The Collected Novels of José Saramago

by José Saramago

  The rain had not subsided. At the front entrance of the publishing house, a bad-tempered Raimundo Silva glanced at the sky through the naked branches of the trees, but the sky was one great mass of cloud without any intervals of blue sky, and the rain was coming down in a steady drizzle, nothing more, nothing less. There will be no tomorrow, he murmured, repeating an old adage used by people acquainted with practical meteorology, but in which we must not put too much faith, because that day was followed by others, and for Raimundo Silva this is certainly not his last. As he awaited thè unlikely respite promised by the meteorologists, employees were leaving the building on their way to lunch, it was already after one, the meeting had taken longer than expected. He was hoping Costa would not suddenly appear, forcing him to speak to him, listen to him, watch those accusing eyes, and at that moment it struck him that there was someone else whom he wanted to see even less, Dr Maria Sara, who, as it happens, is already descending in the elevator, and who on seeing him standing in the doorway, might think he is hovering there on purpose, using the rain as an excuse, in order to be able to carry on with their conversation elsewhere, in a restaurant, for example, where he would invite her, or the much more terrifying hypothesis, should she offer him a lift and take him home as an act of kindness, given this incessant rain, really, it's no trouble at all, get in, get in, you're getting soaked. Obviously Raimundo Silva does not know whether she possesses a car, but all the signs suggest that she does, she has that unmistakable air, the modern, outgoing woman, you only have to observe the controlled, methodical gestures of someone who knows how to handle the gears at just the right moment and who has learned how to assess distance and the size of a parking space at a glance. He heard the elevator stop and looked back quickly, to see the Editorial Director himself holding the door to allow Dr Maria Sara to pass, they were having a lively conversation, no one else was in the elevator, Raimundo Silva tucked the book in between his jacket and shirt, a protective reflex, and quickly opening his umbrella, scurried off, keeping as close as possible to the buildings, cowering like a dog being stoned, its tail between its legs, They must be going out to lunch together, he thought to himself. He could not get the thought out of his mind as he went down the street, trying to fathom why the thought had ever occurred to him, but he only met with a blank wall, without inscriptions, he himself an interrogation.

  To get home he used two buses and a tram, none of which left him at the door, needless to say, but there was no other way of getting there, not an empty taxi in sight. In any case, the rain did not spare him, after all, you don't get any wetter falling into the ocean or into the village brook, that is to say that if Raimundo Silva had made the entire journey on foot he would not have got any wetter than he is at this moment, drenched from head to foot, soaked to the skin. During the journey, there was one unpleasant, not to say terrifying moment, should we prefer to dramatise the situation, when he began to imagine Dr Maria Sara in the restaurant, telling the Editorial Director the amusing story about the proof-reader, So I told him to write his own version of the siege and he was horrified at the idea, then he tried to assure me that the Not he introduced into The History of the Siege of Lisbon was not the outcome of any mental disorder, would you believe it, The man's a clown with that deadpan expression of his, but he's good at his job, there's no denying, and once he had committed this act of charity and forbearance with remarkable impartiality, the Editorial Director treats the matter as closed and passes to something closer to his heart, I say, Maria Sara, why don't we have dinner together one evening, then we might go on somewhere to dance and have a drink. On turning a corner, a sudden treacherous gust of wind turned the umbrella inside out, and Raimundo Silva got the full blast of the rain on his face, and that wind was a veritable cyclone, maelstrom, hurricane, it all happened so quickly, but terrifying while it lasted, only his book unharmed, safely tucked away between his jacket and his shirt. The whirlwind subsided, calm was restored, and the umbrella, despite the fact that one of the ribs is broken, can still be used, admittedly more as a symbol than adequate protection. No, thought Raimundo Silva, and stopped there, but we shall never know if this is the word Dr Maria Sara used to respond to the Editorial Director's invitation, or if this man who is climbing the Escadinhas de'São Crispim, where there is no sign of the stray dog, is finally persuaded that there are people in this world so cruel as to exploit a poor, defenceless proof-reader in this way. Not to mention, that Dr Maria Sara might well be having her lunch at home.

