The Collected Novels of José Saramago

by José Saramago

  We know that there is not much more than this, the bathroom, which until a few weeks ago was also a cosmetics laboratory, the kitchen where he toasted bread and ate the same old frugal meals, the study where we are right now, the sitting-room, inhospitable and abandoned, this door that leads into the bedroom. With his hand on the door-handle, Raimundo Silva appears to hesitate in opening it, he holds back respectfully as if observing some superstition, decidedly a man of another age, who is fearful of offending a woman's modesty by confronting her with the libidinous vision of a bed, even if she herself had asked, Show me your apartment, which allows us to assume that she knew very well what to expect. The door is finally opened, it's the bedroom with its heavy mahogany furniture, in front, standing lengthwise, the bed, the thick, white bedspread, under the pillow, the immaculate folds of the sheet, light filtering in through the window and softening the outline of things, as well as a silence that seems to breathe. We are in April, the evenings are drawn out, the days slow in passing, this probably explains why Raimundo Silva does not switch on the light, not to mention his reluctance to spoil the onset of twilight, which in its turn, makes him feel uneasy lest Maria Sara should misunderstand his intentions, we know all too well, from experience or hearsay, how often one can be dazzled along the path of obscurity, in the depths of darkness. Maria Sara immediately spotted the two roses in a vase on the tiny table by the window, and the sheets of paper, one half-written in the middle, to the left a little pile of sheets, now Raimundo had to switch on the lamp to create an atmosphere, but decided not to, he was standing right at the foot of the bed, as if he were trying to hide it from view, and waited for words, trembling as he tried to imagine what words might be spoken, he was not thinking of gestures or actions, only of words, here, in this room.

  Maria Sara went up to the table. For several seconds she remained there without moving, as if waiting for the guide to follow on with a detailed description, he might say, for example, Look at the flowers, and she would have to avert her eyes, show some interest in the roses, the matching pair of those others in her apartment, and then she would make an understanding allusion, a discreet expression perhaps of loving sentiments, Our roses, accentuating the pronoun, but he remains silent and she does nothing except look at the half-written page, she does not need to be told that these are the signs of the siege, still indecipherable in the dim light despite the chronicler's neat handwriting. She realises that Raimundo will not speak, much as she would wish and at the same time does not wish that he should say something, that anything should break this uncanny silence, but that something should happen to prevent another world from irrupting into the one in which we find ourselves, perhaps death itself, the only other world, in fact, which, poised between the Martian and the terrestrial, will always have something in common with life. At just the right moment, she drew back the chair a little and sat down, with her left hand she switches on the lamp, the light covers the table and casts a halo of faint and impalpable mist over the entire room. Raimundo Silva has not moved, he tries to analyse the vague impression that with her gesture Maria Sara has just taken material possession of something previously possessed in her mind, and he suddenly thinks that, however long he may live, he will never experience another moment such as this, no matter how often she might return to this apartment and this room, even if, an absurd idea, they were to spend the rest of their lives here. Maria Sara has made no attempt to touch the paper, her hands are folded in her lap, and she reads from the first line, ignorant of what has been written on the previous page, and on the pages before that, where the history begins, she reads as if these ten lines embraced everything she had to know about life, a final judgment, one last summary, or, on the contrary, sealed orders where she will find instructions about the new route to be navigated. She finished reading, and, without turning round, asks, Who is this Ouroana, and this Mogueime, who is he, their names were written there and little else, as we know. Raimundo Silva took two short steps in the direction of the table and came to a halt, I'm still not sure, he said and fell silent, after all, he should have guessed that Maria Sara's first words would be to inquire who these two were, these, those, whosoever else, in a word, us. Maria Sara seemed satisfied with the reply, she was an experienced enough reader to know that the author only knows what his characters have been, even then not everything, and very little of what they will become. Raimundo Silva said, as if he were replying to an observation made aloud, I doubt whether they could be called characters, People in books are characters, objected Maria Sara, As I see them they belong somewhere in between, free in a different way, so that it would not make sense to talk either about the character's logic or about the contingent necessity of the person, If you can't tell me who they are, at least tell me what they do, He's a soldier who took part in the conquest of Santarém, she was picked up in Galicia to become a crusader's concubine, So there's a love intrigue, If you can call it that, Why the uncertainty, It's just that I don't know how people loved at that time, that's to say, I'm capable of imagining their feelings, but I have no idea or any certain knowledge of how the common man and woman expressed their feelings in those days, language, in this case, would not have been an obstacle, both of them spoke Galician, Invent a love story without any amorous words, sans mots d'amour, assuming such a thing is possible, From what I've seen and read, I very much doubt it, at least in real life, And what about this Ouroana, as the concubine of a crusader who was presumably a nobleman, how does she come to end up with Mogueime, Life takes many twists and turns, we humans even more so, and the last of them is death, crusader Heinrich, as he is called, will soon meet his death, Oh, so this crusader of yours is the same character mentioned in that other History of the Siege of Lisbon, Precisely, Then you'll also narrate the miracles he worked after his death, Too good an opportunity to miss, The miracle of the two mutes, Yes, but with a slight modification, and Raimundo Silva's reply was accompanied by a smile. Maria Sara rested her hand on the small pile of paper, May I look, she asked, Surely you don't want to read this right now, besides I've a long way to go yet, the history is incomplete, I shouldn't have the patience to wait, besides there aren't all that many sheets, Please, not today, But I'm curious to know how you solved the problem of the crusaders' refusal, Tomorrow, I'll make some photocopies and bring them to your office, Fine, that's settled, since I cannot persuade you otherwise. She got up, Raimundo Silva was very close, It's getting late, said Maria Sara, looking towards the window, Could you open it, she asked, Don't worry, said Raimundo Silva, I won't do you any harm, bearing in mind that you're paying me á visit and nothing more, You might also bear in mind that you're talking nonsense, I want some air and would like to see the view of the city from here, that's all.

