The Collected Novels of José Saramago

by José Saramago

  It is January and darkness falls early. The atmosphere in the study is heavy and airless. The doors are closed. To protect himself from the cold, the proof-reader has a shawl over his knees, the heater right up against the desk almost scalding his ankles. Easy to see that the house is old and lacking in comfort, dating from more spartan and primitive times, when to go outdoors with the weather at its coldest was still the best solution for anyone who had nothing better than a freezing corridor where he could march up and down in an effort to keep warm. But on the very last page of The History of the Siege of Lisbon Raimundo Silva will discover the impassioned expression of a fervent patriotism, which he will have no difficulty in recognising unless a monotonous and humdrum existence has dampened his own patriotism, now he will shiver, that is true, but from that unmistakable breath that comes from the souls of heroes, note what the historian wrote, On the summit of the fortification, the Moslem moon made its final descent, and definitively and for evermore, alongside the cross which announced to the world the holy baptism of a new Christian city, slowly rising into the blue sky above, kissed by light, tossed by the breeze, the standard of Dom Afonso Henriques which bears the five shields of the Portuguese coat of arms is proudly unfurled in jubilant triumph, shit, and do not imagine that the proof-reader is insulting the national emblem, on the contrary this is the legitimate outburst of someone who, having been ironically reprimanded for inventing ingenuous errors, will have to allow the errors of others to pass, when what he is tempted to do, and rightly so, is to fill the margins of the page with a flurry of indignant deleaturs, however, we know he will do no such thing, because any such corrections would offend the author, Let the cobbler stick to his last, for that is all he is paid to do, said the impatient Apelles categorically. Now these errors are not as serious as those we found regarding the word sling or catapult, these are mere trifles hovering uncertainly between a possible yes or no, for in all truth, we do not give a damn nowadays whether these weapons are described as balearicas or as something else, but what' is wholly unacceptable is this nonsense of referring to coats of arms in the time of Dom Afonso, the First, when it was only during the reign of his son Sancho that they appeared on the Portuguese flag, nor do we know how they were depicted, whether forming a cross in the centre, or each emblem in a separate corner, or filling up the entire space, this final hypothesis being the most likely according to the most reliable sources. A serious blot, but not the only one, which will forever stain the closing page of The History of the Siege of Lisbon, otherwise so richly orchestrated with resounding trumpets, with drums and rapturous outbursts, with the troops lined up on parade, and let us try to picture the scene, foot-soldiers and cavalrymen watching that abominable standard being lowered and the insignia of Christian Portugal being raised in its place, and calling out in one voice, Long live Portugal, and striking their shields vigorously with their swords in an outburst of military zeal, followed by a march past in the presence of the king, who is vindictively trampling underfoot, not only Moorish blood, but that Moslem crescent of the moon, a second error and totally absurd, for no such flag was ever raised above the walls of Lisbon and, as the historian ought to know, the crescent of the moon on a flag was an invention of the Ottoman empire, two or three centuries later. The tip of Raimundo Silva's biro was still poised over the shields in the coat of arms, but then he thought that if he were to remove them and the crescent, it would provoke an earthquake on the page, everything would come crashing down, an inconclusive history in keeping with the greatness of the moment, and this is an excellent way of teaching people the importance of something which, at first sight, appears to be nothing other than a piece of cloth in one or more colours, with designs also in different colours, such as castles or stars, lions, unicorns, eagles, suns, scythes or hammers, wounds, roses, sabres or machetes, compasses, wheels, cedars, elephants or oxen, birettas, hands, palm-trees, hones or candelabra, as I know all too well and, without a guide or catalogue, you could get lost in this museum, even more so if someone has remembered to embellish the flags with coats of arms, all belonging to the same family, for then it becomes an endless list of fleurs-de-lis, shells, buckles, leopards, bees, bells, trees, croziers, mitres, spikes, bears, salamanders, herons, rings, drakes, doves, wild boars, virgins, bridges, ravens, caravels, lances, books, yes, even books, the Bible, the Koran, Das Kapital, written by whom do you think, and so forth and so on, from which we may conclude that men are incapable of saying who they are unless they can claim to be something else, and this would be reason enough for leaving aside the episode of the flags, the one reviled, the other exalted, but bearing in mind that the whole thing is a lie, useful to some extent, the ultimate disgrace, simply because we did not have the courage to correct it or know how to replace it with the honest truth, the most ambitious but constant aspiration of all, and may Allah have mercy, on us.

