The Collected Novels of José Saramago

by José Saramago

  Pedro Orce will sleep alone in a house of his choice with the dog for company. Should he decide to go for a nocturnal stroll, he's free to go out and return whenever he wishes, and this time the other men will not sleep apart from their women, Joaquim Sassa will finally be back sleeping with Maria Guavaira and José Anaiço with Joana Carda, they've probably already said all they had to say to each other and they might go on talking into the night, but human nature being what it is, out of weariness and displeasure, out of tender sympathy and sudden love, it's only natural for a man and a woman to come together, to exchange a first, uncertain kiss, and then, blessed be whoever made us so, the body awakens and desires the other body, it might be madness, it might, for the scars still throb, but the aura grows, if Pedro Orce should be walking along these slopes at this hour, he will see two houses lit up in the village, perhaps he'll feel jealous, perhaps tears will come to his eyes once more, but he will not know that at this moment the reconciled lovers are sobbing in joyful sorrow and in sudden flaring passion. Tomorrow will truly be another day, it will no longer be important to decide who should travel inside the wagon and who in the driver's seat, all combinations are now possible and none of them ambiguous.

  The horses are tired, the slopes are never ending and ever upward. José Anaiço and Joaquim Sassa went to have a quiet word with Pedro Orce, using the utmost tact lest their motives be misunderstood. They wanted to know if he thought they had seen enough of the Pyrenees or if he wanted to carry on until they reached the uppermost summits, and Pedro Orce replied that it was not so much the summits that attracted him as the end of the earth, although he was aware that from the end of the earth one always sees the same sea. That's why we didn't go in the direction of Donostia, what's so special about looking at a beach that has been cut in two, of standing at the edge of the sand with water on either side. But for us to see the sea from such a height, I'm not sure that the horses can make it, rejoined José Anaiço. We don't need to climb two or three thousand meters, assuming there are actually trails all the way up, but I'd rather we went on climbing until we see for ourselves. They opened the map. Running his finger between Navascués and Burgui, and then pointing in the direction of the frontier, Joaquim Sassa said, We must be about here. There don't seem to be any great elevations on this side, the road follows the river Esca, then moves away to keep on climbing, here's where things start to get difficult, on the other side there's a peak of more than one thousand seven hundred meters. There isn't any longer. There was, said José Anaiço. Yes, of course, there was, agreed Joaquim Sassa, I must ask Maria Guavaira for some scissors to cut the map along the frontier. We could try this path and if it gets too hard on the horses we can always turn back, suggested Pedro Orce.

  It took them two days to reach their destination. At night they could hear the wolves howling in the hills, and they were apprehensive. People from the lowlands, they suddenly became aware of the danger they were facing. Should wild beasts invade the encampment, they would first savage the horses, then attack any human beings. If only they had a gun with which to defend themselves. Pedro Orce confessed, It's my fault that we're running these risks, let's turn back, but Maria Guavaira replied, Let's go on, the dog is here to protect us. A dog can't do much when confronted by a pack of wolves, Joaquim Sassa reminded her, This one can, and however strange this may seem to anyone who knows more about these things than the narrator, Maria Guavaira was right. One night the wolves came fairly close, the terrified horses began neighing, such anguish, and pulling at their tethers, the men and women looked around to see where they might take shelter from an attack, only Maria Guavaira insisted, though she was trembling, They won't come, and she repeated, They won't come. They kept the bonfire blazing all through that sleepless night, and the wolves drew no closer. Meanwhile, the dog appeared to grow bigger in the circle of light. The flickering shadows created the impression that heads, tongues, and teeth were multiplying, nothing but an op tical illusion, human forms expanded, swelled out of all proportion, and the wolves went on howling, but only because of their fear of other wolves.

  The road had been severed, truly severed in the literal sense of the word. To both left and right, the mountains and valleys were suddenly cut off in a clean line, as if sliced with a blade or cut out of the sky. The travelers, now some way from the wagon, which the dog was guarding, advanced cautiously and in dread. About a hundred meters from the scission there was a customs post. They went inside. Two typewriters still stood there, one with a sheet of paper stuck in the roller, a customs form with some words typed on it. The cold wind penetrated an open window and rustled the papers lying on the floor. There were scattered feathers. The world is coming to an end, Joana Carda exclaimed. Then let's go and see how it's ending, suggested Pedro Orce. They left. They trod cautiously, worried that cracks might suddenly appear in the ground, a clear sign that the land is unstable. José Anaiço was the one who remembered this, but the road looked smooth and even, with only an occasional bump caused by wear and tear. Ten meters from the gap, Joaquim Sassa said, Better not get too close on foot in case we get dizzy, I'm going to crawl. They got down on all fours and advanced, at first on their hands and knees, then dragging themselves along the ground, they could hear their hearts pounding in uneasiness and fear, sweating profusely despite the intense cold, asking themselves whether they would be brave enough to reach the edge of the abyss, but none of them wished to look like a coward, and almost in a trance they found themselves looking out to sea at an altitude of about one thousand eight hundred meters, the escarpment a sheer vertical cut and the sea shimmering below, the tiniest of waves in the distance and white spume where the ocean waves thrashed against the mountain as if trying to dislodge it. Pedro Orce cried out in exaltation, jubilant in his grief, The world is coming to an end, he was repeating Joana Carda's words, and they all repeated them. My God, happiness exists, said the unknown voice, and perhaps that's all it is, sea, light, and vertigo.

