The Collected Novels of José Saramago

by José Saramago

  As she went over to the reception desk, she remembered that the man at the travel agency hadn't asked her name, he had simply said to the hotel, I'm sending you a customer, yes, a customer, right now, and there she was, this customer who could not possibly say that her name was death, with a small d, please, or that she didn't know what name to give, ah, her bag, the bag over her shoulder, the bag out of which came the dark glasses and the money, the bag out of which must surely come some identifying document, Good afternoon, may I help you, asked the receptionist, A travel agency phoned a quarter of an hour ago to make a reservation for me, Yes, madam, I was the one who took the call, Well, here I am, Would you mind filling out this form, please. Death knows what her name is now, she found it on the identity card that lies open on the desk, and thanks to her dark glasses she will be able to copy down the facts discreetly, name, place of birth, nationality, marital status, profession, without the receptionist realizing, Here you are, she said, How long will you be staying at the hotel, Until next monday, May I make a photocopy of your credit card, Oh, I didn't bring it with me, but I can pay now, in advance, if you like, No, no, that won't be necessary, said the receptionist. She took the identity card to cross-check the information on the form and, with a puzzled expression on her face, glanced up. The photo on the document was that of a much older woman. Death took off her dark glasses and smiled. Confused, the receptionist looked again at the document, the photo and the woman before her were now as alike as two peas in a pod. Do you have any luggage, she asked, drawing one hand across her perspiring brow, No, I came to town to do some shopping, replied death.

  She stayed in her room all day, taking both lunch and supper in the hotel. She watched television until late. Then she got into bed and turned out the light. She didn't sleep. Death never sleeps.

  WEARING THE NEW DRESS THAT SHE BOUGHT YESTERDAY IN a shop downtown, death goes to the concert. She is sitting alone in the box, and, just as she did during the rehearsal, she is looking at the cellist. Just before the lights went down, when the orchestra was waiting for the conductor to come, he noticed her. He wasn't the only musician to do so. Firstly, because she was alone in the box, which although not rare, wasn't that frequent an occurrence either. Secondly, because she was pretty, possibly not the prettiest woman in the audience, but pretty in a very particular, indefinable way that couldn't be put into words, like a line of poetry whose ultimate meaning, if such a thing exists in a line of poetry, continually escapes the translator. And finally, because her lone figure, there in the box, surrounded by emptiness and absence on every side, as if she inhabited a void, seemed to be the expression of the most absolute solitude. Death, who had smiled so often and so dangerously since she emerged from her icy subterranean room, is not smiling now. The men in the audience observe her with ambiguous curiosity, the women with keen disquiet, but she, like an eagle diving through the air toward a lamb, has eyes only for the cellist. With one difference, though. In the gaze of this other eagle who has always caught her victims there is something like a tenuous veil of pity, eagles, as we know, are obliged to kill, that is their nature, but this eagle here, now, would perhaps prefer, faced by the defenseless lamb, to open her powerful wings and fly back up into the sky, into the cold air of space, into the untouchable flocks of the clouds. The orchestra has fallen silent. The cellist starts to play his solo as if he had been born for that alone. He doesn't know that the woman in the box has in her brand-new handbag a violet-colored letter addressed to him, he doesn't know, how could he, and yet he plays as if he were bidding farewell to the world, as if he were at last saying everything that he had always kept unsaid, the truncated dreams, the frustrated yearnings, in short, life. The other musicians stare at him in amazement, the conductor with surprise and respect, the audience sighs, a shudder runs through them, and the veil of pity that clouded the sharp gaze of the eagle is now a veil of tears. The solo is over, the orchestra washed over the cello's song like a great, slow sea, gently submerging it, absorbing and amplifying that song as if to lead it into a place where music was transmuted into silence, into the merest shadow of a vibration that touched the skin like the final, inaudible murmur of a kettledrum on which a passing butterfly had momentarily alighted. The silken, malevolent flight of acherontia atropos fluttered quickly through death's memory, but she brushed it away with a wave of her hand which could as easily have been the gesture that made the letters disappear from the desk in her subterranean room as it could a gesture of thanks to the cellist, who was now turning his head in her direction, his eyes seeking a path through the warm darkness of the theater. Death repeated the gesture and it was as if her slender fingers had perched for a moment on the hand moving the bow. However, even though his heart had done everything to make the cellist miss a note, he did not. Her fingers would not touch him again, death had realized that one must never distract an artist while he is practicing his art. When the concert was over and the audience burst into loud cheering, when the lights went up and the conductor brought the orchestra to their feet, and then indicated to the cellist that he alone should get up in order to receive his much-deserved quota of the applause, death, standing, smiling at last, pressed her hands to her breast, in silence, and just looked, that's all, let the others clap, let the others cry bravo, let the others call the conductor back ten times, she just looked. Then, slowly, as if reluctantly, the audience began to leave, at the same time as the orchestra was packing up. When the cellist turned toward the box, she, the woman, was no longer there. Ah, well, that's life, he murmured.