  For the first time in all these years of painstaking labour, Raimundo Silva will not give the book one final reading from beginning to end. There are, as we explained, four hundred and thirty-seven heavily annotated pages, to read all of them would mean staying up all night or at least most of it, a torment he does not relish for he has positively come to dislike the book and its author, tomorrow the ingenuous readers will say and schoolchildren repeat that the fly has four legs, as affirmed by Aristotle, and on the next centenary of the conquest of Lisbon from the Moors, in the year two thousand and forty-seven, if Lisbon still exists and continues to be inhabited by the Portuguese, some president or other will evoke that sublime moment when the insignia of the proud victors triumphantly replaced the unholy crescent of the moon in the blue skies of our lovely city.

  Nevertheless, his professional scruples demand that he should, at least, slowly go over the pages, his expert eyes scanning the words, in the hope that by thus varying the degree of concentration, he might discover some minor error of his own, like that shadow suddenly displaced by strong light, or that familiar sideways glance which at the last minute captures an image in flight. We do not need to know whether Raimundo Silva managed to tidy up those tiresome proofs, but what is interesting is to observe him as he re-reads the speech Dom Afonso Henriques made to the crusaders, according to the version attributed to Osbern, here translated from the Latin by the author of the History himself, who does not trust the lessons of others, especially when dealing with such an important subject, no less than the first speech of our founding king to be recorded, for there is no reliable evidence of any other. Raimundo Silva finds the entire speech absurd from start to finish, not because he is competent to question the accuracy of the translation, a command of Latin not being amongst the talents of this average proof-reader, but because no one in their right mind could possibly believe that this King Afonso, who had no gift for rhetoric, made such a convoluted speech, more like one of those pretentious sermons the friars would be giving six or seven centuries later than the limited phrases of a language which at that time was little more than childish prattle. There was the proof-reader smiling scornfully, when suddenly he felt his heart leap, if Egas Moniz really had been the excellent tutor described in the annals, if he was born not simply to accompany the little cripple to Carquere or subsequently to go to Toledo with a noose round his neck, then surely he would have instilled a fair number of Christian precepts and political maxims into his pupil, and Latin being the perfect language in which to impart this knowledge, one might assume that the royal prince, in addition to a natural command of Galician, would have known quantum satis Latin in order to be able to make the aforementioned harangue at the right moment, to all those foreign and highly civilised crusaders, since at that time the only language they understood was the one they had learned in the cradle and a few words of the foreign language with the help of the friars who acted as interpreters. Dom Afonso Henriques, therefore, would have known Latin and not needed to send an emissary in his place to that famous assembly, perhaps he himself might even have been the author of those celebrated words, a w
holly plausible hypothesis in the case of someone who in his own hand, and in Latin no less, had written The History of the Conquest of Santarém, as we are solemnly informed by Barbosa Machado in his Biblioteca Lusitana and who also states that the manuscript was preserved at the time in the Royal Convent of Alcobaça at the end of a book of about St Fulgentius. It has to be said that the proof-reader does not believe a single word of what he is reading, he is more than sceptical, he himself has already said so, but in order to be fair-minded, as well as to break the monotony of this obligatory reading, he consulted the primary source on which the modern histories are based, he searched and found, just as I suspected, the credulous Machado copied, without checking, what Fray Bernardo de Brito and Fray Antonio Brandão had written, this is how historical misconceptions come about, So-and-So says that Beltrano said that Cicrano heard, and three such statements are enough to make a story, but what is beyond question is that The Conquest of Santarém was written by a member of the community of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, whose very name has not survived to take its rightful place in the library and remove that of the usurping king.

