The Collected Novels of José Saramago (383 page)

The superintendent was waiting for someone inside to ask Who is it, but the door simply opened and a woman appeared and said, Yes. The superintendent put his hand in his pocket and produced his identification, Police, he said, And what do the police want with the people who live in this apartment, asked the woman, The answers to a few questions, About what, Look, I hardly think the landing is the best place to begin an interrogation, Oh, so it’s an interrogation, is it, asked the woman, Madam, even if I only had two questions to ask you, it would still be an interrogation, You appreciate precision in language I see, Especially in the answers I am given, Now that’s a good answer, It wasn’t difficult, you served it up to me on a plate, And I’ll serve you up some others if what you’re
after is the truth, Looking for the truth is the fundamental aim of any policeman, Well, I’m very glad to hear you say that so emphatically, you’d better come in, my husband has just popped out to buy the newspapers, he won’t be long, If you prefer, if you think it would be more proper, I can wait outside, Nonsense, come in, in what safer hands could anyone be than in those of the police, said the woman. The superintendent went in, the woman walked ahead of him and opened the door to a welcoming living-room in which one sensed a friendly, lived-in atmosphere, Please, superintendent, sit down, she said, and asked, Would you like a cup of coffee, No, thank you, we don’t accept anything when we’re on duty, Naturally, that’s how all the great corruptions begin, a cup of coffee today, a cup of coffee tomorrow, and by the third cup, it’s too late, It’s one of our rules, madam, May I ask you to satisfy one little curiosity of mine, What’s that, You told me that you were from the police, you showed me an identity card that says you’re a superintendent, but, as far as I know, the police withdrew from the capital some weeks ago, leaving us to fall into the clutches of the violence and crime that is rife everywhere, am I to understand from your presence here today that our policemen have come home, No, madam, we have not, to use your expression, come home, we are still on the other side of the dividing line, You must have strong reasons, then, to cross the frontier, Yes, very strong, And the questions you have come to ask are, naturally, to do with those reasons, Naturally, So I’d better wait until you ask them, Exactly. Three minutes later, they heard the front door open. The woman left the room and said to the person who had come in, Guess what, we’ve got a visitor, a police superintendent no less, And since when have police superintendents been interested in innocent people. These last words were spoken in the room itself, the doctor preceding his wife and addressing the superintendent, who answered, getting up out of the chair in which he had been sitting, There are no innocent people,
even when not guilty of an actual crime, we are all unfailingly guilty of some fault, And what crime or fault are we being blamed for or accused of, There’s no rush, doctor, let’s make ourselves comfortable first, that way we can talk more easily. The doctor and his wife sat down on a sofa and waited. The superintendent remained silent for a few seconds, he was suddenly unsure which was the best tactic to adopt. It was one thing for the inspector and the sergeant, in order not to start the hare too early, to limit themselves, in accordance with the instructions they had been given, to asking questions about the murder of the blind man, but he, the superintendent, had his eyes fixed on a more ambitious goal, to find out if the woman before him, sitting beside her husband as calmly as if, owing nothing, she had nothing to fear, was, as well as being a murderer, also part of the diabolical plot that had caused the government’s current state of humiliation, having forced it to bow its head and kneel. It is not known who in the official department of cryptography decided to bestow on the superintendent the grotesque code-name of puffin, doubtless some personal enemy, for a more fitting and justifiable nickname would be alekhine, the grand master of chess, who has, sadly, now left the ranks of the living. The doubt that had arisen dissipated like smoke and a solid certainty took its place. Observe with what sublime, combinatorial art he is about to develop the moves that will lead him, or so he thinks, to the final checkmate. With a sly smile, he said, Actually I wouldn’t mind that cup of coffee you were kind enough to offer me, It’s my duty to remind you that the police accept nothing while on duty, the doctor’s wife replied, enjoying the game, Superintendents are authorized to infringe the rules whenever they think it appropriate, You mean when useful to the interests of the investigation, You could put it like that, And you’re not afraid that the coffee I’m about to bring you will be a step along the road to corruption, Ah, I seem to remember you saying that that only happens with the third cup of coffee, No, what I said was that the third cup of coffee completed the corrupting process, the first opened the door, the second held it open so that the aspirant to corruption could enter without stumbling, the third slammed the door shut, Thank you for the warning, which I take as a piece of advice, and so I’ll stop at the first cup, Which will be served at once, said the woman, and with that she left the room. The superintendent glanced at his watch. Are you in a hurry, asked the doctor pointedly, No, doctor, I’m not in a hurry, I was just wondering if I’m keeping you from your lunch, It’s too early yet for lunch, And I was also wondering how long it will take before I can leave here with the answers I want, Does that mean that you know the answers you want or that you want answers to your questions, asked the doctor, adding, they are not the same thing, You’re quite right, they’re not, during the brief conversation I had alone with your wife, she had occasion to remark that I admire precision in language, and I see that is also the case with you, In my profession, it’s not unusual for diagnostic errors to occur simply because of some linguistic imprecision, You know, I’ve been calling you doctor and you haven’t yet asked me how I know you’re a doctor, Because it seems to me a waste of time asking a policeman how he knows what he knows or claims to know, A good answer, just as one would not ask god how he became omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent, You’re not saying that the police are god, are you, We are merely his modest representatives on earth, doctor, Oh, I thought they were the churches and the priests, The churches and the priests are only second in the ranks.

