THE PROTAGONISTS OF THESE DRAMATIC EVENTS, DESCRIBED in unusually detailed fashion in a story which has, so far, preferred to offer the curious reader, if we may put it so, a panoramic view of the facts, were, when they unexpectedly entered the scene, given the social classification of poor country folk. This mistake, the result of an overhasty judgment on the part of the narrator, based on an assessment which was, at best, superficial, should, out of respect for the truth, be rectified at once. A family of poor country folk, if they were truly poor, would not be the owners of a cart nor would they have money enough to feed an animal with the large appetite of a mule. They were, in fact, a family of smallholders, reasonably well-off in the modest world they lived in, well-brought-up people with sufficient schooling to be able to hold conversations which were not only grammatically correct, but which also had what some, for lack of a better word, call content, others substance, and others, perhaps more vulgarly, meat. Were that not the case, the maiden aunt would never have been able to come out with the lovely sentence we commented on before, What will the neighbors say when they notice the absence of these two people who were at death's door, but couldn't die. Hurriedly filling in that gap, and with truth restored to its rightful place, let us now hear what the neighbors did say. Despite all the family's precautions, someone had seen the cart and puzzled over why those three people would be going out at that late hour. This was precisely the question the vigilant neighbor asked himself, Where are those three off to at this hour, a question repeated the following morning, with only slight modification, to the old farmer's son-in-law, Where were you three off to at that hour of the night. The son-in-law replied that they'd had some business to attend to, but the neighbor was not convinced, Business to attend to at midnight, with the cart, and your wife and your sister-in-law, that's a bit odd, isn't it, he said, It might be odd, but that's how it was, And where were you coming from when the sky was just beginning to grow light, That's hardly your affair, You're right, I'm sorry, it really isn't my affair, but I assume you won't mind my asking after your father-in-law, Much the same, And your little nephew, He's much the same too, Well, I hope they both get better, Thank you, Goodbye, Goodbye. The neighbor walked away, stopped and turned back, It seemed to me that you were carrying something in the cart, it seemed to me that your sister had a child in her arms, and if so, the figure lying down covered by a blanket was probably your father-in-law, what's more, What's more, what, What's more, when you came back, the cart was empty and your sister had no child in her arms, You obviously don't sleep much at night, No, I sleep very lightly and wake easily, You woke up when we left and when we came back, that's what people call coincidence, That's right, And you want me to tell you what happened, Only if you'd like to, Come with me. They went into the house, the neighbor greeted the three women, I don't wish to intrude, he said, embarrassed, and waited. You'll be the first person to know, said the son-in-law and you won't have to keep it a secret because we won't ask you to, Please, only tell me what you want to, My father-in-law and my nephew died last night, we took them over the border, where death is still active, You killed them, exclaimed the neighbor, In a way, yes, given that they couldn't have gone there under their own steam, but in a way, no, because we did it at the request of my father-in-law, and as for the child, poor thing, he had no voice in the matter and no life worth living, they're buried at the foot of an ash tree, in each other's arms you might say. The neighbor clutched his head, And now, Now you'll go and tell the whole village, we'll be arrested and taken to the police, and probably tried and sentenced for what we didn't do, But you did do it, A yard from the frontier they were still alive, a yard further on, they were dead, when exactly, according to you, did we kill them and how, If you hadn't taken them there, Yes, they would be here, waiting for a death that wouldn't come. Silent and serene, the three women were watching the neighbor. I'm off, he said, I thought something had happened, but I never imagined anything like this, Please, I have a favor to ask, said the son-in-law, What, Come with me to the police, that way you won't have to go from door to door telling people about the horrible crimes we've committed, I mean, imagine, patricide and infanticide, good grief, what monsters live in this house, That isn't how I would put it, Yes, I know, so come with me, When, Now, strike while the iron is hot, Let's go then.