  The world is full of coincidences, and if one thing does not coincide with another that happens to be close to it, that is no reason for denying coincidences, all it means is that what is coinciding is not visible. At the exact moment that the travelers were leaning over the sea, the peninsula came to a halt. No one there noticed what had happened, there was no jolt as it braked, no sudden loss of balance, no impression of rigidity. It was only two days later, at the first inhabited spot they came to after descending from the magnificent heights, that they heard the astounding news. But Pedro Orce said, If they maintain that the peninsula has come to a halt, it must be true, but speaking for myself and Constant, I swear to you that the earth is still shaking. As he spoke, Pedro Orce's hand was resting on the dog's back.

  Newspapers throughout the world, some putting it on the front page beneath a banner headline, published the historic photograph that showed the peninsula, which perhaps we should now definitively call an island, sitting quietly out in the middle of the ocean, maintaining its position with millimetric precision in relation to the cardinal points by which the earth is ruled and guided, with Oporto as far north of Lisbon as ever, Granada as far south of Madrid as it has been since Madrid came into being, and all the rest with the same familiar contours. The journalists concentrated their imaginative powers almost exclusively on divising bold, dramatic headlines, inasmuch as the geological displacement, or rather the tectonic enigma, continued to unfold, as indecipherable now as on the first day. Fortunately, the pressure of public opinion, for want of a better expression, had diminished, people had stopped asking questions, they were satisfied with the suggestive power of certain striking comparisons, The Birth of a New Atlantis, A Piece Has Moved on the Universal Chessboard, A Link Between America and Europe, An Apple of Discord Between Europe and America, A Battlefield for the Future, but the headline that made the deepest impression was the one in a Portuguese newspaper that read The Need for a New Treaty of Tordesilla, this is truly the simplicity of genius, the author of the idea looked at the map an
d verified that, give or take a kilometer or two, the peninsula would be situated on the line that in those glorious days had divided the world into two parts, one for me, one for you, one for me.

  In an unsigned editorial it was proposed that the two peninsular countries adopt a joint and complementary strategy that would make them the pointer on the scales of world politics, Portugal facing west, toward the United States, Spain turned to the east, toward Europe. A Spanish newspaper, anxious to come up with something equally original, advocated an administrative plan whereby Madrid would become the political center of this entire strategy, on the pretext that the Spanish capital is situated, as it were, at the geometric center of the peninsula, which is not even true if one looks at the map, but there are people who have no qualms about the means used to achieve their objective. The chorus of protests did not come only from Portugal, the autonomous Spanish regions also rebelled against the proposal, which they saw as further proof of Castilian centralism. On the Portuguese side, as one might have expected, there was a sudden revival of interest in the occult and in esoteric sciences, this did not go very far, simply because the situation changed radically, nevertheless it lasted long enough to sell out every copy of Padre António Vieira's History of the Future and The Prophesies of Bandana, as well as Fernando Pessoa's Mensagem, but that goes without saying.

  From the standpoint of realpolitik, discussion of the problem in European and American foreign ministries centered on spheres of influence, that is to say on whether, ignoring the question of distance, the peninsula or island should preserve its natural ties with Europe, or whether, without entirely severing them, it should orient itself rather toward the ideals and destiny of the great American nation. With no hope of exerting any clear influence in the matter, the Russians pointed out time and time again that nothing should be decided without their participation in the discussions, and meantime reinforced the fleet that from the outset had been accompanying the errant peninsula under the watchful eye, needless to say, of the fleets of the other powers, the Americans, the British, and the French.

  It was within the framework of these negotiations that the United States informed Portugal, in an audience, urgently requested by Ambassador Charles Dickens, with the President of the Republic, that the continuance of a government of national salvation made no sense whatsoever once the circumstances no longer prevailed that had been adduced, In the most dubious fashion, Mr. President, if you will allow me to express an opinion, to justify its constitution. This tactless remark became public indirectly, not because the relevant ministries of the Presidency had made any public announcement, or through any statements made by the Ambassador as he left the Palace of Belém, in fact he simply remarked that his discussions with the President had been very frank and constructive. But that was enough for the members of the governments representing the parties who would inevitably have to go, were the government to be reshuffled or a general election called, to launch an attack on the Ambassador's intolerable meddling. The internal problems of Portugal, they declared, must be solved by the Portuguese, adding with spiteful irony, Just because the Ambassador wrote David Copperfield doesn't entitle him to come and give orders in the land of Camoèns and The Lusiads. At this point, the peninsula, with no warning, started moving again.

