No man appeared at the door nor did he hear his voice inside the house, so he must still have been at work or on his way home, and the woman was not carrying the child in her arms. Senhor José realised at once that the unknown woman, whether married or divorced, could not possibly be the one who stood before him. However well preserved she might be, however kind time might have been to her, it would be unnatural for someone with thirty-six years behind her to look less than twenty-five. Senhor José could simply have turned his back, come up with some instant excuse, say, for example, I'm sorry, I made a mistake, I was looking for someone else, but, in one way or another, the end of his Ariadne's thread was there, to use the mythological language of the Central Registry, not forgetting, too, the reasonable probability that other people lived in the house, among whom might be the object of his search, although, as we know, Senhor José's spirit vehemently rejects such a hypothesis. He took the record card out of his pocket, as he said, Good afternoon, madam, Good afternoon, what can I do for you, asked the woman, I work for the Central Registry and I've been charged with investigating certain doubts that have arisen about the file of a person who we know was born in this house, Neither I nor my husband was born here, only our daughter, and she's only three months old now, I don't suppose it's her, No, of course not, the person I'm looking for is a woman of thirty-six, Well, I'm twenty-seven, You're obviously not the same person then, said Senhor José, and went on, What's your name. The woman told him, he paused to smile, then asked, Have you lived here long, Two years, Did you know the people who lived here before, these people, he read her the name of the unknown woman and the names of her parents, We don't know anything about them, I'm afraid, the apartment was empty, and my husband sorted out the lease with the agent, Is there an older resident in the building, There's a very old lady in the ground-floor apartment on the right, and I've heard people say that she's the oldest resident, It's unlikely she was here thirty-six years ago though, people today move around so much, I couldn't really say, you'd better talk to her, but I have to go now, my husband's about to arrive and he doesn't like to see me talking to strangers, besides, I have to make supper, As I said, I work for the Central Registry, so I'm not really a stranger, and I did come here on official business, I'm very sorry to have troubled you though. Senhor José's wounded tones softened the woman, No, no, it was no trouble, I just meant that if my husband had been here, he would have immediately asked you for your credentials, I can show you my identity card from work, look, Oh right, your name's Senhor José, but when I said credentials I meant some official document giving details of the case you've been charged with investigating, It didn't occur to the Registrar that anyone would be suspicious, Everyone's different, the woman who lives on the ground floor, for example, she doesn't open her door to anyone, I'm different, I like talking to people, Well, I'm very grateful to you for your help, I'm only sorry I can't be of more use to you, On the contrary, you've been a great help, you mentioned the lady downstairs and the matter of the credentials, Well, I'm glad you feel like that about it. The conversation looked set to continue for a few more minutes, but the peace in the house was suddenly interrupted by the crying of a child, who must have woken up, Its your little boy, said Senhor José, It's not a little boy, it's a little girl, I told you before, smiled the woman, and Senhor José smiled too. At that moment, the street door banged and the light on the stairs came on, It's my husband, I recognise the way he comes in the door, whispered the woman, go away and pretend you didn't speak to me. Senhor José did not go down the stairs. Noiselessly, on tiptoe, he went rapidly up to the landing above and stayed there, pressed against the wall, his heart pounding as if he were living through some dangerous adventure, while the young man's firm steps grew louder as they approached. The bell rang, between the opening and shutting of the door he could still hear the baby crying, then a great silence filled the stairwell. After a moment, the light went out. It was only then that Senhor José realised that almost the whole of his dialogue with the woman had taken place in the conspiratorial shadows of the stairway, as if both of them had something to hide, "conspiratorial" was the unexpected word that came into his head, What were we conspiring about, why "conspiratorial," he wondered, the fact is that she hadn't turned the light on again when it went out shortly after they had exchanged their first words. At last, he began to go back down the stairs, cautiously to begin with, then quickly, he paused only for a moment to listen outside the door of the ground-floor apartment, he could hear a sound inside that must be the radio, he decided not to ring the bell, he would leave that new investigation for the weekend, for Saturday or Sunday, but this time he would not be caught out, he would present himself with his credentials in his hand, invested with a formal authority that no one would dare to question. They would be false credentials, of course, but, they would bear the irresistible force of an official stamp and impress, and they would save him the task of having to dispel suspicions before getting down to business. As for the chief's signature, he felt absolutely no qualms, it was hardly likely that the old lady in the ground-floor apartment would ever have seen the Registrar's signature, whose curlicues, when he thought about it, precisely because of their fantastic, ornamental