The woman came back with the coffee, three cups on a tray and a few plain biscuits. It seems that everything in this world is doomed to repeat itself, thought the superintendent, while his palate relived the tastes of breakfast at providential ltd, Thank you very much, but I’ll just have the coffee, he said. When he replaced the cup on the tray, he thanked her again and added with a knowing smile, Excellent
coffee, madam, I might even reconsider my decision not to have a second cup. The doctor and his wife had already finished theirs. None of them had touched the biscuits. The superintendent produced a notebook from his jacket pocket, prepared his pen, and allowed his voice to emerge in a neutral, expressionless tone, as if he were not really interested in the answer, What explanation would you give, madam, for the fact that during the epidemic four years ago you did not go blind. The doctor and his wife looked at each other, surprised, and she asked, How do you know that I didn’t go blind four years ago, Just now, said the superintendent, your husband, with great perspicacity, remarked that he considered it a waste of time asking a policeman how he knows what he knows or claims to know, Yes, but I’m not my husband, And I do not have to reveal, either to you or to him, the secrets of my profession, it’s enough that I know you did not go blind. The doctor made as if to intervene, but his wife placed her hand on his arm, All right, then, tell me, and I assume that this is not a secret, of what possible interest can it be to the police that I did or did not go blind four years ago, If you had gone blind like everyone else, if you had gone blind as I myself did, you can be quite sure that I would not be here now, Was it a crime not to go blind, she asked, No, not going blind wasn’t and never could be a crime, although, now that you mention it, you were able to commit a crime precisely because you weren’t blind, A crime, A murder. The woman glanced at her husband as if asking his advice, then turned rapidly back to the superintendent and said, Yes, it’s true, I did kill a man. She did not go on, she kept her eyes fixed on him, waiting. The superintendent pretended to be writing something down in his notebook, but all he was doing was playing for time, trying to think what his next move would be. The woman’s response had surprised him less because she had confessed to a murder than because of the way she had immediately fallen silent again afterward, as if there were nothing
more to be said on the subject. And the truth is, he thought, it isn’t the crime that interests me. I assume you had a good reason, he ventured, For what, asked the woman, For committing the crime, It wasn’t a crime, What was it then, .An act of justice, That’s what the courts are for, to administer justice, But I could hardly have gone and complained to the police, for as you yourself said, at the time, you were blind, like everyone else, Apart from you, Yes, apart from me, Who did you kill, A rapist, a vile creature, Are you telling me that you killed someone who was raping you, No, not me, a friend, Was she blind, Yes, she was, And the man was blind too, Yes, How did you kill him, With a pair of scissors, Did you stab him in the heart, No, in the throat, You don’t have the face of a murderer, I’m not a murderer, You killed a man, He wasn’t a man, superintendent, he was a bedbug. The superintendent wrote something else down and turned to the doctor, And where were you, sir, while your wife was busy killing this bedbug, In the dormitory of the former lunatic asylum where they had put us when they still thought that by isolating the first people to go blind they could stop the spread of the blindness, You are, I believe, an ophthalmologist, Yes, I had the privilege, if I can call it that, of dealing with the first person to go blind, A man or a woman, A man, Did he end up in the same dormitory, Yes, along with a few other people who were in my surgery at the time, Did it seem to you a good thing that your wife had murdered the rapist, It seemed necessary, Why, You wouldn’t ask that question if you had been there, Possibly, but I wasn’t, and so I’ll ask you again why it seemed necessary to you that your wife should have killed the bedbug, that is, the man raping her friend, Someone had to do it, and she was the only one who could see, Just because the bedbug was a rapist, It wasn’t just him, all the others in the same dormitory were demanding women in exchange for food, he was the ringleader, Your wife was also raped, Yes, Before or after her friend, Before. The superintendent made another
note in his book, then asked, In your view, as an ophthalmologist, what explanation could there be for the fact that your wife did not go blind, In my view as an ophthalmologist, there is no explanation, You have a remarkable wife, sir, Yes, I do, but not just because of that, What happened afterward to the people who had been interned in that old lunatic asylum, There was a fire, most of them must have been burned alive or crushed by falling masonry, How do you know there was falling masonry, Very simple, because we could hear it once we were outside, And how did you and your wife escape, We got out in time, You were lucky, Yes, she guided us, Who do you mean by us, Myself and a few other people, the ones who had been in my surgery, Who were they, The first blind man, to whom I referred earlier, and his wife, a young woman with conjunctivitis, an older man with a cataract, and a young boy with a squint who was with his mother, And your wife helped them all escape from the fire, Yes, all of them, apart from the boy’s mother, she wasn’t in the asylum, she had got separated from her son, and they only found each other again weeks after we had recovered our sight, Who took care of the boy during that time, We did, Your wife and yourself, Yes, well, she did, because she could see, and the rest of us helped as best we could, Do you mean to say that you lived together as a group, with your wife as guide, As guide and provider, You were very lucky, said the superintendent again, You could call it that, Did you stay in touch with the people in the group once things had got back to normal, Yes, of course, And you still do, Apart from the first blind man, yes, Why that one exception, He wasn’t a very nice person, In what sense, In all senses, That’s too vague, Yes, I know, And you don’t want to be more specific, Speak to him yourself and make up your own mind, Do you know where they live, Who, The first blind man and his wife, They split up, they’re divorced, Do you still see her, Yes, we do, But not him, No, not him, Why, As I said, he’s not a nice person. The superintendent went