  There was a gentle twilight, the coolness of evening barely perceptible. Side by side, their elbows resting on the balcony, Maria Sara and Raimundo Silva watched in silence, conscious of each other's presence, the arm of the one feeling the arm of the other, and, little by little, the warmth of their blood. The pounding of Raimundo Silva's heartbeat echoed in his ears, that of Maria Sara threatened to shake her from head to foot. His arm drew closer, hers remained where it was, expectant, but Raimundo Silva dared go no further as fear crept in, I might make a mess of things, he thought, he could not see clearly, or did not want to, what was there to mess up, but this very uncertainty only served to increase his panic. Maria Sara could feel his entire being recoil like a snail withdrawing ever deeper into the protection of its shell, and she remarked cautiously, It's a nice view. The first lights appeared in the windows where the last rays of daylight still lingered, the street-lamps had just come on, someone in the nearby Largo dos Lóios spoke in a loud voice, someone replied, but the words were incomprehensible, Raimundo Silva asked, Did you hear them, Yes, I did, It was difficult to make out what they were saying, The same here, I didn't understand a word they said, We'll never know to what extent our lives would change if certain phrases, heard but elusive, had been unde
rstood, Much better, in my opinion, to start by not pretending that we did not understand those other words which were clear and direct, You're quite right, but there are some people, the dreamers, who prefer doubt to certainty, who are much less interested in the object than in its traces, in the footprints in the sand rather than in the animal that left them behind, You are clearly one of them, Up to a point, although I must remind you that it was not my idea to write this new history of the siege, Let's say that I sensed I had the right person before my very eyes, Or that, wisely, you prefer not to be responsible for his dreams, Would I be here if this were true, I suppose not, The difference being that I do not look for footprints in the sand, Raimundo Silva knew that he did not need to ask what it was that Maria Sara was looking for, now he could put his arm around her shoulders, as if unintentionally, a simple gesture, nothing other than fraternal for the moment, allowing her to react, perhaps gently relax her body, perhaps, as one might say, curl up, letting her body curve ever so slightly to one side, her head a trifle bent, awaiting the next gesture. Or she might become tense, protesting silently, anxious that he should see that it was still too soon, So when, Raimundo Silva was asking himself, forgetful of the fear he had felt, After what we've just said, what we've explicitly promised each other, the logical thing would have been, at least, to embrace and kiss, yes, at the very least. He straightened up as if suggesting that they should go back inside, but she continued to lean over the balcony, and he asked her, Don't you feel cold, No, not at all. Fighting back his impatience, he went back to his former position, without knowing what he could talk about, perversely imagining that she was amusing herself at his expense, it was all so much easier when he telephoned her at home, but he could not very well say to her, Go home and I'll call you. Then it occurred to him that he might get out of this embarrassing situation if he were to touch on some neutral topic, That building over there occupies the very spot where one of the towers defending the gate in this locality once stood, you can still see the markings on the ground, And the other tower, where was that, for there must have been two, Right here, where we are, Are you sure, Not absolutely sure, but there is every indication that I'm right, considering what we know about the former plan of this section of the walls, Well then, here on this tower, what are we, Moors or Christians, For the time being, Moors, we're here precisely to prevent the Christians from entering, We won't succeed, nor will it be necessary to await the end of the siege, have you seen the tiled panels depicting the miracles of St Antony at the entrance to the street, Abominable, You mean the miracles, No, the tiles, Why is this street called the Milagre de Santo Antonio, when on the panels alone there are three, I can't answer that, perhaps the saint worked a special miracle for the city fathers, Milagres de Santo Antonio would certainly sound nicer, but the one thing we mustn't do is to imagine that St Antony might have helped with the conquest of Lisbon in any military sense for he wasn't even born then, Two of the miracles on the panels are familiar, the apparition of the Child Jesus and that of the broken pitcher, the third one I don't recognise, there's a horse or a donkey, I didn't pay much attention, It's a donkey, How do you know, I have it here in a book, an old manuscript dating from the eighteenth century which describes all the miracles including this one, Tell me about it, You'd better read it for yourself, Another time, When, I can't say, tomorrow, after tomorrow, one day. Raimundo Silva took a deep breath, he could not pretend that he had not understood these words and he swore in his heart that he would definitely remind Maria Sara of them, as a definite promise demanding to be fulfilled. He felt so happy, so relaxed and free, that without thinking, he placed his hand on her shoulder and said, No, I'll read you the story about the donkey, come inside, Is it long, Like any story it can be told in ten words, or a hundred, or a thousand, or never end.