The Collected Novels of José Saramago (330 page)

That afternoon, as agreed, Cipriano Algor phoned Marta to tell her that he had arrived safely, that the house looked as if they had left it only yesterday, that Found was almost mad with joy, and that Isaura sent her love. Where are you speaking from, asked Marta, From home, of course, And Isaura, She’s here beside me, do you want to talk to her, Yes, but first tell me what’s going on, What do you mean, I mean the fact that Isaura is there, Don’t you like the idea, Don’t be silly and stop beating about the bush, answer my question, All right, Isaura is staying with me, And who are you staying with, We’re staying with each other, if that’s what you want to hear. There was a silence at the other end. Then Marta said, I’m really pleased, Well, I’d never know it from your voice, My tone of voice has nothing to do with those particular words, but with others, What words are those, Tomorrow, the future, We’ll have time to think about the future, Don’t pretend, don’t close your eyes to reality, you know perfectly well that the present is over for us, You’re both all right, and we’ll sort ourselves out here, No, I’m not all right and neither is Marçal, Why, If there’s no future there, there’s certainly none here, Can you explain yourself more clearly, please, Look, I have a child growing inside me, if, when he’s old enough to make his own decisions, he should choose to live in a place like this, he will be doing what he wants, but I won’t give birth to him here, You should have thought of that before, It’s never too late to correct a mistake, even when you can do nothing about the consequences, although we might still be able to do something about those too, How, First, Marçal and I need to have a long talk, then we’ll see, Think carefully and don’t rush into anything, A mistake can just as easily be the consequence of careful thought, Pa, besides, as far as I know, nowhere is it written that rushing into things necessarily has bad results, Well, I hope you’re never disappointed, Oh, I’m not that ambitious, I just don’t want to be disappointed this time, and now, if you don’t mind, that’s the end of the father-daughter dialogue, call Isaura for me, I’ve got lots of things to say to her. Cipriano Algor passed the telephone over and went outside. There stands the pottery in which a solitary lump of clay lies drying, there is the kiln in which the three hundred figurines are asking each other why the devil they were ever made, there is the firewood that will wait in vain to be carried to the furnace. And Marta saying, If there’s no future here, there’s none there either. Cipriano Algor knew happiness today, the open sky of a love which, once declared, was consummated, and now yet again the storm clouds are gathering, the malign shadows of doubt and fear, it’s obvious that, even if they pull in their belts to the very last notch, what the Center paid him for the figurines will last for two months at most, and that the difference between what the shop assistant Isaura Madruga earns and zero must be very nearly another zero. And what then, he asked, looking at the mulberry tree, who replied, Then, my old friend, the future, as always.

