All the Names

by José Saramago

  Although the floor was carpeted, Senhor José thought it best to take off his shoes to avoid any shock or vibration that might betray his presence to the tenants on the floor below. With enormous care he slid back the bolts on the inner shutters of one of the windows that opened onto the street, but only enough to let in a little light. He was in a bedroom. There was a dressing table, a wardrobe, a bedside table. A narrow bed, a single, as they are called. The furniture had light, simple lines, the opposite of the dull, heavy furniture in her parents' house. Senhor José walked through the other rooms in the apartment, which comprised a living room furnished with the usual sofas and a bookshelf that took up the whole of one wall, a much smaller room that served as a study, a tiny kitchen and a rnini mal bathroom. Here lived a woman who committed suicide for unknown reasons, who had been married and got divorced, who could have gone to live with her parents after the divorce, but had preferred to live alone, a woman who, like aU women, was once a child and a girl, but who even then, in a certain indefinable way, was already the woman she was going to be, a mathematics teacher whose name while she was alive was in the Central Registry, along with the names of aU the people alive in this city, a woman whose dead name returned to the living world because Senhor José went to rescue her from the dead world, just her name, not her, a clerk can only do so much. With the inner doors all open, there is enough light from outside to be able to see the whole apartment, but Senhor José will have to get his search under way quickly if he doesn't want to have to leave it half done. He opened a drawer in a desk, glanced at its contents, they seemed to be math problems for school, calculations, equations, nothing that could explain the reasons for the life and death of the woman who used to sit in this chair, who used to switch on this lamp, who used to hold this pencil and write with it. Senhor José slowly closed the drawer, he even started to open another but did not complete the movement, he stopped to think for a long minute, or perhaps it was only a few seconds that seemed like hours, then he firmly pushed the drawer shut, left the study and went and sat on one of the smaU sofas in the living room, where he remained. He looked at his old darned socks, the trousers that had lost their crease and had ridden up a little, his bony white shins with a few sparse hairs on them. He felt his body sinking into the soft concavity left by another body in the upholstery and the springs, She'll never sit here again, he murmured. The silence, which had seemed to him absolute, was interrupted now by noises from the street, especially, from time to time, by the passing of a car, but in the air too there was a slow breathing, a slow pulse, perhaps it was the way houses breathe when they are left alone, this one has probably not even realised yet that there is someone here now. Senhor José tells himself that there are still drawers to go through, the ones in the dresser, where people usually keep their more intimate garments, the ones in the bedside table, where intimate things of a different nature are generally stored, the wardrobe, he thinks that if he went to open the wardrobe he would be unable to resist the desire to run his fingers over the clothes hanging there, like that, as if he were stroking the keys of a silent piano, he thinks that he would lift up the skirt of one of those dresses to breathe in the aroma, the perfume, the smell. And then there are the drawers in the desk that he hasn't even looked in yet, and the small cupboards in the bookcase, what he is looking for, the letter, the diary, the word of farewell, the trace of the last tear, must be hidden somewhere. Why, he asked, supposing such a piece of paper does exist, supposing I find it, read it, just because I read it doesn't mean that her dresses will cease to be empty, from now on all those math problems will remain unsolved, no one will discover the value of the unknown factors in the equations, the bedspread won't be pulled back, the sheet won't be pulled up snugly to the chest, the bedside lamp will not light the page of a book, what is over is over. Senhor José bent forward, rested his head in his hands, as if he wanted to go on thinking, but that wasn't the case, he had run out of thoughts. The light dimmed for a moment, some cloud passing over the sun. At that moment, the telephone rang. He hadn't noticed it before, but there it was, on a small table in a corner, like a rarely used object. The answering machine came on, a female voice said the telephone number, then added, I'm not at home right now, but please leave a message after the tone. Whoever had called had hung up, some people hate talking to a machine, or in this case perhaps it was a wrong number, well, if you don't recognise the voice on the answering machine, there's no point leaving a message. This would have to be explained to Senhor José, who had never in his life seen one of these machines close up, but he would probably not have paid any attention to the explanations, he is so troubled by the few words he heard, I'm not at home right now, but please leave a message after the tone, no, she's not at home, she'll never be at home again, only her voice remained, grave, veiled, as if distracted, as if she had been thinking of something else when she made the recording. Senhor José said, They might ring again, and nurturing that hope, he did not move from the sofa for another hour, the darkness in the house grew gradually thicker and the telephone did not ring again. Then Senhor José got up, I must go, he murmured, but before leaving, he took another turn about the house, he went into the bedroom, where there was more light, he sat for a moment on the edge of the bed, again and again he ran his hands slowly over the embroidered top fold of the sheet, then he opened the wardrobe, there were the dresses of the woman who had spoken the definitive words, I'm not at home. He bent towards them until he touched them with his face, the smell they gave off could be described as a smell of absence, or perhaps it was that mingled perfume of rose and chrysanthemum that sometimes wafts through the Central Registry.