nature, would not prove particularly difficult to imitate. If all went well this time, as it was bound to, he would continue to make use of the document whenever he encountered or foresaw difficulties in future investigations, because he was sure that his search would not end in that ground-floor apartment. Even if the woman had been there when the unknown woman's family had lived in the building, they might not have known each other, in the old lady's weary memory, it might all come down to a few vague recollections, it would depend on how many years had passed since the family on the second floor had moved somewhere else in the city. Or somewhere else in the country or even the world, he thought anxiously, once he was out in the street again. Wherever the famous people in his collection went, they always had a newspaper or a magazine following in their tracks and sniffing around them for just one more photograph, one more question, but nobody wants to know about ordinary people, no one is really interested in them, no one cares what they're up to, what they think, what they feel, even when they try to make you believe otherwise, it's all pretence. If the unknown woman had gone to live abroad, she would be beyond his reach, she might as well be dead Full stop end of the story murmured Senhor José then he thought, that might not be the case, for when she departed! she would at least have left a life behind her, perhaps only a brief life four years five almost nothing or fifteen or twenty a meeting, an infatuation, a disappointment, a few smiles, a few tears, which seem, at first sight, the same for everyone but which are, in fact, different for us all. And different each time too. I'll go as far as I can, concluded Senhor José, with unaccustomed serenity. As if this were the logical conclusion to what he had thought, he went into a stationer's and bought a thick notebook with lined pages, like the ones students use to make notes on their school subjects, believing that they are actually learning them as they do so.
It didn't take him long to forge some credentials. Twenty-five years of daily calligraphic practice beneath the vigilance of zealous senior clerks and demanding deputies had left him with complete mastery of fingers, wrist and palm, absolute confidence in executing both curved lines and straight, an almost instinctive feel for thick and thin strokes, a consummate awareness of the degree of fluidity and viscosity of various inks, which, put to the test on this occasion, resulted in a document capable of resisting the scrutiny of the most powerful of magnifying lenses. The only incriminating features were his fingerprints and the invisible traces of sweat that clung to the paper, but the likelihood of either of these being examined was, of course, negligible. The most competent graphologist called to testify would swear that the document in question was written by the Registrar himself and was as authentic as if it had been written in the presence of appropriate witnesses. In support of his worthy colleague's opinion, a psychologist would add
that the content of the letter, the style and the vocabulary offer ample proof that its author is an extremely authoritarian person, with a harsh, inflexible, secretive nature, convinced of the Tightness of his own views, scornful of other people's opinions, as even a child would conclude from reading the text, which says, In the name of the authority conferred on me and which, under oath, I uphold, apply and defend, I, as Registrar of the Central Registry, declare to all those, be they civil or military, private or public, who might see, read and examine this letter written and signed by my own hand, that Senhor so-and-so, a clerk in my service and in the service of the Central Registry which I direct, govern and administer, has received directly from me the order and commission to find out and investigate everything regarding the life, past, present and future, of so-and-so, born in this city on such and such a date, daughter of so-and-so and such and such, and it should be recognised, with no further proof being required, that, for the duration of the investigation, he is in possession of the absolute powers which I, in this document and to this end, delegate to him. This is the express wish of the Central Registry and of my own will. So be it. Trembling with fear, having barely managed to read to the end of this impressive bit of paper, the above-mentioned child took refuge on her mother's lap, wondering how a clerk like Senhor José, so timid by nature, so mild in his manners, could possibly have conceived of, imagined, invented this expression of, to say the very least, despotic power, with no previous model to use as a guide, since there is no norm nor was there any technical need for the Central Registry ever to have written such a letter of authority. The frightened child will have to eat a lot of bread and a lot of salt before she begins to learn from life, by then, she will no longer be surprised to discover that, when the occasion arises, even the good can become hard and tyrannical, even if only in order to write a letter of authority, forged or otherwise. They will say to excuse themselves, That wasn't me, I was just writing, acting in the name of someone else, and they are probably just trying to delude themselves, for, in truth, whether visible or not, that hardness and despotism, not to say cruelty, came from within them, not from someone else. Even so, judging what has happened up until now by its effects, it is unlikely that the world will be seriously damaged by Senhor José's intentions and future actions, therefore let us provisionally suspend judgement until other events, more enlightening, in both the good and the bad senses, draw us a definitive portrait.
