The Collected Novels of José Saramago

by José Saramago

  The archducal coach is waiting for its noble, illustrious, distinguished passengers. Fritz directs the elephant to the place reserved for him in the cortège, behind the coach, but at a prudent distance, not wishing to anger the archduke by the near presence of a trickster like him, who, while not going to the classic extreme of selling a pig in a poke, had nevertheless duped a few poor bald men, among them some brave cuirassiers, with the promise that their hair would grow as thick as the hair of that unfortunate mythic figure samson. He need not have worried, the archduke didn't even look in his direction, he seemed to have other things on his mind, he wanted to reach bressanone before nightfall and they were already late. He dispatched the aide-de-camp to take his orders to the head of the convoy, orders that could be summarized in three almost synonymous words, speed, alacrity, haste, allowing, of course, for the delaying effects of the snow that had begun to fall more thickly now, and the state of the roads, which, normally bad, were now even worse. It may only be a journey of ten leagues, as the helpful sergeant had informed the mahout, but if, by current calculations, ten leagues are fifty thousand meters or some tens of thousands of paces in old measurements, there's no avoiding the facts, numbers are numbers, then the people and animals who have just set off for yet another painful day's journeying are going to suffer greatly, especially those who are not blessed with a roof, which is most of them. How pretty the snow looks seen through the glass, the archduchess maria remarked ingenuously to her husband, the archduke maximilian, but for those of us outside, our eyes blinded by the wind and our boots sodden with snow, with the chilblains on our hands and feet burning like the fires of hell, it would be timely to ask the heavens just what we did to deserve such a punishment. As the poet said, the pine trees may wave at the sky, but the sky does not answer. It doesn't answer men either, even though most of them have known the right prayers since they were children, the problem is finding a language that god can understand. They say that the cold, when it's born, is intended for everyone, but some get more than their fair share of it. There is a vast difference between traveling in a coach lined with furs and blankets fitted with a thermostat and having to walk along in the flailing snow or with your foot in a frozen stirrup that feels, in the cold, as tight as a tourniquet. What did cheer them up was the news the sergeant had passed on to fritz about the possibility of having a good rest in bressanone, news that spread like a spring breeze throughout the convoy, but then the pessimists, singly and altogether, reminded the forgetful of the dangers of the isarco pass, not to mention another still worse that lies ahead, in austrian territory, the brenner pass. Had hannibal dared to go through either, we would probably not have had to wait for the battle of zama in order to watch, at our local cinema, the last, definitive defeat of the carthaginian army by scipio africanus, a film about the romans produced by benito's eldest son, vittorio mussolini. On that occasion, the elephants proved of no use to the great hannibal.

  Mounted on suleiman's shoulders and receiving in his face the full brunt of the snow being whipped up by the incessant wind, fritz is not in the best of positions to elaborate and develop elevated thoughts. Nevertheless, he keeps trying to think of ways to improve his relations with the archduke, who not only refuses to speak to him, he won't even look at him. Things had begun rather well in valladolid, but suleiman, with his intestinal upsets on the way to rosas, had seriously damaged the noble cause of creating harmony between two social classes as far removed from one another as mahouts and archdukes. With a little goodwill, all this could have been forgotten, but the offense committed by subhro or fritz or whoever the devil he is, the madness that had made him want to grow rich by illicit and morally reprehensible means, put paid to any hopes of restoring the almost fraternal esteem which, for one magical moment, had brought the future emperor of austria closer to that humble driver of elephants. The skeptics are quite right when they say that the history of humanity is one long succession of missed opportunities. Fortunately, thanks to the inexhaustible generosity of the imagination, we erase faults, fill in lacunae as best we can, forge passages through blind alleys that will remain stubbornly blind, and invent keys to doors that have never even had locks. This is what fritz is doing while suleiman, painfully lifting his heavy legs, one, two, one, two, makes his way through the snow that continues to accumulate on the path, while the pure water out of which it is made insidiously transforms itself into the slipperiest of ice. Fritz thinks bitterly that only an act of heroism on his part would restore him to the archduke's favor, but, however hard he tries, he can come up with nothing sufficiently grandiose to attract his highness's approving eye even for a second. It is then that he imagines