Four days later, Marta phoned again, We’ll be there tomorrow evening. Cipriano Algor made a few rapid calculations, But it can’t be Marçal’s day off yet, No, it isn’t, So, Keep your questions for when we arrive, Do you want me to come and pick you up, No, don’t bother, we’ll take a taxi. Cipriano Algor told Isaura that he found the visit odd, Unless, he added, the roster for rest days has been upset by some bureacratic confusion caused by the discovery of the cave, but in that case she would have said so and not told me to keep my questions for when they arrive, A day passes quickly enough, said Isaura, we’ll find out tomorrow. However, the day did not pass as quickly as Isaura thought. Twenty-four hours spent thinking are a lot of hours, twenty-four hours we say because sleep is not everything, at night, there are probably other thoughts in our head that draw a curtain and continue thinking unbeknownst to anyone. Cipriano Algor had not forgotten Marta’s categorical words about her unborn child, I won’t give birth to him here, an absolutely explicit statement, unequivocal, not one of those conglomerations of more or less organized vocal noises that seem to be doubting themselves even as they affirm. Logically speaking, there could be only one possible conclusion to draw, Marta and Marçal were going to leave the Center. If they do, they’ll be making a great mistake, said Cipriano Algor, what are they going to live on afterward, You could ask the same of us, said Isaura, but do I look worried, You believe in a divine providence that watches over the helpless, No, I don’t, I just happen to think that there are times in our lives when we have to let ourselves be carried along by the current of events, as if we didn’t have the strength to resist, but then there comes a point when we suddenly realize that the river is flowing in our favor, no one else has noticed, but we have, anyone watching will think we’re about to go under, and yet our navigational skills have never been better, Let’s just hope that this is one such occasion. He would soon find out. Marta and Marçal got out of the taxi, took some packages out of the trunk, fewer than they had taken with them to the Center, Found gave vent to his excitement by running wildly twice around the mulberry tree, and when the taxi drove down the hill to go back to the city, Marçal said, I am no longer an employee of the Center, I’ve resigned from my job as security guard. Cipriano Algor and Isaura did not feel they needed to look surprised, which would, anyway, have rung entirely false, but they felt obliged to ask at least one question, one of those useless questions we seem unable to live without, Are you sure you’ve acted for the best, and Marçal replied, I don’t know if it was for the best or for the worst, I just did what I had to do, and I wasn’t the only one, two of my colleagues resigned as well, one external guard and one resident, And how did the Center react, If you don’t adapt you’re no use to them, and I had stopped adapting, the last two phrases were spoken after supper, And when did you feel that you had stopped adapting, asked Cipriano Algor, The cave was the last straw for me, as it was for you, And for those two colleagues of yours, Yes, for them too. Isaura had got up and started clearing the table, but Marta said, Leave it for now, we’ll do it together later on, we need to decide what we’re going to do, Well, Isaura, said Cipriano Algor, is of the opinion that we should let ourselves be carried along on the current of events, that there always comes a time when we realize that the river is flowing in our favor, I didn’t say always, said Isaura, I said sometimes, but take no notice of me, it’s just an idea I had, It’s good enough for me, said Marta, besides it fits in very well with what’s actually been happening to us, What shall we do, then, asked her father, Marçal and I are going to start a new life a long way from here, that much we’ve decided, the Center is finished, the pottery was already finished, from one hour to the next we’ve become like strangers in this world, And what about us, asked Cipriano Algor, You can’t expect me to advise you on what you should do, Do I understand you to be saying that we should go our separate ways, No, not at all, I’m just saying that our reasons may not necessarily be your reasons, May I say something, suggest something, asked Isaura, I don’t honestly know if I have the right, I’ve only been a member of this family for about six days and I feel as if I was still on probation, as if I had slipped in through the back door, You’ve been here for months already, ever since the famous water-jug incident, said Marta, as for the rest of what you said I think it’s up to my father to respond, All I heard was that she had something to say, a suggestion, so any comments I might make at the moment would be completely out of place, said Cipriano Algor, What’s this idea of yours, then, asked Marta, It has to do with that fantasy of mine about the current sweeping us along, said Isaura, Go on, It’s the simplest thing in the world, Ah, I know what it is, said Cipriano Algor, What is it then, asked Isaura, That we go with them, Exactly. Marta took a deep breath, You can always rely on a woman to come up with a good idea, We shouldn’t rush things, though, said Cipriano Algor, What do you mean, asked Isaura, You’ve got your house, your job, So, Well, just leaving like that, turning your back on everything, But I’d already left everything anyway, I’d already turned my back on everything when I clasped that water jug to my chest, you’d have to be a man to fail to realize that it was you I was clasping to me, these last words were almost lost in a sudden irruption of sobs and tears. Cipriano Algor shyly reached out and touched her arm, and she could not help but cry all the more, or perhaps she needed that to happen, sometimes the tears we have cried before are not enough, we have to say to them, please, go on.

The preparations took up the whole of the following day. First from one house, then from the other, Marta and Isaura selected what they thought was necessary for a journey that had no known destination and which no one knew how or where it would end. The two men loaded the van, helped by encouraging barks from Found, not in the slightest bit worried today about what was, quite clearly, another move, because the idea never even entered his doggy head that they might be about to abandon him again. The morning of their departure dawned beneath a graying sky, it had rained in the night, here and there in the yard there were small puddles of water, and the mulberry tree, forever bound to the earth, was still dripping. Shall we go, asked Marçal, Yes, let’s go, said Marta. They climbed into the van, the two men in front and the two women behind, with Found in the middle, and just as Marçal was about to start the engine, Cipriano Algor said abruptly, Wait. He got out of the van and went over to the kiln, Where’s he going, asked Marta, What’s he going to do, murmured Isaura. The kiln door was open, Cipriano Algor went in. When he emerged shortly afterward, he was in his shirtsleeves and was using his jacket to carry something heavy, a few figurines, it couldn’t be anything else, He probably wants to take some with him as a souvenir, said Marçal, but he was wrong, Cipriano Algor went over to the door of the house and started arranging the figurines on the ground, placing them firmly in the damp earth, and when he had put them all in their positions, he went back to the kiln, by then, the other travelers had got out of the van too, no one asked any questions, one by one they went into the kiln as well and brought out the figurines, Isaura ran to the van to fetch a basket, a sack, anything, and the area in front of the house gradually filled up with figurines, then Cipriano Algor went into the pottery and very carefully removed from the shelves the defective figurines gathered there and reunited them with their sound and perfect siblings, the rain would eventually turn them into mud, and then into dust when the sun dried the mud, but that is a fate we all will meet, now the figurines are not just guarding the front of the house, they are defending the entrance to the pottery too, in the end, there will be more than three hundred figurines, eyes front, clowns, jesters, Eskimos, mandarins, nurses, bearded Assyrians, Found has not yet knocked over a single one, Found is a very conscientious, sensitive dog, almost human, he does not need anyone to explain to him what is going on. Cipriano Algor went and shut the kiln door, then he said, Right, now we can go. The engine started and the van went down the hill. When they got to the road, it turned left. Marta, though dry-eyed, was sobbing, Isaura had her arms about her, while Found lay curled up in one corner of the seat, not knowing who to comfort first. After a few kilometers, Marçal said, I’ll write to my parents when we stop for lunch. And then, addressing Isaura and his father-in-law, There was a poster, one of those really big ones outside the Center, can you guess what it said, he asked. We’ve no idea, they replied, and, as if he were reciting something, Marçal said
COMING SOON, PUBLIC OPENING OF PLATO’S CAVE, AN EXCLUSIVE ATTRACTION, UNIQUE IN THE WORLD, BUY YOUR TICKET NOW
.