They were neither tried nor sentenced. Like a lit fuse, the news spread rapidly through the nation, the media inveighed against the loathsome creatures, the murderous sisters, the son-in-law accomplice, they shed tears over the old man and the innocent child as if they were the grandfather and grandson everyone would have liked to have had, for the thousandth time, those right-thinking newspapers that acted as barometers of public morality pointed the finger at the unstoppable decline in traditional family values, which was, in their opinion, the fount, cause and origin of all ills, and then, only forty-eight hours later, news started coming in of identical incidents happening throughout the border regions. Other carts and other mules transported other defenseless bodies, fake ambulances wound along deserted country lanes to reach the place where they could unload the bodies, usually kept in their seats for the duration by seat belts, although there was the occasional disgraceful instance of bodies being stowed in the boot and covered with a blanket, cars of all makes, models and prices journeyed toward this new guillotine, whose blade, if you'll forgive the very free comparison, was the slender line of the frontier invisible to the naked eye, each vehicle carrying those poor unfortunates whom death, on this side of the line, had kept in a state of permanent dying. Not all the families who acted thus could allege in their defense the same motives, in some ways respectable, but nevertheless debatable, as our anguished farming family who, never imagining the consequences of their actions, had sparked this traffic. Some who made use of this expedient to get rid of their father or grandfather in a foreign land merely saw it as a clean, efficient way, although radical might be a better word, of freeing themselves from the genuine dead-weights that their dying relatives had become to them at home. The media who, earlier, had energetically denounced the daughters and son-in-law of the old man buried along with his grandson, including in their vituperations the maiden aunt, accusing her of complicity and connivance, now stigmatized the cruelty and lack of patriotism of apparently decent folk who, at this time of grave national crisis, had let slip the hypocritical mask that concealed their true natures. Under pressure from the governments of the three neighboring countries and from the opposition parties, the prime minister condemned these inhumane activities, citing the need to respect human life and announcing that the armed forces would immediately take up positions along the frontier to prevent any citizen in a state of terminal physical decline from crossing over, whether on their own initiative or due to some arbitrary decision taken by relatives. Deep down, of course, although the prime minister dared not say this out loud, the government was not entirely opposed to an exodus which would, in the final analysis, serve the interests of the country by helping to lower the demographic pressure that had been building continuously over the last three months, although it was still far from reaching truly worrying levels. The prime minister also neglected to say that he'd had a discreet meeting with the interior minister that very day, the aim of which was to set up a nationwide network of vigilantes, or spies, in cities, towns and villages, whose mission would be to inform the authorities of any suspicious moves made by people with close relatives in a state of suspended death. The decision to intervene or not would be made on a case-by-case basis, since it was not the government's intention to put a complete stop to this new kind of migratory urge, but, rather, to satisfy, at least in part, the concerns of the governments of countries with whom they shared a border, enough, at least, to silence their complaints for a time. We're not here just to do what they want us to do, said the prime minister firmly, The plan will still exclude small hamlets, large estates and isolated houses, remarked the interior minister, We'll leave them to their own devices, they can do
what they like, for as you know from experience, my friend, it's impossible to have one policeman per person.
For two weeks, the plan worked more or less perfectly, but, after that, some of the vigilantes started complaining that they were receiving threatening phone calls, warning them that, if they wanted to live a nice quiet life, they had better turn a blind eye to the clandestine traffic of the terminally ill, and even close their eyes completely if they didn't want to add their own corpse to the number of people with whose surveillance they had been charged. These were not empty threats, as became clear when the families of four vigilantes were told by anonymous callers that they should pick their loved ones up at such and such a place. And there they were, not dead, but not alive either. Given the gravity of the situation, the interior minister decided to show his power to the unknown enemy, on the one hand, by ordering his spies to intensify their investigations, and, on the other, by cancelling the drip-drip system of letting this one through, but not that one, which had been applied in accordance with the prime minister's tactics. The response was immediate, four more vigilantes suffered the same sad fate as the previous four, but, in this case, there was only one telephone call, intended for the interior minister himself, which could be interpreted as a provocation, but also as an action determined by pure logic, like someone saying, We exist. The message, however, did not stop there, it brought with it a constructive proposal, Let's come to a gentlemen's agreement, said the voice on the other end, you order your vigilantes to withdraw and we'll take charge of discreetly transporting the dying to the border, Who are you, asked the department head who answered the call, Just a group of people who care about order and discipline, all of us highly competent in our field, people who hate confusion and always keep our promises, in short, we're honest folk, And does this group have a name, asked the civil servant, Some call us the maphia, with a ph, Why the ph, To distinguish us from the original mafia, The state doesn't make agreements with mafias, Not on documents signed by a notary, no, Nor on any others, What position do you hold, Department head, That is, someone who knows nothing about real life, But I know my responsibilities, All that interests us at the moment is that you present our proposal to the person in authority, to the minister, if you have access to him, No, I don't have access to the minister, but this conversation will be passed on immediately to my superiors, The government will have forty-eight hours to study the proposal, not a minute more, but warn your superiors that if we don't get the answer we want, there will be more vigilantes in a state of coma, Right, I'll do that, So I'll phone again the day after tomorrow at the same time to find out what their decision is, Fine, I'll make a note, It's been a pleasure talking to you, If only I could say the same, Oh, I'm sure you'll change your tune when you hear that the vigilantes have returned home safe and sound, and if you haven't yet forgotten your childhood prayers, start praying now that they do just that, I understand, I knew you would, Right then, Forty-eight hours and not a minute more, But I certainly won't be the person who speaks to you, Oh, I'm certain you will be, Why's that, Because the minister won't want to speak to me directly, besides, if things go wrong, you'll be the one to take the rap, after all, what we're proposing is a gentlemen's agreement, Yes, sir, Goodbye, Goodbye. The department head removed the tape from the tape recorder and went to speak to his immediate superior.
