The Collected Novels of José Saramago

by José Saramago

  He left the basement, drove around the Center and parked his car where he could see the entrance to the security department. Marçal took longer than usual to come out and he seemed nervous as he got into the van, Afternoon, Pa, he said, and Cipriano Algor said, Good afternoon, how was work this week, Oh, pretty much as usual, replied Marçal and Cipriano Algor said, We've finished the first batch of figurines, and I've arranged a delivery time with the buying department, How's Marta, Tired, but otherwise fine. They did not speak again until they were out of the city. And it was only as they were passing the shantytown that Marçal said, Pa, I've just been told that I've got my promotion, from today I'm a resident guard. Cipriano Algor turned to his son-in-law and looked at him as if he were seeing him for the first time, today, not the day after tomorrow, not tomorrow, today, his presentiment had been right. Today, what, he asked himself, the threat hidden in the questions on the questionnaire, or this threat now, which has been coming for so long. It has been known, albeit more often in storybooks than in real life, that a sudden surprise can, for a matter of moments, render the surprised person speechless, but a half-surprise that has remained silent, perhaps pretending, perhaps wanting to be mistaken for a complete surprise, does not, in principle, merit such a reaction. Only in principle, mind you. We have always known that the man driving this van has never doubted for a moment that the dreaded news would arrive one day, but it is understandable that today, caught between two fires, he was suddenly incapable of deciding which one to put out first. Let us reveal, then, right away, even though we risk disrupting the regular order of events, that, over the next few days, Cipriano Algor will not say a word either to his son-in-law or to his daughter about the disquieting conversation he had with the assistant head of the buying department. He will talk about it eventually, but only much later, when everything is lost. Now all he says to his son-in-law is, Congratulations, you must be really pleased, banal, almost neutral words that should not have taken so long to show themselves, and Marçal will not say thank you, just as he will not confirm that he is as pleased as his father-in-law believes him to be, or a little less, or a little more, what he says is as serious as an outstretched hand, It isn't good news for you. Cipriano Algor understood what he meant, glanced at him with a half-smile that seemed to mock his own resigned attitude, and said, Not even the best news is good for everyone, You'll see, everything will work out fine, said Marçal, Don't worry, it was all decided on the day I told you that I would go and live with you at the Center, I gave my word and I won't go back on it, Living at the Center isn't like being sent into exile, Yes, but I have no way of knowing what it will be like and I'll only find out when I get there, you already know it, but I've never heard from your mouth a single explanation, story, or description that has ever really brought home to me the nature of what you so confidently declare not to be a place of exile, You've been to the Center, Not very often and only in passing, as a customer who knew what he wanted, Well, the best way to explain the Center is to think of it as a city within a city, Hm, I don't know if that would be the best explanation, because it still doesn't help me to understand what is inside the Center, There are all the things you would expect to find in any city, shops, people walking around, buying things, talking, eating, having fun, working, You mean just like in the backward little place where we live now, More or less, it's just a question of size, The truth can't be that simple, There must be some simple truths, Possibly, but I don't think they're inside the Center. There was a pause, then Cipriano Algor said, Talking about size, it's odd, you know, but whenever I look at the Center from the outside, I have the feeling that it's bigger than the city itself, I mean, the Center is inside the city, but it's bigger than the city, which means that the part is bigger than the whole, it's probably just because it's taller than the buildings around it, taller than any building in the city, probably because, right from the start, it has been swallowing up streets, squares, whole districts. Marçal did not reply at first, his father-in-law had just given almost visual expression to the vague feeling of disorientation that overwhelmed him whenever he returned to the Center after his days off, especially when he was on night patrol, and all the lights were dimmed and he walked along the deserted galleries, went up and down in the elevators, as if he were keeping watch over nothing in order to ensure that it continued to be nothing. Inside an empty cathedral, if we raise our eyes to the roof, to the highest part of the building, we have the impression that it is higher than the sky is when we stand in a field and look up. After a silence, Marçal said, I think I know what you mean, and left it at that, he did not want to encourage in his father-in-law's mind a train of thought that might lead him to shut himself up behind a desperate new line of resistance. But Cipriano Algor's preoccupations had gone off in another direction, When are you moving, As soon as possible, I've already seen the apartment they've set aside for me, it's smaller than our house, but that's understandable, however big the Center is, the space they've got isn't infinite, and so it has to be rationed out, Do you think we'll all fit in, asked the potter, hoping that his son-in-law did not notice the tone of melancholy irony that had slipped into his words at the last moment, We'll fit, don't worry, the apartment is plenty big enough for a family like ours, replied Marçal, we won't have to take it in turns to sleep or anything. Cipriano Algor thought, Now I've annoyed him, I shouldn't have asked that question. They did not speak again until they got home. Marta showed no emotion when she heard the news. When you know something is going to happen, in a way it's almost as if it had happened already, expectation does more than simply cancel out surprise, it dulls feelings and trivializes them, everything that one desired or feared has already been experienced while one was desiring it or fearing it. It was during supper that Marçal gave an important bit of news that he had forgotten about, something that irritated Marta intensely, You mean that we can't take any of our own things with us, You can take some things, ornaments, for example, but not furniture or crockery or glasses or cutlery or towels or curtains or bed linen, the apartment has all those things already, So we won't really be moving then, at least not what is usually meant by moving, said Cipriano Algor, The people will be moving, So we'll have to leave this house with everything in it, said Marta, There's no other option. Marta thought for a bit, then had to accept the inevitable, I'll come back now and then to open the windows and air the rooms, a house that stays all shut up is like a plant you forget to water, it dies, dries up, shrivels. When they had finished eating, and before Marta had cleared