my own pocket. There’s no harm in that, said Dr Cardoso, after all you’re only risking your own cash. That’s not the point, stated Pereira, the fact is that I’ve been stricken with misgiving, what I mean is what if those two youngsters are right? In that case they’re right, said Dr Cardoso gently, but that’s for History to say, not you, Dr Pereira. True enough, said Pereira, but if they were right my life wouldn’t make any sense, it wouldn’t make any sense to have read literature at Coimbra and always thought that literature was the most important thing in the world, there’d be no sense in my editing the culture page of this evening rag where I can’t say what I want to say and have to publish nineteenth-century French stories, in fact nothing would make any sense at all, and this is why I feel I need to repent, just as if I were someone else entirely, and not the Pereira who’s spent all his working life as a journalist, and it’s as if there were something I had to apologize for.

Dr Cardoso beckoned the waitress and ordered two fruit salads, no sugar or ice-cream please. Then: I have a question for you, said Dr Cardoso, and that is, are you acquainted with the médecins-philosophes? No I’m not, admitted Pereira, who are they? The leaders of this school of thought are Théodule Ribot and Pierre Janet, said Dr Cardoso, it was their work I studied in Paris, they are doctors and psychologists, but also philosophers, and they hold a theory I think interesting, the theory of the confederation of souls. Tell me about it, said Pereira. Well, said Dr Cardoso, it means that to believe in a ‘self’ as a distinct entity, quite distinct from the infinite variety of all the other ‘selves’ that we have within us, is a fallacy, the naive illusion of the single unique soul we inherit from Christian tradition, whereas Dr Ribot and Dr Janet see the personality as a confederation of numerous souls, because within us we each have numerous souls, don’t you think, a confederation which agrees to put itself under the government of one ruling ego. Dr Cardoso made a brief pause and then continued: What we think of as ourselves, our inward being, is only an effect, not a cause, and what’s more it is subject to the control of a ruling ego which has imposed its will on the confederation of our souls, so in the case of another ego arising, one stronger and more powerful, this ego overthrows the first ruling ego, takes its place and acquires the chieftainship of the cohort of souls, or rather the confederation, and remains in power until it is in turn overthrown by yet another ruling ego, either by frontal attack or by slow nibbling away. It may be, concluded Dr Cardoso, that after slowly nibbling away in you some ruling ego is gaining the chieftainship of your confederation of souls, Dr Pereira, and there’s nothing you can do about it except perhaps give it a helping hand whenever you get the chance.

Dr Cardoso finished his fruit salad and dabbed his lips on his napkin. So what do you suggest I should do? asked Pereira. Nothing, replied Dr Cardoso, just wait, perhaps after this slow nibbling away, after all these years you’ve spent in journalism working on crime cases and thinking that literature is all the world to you, there’s a new ruling ego taking over the chieftainship of your confederation of souls, and you must let it come to the surface, there’s really no other way out, you wouldn’t bring it off and you’d only come into conflict with yourself, so if you wish to repent of your life go ahead and repent, and if you wish to tell a priest go ahead and tell him, and in a word, Dr Pereira, if you’re beginning to think that those youngsters are in the right and that your life up to now has been worthless, go ahead and think it, perhaps from now on your life will no longer seem worthless, let yourself be guided by your new ruling ego and don’t go compensating for the pain it gives you by stuffing yourself with grub and lemonade stacked with sugar.

Pereira finished his fruit salad and untied the napkin from round his neck. It’s very interesting, this theory of yours, he said, I’ll think it over, I’d now like a cup of coffee, if that’s all right with you? Coffee induces insomnia, said Dr Cardoso, but if you don’t wish to sleep that’s up to you, the seaweed baths take place twice a day, at nine in the morning and five in the afternoon, I’d like you to be on time tomorrow morning, I’m sure a seaweed bath will do you a lot of good.

Goodnight then, mumbled Pereira. He got up to leave, took a step or two, then turned. Dr Cardoso was smiling at him, and Pereira promised he’d be there on the dot of nine, he maintains.