On Saturday, wearing his best suit, with his shirt washed and ironed, his tie almost matching and more or less correct, the envelope bearing the official seal and containing the letter of authority safe in his inside jacket pocket, Senhor José took a taxi to the door of the house, not in order to gain time, the day was his, but because it looked like rain, and he didn't want to appear before the lady in the ground-floor apartment with rain dripping from his ears, and with the bottoms of his trousers all spattered with mud, running the risk that she would slam the door in his face before he even had a chance to explain why he was there. It filled him with excitement to imagine how the old lady would receive him, what the effect would be on the old girl, the pejorative term sprang unbidden to his mind, of reading a stern, solemn document like that, some people don't react at all as you would expect, he just hoped she wouldn't be one of them. Perhaps the expressions he had used were too hard and despotic, although verisimilitude demanded that it should be true to both the character and the calligraphy of the Registrar, besides, everyone knows that while it is true that you catch no flies with vinegar, it is no less true that some you can't even catch with honey. We'll see, he sighed. The first thing he saw shortly afterwards, having replied to the insistent questions from within, Who is it, What do you want, Who sent you, What's that got to do with me, was that the lady in the ground-floor apartment was not, after all, as ancient as he had imagined, those bright eyes, that straight nose, those firm, thin lips with no downward curve at the corners, did not belong to an old lady, her great age was noticeable only in the loose skin on her throat, he probably fixed on that because he had already started to notice in himself that unmistakable sign of physical decline, and he was only fifty The woman would not open the door completely, she said repeatedly that she was not interested in the affairs of her neighbours, a perfectly reasonable response given that Senhor José, taking a wrong tack, had begun by saying that he was looking for someone on the second floor. The confusion seemed to end when he finally mentioned the name of the unknown woman, then the door opened a little more, only to return to its former position, Do you know the lady, asked Senhor José, Yes, I did, said the woman, I'd like to ask you a few questions about her, But who are you, As I already told you, I'm an authorised official from the Central Registry, And how am I supposed to know if that's true or not, I have a signed letter of authority from the Registrar, Look, I'm in my own home and I don't want to be disturbed, I'm afraid you have to cooperate with the Central Registry in cases such as this, What cases, The resolution of certain outstanding matters at the Central Registry, Why don't you go and ask her, We don't have her present address, if you know it, perhaps you could tell me, and I won't need to trouble you any further, It must be about thirty years since I heard from her, She must have been a child then, Yes. With that one word, the woman appeared to consider the conversation at an end, but Senhor José did not give up, he might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb. He drew the envelope from his pocket, opened it and, with a slowness that must have seemed threatening, removed the letter, Read it, he ordered. The woman shook her head, No, I won't read it, it's nothing to do with me, If you don't read it, I will return accompanied by the police, and it will be all the worse for you. The woman resigned herself to taking the document he held out to her, she turned on the light in the corridor, put on the glasses she wore hanging round her neck and read it. Then she gave it back to him and standing to one side said You'd better come in they'll probably be listening to us from behind the door over there. Given the implicit alliance that the personal pronoun "us" seemed to represent, Senhor José realised that he had won that round. In a certain indefinable way, this was the first objective victory of his whole life, true it was an extremely fraudulent one, but there are so many people out there preaching that the ends justify the means, who was he to argue. He entered humbly, like a victor whose generosity prevents him from giving in to the easy temptation of humiliating the vanquished, but who would, nevertheless, appreciate his greatness being noticed.