the axle of the archducal coach, having broken once, breaking again, the coach lurching violently to one side, the carriage door flying open, and the helpless archduchess being hurled out into the snow, where she slides on her many skirts down a relatively gentle slope, not stopping until she, fortunately unhurt, reaches the bottom of the ravine. The mahout's hour has come. With an energetic prod of the stick that sometimes serves as his steering wheel, he directs suleiman to the edge of the ravine and makes him descend slowly and steadily to the place where charles the fifth's daughter lies, still half dazed. Some cuirassiers make as if to follow him, but the archduke stops them, Leave him, let's see how he copes. Barely has he spoken than the archduchess, lifted up by the elephant's trunk, finds herself seated between fritz's spread legs, in a position of physical proximity that, in other circum stances, would seem utterly scandalous. If she were the queen of portugal, she would have to go straight to confession afterwards, that's for sure. Up above, the cuirassiers and the other people in the convoy would be enthusiastically applauding the heroic rescue, while the elephant, apparently aware of what he had done, would climb slowly and steadily back up the slope to the path, where the archduke would embrace his wife and, looking up at the mahout, say in castilian, Muy bien, fritz, gracias. Fritz's soul would have burst right there and then with happiness, always assuming that this were possible in something that is not even pure spirit and if everything we have described were not merely the morbid fruit of a guilty imagination. Reality revealed itself to him exactly as it was, himself hunched on the elephant's back, almost invisible beneath the snow, the desolate image of a defeated conqueror, demonstrating yet again how close the tarpeian rock is to the capitoline hill, on the latter they crown you with laurels and from the former they fling you down, all glory vanished, all honor lost, to the place where you will leave your wretched bones. The axle on the coach did not break again, the archduchess is dozing peacefully, resting her head on her husband's shoulder, unaware that she had been saved by an elephant and that a mahout from portugal had served as an instrument of divine providence. Despite all the criticisms that have been heaped upon the world, it daily discovers ways of functioning tant bien que mal, if you will allow us this small homage to french culture, the proof of which is that when good things don't happen of their own accord in reality, the free imagination helps create a more balanced composition. It's true that the mahout did not save the archduchess, but the fact that he had imag ined it meant that he could have done, and that is what counts. He may find himself pitilessly returned to his solitary state and to the icy teeth of the cold and the snow, but thanks to certain fatalistic beliefs internalized or absorbed in lisbon, fritz considers that if it was written on the tablets of destiny that the archduke would one day make his peace with him, then that day will inevitably arrive. Filled by this comfortable certainty, he abandoned himself to suleiman's rolling gait, once more alone in the landscape, for, in the continuing snow, the rear of the archduke's coach was nowhere in sight. The poor visibility still allowed them to see where they should put their feet, but not where their feet would take them. Meanwhile, the scenery around them had changed, first to something that one might describe as discreet, gentle, almost undulating, now to one so violent it made you think that the mountains must have undergone an apocalyptic series of fractures whose severit
y had increased in geometric progression. It had taken only twenty leagues to go from rounded spurs that could pass for hills to a tumult of rocks that either split open to form ravines or rose up in peaks that scaled the sky and down whose slopes occasional swift avalanches hurled themselves, thus forming new landscapes and new tracks to delight the skiers of the future. We seem to be approaching the isarco pass, which the austrians insist on calling eisack. We will have to walk for at least another hour before we reach it, but a providential diminution in the thick curtain of snow means that, for a brief moment, we can see it in the distance, a vertical tear in the mountain. The isarco pass, said the mahout. And so it was. It's hard to understand just why the archduke maximilian should have decided to make such a journey at this time of year, but that is how it's set down in history, as an incontrovertible, documented fact, supported by historians and confirmed by the novelist, who must be forgiven for taking certain liberties with names, not only because it is his right to invent, but also because he had to fill in certain gaps so that the sacred coherence of the story was not lost. It must be said that history is always selective, and discriminatory too, selecting from life only what society deems to be historical and scorning the rest, which is precisely where we might find the true explanation of facts, of things, of wretched reality itself. In truth, I say to you, it is better to be a novelist, a