  He was wrong, life isn't always like that, the woman from the box will be waiting for him at the stage door. Some of the musicians stare at her intently as they leave, but they realize, without knowing how, that she is surrounded by an invisible hedge, by a high-voltage fence on which they would burn up like tiny moths. Then the cellist appeared. When he saw her, he started, nearly took a step back, as if, seen from close to, the woman was something other than a woman, something from another sphere, another world, from the dark side of the moon. He bowed his head, he tried to join his departing colleagues, to run away, but the cello case, slung over one shoulder, made escape difficult. The woman was there before him, she was saying, Don't run away, I only came to thank you for the excitement and pleasure of hearing you play, That's very kind of you, but I'm just an orchestra player, not a famous concert artiste, the kind for whom fans wait hours just to be able to touch them or ask them for their autograph, If that's the problem, I can ask you for yours, if you like, I haven't got my autograph album with me, but I have here an envelope that would serve perfectly well, No, you misunderstand me, what I meant was that, although I'm flattered by your attention, I don't feel I deserve it, The audience seemed to disagree, Well, I obviously had a good day, Exactly, and that good day just happened to coincide with my appearance here tonight, Look, I don't want you to think me ungrateful or rude, but probably by tomorrow you'll have got over tonight's excitement, and as suddenly as you appeared, you'll disappear again, You don't know me, I always stick to my resolutions, And what are they, Oh, only one, to meet you, And now that you've met me, we can say goodbye, Are you afraid of me, asked death, No, I just find you rather troubling, And is feeling troubled by my presence such a small thing, Being troubled doesn't necessarily mean being afraid, it might just be a warn ing to be prudent, Prudence only serves to postpone the inevitable, sooner or later, it surrenders, That won't, I hope, be my case, Oh, I'm sure it will. The cellist moved his cello case from one shoulder to the other, Are you tired, asked the woman, It's not the cello that's heavy, it's the case, especially this one, which is the old-fashioned kind, Look, I need to talk to you, But I don't see how, it's nearly midnight, everyone has left, There are still a few people over there, They're waiting for the conductor, We could talk in a bar, Can you imagine me with a cello on my back walking into a crowded bar, said the cellist, smiling, imagine if all my colleagues went there and took their instruments, We could give another concert, We, aske
d the musician, intrigued by that plural, Yes, there was a time when I played the violin, there are even pictures of me playing, You seem determined to surprise me with every word you say, It's up to you whether you find out just how surprising I can be, Well, that seems clear enough, That's where you're wrong, I didn't mean what you were thinking, And what was I thinking, may I ask, About bed and me in that bed, Forgive me, No, it was my fault, if I was a man and I'd heard those words, I would certainly have thought the same, one pays the price for ambiguity, Thank you for being so honest. The woman took a few steps and then said, Come on then, Where, asked the cellist, Me to the hotel where I'm staying and you, I imagine, to your apartment, Won't I see you again, So you don't find me troubling any more, Oh, that was nothing, Don't lie, All right, I did find you troubling, but I don't now. On death's face appeared a kind of smile in which there was not a shadow of joy, Now is just when you have most reason to feel troubled, she said, It's a risk I'm willing to take, that's why I'll repeat my question, What was it, Will I see you again, I'll be at the concert on saturday and I'll be sitting in the same box, It's a different program, you know, I don't have a solo in it, Yes, I know, You seem to have thought of everything, Indeed, And how will all this end, We're still only at the beginning. A taxi was approaching. The woman hailed it and turned to the cellist, I'll take you home, No, I'll take you to your hotel and then go home from there, Either we do as I say, or I'll take another taxi, Do you always get your own way, Yes, always, You must fail occasionally, god is god and he's done almost nothing but fail, Oh, I could prove to you right now that I never fail, OK, show me, Don't be so stupid, death said abruptly, and there was in her voice an obscure, terrible, underlying threat. The cello was placed in the trunk of the taxi. The two passengers spoke not a word during the entire journey. When the taxi stopped, the cellist said before he got out, I simply can't understand what's going on between you and me, and I think it would be best if we didn't see each other again, No one can stop it now, Not even you, the woman who always gets her own way, asked the cellist, trying to be ironic, Not even me, replied the woman, So that means you'll fail then, No, it means I won't fail. The driver had got out to open the trunk and was waiting for the cellist to remove his cello case. The man and the woman didn't say goodbye, they didn't say see you on saturday, they didn't touch, it was a heartfelt parting of the ways, dramatic and brutal, as if they had sworn on blood and water never to meet again. Carrying his cello, the musician stalked off and went into the apartment block. He didn't turn round, not even when he paused for an instant on the very threshold. The woman was watching him, clutching her bag. The taxi drove on.

