Raised from the Ground

by José Saramago

  There’s another, more important story. Marcelino was standing guard, without his rifle this time, for they had all been stolen, and José Gato decided to set about stealing the broad beans, which had all been harvested and were lying on the threshing floor. It was close to the gang’s current hideout which we found out was there only when we were felling trees in the area, by which time they had moved on. They had dug a deep ditch and carved out caves along the walls. There were some high hills all overgrown with willows, and they had cut a path through them, rather the way mongoose do, and created alcoves furnished with comfortable beds made out of reeds and twigs. Anyway, José Gato went out nightly to steal some of the beans, and Marcelino realized that someone had been taking them because some had been crushed underfoot and you could see the empty shells underneath. Marcelino said to himself, The bastards, they’re after my beans, and so what did he decide to do, I’m going to confront them, he said, and so he tethered his horse out of sight, took a large sack with him, because in summer you don’t need a blanket, and a big stick. Shortly afterward, he heard rustling, it was José Gato tossing three or four bundles of beans in a cloth to shell them, but everything was so dry that the beans crunched underfoot, and then, at the agreed hour, a member of the gang came to help him carry away the beans, about a hundred liters of them. They were probably going to sell them to Manuel da Revolta in exchange for bread and other essentials, I’m not sure. José Gato was completely absorbed in his work, and Marcelino, barefoot, was drawing closer and closer, his own description of it was very funny, I was barefoot, you see, gradually edging nearer, and I got within about six or seven meters of the guy, another three or four meters and I could have hit him with my stick, but he was too sharp and he heard me, and just when I thought I’d deal him a blow with my stick, in two hops he was gone, now you see him, now you don’t, and I was pretty quick off the mark myself, but there he was pointing his rifle at me. José Gato said, or so Marcelino said, You’re lucky, you were kind to a friend of mine once, that was at a time when the guards were doing their worst and Marcelino had given shelter and food to one of the gang, You’re lucky, otherwise, I would have shot you dead. But Marcelino was a brave man too in his own way, Hang on, this calls for a smoke, and he pulled out his tobacco pouch, rolled himself a cigarette, stuck it in his mouth, lit it, then said, Right, I’m off now.

  Later, the gang were all arrested. It started in Piçarras, in an out-of-the-way place between Munhola and Landeira. There was a showdown with the guards, shots were fired, it was like a war. The guards caught them, but every one of them was given a job by local farmers, Venta Rachada became a watchman on a vineyard in Zambujal, and others the same. I would love to have heard one of those conversations between guards and farmers, We’ve arrested a man, Oh good, I’ll have him, I don’t know who was the more brazen of the two. José Gato was only arrested some time later, in Vendas Novas. He was living with a woman who sold vegetables there and he always went about in disguise, which is why the guards never caught him. Some say she gave him away, but I don’t know. He was taken prisoner at his lover’s house, in the cellar, when he was sleeping, in fact, he had said once, If they don’t catch me while I’m sleeping, they won’t catch me at all. Rumor had it that he was taken to Lisbon, and just as the others were given jobs by farmers, it was said that he had been sent to the colonies as a member of the PVDE. I don’t know if he would ever have agreed to that, I find it hard to believe, or perhaps they killed him and that was the story they made up, it wouldn’t be the first time.

  José Gato had many good qualities. He never stole from the poor, his intention being to steal only from the rich, as people say José do Telhado used to. Once, Parrilhas came across a woman who had gone shopping for her family, and he robbed her, the wicked devil. Unfortunately for him, José Gato found the poor woman sobbing. He asked what was wrong and realized from what she said that Parrilhas had been her attacker. He gave the woman enough money for three loads of shopping and Parrilhas got the worst beating of his life. Quite right, too.