Half an hour later, the cassette was in the hands of the interior minister. He listened, listened again, listened a third time and then asked, Is this department head to be trusted, Well, replied the superior, up until now I've never had the slightest reason for complaint, Nor the greatest, I hope, Neither great nor small, said the superior, who had failed to catch the irony. The minister removed the cassette from the tape player and started unraveling the tape. When he had finished, he placed it in a large glass ashtray and held the flame of his lighter to it. The tape began to wrinkle and crumple, and in less than a minute was transformed into a shapeless, blackened, fragile tangle. They probably recorded the conversation with the department head too, said the superior, That doesn't matter, anyone can fake a phone conversation, all you need are two voices and a tape recorder, what matters is that we've destroyed our tape, and burning the original means burning any potential copies too, Needless to say the telephone operator keeps a record of all phone calls, We'll make sure that disappears too, shall we, Yes, sir, and now, if I may, I'll leave you to consider the matter, No need, I've already come up with a response, That hardly surprises me, minister, given that you are lucky enough to be a very quick thinker, That would be mere flattery if it didn't happen to be true, because I do think quickly, Are you going to accept the proposal, No, I'm going to make a counterproposal, They may, I'm afraid, reject it, the terms in which the emissary spoke were both peremptory and threatening, if we don't get the answer we want, there will be more vigilantes in a state of coma, those were his words, My dear fellow, the answer we're going to give them is precisely the answer they're expecting, Sorry, sir, I don't understand, That, my dear fellow, is your problem, and I don't wish to wound your feelings when I say this, but your problem is that you're not capable of thinking like a minister, My fault entirely, Oh, please, don't blame yourself, if you're ever called upon to serve the country as a minister, you'll see how your brain leaps the moment you sit down in a chair like this, the difference is quite unimaginable, Yes, but I'm a mere civil servant and will gain nothing by nurturing fantasies like that, You know the old saying, never say from this water I will not drink, Right now, sir, you have some very bitter water indeed to drink, said the superior, indicating the burned remains of the tape, When you follow a clear-cut strategy and know all the facts of the matter, it's not so very hard to draw up a safe plan of action, I'm all ears, minister, The day after tomorrow, given that your department head will be the one to speak to the emissary, he and no one else will be the ministry's negotiator and he'll tell them that we agree to examine the proposal they made to us, but will warn them, too, that public opinion and the opposition party would never allow all those thousands of vigilantes to be withdrawn from service without some reasonable explanation, And, obviously, to say that the maphia have taken over the running of the business would hardly be thought a reasonable explanation, Precisely, although you could perhaps have put it a little more diplomatically, Forgive me, minister, it just came out like that, Anyway, at that point, the department head will present a counterproposal, or what we might also call an alternative suggestion, namely, that the vigilantes will not be withdrawn from service, they will remain where they are now, but deactivated, Deactivated, Yes, the word is clear enough, I think, Oh, indeed, minister, I was merely expressing my surprise, Surprise about what, after all, it's the only way we have of not appearing to be giving in to the rascals' blackmail, Even though we have, The important thing is that it doesn't look as if we have, that we preserve the facade, what happens behind that facade will no longer be our responsibility, Meaning, Let's just imagine that we intercept a vehicle and arrest the men in charge of it, needless to say those risks were included in the bill that the relatives had to pay, There won't be any bills or receipts, the maphia don't pay taxes, That's just a manner of speaking, what matters is the fact that it's a win-win situation for everyone, for us because it's a load off our minds, for the vigilantes because they will no longer run the risk of suffering any physical harm, for the families because they can rest easy knowing that their living-dead will finally be transformed into their dead, and for the maphia because they'll get paid for their work, A perfect arrangement, minister, One that comes with the cast-iron guarantee that it will be to no one's advantage to blab, No, you're probably right, Perhaps I seem a little too cynical, Not at all, minister, I only admire the way in which you came up with such a solid, logical, coherent plan, Experience, my friend, experience, Right, I'll go and talk to the department head and pass your instructions on to him, I'm sure he'll give a good account of himself, because as I said before, he's never given me the slightest reason for complai
nt, Nor the largest, I believe, Neither one nor the other, replied the superior, who had finally understood the little joke.
