“You choose the label.”
“If I understand you correctly, you’re suggesting that faith, the act of believing in myths, ideologies, or supernatural legends, is the consequence of biology.”
“That’s exactly right.”
“A rather cynical view, coming from a publisher of religious texts,” I remarked.
“A dispassionate and professional view,” Corelli explained. “Human beings believe just as they breathe—in order to survive.”
“Is that your theory?”
“It’s not a theory, it’s a statistic.”
“It occurs to me that at least three-quarters of the world would disagree with that assertion,” I said.
“Of course. If they agreed they wouldn’t be potential believers. Nobody can really be convinced of something he or she doesn’t need to believe in through some biological imperative.”
“Are you suggesting then that it is part of our nature to be deceived?”
“It is part of our nature to survive. Faith is an instinctive response to aspects of existence that we cannot explain by any other means, be it the moral void we perceive in the universe, the certainty of death, the mystery of the origin of things, the meaning of our lives, or the absence of meaning. These are basic and extremely simple aspects of existence, but our limitations prevent us from responding in an unequivocal way and for that reason we generate an emotional response, as a defense mechanism. It’s pure biology.”
“According to you, then, all beliefs or ideals are nothing more than fiction.”
“All interpretation or observation of reality is necessarily fiction. In this case, the problem is that man is a moral animal abandoned in an amoral universe and condemned to a finite existence with no other purpose than to perpetuate the natural cycle of the species. It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality, at least for a human being. We spend a good part of our lives dreaming, especially when we’re awake. As I said, pure biology.”
I sighed.
“And after all this, you want me to invent a fable that will make the unwary fall on their knees and persuade them that they have seen the light, that there is something to believe in, something to live and die for—even to kill for?”
“Exactly. I’m not asking you to invent anything that hasn’t already been invented, one way or another. I’m only asking you to help me give water to the thirsty.”
“A praiseworthy and pious proposition,” I said with irony.
“No, simply a commercial proposition. Nature is one huge free market. The law of supply and demand is a molecular fact.”
“Perhaps you should find an intellectual to do this job. I can assure you that most of them have never seen a hundred thousand francs in their lives. I bet they’d be prepared to sell their souls, or even invent them, for a fraction of that amount.”
The metallic glow in his eyes made me suspect that Corelli was about to deliver another of his hard-hitting pocket sermons. I visualized the credit in my account at the Banco Hispano Colonial and told myself that a hundred thousand francs were well worth the price of listening to a mass or a collection of homilies.
“An intellectual is usually someone who isn’t exactly distinguished by his intellect,” Corelli asserted. “He claims that label to compensate for his inadequacies. It’s as old as that saying: Tell me what you boast of and I’ll tell you what you lack. Our daily bread. The incompetent always present themselves as experts, the cruel as pious, sinners as devout, usurers as benefactors, the small-minded as patriots, the arrogant as humble, the vulgar as elegant, and the feeble-minded as intellectual. Once again, it’s all the work of nature. Far from being the sylph to whom poets sing, nature is a cruel, voracious mother who needs to feed on the creatures she gives birth to in order to stay alive.”
Corelli and his fierce biological poetics were beginning to make me feel queasy. I was uncomfortable at the barely contained vehemence of his words, and I wondered whether there was anything in the universe that did not seem repugnant and despicable to him, including me.
“You should give inspirational talks in schools and churches on Palm Sunday. You’d be a tremendous success,” I suggested.
Corelli laughed coldly.
“Don’t change the subject. What I’m searching for is the opposite of an intellectual—in other words, someone intelligent. And I have found that person.”
“You flatter me.”
“Better still, I pay you. And I pay you very well, which is the only real form of flattery in this whorish world. Never accept medals unless they come printed on the back of a check. They benefit only those who give them. And since I’m paying you, I expect you to listen and follow my instructions. Believe me when I say that I have no interest at all in making you waste your time. While you’re in my pay, your time is also my time.”
His tone was friendly, but his eyes shone like steel and left no room for misunderstanding.
“You don’t need to remind me every five minutes.”
“Forgive my insistence, dear Martín. If I’m making your head spin with all these details it’s only because I’m trying to get them out of the way sooner rather than later. What I want from you is the form, not the content. The content is always the same and has been in place since human life began. It’s engraved in your heart with a serial number. What I want you to do is find an intelligent and seductive way of answering the questions we all ask ourselves, and you should do so using your own reading of the human soul, putting into practice your art and your profession. I want you to bring me a narrative that awakens the soul.”