“Don’t worry about lawyers. Mine are infinitely more litigious-looking than the ones that couple of pustules use, and they’ve never lost a case. Leave all the legal details and litigation to me.”
r /> From the way he smiled when he uttered those words I thought it best never to have a meeting with the legal advisers for Éditions de la Lumière.
“I believe you. I suppose that leaves us with the question of what the other details of your offer are—the essential ones.”
“There’s no simple way of saying this, so I’d better get straight to the point.”
“Please do.”
Corelli leaned forward and locked his eyes on mine.
“Martín, I want you to create a religion for me.”
At first I thought I hadn’t heard him correctly.
“What did you say?”
Corelli held his gaze on mine, his eyes unfathomable.
“I said that I want you to create a religion for me.”
I stared at him for a long moment, thunderstruck.
“You’re pulling my leg.”
Corelli shook his head, sipping his wine with relish.
“I want you to muster all your talent and devote yourself body and soul, for one year, to working on the greatest story you have ever created: a religion.”
I couldn’t help bursting out laughing.
“You’re out of your mind. Is that your proposal? Is that the book you want me to write?”
Corelli nodded calmly.
“You’ve got the wrong writer. I don’t know anything about religion.”
“Don’t worry about that. I do. I’m not looking for a theologian. I’m looking for a narrator. Do you know what a religion is, Martín, my friend?”
“I can barely remember the Lord’s Prayer.”
“A beautiful and well-crafted prayer. Poetry aside, a religion is really a moral code that is expressed through legends, myths, or any type of literary device in order to establish a system of beliefs, values, and rules with which to regulate a culture or a society.”
“Amen,” I replied.
“As in literature or any other act of communication, what confers effectiveness on it is the form and not the content,” Corelli continued.
“You’re telling me that a doctrine amounts to a tale.”
“Everything is a tale, Martín. What we believe, what we know, what we remember, even what we dream. Everything is a story, a narrative, a sequence of events with characters communicating an emotional content. We only accept as true what can be narrated. Don’t tell me you’re not tempted by the idea.”
“I’m not.”
“Are you not tempted to create a story for which men and women would live and die, for which they would be capable of killing and allowing themselves to be killed, of sacrificing and condemning themselves, of handing over their souls? What greater challenge for your career than to create a story so powerful that it transcends fiction and becomes a revealed truth?”
We stared at each other for a few seconds.
“I think you know what my answer is,” I said at last.