fiction writer, a liar. Or a mahout, despite the harebrained fantasies to which, either by birth or profession, they seem to be prone. Although fritz has no option but to be carried along by suleiman, we have to acknowledge that the edifying story we have been telling would not be the same with another mahout in charge. So far, fritz has been a vital character at every turn, be it dramatic or comic, even at the risk of cutting a ridiculous figure whenever a pinch of the ludicrous was felt to be necessary or merely tactically advisable for the narrative, putting up with humiliations without a word of protest or a flicker of emotion, careful not to let it be known that, without him, there would be no one to deliver the goods, or in this case, to take the elephant to vienna. These remarks may seem unnecessary to readers more interested in the dynamic of the text than in general expressions of supposed solidarity, but it was clear that fritz, after recent disastrous events, needed someone to place a friendly hand on his shoulder, and that is all we did, place a hand on his shoulder. When the mind wanders, when it carries us off on the wings of daydreams, we do not even notice the distances traveled, especially when the feet carrying us are not our own. Apart from the odd stray flake that has lost its way, it has pretty much stopped snowing now. The narrow path ahead of us is the famous isarco pass. Rising almost vertically on either side, the walls of the ravine seem about to crash down onto the path. Fritz's heart contracted with fear, his bones were filled with a cold quite different from anything he had ever known before. He was alone in the midst of that terrible all-pervading threat, for the archduke's imperative orders that the convoy should remain united and cohesive as their sole guarantee of safety, just as mountaineers rope themselves together, had been quite simply ignored. A proverb, if it can be called such, and which is as portuguese as it is indian and universal, sums up such situations elegantly and eloquently, do as I tell you, not as I do. That is precisely how the archduke had behaved, he had given an order, Stay together, but when it came to it, instead of waiting, as he should have done, for the elephant and his mahout who were following behind, especially given that he was the owner of one and the master of the other, he had, figuratively speaking, dug his spurs into his horse and legged it, straight for the far end of the dangerous pass before it was too late and darkness fell. But just imagine if the vanguard of cuirassiers had ridden into the pass and waited there for those behind them to catch up, the archduke and his archduchess, the elephant suleiman and the mahout fritz, the cart carrying the forage, and finally their fellow cuirassiers bringing up the rear, as well as all the wagons in between, laden with coffers and chests and trunks, and the multitude of servants, all fraternally gathered, waiting for the mountain to fall on them or for such an avalanche as had never before been seen to shroud them all in snow, blocking the pass until springtime. Egotism, generally held to be one of the most negative and repudiated of human characteristics, can, in certain circumstances, have its good side. Having saved our own precious skin, by fleeing the deadly mousetrap that the isarco pass had become, we also saved the skins of our traveling companions, who, when they arrived, could continue on their way unobstructed by untimely bottlenecks of traffic, the conclusion, therefore, is easy to draw, every man for himself so that all can be saved. Who would have thought it, not only is a moral act not always what it appears to be, but the more it contradicts itself the more effective it is. Faced by such crystal-clear proofs and roused by the sudden thud, a hundred yards behind them, of a mass of snow, which, while not aspiring to the name of avalanche, was more than enough to give them a real fright, fritz signaled to suleiman to get walking, now. This order seemed to suleiman rather on the conservative side. Such a perilous situation called not for a walk, but a trot or, better still, a rapid gallop that would save him from the dangers of the isarco pass. Rapid it was, as rapid as saint anthony when he used the fourth dimension to travel to lisbon and save his father from the gallows. Unfortunately, suleiman overestimated his own strength. A few meters after he had left the pass behind him, his front legs crumpled under him and he knelt down, lungs bursting. The mahout, however, was lucky. Such a fall would normally have sent him flying over the head of his unfortunate mount, with god alone knows what tragic consequences, but in suleiman's celebrated elephantine memory there surfaced the recollection of what had happened with the village priest who tried to exorcise him, when, at the last second, at the very last moment, he, suleiman, had softened the blow he had unleashed and that would otherwise have proved fatal. The difference now was that suleiman somehow managed to use what little reserves of energy he had left to reduce the impetus of his own fall, so that his huge knees touched the ground as lightly as a snowflake. How he did this, we have no idea, and