Pereira Maintains

TWO

In the afternoon the weather changed, Pereira maintains. The sea-breeze suddenly lulled, in from the Atlantic rolled a dense bank of haze, and the city was soon enveloped in a shroud of heat. Before leaving his office Pereira consulted the thermometer, bought at his own expense and hanging on the back of the door. It showed thirty-eight degrees. Pereira switched off the fan, he passed the caretaker on the stairs, she said good evening Dr Pereira, once more he inhaled the stench of frying hovering on the staircase and at last emerged into the open. Directly across the road stood the public market of the neighbourhood, with two trucks of the Guarda Nacional Republicana parked outside. Pereira knew that all the markets were in a state of unrest because the day before, in Alentejo, the police had killed a carter who supplied the markets, because he was a Socialist. This explained why the Guarda Nacional were stationed outside the market gates. But the Lisboa hadn’t had the courage to print the news, or rather the assistant editor hadn’t, because the editor-in-chief was on holiday at Buçaco, enjoying the cool air and the waters, and who could be expected to have the courage to print news of that sort, that a Socialist carter had been shot down on his wagon in Alentejo and had drenched all his melons with his blood? No one, because the country was gagged, it had no choice, and meanwhile people were dying and the police had things all their own way. Pereira broke out in sweat, he was thinking of death again. And he thought: this City reeks of death, the whole of Europe reeks of death.

He went along to the Café Orquídea, only a few steps down the road just past the kosher butcher, and sat down at a table inside, where at least there were electric fans. Outside it was quite impossible because of the heat. He ordered a lemonade, went to the gents to rinse his face and hands, ordered a cigar and an evening paper, and Manuel the waiter brought him the Lisboa of all things. He hadn’t seen the proofs that day, so he leafed through it as if it were any other paper. The first page announced: ‘World’s Most Luxurious Yacht Sailed Today from New York.’ Pereira stared at the headline for a long time and then looked at the photograph. It showed a group of people in straw hats and shirtsleeves opening bottles of champagne. Pereira broke out in sweat, he maintains, and his thoughts turned again to the resurrection of the body. If I rise from the dead, he thought, will I be stuck with these people in straw hats? He really imagined himself being stuck with those yacht people in some unspecified harbour in eternity. And eternity appeared to him as an insufferable place shrouded in muggy haze, with people speaking English and proposing toasts and exclaiming: Chin chin! Pereira ordered another lemonade. He wondered whether he should go home and have a cool bath or go and call on his priest friend, Don António of the church of the Mercês, who had been his confessor some years before when his wife died, and to whom he paid a monthly visit. He thought the best thing was to go and see Don António, perhaps it would do him good.

So he went. Pereira maintains that on that occasion he forgot to pay his bill. He got to his feet in a daze, his thoughts elsewhere, and simply walked out, leaving his newspaper on the table along with his hat, maybe because it was so hot he didn’t want to wear it anyway, or else because he was like that, objects didn’t mean much to him.

Pereira found Father Antonio a perfect wreck, he maintains. He had great bags under his eyes and looked as if he hadn’t slept for a week. Pereira asked him what was the matter and Father António said: What, haven’t you heard? they’ve murdered a carter on his own cart in Alentejo, and there are workers on strike, here in the city and all over the country, are you living in another world, and you working on a newspaper? look here, Pereira, for goodness’ sake go and find out what’s happening around you.

Pereira maintains that he was upset by this brief exchange and the way in which he had been sent packing. He asked himself: Am I living in another world? And he was struck by the odd notion that perhaps he was not alive at all, it was as if he were dead. Ever since his wife’s death he had been living as if he were dead. Or rather, he did nothing but think of death, of the resurrection of the body which he didn’t believe in and nonsense of that sort, and perhaps his life was merely a remnant and a pretence. And he felt done in, he maintains. He managed to drag himself to the nearest tram stop and board a tram that took him as far as Terreiro do Paço. Through the window he watched Lisbon gliding slowly by, his Lisbon: the Avenida da Liberdade with its fine buildings, then the English-style Praça do Rossio, and at Terreiro do Paço he got out and took another tram up the hill towards the Castle. He left it when it reached the Cathedral because he lived close by, in Rua da Saudade. He made heavy weather of it up the steep ramp to where he lived. There he rang the bell for the caretaker because he couldn’t be bothered to hunt for the key of the street door, and she, who was also his daily, came to open it. Dr Pereira, said she, I’ve fried you a chop for supper. Pereira thanked her and toiled up the stairs, took the key from under the doormat where he always kept it, and let himself in. In the hallway he paused in front of the bookcase, on which stood a photograph of his wife. He had taken that photo himself, in Nineteen Twenty-Seven, during a trip to Madrid, and looming in the background was the vast bulk of the Escorial. Sorry if I’m a bit late, said Pereira.

Pereira maintains that for some time past he had been in the habit of talking to this photo of his wife. He told it what he had done during the day, confided his thoughts to it, asked it for advice. It seems that I’m living in another world, said Pereira to the photograph, even Father António told me so, the problem is that all I do is think about death, it seems to me that the whole world is dead or on the point of death. And then Pereira thought about the child they hadn’t had. He had longed for one, but he couldn’t ask so much of that frail suffering woman who spent sleepless nights and long stretches in the sanatorium. And this grieved him. For if he’d had a son, a grown-up son to sit at table with and talk to, he would not have needed to talk to that picture taken on a trip so long ago he could scarcely remember it. And he said: Well, never mind, which was how he always took leave of his wife’s photograph. Then he went into the kitchen, sat down at the table and took the cover off the pan with the fried chop in it. The chop was cold, but he couldn’t be bothered to heat it up. He always ate it as it was, as the caretaker had left it for him: cold. He made quick work of it, went to the bathroom, washed under his arms, put on a clean shirt, a black tie and a dab of the Spanish scent remaining in a flask he had bought in Madrid in Nineteen Twenty-Seven. Then he put on a grey jacket and left the flat to make his way to Praça da Alegria. It was already nine o’clock, Pereira maintains.