  Having changed his clothes, and more or less dried off, Raimundo Silva set about preparing lunch, he boiled some potatoes to accompany the tinned tuna for which he had opted after considering the few alternatives available, and, supplementing this frugal meal with the usual plate of soup, he felt more cheerful, his energy restored. As he ate, he had a curious feeling of alienation, as if, a purely imaginary experience, he had just arrived after a lengthy, drawn-out journey through distant lands where he encountered other civilisations. Obviously, in an existence so little given to adventures, any novelty, however insignificant for others, can seem like a revolution, even if, to cite only this recent example, his memorable desecration of the almost sacred text of The History of the Siege of Lisbon had not affected him in the slightest, but now he has the impression that his home belongs to someone else, and that he himself is the stranger, the very smell is different, and the furniture seems out of place or distorted by means of a perspective governed by other laws. He prepared a piping hot coffee, as usual, and with the cup and saucer in his hand, taking tiny sips, he went round the apartment to see if he could familiarise himself with it once more, he began with the bathroom, where there were still vestiges of the dyeing operation he had carried out, never imagining that it would later cause him embarrassment, then the sitting-room which he rarely used, with the television, a low table, a divan, a tiny sofa and a bookcase with glass-panelled doors, and then the study which brought him back into contact with things he had seen and touched a thousand times, and finally the bedroom with its bed made of old mahogany, a matching wardrobe, and the bedside table, furniture designed for a larger room and unsuited to this confined space. On top of the bed, where he had thrown it down on entering the apartment, lies the book, the last Iroquois of that decimated tribe, taking refuge in the Rua do Milagre de Santo Antonio because of the inexplicable deference of Dr Maria Sara, inexplicable, say we, because it is not sufficient to have proposed, Write a book, only out of irony, for any connivance, with all the intimacy that word implies, makes no sense here, or could it be that Dr Maria Sara simply wants to see how far he is capable of going down the path of madness, since he himself spoke of mental disturbance. Raimundo Silva put the cup and saucer on the bedside table, Who knows, perhaps one of the symptoms is this impression of alienation, as if this were not my home and this place and these things meant nothing to me, the question remained in suspense, unanswered, like all questions that begin with the words, Who knows. He picked up the book, the cover illustration had actually been copied from an old manuscript, French or German, and at that moment, obliterating everything, he was invaded by a sense of fulfilment, of strength, he was holding something that was exclusively his, admittedly despised by others, but for that very reason, Who knows, prized all the more, after all this book is loved by nobody else, and this man has no one to love except this book.

  As everyone knows, we spend a third of our short lives sleeping, and we can confirm this from our own experience, between going to bed and getting up, counting is easy, allowing for the wakeful hours of those who suffer from insomnia and, in general, the time devoted to the nightly sessions of the art of loving, still enjoyed and practised as a rule at dead of night, despite the increasing popularity of more flexible timetables which, in this and other particulars, appear to be guiding us towards the fulfilment of the golden dreams of anarchy, namely, that desired age in which each one of us can do as we please, provided we do not prejudice or restrict what pleases others. Yes, there is n
othing simpler, but the fact that up to the present we have not succeeded in even identifying our neighbours amidst a multitude of strangers with any lasting certainty, goes to prove, were such proof necessary, what tradition has taught us, that the difficulty of achieving the simple is infinitely more complicated than any other task or skill, that is to say, it is less difficult to conceive, create, construct and manipulate an electronic brain than to find in our own the wherewithal to be happy, but, in the words of Jesus, one age succeeds another, and hope is the last thing to be lost, Alas, we might start losing it right away, because the time it will take to achieve universal happiness has to be counted in astronomical measurements, and this generation does not aim to live that long, disheartened as it clearly is.

  Such lengthy circumlocution, made irresistible by the way in which words bring others in their wake, thus giving the impression that all they do is to obey the will of someone who will finally have to answer for them, but misleading him, to the extent of frequently leaving the point of the narrative abandoned somewhere without name or history, pure discourse, without reason or objective, whose fluctuation will transform it into the perfect stage set or backdrop for any old drama or fiction, this circumlocution, which began by probing the hours of sleep and wakefulness in order to finish off with a feeble reflection on the transience of human life and the longevity of hope, this circumlocution, let us conclude, will be justified if we suddenly ask ourselves how often in life a person goes to the window, how many days, weeks, months has that person spent there and for what reason. We usually go to the window to see what the weather is like, to examine the sky, to follow the clouds, to dream with the moon, to respond to someone's cry, to observe the neighbours, and also to occupy our roving eyes by distracting them, while our thoughts accompany the images they capture, born just as words are born, just like them. They are mere glimpses, instants, and lengthy musings about what cannot be seen, a smooth, blank wall, a city, the grey river or the water dripping from the eaves.

  Raimundo Silva has not opened the window, he is watching through the window-panes, and is holding the book in his hands, opened at that false page, just as one speaks of false coinage minted by some forger. The dull patter of rain plays on the zinc roof of the verandah, and he does not hear it, although we would describe it, in an attempt to find a suitable comparison, as being like the distant sound of a cavalcade, a stamping of hooves on the soft, damp soil, a splashing of water from the marshes, a strange occurrence, inasmuch as wars were always suspended in winter, otherwise what would become of the men on horseback, scantily clad beneath their leather corslets and sleeveless coats of mail, with the drizzle penetrating the holes, rents and gashes, and the less said about the foot-soldiers the better, tramping practically barefoot in the mud and with their hands so frostbitten that they can scarcely hold the puny weapons with which they have come to conquer Lisbon, what a memory the king must have, to go to war in this appalling weather, But the siege took place in summer, murmured Raimundo Silva. Although less heavy, the rain on the verandah roof could now be heard clearly, as the sound of trotting horses returning to barracks grew fainter. With a rapid movement, surprising in someone not given to gestures, Raimundo Silva threw the window wide open, some of the drizzle sprinkled on to his face, but got nowhere near the book since he had taken the necessary precautions, and the same impression of brimming vitality took possession of him, body and soul, this is the city that was besieged, the ramparts descend over there all the way down to the sea, a name worthy of a river as wide as this one, and then they rise sharply until lost from sight, this is the Lisbon of the Moors, were the atmosphere less grey than on this winter's day we should have a better view of the olive-groves on the slope that goes down to the estuary, and also those on the other bank, at present invisible, as if covered by a cloud of smoke. Raimundo Silva looked and looked again, the universe murmuring beneath the rain, dear God, such sweet and gentle sorrow, may we never be without it, not even in moments of happiness.