Raised from the Ground

by José Saramago

  The man fell again. It’s the same one, said the ants, the same ear shape, the same arc of eyebrow, the same shadow at the corner of the mouth, there’s no mistaking him, why is it that it is always the same man who falls, why doesn’t he defend himself, fight back. This is the reasoning of the ant and of ant civilization, they do not know that Germano Santos Vidigal is not fighting with those two thugs Escarro and Escarrilho,* but with his own body, with the searing pain between his legs, or his testicles, to use the language of a physiology manual, or his bollocks, to use the more easily acquired and cruder language of the street, fragile balls, balloons full of some imponderable ether which raise us men up to ecstasy, that carry us between heaven and earth, but not these pathetic objects anxiously protected by hands that suddenly release them when the heel of a boot thuds brutally into the small of the back. The ants are surprised, but only fleetingly. After all, they have their own duties, their own timetables to keep, it is quite enough that they raise their heads like dogs and fix their feeble vision on the fallen man to check that he is the same one and not some new variant in the story. The larger ant walked along the remaining stretch of wall, slipped under the door, and some time will pass before it reappears to find everything changed, well, that’s just a manner of speaking, there are still three men there, but the two who do not fall never stop moving, it must be some kind of game, there’s no other explanation, let’s hope Cesaltina’s son never plays this game, they are engaged in hurling the other man against the wall, they grab him by the shoulders and propel him willy-nilly in the direction of the wall, so that sometimes he hits his back, sometimes his head, or else his poor bruised face smashes into the whitewash and leaves on it a trace of blood, not a lot, just whatever spurts forth from his mouth and right eyebrow. And if they leave him there, he, not his blood, slides down the wall and he ends up kneeling on the ground beside the little trail of ants, who are startled by the sudden fall from on high of that great mass, which doesn’t, in the end, even graze them. And when he stays there for some time, one ant attaches itself to his clothing, wanting to take a closer look, the fool, it will be the first ant to die, because the next blow falls on precisely that spot, the ant doesn’t feel the second blow, but the man does, and his stomach, not he, gives a lurch, and again he collapses, retching, from that violent kick to the stomach, followed by another to his private parts, which is an expression too widespread to cause offense.

  One of the men leaves the room to rest from his exertions. His name is Escarrilho, he has a mother and father and is married with children, which isn’t saying much, because the one who stayed behind to guard the prisoner, Escarro, also has a mother and father, and is married with children, the men are distinguishable only by their features, although only just, and by their names, one is Escarro and the other Escarrilho, they are not related and yet they belong to the same family. He walks down the corridor and, in his weariness, stumbles over the bench, These guys who won’t talk will be the death of me, but screw the bugger, I’ll get something out of him or my name’s not Escarrilho. He takes a long, long drink of water, he’s burning up with fever, then a kind of nervous fit comes upon him, and, energies replenished, he irrupts into the room again like a typhoon, and launches himself at Germano Santos Vidigal like a dog, he is a dog called Escarrilho, and it’s as if Escarro were urging him on, Go on, bite him, and perhaps he really does bite him, later on they’ll find teeth marks here and there, but whether they’re from a man or a dog is hard to tell, for sometimes, as everyone knows, men are born with dogs’ teeth. Poor dogs, trained to bite those they should respect and to bite parts of the body they should never bite, here, for example, the place that marks me out as a man, no more than they should bite a man’s arm or jaw, or this other place, the heart, our inner eye, or the head, where our real eyes are. But I was told as a child that this restless piece of machinery is what makes me a man, and although I didn’t really believe them, I’m fond of it, and it isn’t something that a dog should bite.