  José Gato was a man with no illusions, small in stature but brave, as you’ll see from something that happened in Monte da Revolta. At the time, it was a very international place, you got people there from all over, suffice it to say that a man from the Algarve who was working on clearing the land managed to build a little cabin for himself, and there were others like him, with no house and no home, or if they had one, they kept quiet about it. A man there tried to provoke an argument between Manuel da Revolta and José Gato, telling Manuel da Revolta that José Gato had boasted about how he was going to sleep with Manuel’s wife. But Manuel da Revolta, who trusted José Gato, said to him straight out, So-and-so told me this. José Gato said, The bastard, let’s go and see him, and so they did, and when they got there, he said, This is what you told Manuel, and I’d like to hear you say the same to my face. The other man answered, Look, I was a bit drunk at the time, but you never said anything of the kind, and that’s the honest truth. José Gato said very calmly, Walk a hundred paces ahead of me, that way he knew he had no chance of killing the man, then he fired two or three shots at his back, so that a couple of pellets just stuck in his flesh while the others ricocheted off, then he gave him a couple of lashes with a whip as he lay on the ground, Behave like a man from now on, and don’t go playing any more childish pranks on people. It always seemed to me that José Gato got involved in a life of crime only because he couldn’t earn enough to eat.

  He was in this area when I was a little boy. He was the foreman in charge of clearing the area between Monte Lavre and Coruche. The road was built entirely by itinerant laborers, lots of people worked like that, putting in three or four weeks until they had earned enough cash and then others came to take their place. José Gato arrived and clearly knew what he was doing, so he was made foreman, although he kept away from the low-lying valleys. I was herding pigs at the time, before I got to know Manuel Espada, so I saw it all. It came to be known that he’d had a few run-ins with the guards, and then the guards learned, or someone told them, that he was in the area, and they hunted him down and caught him. They didn’t quite have the measure of him though. He was at the head of the patrol, looking all meek and mild, and the guards were following behind him, looking smug, then suddenly he bent down, grabbed a handful of earth and threw it in the eyes of one of the guards, and was gone. Until his final arrest, they never saw him again. José Gato was a true wanderer. And I reckon he was always a very solitary man.

  THE WORLD WITH ALL its weight, this globe with no beginning and no end, made up of seas and lands, crisscrossed by rivers, streams and brooks carrying the clear water that comes and goes and is always the same, whether suspended in the clouds or hidden in the springs beneath the great subterranean plates, this world that looks like a great lump of rock rolling around the heavens or, as it will appear to astronauts one day and as we can already imagine, like a spinning top, this world, seen from Monte Lavre, is a very delicate thing, a small watch that can take only so much winding and not a turn more, that starts to tremble and twitch if a large finger approaches the balance wheel and seems about to touch, however lightly, the hairspring, as nervous as a heart. A watch is solid and rustproof inside its polished case, shockproof up to a point, even waterproof for those who have the exquisite taste to go swimming with it, it is guaranteed for a certain number of years, possibly many years if fashion does not laugh at what we bought only yesterday, for that is how the factory maintains its outflow of watches and its inflow of dividends. But if you remove its shell, if the wind, sun and rain begin to spin and beat inside it, among the jewels and the gears, you can safely bet that the happy days are over. Seen from Monte Lavre, the world is an open clock, with its innards exposed to the sun, waiting for its hour to come.

  Having been sown at the right time, the wheat sprouted, grew and is now ripe. We pluck an ear from the edge of the field and rub it between the palms of our hands, an ancient gesture. The warm, dry husk crumbles and w
e hold cupped in our hand the eighteen or twenty grains from that ear and we say, It’s time to harvest. These are the magic words that will set in motion both machines and men, this is the moment when, to abandon the image of the watch, the snake of the earth sheds its skin and is left defenseless. If we want things to change, we must grab the snake before it disappears. From high up in Monte Lavre, the owners of the latifundio gaze out at the great yellow waves whispering beneath the gentle breeze, and say to their overseers, It’s time to harvest, or, if informed of this in their Lisbon homes, indolently say the same thing, or, more succinctly, So be it, but having said these words, they are trusting that the world will give another turn, that the latifundio will respect the regularity of its customs and its seasons, and they are relying, in a way, on the urgency with which the earth accomplishes these tasks. The war has just ended, a time of universal fraternal love is about to begin. They say that soon the ration books will be unnecessary, those little bits of colored paper that give you the right to eat, if, of course, you have the money to pay with and always assuming there is something for that money to buy. These people aren’t much bothered really. They have eaten little and badly all their lives, they have known only scarcity, and the hunger marches practiced here are as old as tales of the evil eye. However, everything has its moment. As anyone can see, this wheat is ripe and so are the men.