  Pedro Orce had been right when he said, there at the foot of the Pyrenees, It may have stopped, fine, but it's still trembling, and so as not to be the only one to say so, he had put his hand on Constant's back, the dog was also trembling, as the others were themselves able to confirm, repeating the unique experience of Joaquim Sassa and José Anaiço beneath the Cordovan olive tree, in the arid lands between Orce and Venta Micena. But now, and the shock was general and universal, the movement was neither westward nor eastward, neither to the south nor to the north. The peninsula was turning on itself, widdershins, counterclockwise, that is, which, once made public, immediately caused the Portuguese and the Spaniards to suffer from dizziness, although the speed of rotation was anything but vertiginous. In the face of this decidedly unusual phenomenon, which threatened to jeopardize all the laws of physics, especially the mechanical ones, by which the earth had governed itself, all political negotiations, alliances made behind closed doors or in corridors, and diplomatic maneuvers, whether direct or step by step, were broken off. And we must agree that it could not have been easy to keep calm, when one knew, for example, that the table at the council of ministers, along with the building, the street, the city, the country, and the entire peninsula, was whirling like a turntable going around and around as if in a dream. Those who were more sensitive swore they could feel a circular motion, while admitting that they could not feel the earth itself going around in space. To show what they meant, they stretched out their arms seeking something to hold onto, but they did not always succeed, sometimes they even fell down, ending up on their backs on the ground, where they watched the sky slowly turning, at night the stars and the moon, during the day, with a smoked lens, the sun. Some doctors were of the opinion that these were nothing but manifestations of hysteria.

  Obviously, more radical skeptics were in good supply, go on, the peninsula turning around on itself, simply impossible, sliding would be one thing, everybody knows about landslides and what happens to an escarpment when there is a heavy rainfall could also happen to a peninsula even without rain, but all this talk about rotation would imply that the peninsula was wrenching itself from its own axis, not only is such a thing objectively impossible, but it would inevitably cause the central core to snap off, sooner or later, and then we would certainly be adrift with no moorings whatsoever, at the mercy of the whims of fate. These skeptics were forgetting that the rotation might instead resemble that of a plate revolving on top of another, note that this lamellar schist is composed, as the name implies, of thin layers of shale placed one over the other. If the adhesion between two of them should loosen, the one could revolve quite easily on top of the other, thus maintaining, theoretically speaking, a certain degree of union between them that would prevent total separation. That's precisely what's happening, asserted those who defended the theory. And for confirmation, they sent divers once more to the bottom of the sea, as far down as possible into the bowels of the ocean, and with them went the Archimedes, the Cyana, and a Japanese vessel with an unpronounceable name. As a result of all these efforts, the Italian investigator repeated those famous words, he emerged from the water, opened the hatch, and spoke into the microphones of television stations throughout the world, It cannot move and yet it moves. There was no central axis coiled like a rope, there were no layers of shale, yet the peninsula turned majestically in the middle of the Atlantic, and as it turned, it became less and less recognizable, Is this really where we've spent our lives, people asked themselves. The Portuguese coast veered to the southeast and what had formerly been the easternmost point of the Pyrenees was pointing in the direction of Ireland. Observing the peninsula had become an obligatory part of transatlantic commercial flights, although frankly to little advantage, for there the indispensable fixed point to which the movement might be related was missing. In fact, nothing could replace the image captured and transmitted by satellite, the photograph taken from a great altitude that really gave some idea of the magnitude of the phenomenon.

  This movement continued for a month. Seen from the peninsula, the universe transformed itself little by little. Every day the sun emerged from a different point on the horizon, and one had to search for the moon and the stars in the sky, their own movement, proceeding around the center of the system of the Milky Way, was no longer enough, now that there was this other movement transforming space into a frenzy of flickering stars, as if the universe were being reorganized from one end to the other, perhaps following the discovery that it had not turned out right the first time around. Until one day the sun set precisely where in normal times it had risen, and then there was no point in saying that it was not true, that appearances were deceiving, that the sun was following its normal
path and was incapable of any other. The man in the street simply retorted, Let me just tell you, mister, that the morning sun used to come through my front window and now it comes in at the back, so perhaps you could explain that in simple language. The expert explained it as best he could, he brought out photographs, made drawings, opened a map of the sky, but the pupil could not be persuaded and the lesson ended with him asking the good doctor to please arrange for the rising sun to go back to coming in through his front window. Seeing that he could not convince him with scientific arguments, the expert told him, Don't worry, if the peninsula turns all the way around you will see the sun as before, but the suspicious pupil rejoined, In other words, Mr. Know it-all, you think all this is happening so that things can go back to being the same as before. And in fact they did not.