  The large ant is on its fifth journey, and still the game continues. This time it was Escarro’s turn to go out for a rest, he went into the courtyard to smoke a restoring cigarette, then visited Lieutenant Contente in his office to ask about the progress of the field operations, the great maneuvers, and the lieutenant told him they were making a general sweep of strikers in the area, deploying all their manpower, it was good that they finally sent us reinforcements, he said, enough to arrest as many men again as we’ve got penned up in the bullring. And has that guy Germano Vidigal talked yet, asks Lieutenant Contente discreetly, because it really has nothing to do with him and Escarro is under no obligation to answer, but he does, Not yet, he’s a tough nut to crack, and the lieutenant, solicitously, helpfully, adds, You’ll have to tighten the screws still more. This mini-Torquemada of Montemor makes a good adjutant, offering them a roof over their heads and protection, and also throwing in a little free advice, but as he lights a cigarette, he hears Escarro’s ill-tempered response, We know what we’re doing, he snarls, then leaves, slamming the door and muttering, Imbecile, and, feeling perhaps put out by this exchange, he went into the room where the ants were and removed from the drawer a deadly weapon, a steel-tipped cat-o’-nine-tails, he looped the handle about his wrist to get a better grip, and as Germano, that foolish man of sorrows, tried to crawl away from his attacker, Escarro unleashed the whistling whip upon his shoulders, moving slowly down his back, centimeter by centimeter, as if he were threshing green rye, as far as the kidneys, where he lingered, blind even though his eyes were open, for there is no more dangerous form of blindness, rhythmically thrashing the man now lying on the floor, beating him methodically so as not to tire himself too much, because tiredness is the real killer, but gradually he began to lose all self-control and became a kind of manic whipping machine, a drunken automaton, until Escarrilho placed one hand on his arm, Don’t get carried away, man, you’ll kill the guy. Ants know about death, because they’re used to seeing their own dead and to making instant diagnoses, sometimes, on their travels, as they’re dragging along a grain of wheat, they stumble upon some small, shriveled, almost indecipherable thing, but they don’t hesitate, despite being encumbered by their load, they thoroughly investigate the object with their antennae, but their Morse code is quite explicit, This is a dead ant, and you only have to glance away for a moment, and when you look again, the corpse has gone, that’s what ants are like, they don’t leave behind those who fall in the line of duty, and for all these reasons, the large ant, which was on its seventh trip back and forth and happened to be passing, raises its head and studies the great cloud before its eyes, but then makes a special effort, adjusts its visual mechanism and thinks, How pale this man is, he doesn’t look the same at all, his face is all swollen, his lips are cut, and his eyes, poor eyes, you can’t see them for the bruises, he’s so different from when he first arrived, but I know him by his smell, because smell is the keenest of the ants’ senses. The ant is still thinking all this when the face is removed from view because the other two men turn the man over and lay him on his back, they throw water on his face, a whole jug of cool water, pumped up from the deep, dark well, little did that water suspect the fate awaiting it, coming as it did from the depths of the earth, after who knows how many years traveling underground, having known other places, the stony steps of a spring, the harsh brilliance of sand, the soft warmth of mud, the putrid stagnation of the swamp, and the fire of the sun that slowly erased it from the earth, vanished, gone, until it reappears in a passing cloud long, long afterward and suddenly falls to earth, falling helplessly from above, the earth seems beautiful to the water, and if the water could choose the places where it fell, if it could, there would be far less thirst or far less surfeit, yes, long, long afterward it fell to earth and went traveling, gradually evolving into pure, crystal-clear water, until it found a course to follow, a secret stream, this dark, echoing well, this surface perforated by a suction pump, and suddenly it’s trapped inside
a transparent trap, a jug, is its fate perhaps to slake someone’s thirst, no, it’s being poured from on high onto a face, an abrupt fall, abruptly broken as it runs slowly over lips, eyes, nose and chin, over gaunt cheeks, over a forehead drenched in sweat, another kind of water, and thus it comes to know this man’s as yet still-living mask. But the water drips onto the floor, spattering everything around and the tiles turn red, not to mention the ants who were drowned, apart from this larger one tirelessly making its eighth journey.