  The cellist went into his apartment, muttering angrily, She's mad, completely mad, the one time in my life when someone comes and waits for me at the stage door to say how well I played and she turns out to be a nutcase, and I, like a fool, ask if I'll see her again, I'm just creating problems for myself, I mean, really, there are some character defects that perhaps deserve a bit of respect, or are, at least, worthy of one's attention, but stupidity is just ridiculous, infatuation is ridiculous, I was ridiculous. He distractedly patted the dog who had run to greet him at the front door and then went into the piano room. He opened the cello case and carefully removed the instrument, which he would have to retune before going to bed, because journeys in taxis, however short, weren't good for its health. He went into the kitchen to give the dog some food, and prepared himself a sandwich, which he washed down with a glass of wine. He was feeling less annoyed now, but the feeling that was gradually replacing that annoyance was no less disquieting. He remembered things the woman had said, her allusion to ambiguities that always have a price, and he discovered that every word she had said, although each one made perfect sense in context, seemed to carry within it another meaning, something he couldn't quite grasp, something tantalizing, like the water that slips away from us when we try to drink it, like the branch that suddenly moves out of reach when we go to pluck the fruit. I wouldn't say she was mad, he thought, but she's certainly odd, there's no doubt about that. He finished his sandwich and returned to the music room or piano room, the two names we have given it up until now, when it would be far more logical to call it the cello room, since that is the instrument by which the musician earns his living, but we have to admit that it wouldn't sound right, it would be slightly degrading, slightly undignified, you just have to follow the descending scale to grasp our reasoning, music room, piano room, cello room, so far, so acceptable, but imagine if we were to start referring to the clarinet room, the fife room, the bass drum room, the triangle room. Words have their own hierarchy, their own protocol, their own aristocratic titles, their own plebeian stigmas. The dog joined his master and lay down beside him having first turned round and round three times, which was the only memory he still retained of the days when he was a wolf. The musician was tuning his cello to the a of the tuning fork, lovingly restoring the instrument's harmonies after the brutal treatment inflicted on it by the taxi rattling over the cobblestones. For a few moments, he had managed to forget the woman at the theater, not her exactly, but the troubling conversation they'd had at the stage door, although their final tense exchange of words in the taxi continued to be heard in the background, like a muffled roll on the drums. He couldn't forget the woman, he didn't want to. He could see her standing up, her two hands pressed to her breast, he could feel the touch of her intense gaze, hard as a diamond, and how it shone when she smiled. He would see her again on saturday, he thought, yes, he would see her then, but she would not stand up again, nor press her hands to her breast, nor look at him from afar, that magical moment had been swallowed up, undone by the moment that followed, when he turned to see her for the last time, or so he thought, and she was no longer there.