back to his notebook and wrote down his own name so that it would not look as if he had learned nothing from such a long interrogation. He was about to make his next move, the most problematic and risky of the whole game. He raised his head, looked at the doctor’s wife, opened his mouth to speak, but she anticipated him, You’re a police superintendent, you came and identified yourself as such and have been asking us all kinds of questions, but aside from the matter of the premeditated murder which I committed and to which I have confessed, but for which there were no witnesses, some because they died, and all of them because they were blind, not to mention the fact that no one wants to know now what happened four years ago when everything was in chaos and the law was a mere dead letter, we are still waiting for you to tell us what brought you here, I think it’s time you put your cards on the table, stopped beating about the bush and got straight down to what really interests the person who sent you here. Up until that moment, the superintendent had had a very clear idea of the aim of the mission with which he had been charged by the interior minister, neither more nor less than finding out if there was some relationship between the phenomenon of the blank votes and the woman sitting there before him, but her interpolation, blunt and to the point, had disarmed him, and, worse than that, had made him suddenly aware of how ridiculous it would seem if he were to ask her, with his eyes cast down because he would not have the courage to look at her, You wouldn’t by any chance be the organizer, the leader, the head of the subversive movement that came into being in order to place democracy in a situation which it would be no exaggeration to describe as perilous, if not fatal, What subversive movement, she would ask, The one behind the blank votes, Are you telling me that casting a blank vote is a subversive act, she would ask again, If it happens in large numbers, yes, And where does it say that, in the constitution, in the electoral law, in the ten commandments,
in the highway code, on the cough medicine bottle, she would insist, Well, it’s not written down exactly, but anyone can see that it’s a simple matter of a hierarchy of values and of common sense, first there are the valid votes, then the blank votes, then the void votes, and, finally, the abstentions, I mean, obviously, democracy will be imperiled if one of those secondary categories overtakes the primary one, the votes are there so that we can make prudent use of them, And I’m the person to blame for what happened, That’s what I’m trying to find out, And just how did I manage to get the majority of the population to cast blank votes, by slipping pamphlets under their doors, offering up midnight prayers and conjurations, adding a special chemical to the water supply, promising first prize in the lottery to everyone, or buying votes with the money my husband earns at his surgery, You kept your sight when everyone else was blind and you have been unable or unwilling to explain why, And that makes me guilty of a plot against world democracy, That’s what I’m trying to find out, Well, go and find out, and when you’ve completed your investigation, come and tell me about it, until then you won’t get another word out of me. And that, above all else, was what the superintendent did not want. He was just preparing to say that he had no further questions, but would return the following day, when the doorbell rang. The doctor got up and went to see who it was. He returned to the living-room accompanied by the inspector. This gentleman says he’s a police inspector and that you gave him orders to come here, Yes, I did, said the superintendent, but I’ve finished my work for the day, we’ll continue tomorrow at the same hour, Sir, you told me and the sergeant, the inspector broke in, but the superintendent cut him off, What I did or did not tell you is of no interest now, So, tomorrow, will all three of us come, Inspector, that question is impertinent, any decisions I make are made in the proper place and at the proper time, and you will find out what they are in due course, replied the superintendent angrily. He turned to the doctor’s wife and said, Tomorrow, as you requested, I won’t waste time with circumlocutions, I’ll come straight to the point, and you’ll find what I have to ask you no less extraordinary than I find the fact that you kept your sight during the general epidemic of blindness four years ago, I went blind, the inspector went blind, your husband went blind, but you did not, we’ll find out if, in this case, the old dictum holds true, she that made the saucepan made the lid, So it’s to do with saucepans, then, superintendent, asked the doctor’s wife in a wry tone, No, it’s to do with lids, madam, lids, replied the superintendent as he withdrew, relieved that his adversary had supplied him with a reasonably nimble exit line. He had a faint headache.