  Escarro and Escarrilho grab Germano Santos Vidigal under the arms, lift him bodily, he hates to be a bother, and sit him on a chair. Escarro is still holding the cat-o’-nine-tails, the handle is still looped over his wrist, the fury that had gripped him has passed, but he still yells, Bastard, and spits in the face of the man who sits slumped in the chair like an empty jacket. Germano Santos Vidigal opens his eyes, and, incredible though it may seem, what he sees is the trail of ants, perhaps because there are so many of them in the place where his gaze happens to fall, it’s hardly surprising, human blood is a delicacy for ants, when you think about it, they live on nothing else, and three drops of blood have fallen there, Father Agamedes, and three drops of blood make a well, a lake, an ocean. He opened his eyes, if you can use the word open to describe the narrow slits through which light barely penetrates, and what light does enter is too much, piercing his pupils with pain, which he is aware of only because it is a new pain, a knife sticking into flesh already pierced by another one hundred revolving knives, and then with a moan he stammered out a few words that Escarro and Escarrilho both hastened to hear, regretting now having beaten him so badly that they may have rendered him incapable of speech, but what Germano Santos Vidigal wants, poor man, still subject to his bodily needs, is to relieve his bladder, which for some reason is suddenly sending out an urgent signal, and will, if not heeded, empty itself right here and now. Escarro and Escarrilho don’t want to get the floor any dirtier than it already is, and they also cherish the hope that they have finally broken this stubborn man’s resistance and that this request is the first sign, one of them goes to the door to check that no one is in the corridor, nods, then goes back inside, and together the two men help Germano Santos Vidigal to walk the five meters that separate them from the latrine, they lean him up against the urinal and leave the poor man to unbutton his fly with clumsy fingers, feeling for and extracting his tortured penis, his cock, not daring to touch his swollen testicles, his torn scrotum, and then he concentrates, calls on all his muscles to help him, asking them first to contract and then to relax so that the sphincters soften and relieve the terrible tension, he tries once, twice, three times, and out it spurts, blood, mingled perhaps with urine, although it’s impossible to tell from that one red stream, as if every vein in his body had burst and found an outlet there. He tries to hold it back, but the stream continues to pour forth as strongly as ever. It’s his life pouring out of him, and it’s still dribbling out when he finally puts his cock away, lacking the strength now to rebutton his fly. Escarro and Escarrilho lead him, feet dragging, back to the room of the ants and sit him down again on the chair, and Escarrilho asks, in a voice full of hope, So now will you talk, he has the idea that having been allowed to go to the toilet, the prisoner has a duty to speak, after all, one good turn deserves another, but Germano Santos Vidigal’s arms drop to his sides, his head slumps onto his chest, and the light goes out inside his brain. The larger of the ants disappears under the door, having completed its tenth journey.

  When it returns from the ants’ nest, it will find the room full of men. Escarro and Escarrilho are there, along with Lieutenant Contente, Sergeant Armamento, Corporal Tacabo, two nameless privates and three specially chosen prisoners who state that the policemen left the room for a minute, no more than that, to deal with some urgent matter, and when they returned, found the prisoner had hanged himself on a piece of wire, just as we see him now, with one end tied around that nail there, and the other wound twice around Germano Santos Vidigal’s neck, yes, his name’s Germano Santos Vidigal, it’s important to know that for the death certificate, the official doctor must be called, yes, as you can see, he’s kneeling, yes, kneeling, but there’s nothing odd about that, if someone wants to hang himself, even if it’s only from a bedstead, it’s all a matter of will, does anyone have any questions, Not me, say the lieutenant, the sergeant and the corporal, and the two privates and the three prisoners, who thanks to this stroke of luck will probably be set free today. There is great indignation among the ants, who witnessed everything, at different times, but meanwhile they have joined forces and pieced together what they saw, they know the whole truth, even the larger of the ants, who was the last to see the man’s face close up, like a vast landscape, and it’s a well-known fact that landscapes die because they are killed, not because they commit suicide.

