The Collected Novels of José Saramago

by José Saramago

  THERE WERE EVEN THOSE who had predicted that the elephant's journey would end right here, in the sea at rosas, either because the gangway collapsed, unable to bear suleiman's four tons of weight, or because a large wave knocked him off balance and hurled him headfirst into the deep, and thus the once happy solomon, now sadly baptized with the barbarous name of suleiman, would have met his final hour. Most of the noble personages who had come to rosas to bid farewell to the archduke had never in their lives set eyes on an elephant. They do not know that such an animal, especially if, at some point in its life, it has traveled by sea, has what is usually termed good sea legs. Don't ask him to help steer the ship, use the octant or the sextant, or climb the yardarms to reef the sails, but place him at the helm, on the four stout stakes that serve him as legs, and summon up the stiffest of storms. Then you'll see how an elephant can happily face the fiercest of headwinds, close-hauling with all the elegance and skill of a first-class pilot, as if that art were contained in the four books of the vedas that he had learned by heart at a tender age and never forgotten, even when the vicissitudes of life determined that he would earn his sad daily bread carrying tree trunks back and forth or putting up with the loutish curiosity of certain lovers of vulgar circus shows. People have very mistaken ideas about elephants. They imagine that elephants enjoy being forced to balance on a heavy metal ball, on a tiny curved surface on which their feet barely fit. We're just fortunate that they're so good-natured, especially those that come from india. They realize that a lot of patience is required if they are to put up with us human beings, even when we pursue and kill them in order to saw off or extract their tusks for the ivory. Among themselves, elephants often remember the famous words spoken by one of their prophets, Forgive them, lord, for they know not what they do. For "they" read "us," especially those who came here to see if suleiman would die and who have now begun the journey back to valladolid, feeling as frustrated as that spectator who used to follow a circus company around wherever it went, simply in order to be there on the day that the acrobat missed the safety net. Ah, yes, there was something else we meant to say. As well as the elephant's indisputable competence at the helm, over all the centuries in which man has put to sea, no one has yet found anyone to rival an elephant for working the capstan.

  Having installed suleiman in a part of the deck surrounded by bars, whose function, despite their apparent robustness, was more symbolic than real, since they were entirely dependent on the animal's frequently erratic moods, fritz went off in search of news. The first and most obvious thing he needed to know was the answer to the question, Where is the boat heading, a question he asked of an old sailor with a kindly face, and from whom he received the prompt, brief and enlightening answer, To genoa, And where's that, asked the mahout. The man seemed to have difficulty understanding how it was possible for anyone anywhere in the world not to know where genoa was, and so he merely pointed eastward and said, Over there, In italy, then, suggested fritz, whose limited geographical knowledge nevertheless allowed him to take certain risks. Yes, in italy, confirmed the sailor, And vienna, where is that, asked fritz, Much further north, beyond the alps, What are the alps, The alps are huge great mountains, very difficult to cross, especially in winter, not that I've been there myself, but I've heard tell of travelers who have, If that's true, poor solomon is going to have a bad time of it, he comes from india, you see, which is a hot country, he's never experienced real cold, neither of us has, because I'm from india too, Who's solomon, asked the sailor, Solomon was the name the elephant had before he was renamed suleiman, just as I am now fritz even though my name has been subhro ever since I came into the world, Who changed your names, The only person with the power to do so, his highness the archduke, who is traveling on this boat, Is he the elephant's owner, asked the sailor, Yes, and I am his keeper, his carer, or his mahout, which is the correct term, solomon and I spent two years in portugal, which isn't the worst of places to live, and now we're on our way to vienna, which, they say, is the very best, It has that reputation, Well, let's hope it lives up to its reputation and that they finally let poor solomon rest, he wasn't made for all this traveling about, the voyage we had to make from goa to lisbon was quite enough, solomon, you see, originally belonged to the king of portugal, dom joão the third, but when he offered him as a gift to the archduke, it fell to me to accompany solomon, first on the voyage to portugal and now on this long journey to vienna, That's what they call seeing the world, said the sailor, Not as much of it as you would see traveling from port to port, replied the mahout, but he could not complete his sentence because the archduke was approaching, followed by the inevitable entourage, but without the archduchess, who, it would seem, now viewed suleiman rather less sympathetically. Subhro shrank back out of the way, as if thinking that he would thus go unnoticed, however, the archduke spotted him, Fritz, come with me, I'm going to see the elephant, he said. The mahout stepped forward, not knowing quite where to stand, but the archduke clarified matters for him, Go on ahead and see if everything is in order, he said. This proved fortunate because suleiman, in the absence of his mahout, had decided that the wooden deck was the best possible place on which to do his business and, as a consequence, he was literally skating about on a thick carpet of excrement and urine. Beside him, so that he could quench any sudden thirst without delay, was the water trough, still almost full, as well as a few bundles of forage, although only a few, since the others had been taken down into the hold. Subhro thought quickly. With the help of some five or six sailors, all reasonably strong, he managed to tip the water out of the trough so that it poured in a cascade across the deck and straight into the sea. The effect was almost instantaneous. Thanks to that rush of water and its dissolving properties, the stinking soup of excrement was swept overboard, apart from what remained stuck to the soles of the elephant's feet, but a second, less abundant stream left him in a more or less acceptable state, proving, yet again, that not only is the best the enemy of the good, the good, however hard it tries, will never even be fit to tie best's shoelaces. The archduke can now appear. Before he does, though, let us reassure those readers concerned by the lack of information about the ox-cart that had transported the water trough and the bundles of forage the whole one hundred and forty leagues from valladolid to rosas. The french have a saying, which they were just beginning to use around that time, pas de nouvelles, bonnes nouvelles, so our readers can stop worrying, the ox-cart is on its way back to valladolid, where damsels of every social class are weaving garlands of flowers in order to adorn the horns of the oxen when they arrive, and don't ask them precisely why they are doing this, one of them was apparently heard to say, although we don't know to whom, that the crowning of working oxen with a wreath was an ancient custom, dating perhaps from the time of the greeks or romans, and given that walking to rosas and back, a distance of some two hundred and eighty leagues, definitely counted as work, the idea was received with enthusiasm by the community of nobles and plebeians in valladolid, which is now considering putting on a great popular festival with jousting, fireworks, the distribution of food, clothes and alms to the poor and whatever else occurs to the inhabitants' excited imaginations. Now what with all these explanations, indispensable to our readers' present and future peace of mind, we missed the moment when the archduke actually reached the elephant, not that you missed very much, for in the course of this story, the same archduke, as we have both described and not described, has arrived many times at various places entirely without incident, as court protocol demands, for if it did not, it would not be protocol. We know that the archduke inquired after the health and well-being of his elephant suleiman and that fritz gave him the appropriate replies, especially those that his archducal highness would most like to hear, which shows just how much the once shabby mahout has learned during his apprenticeship in the delicacies and wiles of the perfect courtier, for the innocent portuguese court, more inclined to the religious hypocrisy of the confessional and the sacristy than to the ref
inements of the salon, had not served him as a guide, indeed, confined to that rather grubby enclosure in belém, he had never been given the least opportunity to broaden his education. It was noticed that the archduke occasionally wrinkled his nose and made constant use of his perfumed handkerchief, which would, of course, have surprised the cast-iron olfactory systems of the sailors, accustomed to all kinds of pestilential smells and therefore insensitive to the odor that, despite the wind, still lingered in the air after that sluicing down of the decks. Having done his duty as a proprietor concerned for the safety of his possessions, the archduke hurriedly retreated, followed by the usual colorful peacock's tail of court parasites.