Everything or, to be more exact, almost everything went as the minister had foreseen. At precisely the hour agreed, not a minute before, not a minute afterward, the emissary from the criminal association, the self-styled maphia, phoned to hear what the ministry had to say. The department head deserved full marks for the way in which he carried out his role, he was firm and clear and persuasive as regards the fundamental question, namely, that the vigilantes, albeit deactivated, would remain at their posts, and he had the satisfaction of receiving in return, and of being able to pass on to his superior, the best of all possible replies in the circumstances, that the government's alternative suggestion would be examined closely and that another phone call would ensue in twenty-four hours' time. And that is what happened. The close examination concluded that the government's proposal could be accepted, but with one condition, that the only vigilantes to be deactivated should be those who had remained loyal to the government, or, in other words, those whom the maphia had failed to persuade to collaborate with the new boss, that is, the maphia itself. Let us try to understand the criminals' point of view. Faced by a long, complex operation on a national scale, and having to employ many of their more experienced personnel in visiting those families who would, in principle at least, be prepared to rid themselves of their loved ones for the praiseworthy reason that they wished to spare them not only pointless, but eternal suffering, it would clearly be a great help to the maphia if they could make use of the government's vast network of informers, with the added convenience that it allowed them to continue using their preferred weapons of corruption, bribery and intimidation. It was against this stone, suddenly thrown into the middle of the road, that the interior minister's strategy stubbed its toe, causing serious damage to the dignity of state and government. Caught between a rock and a hard place, between scylla and charybdis, between the devil and the deep blue sea, he rushed to consult the prime minister about this unexpected gordian knot. The worst of it was that things had gone too far for them to be able to turn back now. The prime minister, despite being more experienced than the interior minister, could find no better way out of the difficulty than to propose further negotiations, establishing a kind of numerus clausus, with something like a maximum of twenty-five percent of the total number of current vigilantes going over to work for the other side. Once again it would fall to the department head to transmit to his now impatient interlocutor the conciliatory platform which the prime minister and the interior minister, ever-hopeful, believed would finally allow the agreement to be ratified. It would, however, be an agreement with no signatures, since it was a gentlemen's agreement, in which one's word was enough, thus, as the dictionary explains, avoiding any legal formalities. They clearly had no idea what twisted, evil minds the maphiosi have. Firstly, the maphia gave no deadline for a response, leaving the poor interior minister on tenterhooks and convinced now that he would be obliged to hand in his letter of resignation. Secondly, when, after several days, it occurred to them that they really should phone, it was only to say that they had still not reached a conclusion as to whether or not the platform would prove sufficiently conciliatory, and then, in passing, as if it were a matter of no importance, they took the opportunity to inform them that they were not in any way responsible for the fact that, the previous day, four more vigilantes had been found in a desperate state of health. Thirdly, because everything has an ending, be it happy or not, the answer that had just been given to the government by the national maphioso board, via the department head and his superior, was divided into two points, point a, the numerus clausus would be not twenty-five percent, but thirty-five, point b, whenever they felt it suited their interests, and with no need for prior consultation with the authorities, far less their consent, the organization demanded that it be given the right to transfer the vigilantes working for them to posts occupied by deactivated vigilantes, whom they would, of course, replace. Take it or leave it. Do you see any way out of this dilemma, the prime minister asked the interior minister, Well, sir, I'm not even sure it exists, if we refuse, I estimate that every day we'll have four vigilantes rendered useless both for work and life, if we accept, we'll be in the hands of these people for who knows how long, Forever, or for at least as long as there are families who want to rid themselves at whatever price of the burdens they have at home, That's just given me an idea, I'm not sure whether to be pleased to hear that or not, Look, I've done the best I can, prime minister, but if I've become another kind of burden, then you just have to say the word, Oh, don't be so sensitive, come on, what's this idea of yours, Well, prime minister, I believe we're faced here by a clear case of supply and demand, What's that got to do with anything, we're talking