  The body has been removed. Escarro and Escarrilho put away the tools of their trade, the stick, the cat-o’-nine-tails, they rub their knuckles, inspect the tips and heels of their shoes, in case some thread of clothing or some bloodstain should reveal to the sharp eyes of Sherlock Holmes the weakness of their alibi and the conflicting times, but there’s no danger of that, Sherlock Holmes is dead and buried, as dead as Germano Santos Vidigal, buried as deep as Germano soon will be, and the years will pass and these cases will remain swathed in silence until the ants acquire the gift of speech and tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Meanwhile, if we hurry, we’ll still be in time to catch up with Dr. Romano, he’s over there, head bowed, small black bag over his left arm, which is why we can ask him to raise his right hand, Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, that’s how it is with doctors, they’re used to such solemn acts, Speak up, Dr. Romano, doctor of medicine, you who have sworn the Hippocratic oath with its various modern revisions to form and sense, speak up, Dr. Romano, here beneath the bright sun, is it really true that this man hanged himself. The doctor raises his right hand, looks at us with candid, innocent eyes, he’s a much-respected man in the town, a regular churchgoer and punctilious in carrying out his social duties, and having shown us what a pure soul he is, he says, If someone has a wire wound twice around his own neck, with the other end tied to a nail above his head, and if the wire is pulled taut enough, even by only the partial weight of the body, then there is no doubt that, technically speaking, the man has hanged himself, and having said this, he lowered his hand and went about his business, Not so fast, Dr. Romano, doctor of medicine, it’s not time for supper yet, if you still have any appetite after what you’ve just seen, I envy you your strong stomach, tell me, didn’t you see the man’s body, didn’t you see the welts, the bruises, the battered genitals, the blood, No, I didn’t, they told me the prisoner had hanged himself and he had, there was nothing else to see, You’re a liar, Dr. Romano, medical practitioner, how and why and when did you acquire the ugly habit of lying, No, I’m not a liar, it’s just that I can’t tell the truth, Why, Because I’m afraid, Go in peace, Dr. Pilate, sleep in peace with your conscience, and give her a good screwing, because she deserves both you and the screwing, Goodbye, Senhor Author, Goodbye, Senhor Doctor, but take my advice, keep well away from ants, especially those that raise their heads like dogs, they’re very observant creatures, you can’t imagine, you will be watched from now on by all ants, don’t worry, they won’t harm you, but you never know, one day your conscience might make a cuckold of you, and that would be your salvation.

  The street we are on is Rua da Parreira, or the street of the vine trellis, presumably because in days gone by, it was shaded by a trellis of fine grapes, and since the council couldn’t come up with the name of a saint or a politician or a benefactor or a martyr to bestow on the street, it will for the time being continue to be called Rua da Parreira. What shall we do now, given that the men from Monte Lavre, Escoural, Safira and Torre da Gadanha only arrive tomorrow, given that the bullring is closed and no one can get in, what shall we do, let’s go to
the cemetery, perhaps Germano Santos Vidigal has arrived there already, the dead, when they choose to, can move very fast, and it’s not that far and it’s cooler now, you go down this street, turn right, as if we were going to Évora, it’s easy enough, then left, you can’t go wrong, there are the white walls and the cypresses, the same as everywhere else. The mortuary is here, but it’s locked, they lock everything and they’ve taken away the key, we can’t go in, Good afternoon, Senhor Ourique, no rest for the wicked, eh, That’s true, but what’s a man to do, people may not die every day, but you still have to straighten their beds and sweep the paths, Yes, I saw your wife Cesaltina and your son earlier on, he’s a lovely child, That’s true, True is a good word, Senhor Ourique, That’s true, Tell me, is it true that the body in the mortuary died of a beating or simply because its former owner decided to hang himself, It’s true that my son is a lovely boy, always wanting to be out playing in the sun, it’s true that the body in there is that of a hanged man, it’s true that given the state he was in, he wouldn’t have had the strength to hang himself, it’s true that his private parts were battered and bruised, it’s true that his body was caked in blood, it’s true that even after death the swellings didn’t go down, the size of partridge eggs, they were, and it’s true that I would have died of far less, and I’m used to death, Thank you, Senhor Ourique, you’re a gravedigger and a serious man, perhaps because you’re so fond of your son, but tell me, whose skull is that you’re holding in your hand, does it belong to the king’s son, That I don’t know, I wasn’t working here then, Goodbye, Senhor Ourique, it’s time to close the gates, give my regards to Cesaltina and my love to your boy who so likes to play in the sun.