  The concierge hadn't come and asked him where he had sprung from, the building is silent, it seems uninhabited. It was this silence that provoked an idea, the most daring he had ever had, What if I were to stay here tonight, what if I were to sleep in her bed, no one would ever know. Tell Senhor José that nothing could be easier, he just has to go up in the lift again, go into the apartment, take off his shoes, maybe another wrong number will ring, if they do, then you'll have the pleasure of hearing again the grave, veiled voice of the mathematics teacher, I'm not at home, she'll say, and if, during the night, lying in her bed, some pleasant dream excites your old body, as you know, the remedy is to hand, but you'll have to be careful not to mess up the sheets. These are sarcasms and vulgarities that Senhor José does not deserve, his daring idea, rather more romantic than daring, goes just as it came, and he is no longer inside the building, but outside, what helped him to leave, apparendy, was the painful memory of his old, darned socks and his bony, white shins with their sparse hairs. Nothing in the world makes any sense, murmured Senhor José, and set off for the road where the lady in the ground-floor apartment lives. The afternoon is at an end, the Central Registry will already have closed, the clerk does not have many hours in which to invent an excuse to justify having missed a whole day's work Everyone knows he has no family that would require him to rush to them in an emergency, and even if he did, there can be no excuse in his case, living as he does right next to the Central Registry, all he had to do was go in and stand at the door and say, I'll be back tomorrow, one of my cousins is dying. Senhor José decides he's ready for anything, that they can dismiss him if they want, expel him from the civil service, perhaps the shepherd needs an assistant to help him change the numbers on the graves, especially if he's considering widening his field of activity, there's really no reason why he should limit himself to the suicides, the dead are all equal, what you can do to some you can do to all, jumble them up, confuse them, it doesn't matter, the world doesn't make sense anyway.

  When Senhor José knocked at the door of the lady in the ground-floor apartment he was thinking only of the cup of tea he would have. He rang once, twice, but no one answered. Perplexed, worried, he rang the doorbell of the apartment opposite. A woman appeared who asked him sharply, What do you want, No one's answering across the way, So what, Has anything happened
to her, do you know, What do you mean, An accident, an illness, for example, It's possible, an ambulance came to get her, And when was that, Three days ago, And you've heard nothing since, do you happen to know where she is, No, I don't, now if you'll excuse me. The woman slammed the door, leaving Senhor José in the dark. Tomorrow I'll have to go to all the hospitals, he thought. He felt exhausted, he had spent all day walking from one place to another, bombarded by emotions all day, and now this shock on top of everything else. He left the building and stood on the sidewalk wondering if he should do something more, go and ask one of the other tenants, they couldn't all be as unpleasant as the woman opposite, Senhor José went back into the building, went up the stairs to the second floor and rang at the door of the mother with the child and the jealous husband, who by now would be back from work, not that it matters, Senhor José is only going to ask if they know anything about the lady in the ground-floor apartment. The stair light is on. The door opens, the woman isn't carrying her baby and doesn't recognise Senhor José, Can I help you, she asks, I'm sorry to trouble you, I came to visit the lady in the ground-floor apartment, but she's not there and the woman opposite told me that an ambulance took her away three days ago, Yes, that's right, You don't happen to know where she is, do you, in which hospital, or if she's with some member of her family. Before the woman had time to reply, a male voice asked from inside, What is it, she turned her head, It's someone asking about the lady in the ground-floor apartment, then she looked at Senhor José and said, No, we don't know anything. Senhor José lowered his voice and asked, Don't you recognise me, she hesitated, Oh, yes, I do now, she said in a whisper and slowly closed the door.