the table, Cipriano Algor said, I've been thinking. Daughter and son-in-law exchanged glances, as if transmitting words of alarm to each other, You never know what he'll come out with when he's been thinking. My first idea, the potter went on, was that Marçal should help me tomorrow with the kiln, May I remind you that we agreed to take three days off, said Marta, Your time off begins tomorrow, And yours, Mine won't be long in coming, it'll just have to wait a while, So that was your first idea, what about your second and your third, asked Marta, We'll sort out the kiln first thing in the morning, the figurines that are still to be fired I mean, but we won't light the kiln, I'll do that later, then you'll help me load the van with the finished figurines and while I take them to the Center, you two can stay here without a father or a father-in-law sticking his nose in where it isn't wanted, Is that what you agreed with the buying department, to deliver the dolls tomorrow, asked Marçal, that wasn't the impression I got, I thought we'd take them with us later, when all three of us go there, It's better this way, said Cipriano Algor, we gain time, You gain it in one way, but you lose it in another, the other dolls will be delayed, Not by much, I'll light the kiln as soon as I get back from the Center, who knows it might be the last time, What do you mean, we've still got six hundred dolls to make, said Marta, Hm, I'm not so sure, Why, Well, the move to start with, the Center is not the sort of place prepared to wait until the father-in-law of resident guard Marçal Gacho has completed an order, although it has to be said that, gi
ven time, always supposing there is time, I could finish it on my own, and second, Second what, asked Marçal, In life there is always something that comes after what appears first, sometimes we think we know what it is, but we'd prefer to ignore it, at other times we can't even imagine what it might be, but we know it's there, Please, stop talking like an oracle, said Marta, All right, the oracle is silent, let's just stick with what came first, what I was trying to say was that if the move has to be made soon, there won't be time to resolve the problem of the remaining six hundred figurines, It would just be a matter of talking to the Center, said Marta, addressing her husband, three or four more weeks won't make much difference, talk to them, after all, they took long enough to decide on your promotion, so they can help us out now, besides they'd be helping themselves because then they'd get the full order, No, I can't talk to them, there's no point, said Marçal, we have exactly ten days to make the move, not an hour more, that's the regulations, by the time I have my next day off I'll have to have moved into the apartment, You could spend it here instead, said Cipriano Algor, at your house in the country, It would look bad, being promoted to resident guard and then spending my first leave away from the Center, Ten days isn't much time, said Marta, It would be if we had to take the furniture and everything, but the only things we really have to move are ourselves and the clothes that we wear, and they could be in the apartment in less than an hour if necessary, In that case, what shall we do about the rest of the order, asked Marta, The Center knows, the Center will tell us when the time is right, said the potter. Helped by her husband, Marta cleared the table, then went to the door to shake the crumbs off the tablecloth, she stood there for a moment looking out, and when she came back, she said, There's one matter still to be resolved and which cannot be left to the last moment, What's that, asked Marçal, The dog, she said, You mean Found, said Cipriano Algor, and Marta went on, Since we're not the sort to kill him or to abandon him, we'll have to find a home for him, entrust him to someone else to look after, You see they don't allow animals, Marçal explained, looking at his father-in-law, Not even a tortoise, not even a canary, not even a sweet little dove, Cipriano Algor wanted to know, You seem to have suddenly lost interest in the fate of the dog, said Marta, Of Found, Of Found, of the dog, it's the same thing, what matters is that we decide what to do with him, I've got one suggestion, So have I, Cipriano Algor broke in, and immediately got up and went to his room. He reappeared after a few minutes, walked through the kitchen without saying a word and left. He called the dog, Come on, he said, we're going for a walk. He went down the slope with him, turned left at the road, away from the village, and strode out into the countryside. Found did not leave his master's heels, he must have been remembering his unhappy times as a wanderer, when he was driven from farms and even denied the means to slake his thirst. Although he is not a fearful dog, although he is not afraid of the dark, he would much prefer to be lying down in his kennel right now, or, better still, curled up in the kitchen at the feet of one of those three people, he does not say this out of indifference, as if it didn't matter, because he would keep the other two within sight and smell, and because he could change places whenever he wanted without spoiling the harmony and happiness of the moment. It was not a long walk. The stone on which Cipriano Algor has just sat down will serve as his bench of meditations, that was why he left the house, if he had gone to the real bench, his daughter would have seen him from the kitchen door and it would not have been long before she came out to ask him if he was all right, such acts of consideration are gratefully received, but human nature is so strangely made that even the most sincere and spontaneous gestures of the heart can occasionally prove importunate. It is not worth describing what Cipriano Algor thought about because he had thought about it on other occasions and we have supplied more than enough information on the subject already. The only new thing here is that he allowed a few painful tears to run down his cheeks, tears that had been dammed up for a long, long time, always just about to be shed, but, as it turned out, they were being reserved for this sad hour, for this moonless night, for this solitude that has not yet resigned itself to being solitude. What was truly not a novelty, because it had happened before in the history of fables and in the history of the marvels of the canine race, was that Found went over to Cipriano Algor to lick his tears, a gesture of supreme consolation which, however touching it might seem to us, capable of touching hearts normally not given to displays of emotion, should not make us forget the crude reality that the salty taste of tears is greatly appreciated by most dogs. One thing, however, does not detract from the other, were we to ask Found if it was because of the salt that he licked Cipriano Algor's face, he would probably have replied that we do not deserve the bread that we eat, that we are incapable of seeing beyond the end of our own nose. There they stayed for more than two hours, the dog and his owner, each one immersed in his own thoughts, with no tears now for one to cry and the other to dry, waiting perhaps for the world to turn and to restore everything to its proper place, even those things which, up until now, had not found a place.