  Raimundo Silva is on his feet, he has the shawl drawn over his shoulders but one corner trails on the ground whenever he moves, and he is reading aloud like a herald making a proclamation, that is to say, the speech our noble king made to the crusaders in the following words, We know, and can witness with our own eyes, that you are men of valour, fearless and well prepared, and, truly, your presence has not diminished in our eyes what we already knew of your prowess. We are not gathered here in order to know how much, men of such wealth, we need promise you, so that enriched with our gifts, you might join us in besieging this city. From the Moors, ever restless, we were never able to accumulate treasures, with which as sometimes happens one cannot live in safety. But since we want you to know what resources we have and what our intentions towards you are, we feel that this should not lead you to despise our promise, for we consider at your disposal everything that our land possesses. Of one thing, however, we are certain, and that is that your piety will incline you more to this enterprise and the desire to carry out such a mighty deed, than any promise of financial rewards. Now then, so that the clamour of your men does not disturb what I have to say to you, choose whomsoever you wish, so that once both sides have withdrawn, we may sit down quietly and discuss the reasons for this assurance and reach some mutual understanding about our proposals before making any statement in public, and so, with both sides in agreement and with the appropriate oaths and guarantees, may this be ratified for the greater glory of God.

  No, this speech is not the work of some fledgling monarch without much experience in matters of diplomacy, here one detects the finger, hand and head of some senior ecclesiastic, perhaps the Bishop of Oporto himself, Dom Pedro Pitões, and almost certainly the Archbishop of Braga, Dom João Peculiar, who jointly and in connivance had managed to persuade the crusaders who were passing along the Douro to come to the Tagus and help with the conquest, saying to them amongst other things, At least, listen to the reasons why we think you should come to our assistance and see the evidence for yourselves. And the journey from Oporto to Lisbon having lasted three days, one does not need much imagination to assume that the two prelates, on the way, drew up their plans with the aim of advancing the enterprise, pondering the arguments, giving much advice, cautioning each other about possible dangers, with the most liberal assurances entangled in prudent mental reservations, not forgetting a little flattery, a beguiling strategy which rarely fails to bear fruit even if the ground is sterile and the sower somewhat inexperienced. Blushing, Raimundo Silva drops his shawl with a theatrical gesture, he smiles without happiness, This is not a speech one could ever believe in, more like some Shakespearian climax than the speech of provincial bishops, and he returns to his desk, sits down, shakes his head despondently, We're convinced we shall never know what Dom Afonso Henriques actually said to the crusaders, at least, good-day, and what else, what else, and the blinding clarity of this evidence, not to be able to know, suddenly strikes him as being most unfortunate, he would be capable of renouncing something, he does not ask himself what or how much, his soul, if he has one, his possessions, if he had any, in order to discover, preferably in this part of Lisbon where he lives and where the entire city was once located, some parchment, papyrus, sheet of paper, newspaper cutting, some entry, if possible, or stone engraving, as a record of what was really said, the original, as it were, perhaps less subtle in the art of discourse than this mannered version, which has none of the vigorous language worthy of such an occasion.

  His dinner was a quick and simple affair, somewhat lighter than lunch, but Raimundo Silva drank two cups of coffee instead of one, in order to resist the drowsiness that would soon assail him, especially since he had slept so badly the night before. At a steady rhythm, the pages are turned over, scenes and episodes follow upon each other, the historian has now embellished his prose in order to deal with the serious disagreements which arose between the crusaders after the royal harangue, as they debated whether they should or should not help the Portuguese to capture Lisbon, whether they should remain here or travel on, as planned, to the Holy Land, where Our Lord Jesus Christ awaited them, fettered by the Turks. Those who liked the idea of staying on, argued that to expel these Moors from the city and convert them to Christianity would also render service to God, while those who opposed the suggestion replied that any such service would be inferior in the eyes of God and that knights as illustrious as those present prided themselves on being, had an obligation to assist where the struggle was most hazardous, rather than in this hell-hole, amongst peasants and the dregs of humanity, the former, no doubt, being the Moors and the latter the Portuguese, but the historian never found out for certain, perhaps because there was not much to choose between the two insults. The warriors yelled as if possessed, may God forgive me, violent in word and gesture, and those who supported the idea of continuing on their journey to the Holy Places declared that they would derive much greater profit and advantage from the extortion of money and merchandise from the ships at sea, whether from Spain or Africa, merchant ships in the twelfth century being an anachronism which only the historian could explain, than the capture of the city of Lisbon, with less danger of risking lives, because the walls are high and the Moors many. Dom Afonso Henriques could not have been more right when he predicted that any perusal of his proposals would end in turmoil, or, as the Portuguese would say, in algazarra, an Arabic word which serves equally well to describe the shouting and uproar of this mixed gathering of men from Cologne and Boulogne, of Flemings, Bretons, Scots and Normans. The opposing factions finally calmed down after a verbal dispute which lasted throughout the feast of St Peter, and tomorrow, which is the thirtieth of June, the representatives of the crusaders, now in agreement, will inform the king that they are prepared to help with the conquest of Lisbon, in exchange for the possessions of their enemies, who even now are watching them from the ramparts beyond, along with other concessions, whether direct or indirect.