  Out in the street, Senhor José hailed a taxi, Take me to the Central Registry, he said distractedly to the driver. He would have preferred to walk, in order to save what little money he had and to end the day as he had begun it, but weariness would not allow him to take another step. Or so he thought. When the driver announced, Here we are, Senhor José discovered that he wasn't outside his house, but at the door of the Central Registry. It wasn't worth explaining to the man that he should go around the square and up the side street, he'd only have to walk about fifty yards, not even that. He paid with his last few coins, got out and when he put his feet on the pavement and looked up, he saw that the lights in the Central Registry were on, Not again, he thought, and he immediately forgot his concern for the fate of the lady in the ground-floor apartment and the fact that the mother with the child had remembered him, the problem now is finding an excuse for the following day. He went around the corner, there was his house, squat, almost a ruin really, clinging to the high wall of the building that seemed about to crush it. It was then that brutal fingers clutched at Senhor José's heart. The light was on in his house. He was sure he'd turned it off when he went out, but, bearing in mind the confusion that has reigned for days now inside his head, he admits that he might have forgotten, if it weren't for that other light, the one in the Central Registry, the five windows brilliantly lit. He put his key in the door, he knew what he was going to see, but he paused on the threshold as if social convention required him to be surprised. His boss was sitting at the table, before him were a few papers carefully lined up. Senhor José did not need to approach in order to find out what they were, the two forged letters of authority, the unknown woman's report cards, his notebook, the cover from the Central Registry file containing official documents. Come in, said his boss, it's your house. The clerk closed the door, went over to the table and stopped. He didn't speak, he felt his head become a whirlpool in which all his thoughts were dissolving. Sit down, as I said, it's your house. Senhor José noticed that on top of the report cards there was a key the same as his. Are you looking at the key, asked the Registrar, and continued calmly, don't imagine it's some fraudulent copy, the houses of staff members, when there were houses, always had two keys to the communicating door, one, of course, for the use of the owner, and another which remained in the possession of the Central Registry, everything's fine, as you see, Apart from your having come in here without my permission, Senhor José managed to say, I didn't need your permission, the master of the key is the master of the house, let's say we're both the masters of this house, just as you seem to have considered yourself master enough of the Central Registry to remove official documents from the archive, I can explain, There's no need, I've been keeping regular track of your activities, and, besides, your notebook has been a great help to me, may I take the opportunity to congratulate you on the excellent style and the appropriateness of the language, I'll hand in my resignation tomorrow, I won't accept it. Senhor José looked surprised, You won't accept it, No, I won't, Why, if you don't mind my asking, Feel free, since I am an accomplice to your irregular activities, I don't understand. The Registrar picked up the file of the unknown woman, then said, You will understand, first, though, tell me what happened in the cemetery, your narrative ends with the conversation you had with the clerk over there, It'll take a long time, Just tell me in a few words, so that I get the complete picture, I walked through the General Cemetery to the section for suicides, I went to sleep under an olive tree, and the following morning, when I woke up, I was in the middle of a flock of sheep, and then I found out that the shepherd amuses himself by swapping around the numbers on the graves before the tombstones are put in place, Why, It's hard to explain, it's all to do with knowing where the people we're looking for really are, he thinks we'll never know, Like the woman you call the unknown woman, Yes, sir, What did you do today, I went to the school where she was a teacher and I went to her apartment, Did you find anything out, No, sir, and I don't think I wanted to. The Registrar opened the file, took out the record card that had got stuck to the cards of the last five famous people in whom Senhor José had taken an interest, Do you know what I would do in your position, he asked, No, sir, Do you know what is the only logical conclusion to everything that has happened up until now, No, sir, Make up a new card for this woman, the same as the old one, with all the correct information, but without a date for her death, And then, Then go and put it in the archive of the living, as if she hadn't died, That would be a fraud, Yes, it would, but nothing that we have done or said, you and I, would make any sense if we don't, I still don't understand. The Registrar leaned back in the chair, drew his hands slowly over his face, then asked, Do you remember what I said inside there on Friday, when you turned up for work without having shaved, Yes, sir, Everything, Everything, Then you'll remember that I referred to certain facts without which I would never have realised the absurdity of separating the dead from the living, Yes sir, Do I need to tell you which facts I was referring to, No, sir.

  The Registrar got up, I'll leave the key here, I have no intention of using it again, and he added, before Senhor José could say anything, There is still one last thing to resolve, What's that, sir, There's no death certificate in the unknown woman's file, I didn't manage to find it, it must be somewhere back there in the archive, or perhaps I dropped it on the way, As long as it remains lost, that woman will be dead, She'll be dead whether I find it or not, Unless you destroy it, said the Registrar. Having said that, he turned his back, and shortly afterwards came the sound of the door to the Central Registry closing. Senhor José stood in the middle of the room. There was no need to fill in a new card because he already had a copy in the file. He would, however, have to tear up or burn the original, where the date of death was registered. And there was still the death certificate. Senhor José went into the Central Registry, walked over to the Registrar's desk, opened the drawer where the flashlight and Ariadne's thread were waiting for him. He tied the end of the thread around his ankle and set off into the darkness.

  Reading Group Guide

  1. How do the Central Registry's hierarchy of authority and the operating procedures reflect those of institutions, groups, and other bureaucracies with which you are familiar? In what ways might they be said to represent the structure and workings of society itself?


  2. Including "the labyrinthine catacombs of the archive of the dead," (5) what labyrinths and mazes—external and internal—appear in the novel? What purpose do they serve? How do Senhor José and others navigate them? What perils and rewards are associated with them?

  3. In what way does Senhor José's accidental possession and examination of the card belonging to a woman of thirty-six bring him "face-to-face with destiny"? (25) What attracts him to this specific card and its person? How does that "destiny" subsequently unfold? How might he have changed his destiny in this regard?

  4. Senior José's ceiling—"the multiple eye of God"—doesn't believe his claim that he paid a nighttime visit to the street where the unknown woman was born, "Because what you say you did doesn't fit with my reality and what doesn't fit with my reality doesn't exist." (31) How does this notion that objective reality depends on conformity to an individual's perceived reality recur through All the Names?

  5. How do fear, timidity, and anxiety affect Senhor José's thinking and behavior? What enables him to overcome his mild manners, timidity, and anxieties and act deceptively and—in some instances—with despotic authority, much like the Registrar?

  6. What roles do chance and coincidence play in Senhor José's endeavors? To what degree is he aware of the importance of chance and coincidence? What does the narrator have to say about the part they play in all our lives?

  7. In what ways, and why, do Senhor José's endeavors soil and bruise both his body and his spirit? Why might the sullying and bruising be necessary stages in his progress? When he looks at himself in the school bathroom mirror, Senhor José is surprised at his filthy state. "It doesn't even look like me, he thought, and yet he had probably never looked more like himself." (91–92) In what ways might this be so?