here about people who have only one way to die, As with the classic question about which came first, the chicken or the egg, it's not always easy to tell whether the demand preceded the supply or if, on the contrary, it was the supply that created the demand, Perhaps I should consider moving you from the ministry of the interior to the finance department, They're not so very different, prime minister, the ministry of the interior has its finances, and the finance department has its interior, they're communicating vessels, so to speak, Stick to the point and tell me your idea, If it hadn't occurred to that first family that the solution to the problem might be waiting for them on the other side of the border, the situation in which we find ourselves today would perhaps be different, if a lot of families hadn't followed their example, the maphia wouldn't have turned up, wanting to exploit a business that simply didn't exist, In theory, yes, although, as we know, they're perfectly capable of squeezing water out of a stone and then selling it for a profit, so I'm afraid I still don't see what your idea is, It's simple, prime minister, If only it were, Put briefly, we have to turn off the supply, And how would we do that, By persuading families, in the name of the most sacred principles of humanity, love for one's neighbor and solidarity, to keep their terminally ill loved ones at home, And how exactly do you think such a miracle would happen, My idea is to run a massive publicity campaign in all the media, press, television and radio, including street parades, consciousness-raising groups, the distribution of pamphlets and stickers, street theater and straight theater, films, especially sentimental dramas and cartoons, a campaign capable of moving people to tears, a campaign that would cause relatives who have strayed from their duties and obligations to repent, one that would awaken in people feelings of solidarity, self-sacrifice and compassion, it would, I'm convinced, take only a short time for the guilty families to become aware of the unforgivable cruelty of their actions and to return to the transcendent values which not so very long ago formed their bedrock, My doubts are growing by the minute, now I'm wondering if I shouldn't move you to culture, or perhaps religion, for which you also seem to have a certain vocation, Or else, prime minister, place the three portfolios under one ministry, You mean as well as the finance department, Well, yes, if they really are communicating vessels, What you wouldn't be suited to at all, my friend, would be propaganda, your idea that a publicity campaign would bring families back into the fold of sensitive souls is utter nonsense, Why, prime minister, Because campaigns like that only profit those who earn money making them, We've done plenty of such campaigns before, Yes, and you've seen the results, besides, to go back to the matter that should be concerning us, even if your campaign were to bear fruit, it wouldn't do so today or tomorrow, and I have to make a decision now, Indeed, prime minister. The prime minister gave a despairing smile, This whole thing is ridiculous, absurd, he said, we know very well that we have no choice and that any proposals we make will only serve to make the situation worse, In that case, In that case, and if we don't want to have on our conscience four vigilantes a day battered to within an inch of their lives and left at death's door, all we can do is to accept their conditions, We could order a lightning strike by the police, a surprise attack, and arre
st dozens of maphiosi, that might make them take a step back, The only way to kill the dragon is by cutting off its head, clipping its nails will have no effect at all, It might help, Four vigilantes a day, minister, remember that, four vigilantes a day, it's best if we recognize that we're tied hand and foot, The opposition will have a field day, they'll accuse us of selling the country to the maphia, They won't say country, they'll say nation, Even worse, Let's just hope the church is willing to help, after all, I imagine they'll be receptive to the argument that, as well as providing them with a few useful deaths, the reason we made this decision was to save lives, You can't talk about saving lives any more, prime minister, that was before, You're right, we'll have to come up with some other expression. There was a silence. Then the prime minister said, Enough of this, give the necessary instructions to your department head and start work on the deactivation plan, we also need to know the maphia's thinking on how to distribute the twenty-five percent of vigilantes who will make up the numerus clausus, Thirty-five percent, prime minister, Please don't remind me that our defeat has been even worse than we at first thought, It's a sad day, If the families of the next four vigilantes knew what was going on here, they wouldn't say so, And to think that those four vigilantes might be working for the maphia tomorrow, That's life, my dear head of the ministry of communicating vessels, Ministry of the interior, prime minister, of the interior, Oh, that's just the tube that connects all the other tubes together.
The Collected Novels of José Saramago Page 341
