“I’m quite lost. We were talking about legends and fables and now you’re telling me that I must think of the Bible as the word of God?”
A shadow of impatience and irritation clouded his eyes.
“I’m speaking figuratively. God isn’t a charlatan. The word is human currency.”
He smiled at me the way one smiles at a child who cannot understand the most elemental things. As I observed him, I realized that I found it impossible to know when he was talking seriously and when he was joking. As impossible as guessing at the purpose of the extravagant undertaking for which he was paying me such a princely sum. In the meantime the cable car was bobbing about like an apple on a tree lashed by a gale. Never had I thought so much about Isaac Newton.
“You’re a coward, Martín. This machine is completely safe.”
“I’ll believe it when I’m back on firm ground.”
We were nearing the midpoint of the journey, the tower of San Jaime, which rose up from the docks near the large Customs Building.
“Do you mind if we get off here?” I asked.
Corelli shrugged. I didn’t feel at ease until I was inside the tower’s lift and felt it touch the ground. When we walked out into the port we found a bench facing the sea and the slopes of Montjuïc. We sat down to watch the cable car flying high above us, me with a sense of relief, Corelli with longing.
“Tell me about your first impressions. What have these days of intensive study and reading suggested to you?”
I proceeded to summarize what I thought I’d learned, or unlearned, during those days. The publisher listened attentively, nodding and occasionally gesticulating with his hands. At the end of my report about the myths and beliefs of human beings, Corelli gave a satisfactory verdict.
“I think you’ve done an excellent work of synthesis. You haven’t found the proverbial needle in the haystack, but you’ve understood that the only thing that really matters in the whole pile of hay is the damned needle—the rest is just fodder for asses. Speaking of donkeys, tell me, are you interested in fables?”
“When I was small, for about two months I wanted to be Aesop.”
“We all give up great expectations along the way.”
“What did you want to be as a child, Señor Corelli?”
“God.”
He leered like a jackal, wiping the smile off my face.
“Martín, fables are possibly one of the most interesting literary forms ever invented. Do you know what they teach us?”
“Moral lessons?”
“No. They teach us that human beings learn and absorb ideas and concepts through narrative, through stories, not through lessons or theoretical speeches. This is what any of the great religious texts teach us. They’re all tales about characters who must confront life and overcome obstacles, figures setting off on a journey of spiritual enrichment through exploits and revelations. All holy books are, above all, great stories whose plots deal with the basic aspects of human nature, setting them within a particular moral context and a particular framework of supernatural dogmas. I was content for you to spend a dismal week reading theses, speeches, opinions, and comments so that you could discover for yourself that there is nothing to learn from them, because they’re nothing more than exercises in good or bad faith—usually unsuccessful—by people who are trying, in turn, to understand. The professorial conversations are over. From now on I’ll ask you to start reading the stories of the Brothers Grimm, the tragedies of Aeschylus, the Ramayana, or the Celtic legends. Please yourself. I want you to analyze how these texts work. I want you to distill their essence and find out why they provoke an emotional reaction. I want you to learn the grammar, not the moral. And I want you to bring me something of your own in two or three weeks’ time, the beginning of a story. I want you to make me believe.”
“I thought we were professionals and couldn’t commit the sin of believing in anything.”
Corelli smiled, baring his teeth.
“One can convert only a sinner, never a saint.”
13
The days passed. Accustomed as I was to years of living alone and to that state of methodical and undervalued anarchy common to bachelors, the continued presence of a woman in the house, even though she was an unruly adolescent with a volatile temper, was beginning to play havoc with my daily routine. I believed in controlled disorder; Isabella didn’t. I believed that objects find their own place in the chaos of a household; Isabella didn’t. I believed in solitude and silence; Isabella didn’t. In just a couple of days I discovered that I was no longer able to find anything in my own home. If I was looking for a paper knife or a glass or a pair of shoes, I had to ask Isabella where Providence had kindly inspired her to hide them.
“I don’t hide anything. I put things in their place. Which is different.”
Not a day went by when I didn’t feel the urge to strangle her half a dozen times. When I took refuge in my study, searching for peace and quiet in which to think, Isabella would appear after a few minutes, a smile on her face, bringing me a cup of tea or some biscuits. She would wander around the study, look out the window, tidy everything I had on my desk, and then would ask me what I was doing there, so quiet and mysterious. I discovered that seventeen-year-old girls have such huge verbal energy that their brains drive them to expend it every twenty seconds. On the third day I decided I had to find her a boyfriend—if possible a deaf one.
“Isabella, how is it that a girl as attractive as you has no suitors?”
“Who says I don’t?”
“Isn’t there any boy you like?”