  For two minutes, Raimundo has been staring so hard that he looks distracted, at the page where these immutable facts of history are recorded, not because he suspects that some final error may be lurking there, some perfidious misprint skilfully concealed between the folds of this tortuous rhetoric, and now wilfully provoking him, safe from his tired eyesight and the drowsiness that is fast creeping in and making him feel numb. Although it would be more accurate to say, the drowsiness that was making him feel numb. Because for the last three minutes, Raimundo Silva is as wide awake as if he had taken one of the benzedrine pills left over from a prescription given by an idiot of a doctor and which he stores behind some books. As if fascinated, he reads over and over again, keeps going back to the same line, the one that emphatically asserts that the crusaders will help the Portuguese to capture Lisbon. As chance would have it, or perhaps it was fate, these unequivocal words occupied a single line and have all the impact of an i
nscription, a distich or some irrevocable maxim, but they are also provocative, as if saying ironically, Make me say something else, if you can. The tension became so great that Raimundo Silva suddenly could not bear it any longer, he got to his feet, pushed back his chair, and is now nervously pacing up and down within the confined space that the bookcases, sofa and desk leave free, saying over arid over again, Such rubbish, such utter rubbish and, as if needing to confirm this radical opinion, he picked up the sheet of paper once more, thanks to which, we can now dismiss any earlier doubts and confirm that there is no such nonsense, for it is clearly stated there that the crusaders will help to capture Lisbon, and the proof that this actually happened, we shall find on subsequent pages, where there is a description of the siege, the assault on the ramparts, the fighting in the streets and inside the houses, the indiscriminate slaughter and the sacking of the city. So, Mr Proof-reader, show us where you found this blunder, this error that escapes us, true, we don't have your vast experience, we sometimes look without seeing, but we can read, we assure you, yes, you're absolutely right, we do not always understand everything, easy to see why, we lack the necessary training, Mr Proof-reader, the necessary training, and besides, we have to admit that we are often too lazy to verify the meaning of a word in the dictionary, with inevitable consequences. It is preposterous, insists Raimundo Silva as if he were giving us his answer, Never would I do such a thing, and why should I, a proof-reader takes his work seriously, he does not play games or tricks, he respects what has been established in grammars and reference books, he is guided by the rules and makes no attempt to modify them, he obeys an ethical code which is unwritten but sacrosanct, he must respect tradition, observe the conventions, and suppress his private inclinations, any doubts he may have, he keeps to himself and, as for putting a not where the author wrote yes, this proof-reader simply would not do it. The words just spoken by Mr Jekyll try to contradict others we could not hear, words spoken by Mr Hyde, nor do we need to mention these two names in order to see that in this antiquated building in the district of Castelo we are watching yet another titanic struggle between an angel and a demon, the two conflicting sides of human beings, without excepting proof-readers. But unfortunately it is Mr Hyde who will win this battle, as is clear from the smile on Raimundo Silva's face and a look of utter malevolence we would not have expected of him, all traces of Jekyll have gone from his face, he has obviously taken a decision, and such a bad one, he holds his biro with a steady hand and adds a word to the page, a word the historian never wrote, that for the sake of historical truth he could never have brought himself to write, the word Not, and what the book now says is that the crusaders will Not help the Portuguese to conquer Lisbon, thus it is written and has come to be accepted as true, although different, what we would call false has come to prevail over what we would call true, falsehood has replaced the truth, and someone would have to narrate the history anew, and how.