we're not going to ask him either. Like magicians, elephants have their secrets. When forced to choose between speaking and remaining silent, an elephant always chooses silence, that is why his trunk grew so long, so that, apart from being capable of transporting tree trunks and serving as an elevator for his mahout, it has the added advantage of being a serious obstacle to any bouts of uncontrolled loquacity. Fritz carefully intimated to suleiman that it was time to make a small effort and get to his feet. He didn't order him, he didn't resort to any of his varied repertoire of flicks and pokes with the stick, some more aggressive than others, he merely intimated his wishes to him, which shows yet again that respect for other people's feelings is the best way to ensure a prosperous and happy life as regards one's relationships and affections. It's the difference between a categorical Get up and a tentative What about trying to get up. There are even those who maintain that jesus actually used the latter phrase and not the former, which provides absolute proof that the resurrection was, ultimately, dependent on lazarus's free will and not on the nazarene's miraculous powers, however sublime they may have been. If lazarus came back to life it was because he was spoken to kindly, as simple as that. And it was clear that the method continues to produce good results, for suleiman, straightening first his right leg and then his left, restored fritz to the relative safety of a rather uncertain verticality, since, up until then, fritz had been entirely dependent on a few stiff hairs on the back of the elephant's neck if he was not to be precipitated down suleiman's trunk. Suleiman is now back on his four feet, suddenly cheered by the arrival of the forage cart which, having battled through the aforementioned mound of snow, thanks to valiant work from the two yoke of oxen, was moving at a sprightly pace toward the end of the pass and the elephant's voracious appetite. Suleiman's almost failing soul now received its reward for the remarkable feat of having restored life to its own prostrate body, which, in the middle of that cruel, white landscape, had looked as if it w
ould never rise again. The table was set right there and then, and while fritz and the ox-driver were celebrating their salvation with a few swigs of brandy provided by the latter, suleiman was devouring bundle after bundle of forage with touching enthusiasm. All that was lacking was for flowers to bloom in the snow and for the little birds of spring to return to the tyrol and sing their sweet songs. But you can't have everything. It's quite enough that fritz and the ox-driver, putting their two intelligences together, should have found a solution to a worrying tendency among the various components of the convoy to drift apart as if they had nothing to do with each other. It was, shall we say, a bipartite solution, but doubtless a precursor to a different way of approaching problems, that is, even if the aim of the scheme is to serve one's own interests, it's always a good idea to know that one can count on the other party. An integrated solution, in other words. From now on, the oxen and the elephant will, at all times, travel together, the forage cart in front and the elephant behind, with the smell of the hay in his nostrils, so to speak. However logical and rational the topographical distribution of this small group may appear, and as no one would dare to deny, nothing of what has been achieved here, thanks to a genuine desire for unanimity, will apply, well, how could it, to the archduke and archduchess, whose coach has gone on ahead, indeed, it may even have reached bressanone already. If that is so, we are authorized to reveal that suleiman will enjoy a richly deserved two weeks of rest in this well-known tourist spot, in an inn called am hohen feld, which means, appropriately enough, steep land. It's only natural that it will strike some as strange that an inn located in italian territory should have a german name, but this is easily explained when we remember that most of the guests who come here are austrians and germans who like to feel at home. For similar reasons, in the algarve, as someone will later take the trouble to point out, a praia will no longer be called a praia but a beach, a pescador a fisherman, whether he likes it or not, and, as for tourist complexes, they will no longer be called aldeias, but holiday villages, villages de vacances or ferienorte. Things will reach such a pitch that there will no longer be any lojas de modas, because these will be called, in a kind of portuguese by adoption, a boutique and, in english, inevitably, fashion shop, less inevitably, modes in french, and quite bluntly modegeschäft in german. A sapataria will become a shoe shop, and that will be that. And if a traveler were to start collecting the names of bars and nightclubs, like someone hunting for lice, by the time he had gone all around the coast to sines, he would still know hardly a word of portuguese. So despised is that language there that one could say of the algarve, in an age when the civilized are descending into barbarism, that it is the land of portuguese as she is not spoke. And bressanone is the same.