The woman led him to a small, neat, clean room, decorated according to the taste of a different age. She offered him a chair, sat down herself and, without giving her visitor time to ask any further questions, she said, I was her godmother. Senhor José had expected all kinds of revelations, but not that. He had gone there as a mere civil servant carrying out the orders of his superiors, and therefore without any involvement of a personal nature, at least, that was how the woman sitting opposite him should see him, but only he knew the effort it took not to break into a smile of beatific delight. From his other pocket he drew a copy of the record card, he looked at it for a long time as if memorising all the names on it, then he said, And your husband was the godfather, Yes, Can I speak to him too, I'm a widow, Ah, in that quiet exclamation there was as much genuine relief as there was feigned emotion, that was one less person with whom he would have to do battle. The woman said, We got on well, I mean, the two families, ours and theirs, we were real friends, and when the little girl was born they invited us to be her godparents, How old was the girl when they moved, She was about eight I think, You said a little while ago that it's nearly thirty years since you heard from her, That's right, Could you explain, Shortly after they'd moved I received a letter, Who from, From her, What did she say, Nothing much, it was the kind of letter that a child of no more than eight, with the few words she knows, would write to her godmother, Have you still got it, No, And the parents, did they never write, No, Didn't you find that strange, No, Why, That's a very personal matter, not for general consum
ption, As far as the Central Registry is concerned there are no personal matters. The woman looked at him hard, Who are you, My letter of authority tells you who I am, It just told me your name, Senhor José, isn't it, That's right, Senhor José, So you can ask me all the questions you want, and I can't ask you any, The only person who can question me is an official of the Central Registry of superior rank, You're a happy man, then, you can keep your secrets, Happiness does not, I believe, consist merely in being able to keep your secrets, Are you happy, It doesn't matter what I am, as I've already told you, only someone higher up in the hierarchy is authorised to ask me questions, Have you got any secrets, I won't answer that, But I have to answer, It's best if you do, What do you want me to tell you, What were these personal matters. The woman drew a hand across her forehead and slowly lowered her lined eyelids, then, without opening her eyes, she said, The girl's mother suspected I was having an affair with her husband, And was that true, It was, it had been going on for a long time, Was that why they moved, Yes. The woman opened her eyes and asked, Do you like my secrets, They're only of interest to me insofar as they have to do with the person I'm looking for, besides, I wasn't authorised to find out anything else, So you don't want to know what happened next, Not officially no, But personally perhaps, I'm not in the habit of prying into other people's lives, said Senhor José, forgetting about the hundred and forty or so that he had in his cupboard, then he added, But probably nothing very extraordinary happened, since you're a widow you say, You've got a good memory, It's a fundamental quality for anyone working at the Central Registry, just to give you an idea, my boss, for example, knows by heart all the names that exist or ever have existed, all the names and all the surnames, What's the point of that, The Registrar's brain is like a duplicate of the Central Reg istry, I don't understand, Since he's capable of making every possible combination of name and surname, my boss's brain knows not only the names of all the people who are now alive and of all those who have died, he would also be able to tell you the names of all those who will be born from now until the end of the world, You know more than your boss, Never, beside him I'm nothing, that's why he's the Registrar and I'm just a clerk, You both know my name, That's true, But that's all he knows about me, You're right there, the difference is that he already knew it before, whereas I only knew it after I'd been given this job to do, And in one bound you were ahead of him, here you are in my house, you can see my face, hear me say that I deceived my husband, and, in all these years, you are the only person I've ever told, what more proof do you need that beside you, your boss is an ignoramus, Don't say that, it's not right, Have you any further questions to ask me, What questions, For example, if I was happy in my marriage after what happened, It's irrelevant to the matter in hand, Nothing is irrelevant, just as all the names are in your boss's head, so one person's life is everyone's life, You're very wise, So I should be, I've lived a long time, Compared with you I know nothing and I'm fifty, You'd be amazed how much you learn between fifty and seventy, Is that how old you are, A bit more actually, Were you happy after what happened, So you are interested, It's just that I don't know much about other people's lives, Just like your boss, just like your Central Registry, Yes, I suppose so, Well I was forgiven if that's what vou mean Forgiven Yes it often happens forgive one another as they say The usual phrase is love one another It comes to the same thing you forgive each other because you love each other, you. love each other because you forgive each other you're just a child you have a lot to learn So I see Are you married No You've never lived with a woman, No, I couldn't really say I've lived with one, Just passing relationships, temporary Not even that live alone, when I feel the need, I do what everyone else does, I look for a woman and I pay, You do realise that you're answering my questions, Yes, but I don't mind now, perhaps that's how you learn, by answering questions, Now I'm going to tell you something, Go on, I'll begin by asking you if you know how many people there are in a marriage, Two, a man and a woman, No, there are three people in a marriage, there's the woman, there's the man, and there's what I call the third person, the most important, the person who is composed of the man and woman together, I've never thought of that, For example, if one of the two commits adultery, the person who is most hurt, who receives the deepest cut, however incredible it may seem, is not the other person, but that other "other" which is the couple, not one person, but two, And can you really live with that person made up of two people, I have enough trouble living with myself, The most common thing in marriage is to see the man or the woman, or both, each in their own way, trying to destroy the third person that they form together, the one that resists, that wants to survive regardless, The arithmetic's too complicated for me, Get married, find a woman, and then you'll see, Oh, no, it's too late for me, Don't bet on it, who knows what you might find when you reach the end of your mission, or whatever you called it, The doubts I was ordered to clear up are the Central Registry's doubts not mine, And what doubts are those, if you don't mind my asking, It's a confidential matter, I can't tell you A fat lot of good your confidentiality does you, Senhor José, you'll soon, have to leave and. you'll do so knowing exactly what you knew when you came nothing, That's true, and Senhor José shook his head despondently.
The Collected Novels of José Saramago Page 225