The tower of San Sebastián stood one hundred meters high amid a jumble of cables and steel that induced vertigo if one merely looked at them. The cable railway crossed the docks from that first tower to a huge central structure reminiscent of the Eiffel Tower that served as the junction. From there the cable cars departed, suspended in midair, for the second part of the journey up to Montjuïc, where the heart of the exhibition was located. This technological marvel promised views of the city that until then had been the preserve only of airships, birds with a large wingspan, and hailstones. From my point of view, men and seagulls were not supposed to share the same air space and as soon as I set foot in the lift that went up the tower I felt my stomach shrink to the size of a marble. The journey up seemed endless, the jolting of that brass capsule an exercise in pure nausea.
I found Corelli gazing through one of the large windows that looked out over the docks, his eyes lost among watercolors of sails and masts as they slid across the water. He wore a white silk suit and was toying with a sugar lump, which he proceeded to swallow with an animal voracity. I cleared my throat and the boss turned round, smiling with pleasure.
“A marvelous view, don’t you think?”
I nodded tentatively.
“You don’t like heights?”
“I like to keep my feet on the ground as much as possible,” I replied, maintaining a prudent distance from the window.
“I’ve gone ahead
and bought return tickets,” he informed me.
“What a kind thought.”
I followed him to the footbridge from which one stepped into the cars that departed from the tower and traveled, suspended a sickening height above the ground, for what looked like a horribly long time.
“How did you spend the week, Martín?”
“Reading.”
He glanced at me briefly.
“By your bored expression I suspect it was not Alexandre Dumas.”
“A collection of dandruffy academics and their leaden prose.”
“Ah, intellectuals. And you wanted me to sign one up. Why is it that the less one has to say the more one says it in the most pompous and pedantic way possible?” Corelli asked. “Is it to fool the world or just to fool themselves?”
“Probably both.”
The boss handed me the tickets and signaled to me to go first. I showed the tickets to the person holding the cable car door open and entered unenthusiastically. I decided to stand in the center, as far as possible from the windows. Corelli smiled like an excited child.
“Perhaps part of your problem is that you’ve been reading the commentators and not the people they were commenting on. A common mistake but fatal when you’re trying to learn something,” Corelli observed.
The doors closed and a sudden jerk sent us into orbit. I held on to a metal pole and took a deep breath.
“I sense that scholars and theoreticians are no heroes of yours,” I said.
“I have no heroes, my friend, still less those who cover themselves or one another in glory. Theory is the practice of the impotent. I suggest that you put aside the encyclopedists’ accounts and go straight to the sources. Tell me, have you read the Bible?”
I hesitated for a moment. The cable car lurched on into the void. I looked at the floor.
“Fragments here and there, I suppose,” I mumbled.
“You suppose. Like almost everyone. A serious mistake. Everyone should read the Bible. And reread it. Believers or nonbelievers, it doesn’t matter. I read it at least once a year. It’s my favorite book.”
“And are you a believer or a skeptic?” I asked.
“I’m a professional. And so are you. What we believe or don’t believe is irrelevant as far as our work is concerned. To believe or to disbelieve is a pointless act. Either one knows or one doesn’t. And that’s all there is to it.”
“Then I confess that I don’t know anything.”
“Follow that path and you’ll find the footsteps of the great philosophers. And along the way read the Bible from start to finish. It’s one of the greatest stories ever told. Don’t make the mistake of confusing the word of God with the missal industry that lives off it.”
The longer I spent in the company of the publisher the less I understood him.