The Double

Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered.

—The Book of Contraries

I believe in my conscience I intercept many a thought
which heaven intended for another man.

—L
AURENCE
S
TERNE
,
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy

T
HE MAN WHO HAS JUST COME INTO THE SHOP TO RENT A
video bears on his identity card a most unusual name, a name with a classical flavor that time has staled, neither more nor less than Tertuliano Máximo Afonso. The Máximo and the Afonso, which are in more common usage, he can just about tolerate, depending, of course, on the mood he’s in, but the Tertuliano weighs on him like a gravestone and has done ever since he first realized that the wretched name lent itself to being spoken in an ironic, potentially offensive tone. He is a history teacher at a secondary school, and a colleague had suggested the video to him with the warning, It’s not exactly a masterpiece of cinema, but it might keep you amused for an hour and a half. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is greatly in need of stimuli to distract him, he lives alone and gets bored, or, to speak with the clinical exactitude that the present day requires, he has succumbed to the temporary weakness of spirit ordinarily known as depression. To get a clear idea of his situation, suffice it to say that he was married but can no longer remember what led him into matrimony, that he is divorced and cannot now bring himself to ponder the reasons for the separation. On the other hand, while the ill-fated union
produced no children who are now demanding to be handed, gratis, the world on a silver platter, he has, for some time, viewed sweet History, the serious, educational subject which he had felt called upon to teach and which could have been a soothing refuge for him, as a chore without meaning and a beginning without an end. For those of a nostalgic temperament, who tend to be fragile and somewhat inflexible, living alone is the harshest of punishments, but, it must be said, such a situation, however painful, only rarely develops into a cataclysmic drama of the kind to make the skin prick and the hair stand on end. What one mostly sees, indeed it hardly comes as a surprise anymore, are people patiently submitting to solitude’s meticulous scrutiny, recent public examples, though not particularly well known and two of whom even met with a happy ending, being the portrait painter whom we only ever knew by his first initial, the GP who returned from exile to die in the arms of the beloved fatherland, the proofreader who drove out a truth in order to plant a lie in its place, the lowly clerk in the Central Registry Office who made off with certain death certificates, all of these, either by chance or coincidence, were members of the male sex, but none of them had the misfortune to be called Tertuliano, and this was doubtless an inestimable advantage to them in their relations with other people. The shop assistant, who had already taken down from the shelf the video requested, entered in the log book the title of the film and the day’s date, then indicated to the customer the place where he should sign. Written after a moment’s hesitation, the signature revealed only the last two names, Máximo Afonso, without the Tertuliano, but like someone determined to clarify in advance something that might become a cause of controversy, the customer murmured as he signed his name, It’s quicker like that. This precautionary explanation
proved of little use, for the assistant, as he transferred the information from the customer’s ID onto an index card, pronounced the unfortunate, antiquated name out loud, in a tone that even an innocent child would have recognized as deliberate. No one, we believe, however free of obstacles his or her life may have been, would dare to claim that they had never suffered some similar humiliation. Although, sooner or later, we will all, inevitably, be confronted by one of those hearty types to whom human frailty, especially in its most refined and delicate forms, is the cause of mocking laughter, the truth is that the inarticulate sounds which, quite against our wishes, occasionally emerge from our own mouth, are merely the irrepressible moans from some ancient pain or sorrow, like a scar suddenly making its forgotten presence felt again. As he puts the video away in his battered, teacher’s briefcase, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, with admirable brio, struggles not to reveal the displeasure provoked by the shop assistant’s gratuitous sneer, but he cannot help thinking, all the while scolding himself for the vile injustice of the thought, that the fault lay with his colleague and with the mania certain people have for handing out unasked-for advice. Such is our need to shower blame on some distant entity when it is we who lack the courage to face up to what is there before us. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso does not know, cannot imagine or even guess that the assistant already regrets his gross impertinence, indeed, another ear, more finely tuned than his and capable of dissecting the subtle vocal gradations in the assistant’s At your service, sir, offered in response to the brusque Good afternoon thrown back at him, would have told him that a great desire for peace had installed itself behind the counter. After all, it is a benevolent commercial principle, laid down in antiquity and tried and tested over the centuries, that the customer is always right, even in the unlikely, but quite possible, eventuality that the customer’s name should be Tertuliano.