  There are two slogans, not to accept the daily rate of twenty-five escudos and not to work for less than thirty-three escudos a day, from morning to night, because that’s how it must be, fruits do not all ripen at the same time. If the wheatfields could speak, they would say in astonishment, What’s going on, aren’t they going to harvest us, someone isn’t doing his job. Pure imagination. The wheatfields are ripe and waiting, it’s getting late. Either the men come now or, when the season is over, the stems will break, the ears crumble, and all the grain will fall to the ground to feed the birds and a few insects, until, so that not everything is lost, they let the livestock into the fields, where they will live as if in the land of Cockaigne. That is pure imagination too. One side will have to give in, there is no record of the wheat ever being left to fall to the ground like that, or if it did, it was the exception that proved the rule. The latifundio orders foremen and overseers to stand firm, the language is warlike, No going back, the imperial guard will die rather than surrender, oh, if only they would die, but there are faint echoes here of bugle calls, or are they merely a nostalgia for battles lost. The guards are beginning to emerge from their cocoons, the corporals and sergeants appear at the windows of their barracks to sniff the air, some are oiling their rifles and giving their horses double rations from the emergency reserves. In the towns, men stand shoulder to shoulder, muttering. The overseers come to talk to them again, So, have you reached a decision, and they reply, We have, and we won’t work for less. In the distance, on this hot evening, a warm wind blows as if it came from the earth itself, and the hills continue to hold tight to the roots of those dry stalks. Hidden in the forest of the wheatfield, the partridges are listening hard. No sound of men passing, no roaring engine, no tremulous shaking of the ears of wheat as the sickle or the whirlwind of the harvester approach. What a strange world this is.

  Saturday comes. The overseers have been to speak to the owners, They’re very determined, they said, and the owners of the latifundio, Norberto, Alberto, Dagoberto, replied in unison, each from his particular place in the landscape, Let them learn their lesson. In their houses, the men have just had supper, the little or nothing they dine on every day, the women are looking at them in silence, and some ask, What now, while some men shrug glumly and others say, They’re sure to come to their senses tomorrow, and there are those who have decided to accept what they are being offered, the same pay as last year. It’s true that from all sides comes news that many men are refusing to work for such a pittance, but what is a man to do if he has a wife and children, the little urchins who are all eyes and who stand, chin resting on the edge of the table, using one saliva-moistened fingertip to hunt breadcrumbs as if they were ants. Some of the luckier men, although they might not seem so to those who know little of such things, have found employment with a smallholder, a man who cannot risk losing his harvest and who has already agreed to pay them thirty-three escudos. The night will be a long one, as if it were winter already. Above the rooftops is the usual wasteful sprawl of stars, if only we could eat them, but they’re too far away, the ostentatious serenity of a heaven to which Father Agamedes keeps returning, he has no other topic, stating that, up above, all our hardships in this vale of tears will end and we will all stand equal before the Lord. Empty stomachs protest, grumbling away at nothing, proof of that inequality. Your wife beside you isn’t asleep, but you don’t feel like rolling over on top of her. Perhaps tomorrow the bosses will come to an agreement, perhaps we’ll find a pot full of gold coins buried at the back of the fireplace, perhaps the chicken will start laying golden eggs, or even silver would do, perhaps the poor will wake up rich and the rich poor. But we do not find such delights even in dreams.

  Dearly beloved children, says Father Agamedes at mass, because it’s Sunday already, Dearly beloved children, and he pretends not to notice how sparse the congregation is and how ancient most of its members are, nothing but old ladies and altar boys, Dearly beloved children, and it’s only natural that the old ladies should be thinking vaguely that they long ago ceased to be children, but what can one do, the world belongs to men, Dearly beloved children, be very careful, the winds of revolution are blowing across our happy lands, and once more I say to you, pay them no heed, but why bother writing down the rest, we know Father Agamedes’s sermon by heart. The mass ends, the priest disrobes, it’s Sunday, that holiest of days, and lunch, blessings be upon it, will be served in the cool of Clariberto’s dining room, although Clariberto goes to mass only when he really wants to, which is rare, and the ladies are equally lazy, but Father Agamedes doesn’t take it to heart, if they should be overcome by devotion or overwhelmed by fears of the beyond, they have a chapel in the garden, with newly varnished saints, including a Saint Sebastian generously sprinkled with arrows, may God forgive me, but the saint does seem to be enjoying it rather more than virtue should allow, and Father Agamedes enters through the same door that the overseer Pompeu has just left, carrying in his ear the consoling message, Not a penny more, there’s nothing quite like a man with authority, be it on earth or in heaven.