  Once the loading of the ship was completed, and this required more than usually complex calculations, given that there were four tons of elephant stowed on one small area of the deck, the ship was ready to set sail. Having weighed anchor and hoisted its sails, one square and the others triangular, the latter reclaimed a century or so before from their remote mediterranean past by portuguese sailors, and which, later on, were called lateens, the ship, initially, swayed clumsily on the waves, and then, after the first flap of the sails, headed east, for genoa, just as the sailor had told the mahout. The crossing lasted three long days, with mostly rough seas and gale-force winds that hurled furious squalls of rain down onto the elephant's back and onto the sacking with which the sailors on deck were trying to protect themselves from the worst. There was not a sign of the archduke, who was safe inside in the warm with the archduchess, doubtless keeping in practice in order to produce his third child. When the rain stopped and the wind ran out of puff, the passengers from below decks began to emerge, unsteady and blinking, into the dim light of day, looking very green about the gills and with dark circles under their eyes, and the cuirassiers' attempt, for example, to dredge up an artificially martial air from now distant memories of terra firma, including, if they really had to, the memory of castelo rodrigo, even though they had been most shamefully defeated there by those humble, ill-mounted, ill-equipped portuguese horsemen, and without a single shot being fired. When the fourth day dawned, with a calm sea and a clear sky, the horizon had become the coast of liguria. The beam sent out from the genoa lighthouse, a landmark known affectionately by the locals as the lantern, faded as the morning brightness grew, but it was still strong enough to guide any vessel into port. Two hours later, with a pilot on board, the ship was entering the bay and slipping slowly, with almost all its sails furled, toward a vacant mooring at the quay where, as became immediately patent and manifest, all kinds of carriages and carts of various types and for various purposes, almost all of them harnessed to mules, were awaiting the convoy. Given how slow, laborious and inefficient communications were in those days, one must presume that carrier pigeons had once again played an active part in the complex logistical operation that made this quayside welcome possible, bang on time, with no delays or setbacks that would have meant one contingent having to wait for the other. We hereby recognize that the somewhat disdainful, ironic tone that has slipped into these pages whenever we have had cause to speak of austria and its people was not only aggressive, but patently unfair. Not that this was our intention, but you know how it is with writing, one word often brings along another in its train simply because they sound good together, even if this means sacrificing respect for levity and ethics for aesthetics, if such solemn concepts are not out of place in a discourse such as this, and often to no one's advantage either. It is in this and other ways, almost without our realizing it, that we make so many enemies in life.