  When the tuning fork had returned to silence and the cello was once more in tune, the phone rang. The musician started, he looked at the watch, it was half past one. Who can be calling at this hour, he wondered. He picked up the receiver and waited for a few seconds. It was absurd, of course, he was the one who should speak and give his name or number, then someone would probably say at the other end, Oh, sorry, I must have mis-dialed, but the voice that spoke asked instead, Is it the dog answering the phone, if it is, could he, please, at least bark. The cellist replied, Yes, it is the dog, but I stopped barking a long time ago, I've lost the habit of biting too, apart from biting myself when life plays tricks on me, Don't be angry, I'm phoning to apologize, our conversation took a dangerous turn, and the result, as you saw, was disastrous, Well, someone took it off along that dangerous turn, and it wasn't me, It was my fault entirely, usually I'm very balanced and calm, You didn't seem to me to be either of those things, Perhaps I suffer from a split personality, That makes us equal then, I myself am both dog and man, Irony doesn't suit you, but your musical ear will doubtless already have told you that, Dissonance also has a role to play in music, ma'am, Don't call me ma'am, How else should I address you, since I don't know your name or what you do or what you are, You'll find out eventually, remember, haste makes a bad counselor, besides, we've only just met, You're one step ahead of me, though, since you have my phone number, That's what directory assistance is for, the receptionist found it for me, It's a shame this is such an old phone, Why, Because if it was one of those modern ones, I'd know where you were phoning from, I'm phoning from my hotel room, That much I knew, And as for the antiquity of your phone, I assumed that would be the case, so it doesn't surprise me in the least, Why, Because everything about you seems old-fashioned, it's as if you weren't fifty, but five hundred years old, How do you know I'm fifty, Because I'm very good at guessing people's ages, I never fail, It seems to me that you boast too much about never failing, Yes, you're right, today, for example, I failed twice, something which, I can assure you, has never happened before, Sorry, I don't understand, You see I have a letter to give you and I failed to do so, although I could easily have given it to you either outside the theater or in the taxi, What letter i
s that, Let's just say that I wrote it after attending the rehearsal for your concert, You were there, Yes, I was, But I didn't see you, Of course not, you couldn't, Anyway, it's not my concert, As modest as ever, And saying let's just say isn't the same as saying what actually happened, Sometimes it is, But not in this case, Congratulations, you're not only modest, you're very perceptive too, What letter do you mean, You'll find out in time, So why didn't you give it to me if you had the opportunity, Two opportunities, Exactly, so why didn't you give it to me, That's what I hope to find out, maybe I'll give it to you on saturday, after the concert, because by monday I'll be gone, You don't live here, Not what you would call live, no, You've lost me, talking to you is like finding oneself in a labyrinth with no doors, Now that's an excellent definition of life, But you're not life, No, I'm much more complicated than that, Someone wrote that we are all of us life, for the moment, Yes, for the moment, but only for the moment, Let's just hope all this confusion is cleared up the day after tomorrow, the letter, the reason why you didn't give it to me, everything, I'm tired of mysteries, What you call mysteries are often intended as protection, Well, protection or not, I want to see that letter, If I don't fail a third time, you will, And why would you fail a third time, If I do, it could only be for the same reason I failed before, Please, don't play cat and mouse with me, In that particular game, the cat always ends up catching the mouse, Unless the mouse manages to put a bell around the cat's neck, A good answer, but that's just a silly dream, a cartoon fantasy, even if the cat were asleep, the noise would wake it, and then goodbye mouse, Am I the mouse you're saying goodbye to, If we were playing that game, then one of us would have to be the mouse, and you don't seem to me to have either the looks or the cunning to be the cat, So I'm condemned to being a mouse for the rest of my life, For as long as that lasts, yes, a mouse cellist, Another cartoon character, Don't you think all human beings are just cartoon characters, You too, I suppose, You've seen what I look like, A very pretty woman, Thank you, Anyone listening in to this conversation would think we were flirting, If the hotel's switchboard operator amuses herself by eavesdropping on guests' conversations, she'll already have reached the same conclusion, Even if we are flirting, it won't have any serious consequences, the woman in the box, whose name I still don't know, will be leaving on monday, Never again to return, Are you sure, It's unlikely that the reasons that brought me here will ever be repeated, Unlikely doesn't mean impossible, No, but I'll do all I can not to have to repeat the journey, It was worth it, though, despite everything, Despite what exactly, Forgive me, I was being indelicate, what I meant to say was, Please, don't bother being nice to me, I'm not used to it, besides, I can guess what you were going to say, but if you feel you owe me a more complete explanation, perhaps we can continue this conversation on saturday, So I won't see you before that, No. The line was cut. The cellist looked at the receiver still in his hand, which was damp with anxiety, I must be dreaming, he muttered, this isn't the kind of thing that happens to me. He put the receiver down and addressing the piano, the cello and the shelves, he asked, this time out loud, What does this woman want of me, who is she, why has she appeared in my life. Woken by the noise, the dog looked up at him. There was an answer in his eyes, but the cellist didn't notice, he paced the room from one side to the other, feeling even more nervous than before, and the answer was this, Now that you mention it, I do have a vague recollection of having slept in a woman's lap and it might have been hers, What lap, what woman, the cellist would have asked, You were asleep, Where, In your bed, And where was she, Over there, That's a good one, mister dog, how long has it been since a woman came into this apartment, into that bedroom, go on, tell me, As you should know, a dog's perception of time is not the same as that of a human being, but it seems to me that it really has been an age since you last received a lady in your bed, and I don't mean that ironically, So you dreamed it, Probably, we dogs are incorrigible dreamers, we even dream with our eyes open, we just have to see something in the shadows and we immediately imagine that it's a woman's lap and jump onto it, Mere doggy imaginings, the cellist would say, Even if that's true, the dog would reply, we're not complaining. Meanwhile, in her hotel room, death is standing naked before the mirror. She doesn't know who she is.