  A few men are hanging around outside, and although the labor market normally starts later on, some of them go to the overseer and ask, So what has the boss decided, and he replies, Not a penny more, well, why waste a nice turn of phrase or spoil it with redundant variations, and the men say, But some farmers are already paying thirty-three escudos, and Pompeu says, That’s their business, if they want to bankrupt themselves, good luck to them. This is when João Mau-Tempo opens his mouth, and the words come out as naturally as water flowing from a good spring, The wheat won’t get harvested then, because we’re not working for less. The overseer did not reply, because his lunch was waiting for him and he wasn’t in the mood for such unsettling conversations. And the sun beat down hard, glinting like a guard’s saber.

  Those who could eat ate, and those who couldn’t starved. The labor market has begun now, all the rural workers from Monte Lavre are there, even those who have already been hired, but only the ones who are being paid thirty-three escudos, anyone who accepted the old rate is sitting at home, chewing on his own shame, getting annoyed with his children who can’t keep still and giving them a clip on the ear for no reason, and the wife, who is always the voice of justice in any punishment, protests, We’re the ones who bore them, besides, you shouldn’t hit an innocent child, but the men in the square are innocent too, they’re not asking for the moon, just thirty-three escudos for a day’s work, it’s hardly an outrageous amount, by which they mean that the boss isn’t going to lose out. This isn’t what Pompeu and the other overseers say, but perhaps he speaks
more brusquely because of his Roman name, What you’re asking for is outrageous, you’ll be the ruin of agriculture. Various voices cry, Some farmers are already paying that, and the chorus of overseers replies, That’s their choice, but we’re not paying it. And so the haggling continues, retort and counter-retort, who will tire of it first, it’s hardly a dialogue worthy of setting down, but there is nothing else.

  The sea beats on the shore, well, that’s one way of describing it, but not everyone would know what we meant, because there are many around here who have never been to the sea, the sea beats on the shore and if it meets a sandcastle in its path or a rickety fence, it will flatten both, if not at the first attempt, then at the second, and the sandcastle will have been razed to the ground and the fence reduced to a few planks being washed back and forth by the waves. It would be simpler to say that many men accepted the twenty-five escudos, and only a few dug in their heels and refused. And now that they are alone in the square, asking each other if it was worth it, and Sigismundo Canastro, who is one of those men, says, We mustn’t get discouraged, this isn’t happening only in Monte Lavre, if we win, then everyone will benefit. What makes him think this, when there are just twenty men unemployed. If only there were more of us, says João Mau-Tempo gloomily. And these twenty men seem about to go their separate ways, with nowhere to head but home, which is not a good place to be today. Sigismundo Canastro tells them his idea, Tomorrow, let’s go together to the fields and ask our comrades not to work, tell them that everywhere people are fighting for their thirty-three escudos, we in Monte Lavre can’t be seen to weaken, we’re as brave as they are, and if the whole district refused to work, the bosses would have to give in. Someone in the group asks, What’s happening in those other places then, and someone answers, either Sigismundo Canastro or Manuel Espada or someone else, it doesn’t matter, It’s the same in Beja, in Santarém, in Portalegre, in Setúbal, this isn’t just one man’s idea, either we all work together or we’re lost. João Mau-Tempo, who is one of the older men present and therefore has a greater responsibility, stares into the distance as if he were gazing inside himself, judging his own strength, and then he says, We should do as Sigismundo says. From where they are standing, they can see the guards’ barracks. Corporal Tacabo appeared at the door to enjoy the cool of the evening, and it was doubtless purely by chance that the first bat also appeared at the same moment, cutting smoothly through the air. It’s a strange animal, almost blind, like a rat with wings, and it flies as fast as lightning and never bumps into anything or anyone.