The Cave

by José Saramago

  Cipriano Algor went to check how much wood they had and realized that it wasn't enough. For years he had cherished the idea that the time would come when the old wood-burning kiln would be demolished and in its place would rise a new kiln, a modern, gas-fired one, capable of reaching extremely high temperatures very fast and of producing excellent results. Inside himself, though, he knew that this would never happen, first, because it would require a lot of money, more than he would ever have, but also for other less materialistic reasons, such as knowing beforehand that it would sadden him to destroy what his grandfather had built and what his father had later perfected, if he did, it would be as if he were, quite literally, wiping them from the face of the earth, for the kiln sits precisely on the face of the earth. He had another reason, less easy to own up to, which he could dispatch in three words, I'm too old, but which, objectively, implied the use of pyrometers, pipes, security pilot lights, burners, in short, new techniques and new problems. There was, therefore, no alternative but to continue fueling the old kiln in the old way, with wood and wood and more wood, perhaps that is the hardest part of working with clay. Just like the stokers on steam trains, who used to spend all their time shoveling coal into the furnace, the potter, at least this one, Cipriano Algor, who cannot afford to pay an assistant, spends hour upon wearisome hour feeding this archaic fuel into the kiln, twigs that the fire enfolds and devours in an instant, branches that the flame gradually nibbles and licks into embers, it is best when fed with pinecones and sawdust, which burn more slowly and produce more heat. Cipriano Algor will get supplies from the surrounding area, order a few cartloads of wood from foresters and farmers, buy a few sacks of sawdust from sawmills and carpenter's workshops in the Industrial Belt, preferably from hardwoods like oak, walnut, and chestnut, and he will do all this alone, it does not even occur to him to ask his daughter to come with him and help him load the sacks onto the van, especially now that she's pregnant, he will take Found with him, just to show that they're friends again, which seems to indicate that the burn in Cipriano Algor's memory has not yet fully healed. The wood in the shed will be more than enough for firing the six figures to be used as molds, but Cipriano Algor hesitates, he finds absurd, crazy, unforgivably wasteful, the huge disproportion between the means to be used and the ends to be achieved, in other words, in order to fire the ridiculously small number of six dolls, he will have to use the kiln as if it were packed to the roof. He said as much to Marta, who agreed and half an hour later came up with a solution, The book explains how to solve the problem, it even gives a helpful drawing. It is quite possible that, when he was starting out as a potter, Marta's great-grandfather, who lived in the olden days, might once have used the process of pit firing, which was antiquated even then, but the installation of the first kiln must have gradually dispensed with that rustic practice and, in a way, consigned it to oblivion, for it was not passed on to Cipriano Algor's father. Fortunately, there are books. We can leave them on a shelf or in a trunk, abandon them to the dust and the moths, dump them in dark cellars, we may not even lay eyes on them or touch them for years and years, but they don't mind, they wait quietly, closed in upon themselves so that none of their contents are lost, for the moment that always arrives, the day when we ask ourselves, I wonder where that book about firing clay has got to, and the book, summoned at last, appears, it's here in Marta's hands while her father, beside the kiln, is digging a small hole about half a meter deep and half a meter wide, that is all the space the dolls need, then he arranges on the bottom a layer of small branches and sets light to them, the flames rise and caress the walls, getting rid of any surface moisture, then the fire will die down and all that will remain are the hot ashes and a few small embers, and it is on these that Marta, having passed the book, open at the relevant page, to her father, very carefully places, one by one, the six test pieces, the mandarin, the Eskimo, the bearded Assyrian, the clown, the jester, and the nurse, inside the pit, the hot air still shimmers, it touches the gray epidermises and the dense interiors of the bodies, from which almost all the water has already evaporated thanks to the effects of the light wind and the breeze, and now, over the mouth of the pit, for lack of a proper grille especially made for the purpose, Cipriano Algor is placing, not too close together, not too far apart, as the book tells him, some narrow iron bars, through which will fall the embers from the fire that the potter had already begun to kindle. So happy were they to have found that invaluable book, neither father nor daughter had noticed that the near-twilight hour at which they had started work would mean that they would have to keep feeding the fire throughout the night, until the embers had filled the hole completely and the firing was over. Cipriano Algor said to his daughter, You go to bed and I'll stay and watch the fire, and she said, I wouldn't miss this for all the gold in the world. They sat down on the stone bench to watch the flames, from time to time, Cipriano Algor gets up and puts on more wood, smallish branches so that the embers will fall between the bars, when it was time for supper, Marta went into the house to prepare a light meal, which they ate afterward in the light that flickered on the side kiln wall as if the kiln too were burning inside. The dog Found shared what there was to eat, then lay down at Marta's feet, staring into the flames, he had been near other fires in his time, but none like this, well, that is probably not quite what he meant, fires, large and small, are all very similar, burning wood, sparks, charred logs, and ashes, what Found was thinking was that he had never been as he was now, lying at the feet of two people upon whom he had bestowed forever his doggy love, next to a stone bench suited for serious meditations, as he himself, from then on and from direct personal experience, will be able to attest. Filling half a cubic meter with embers takes some time, especially if the wood, as in this case, is not completely dry, and the proof of this is that you can see the last drops of sap sizzling at the ends of the logs that have not yet caught fire. It would be interesting, were it possible, to look inside, to see if the embers have already reached the dolls' waists, but all one can do is to imagine what it must be like inside the pit, vibrant and glowing with the light from the many brief flames that consume the small pieces of incandescent wood as they fall. As the night grew colder, Marta went into the house to fetch a blanket which they, father and daughter, wrapped about their shoulders to keep warm. They did not need anything in front, what was happening now was what used to happen when, in times past, we would go over to the fireside to warm ourselves on winter nights, our backs freezing while our faces, hands and legs were scalding hot. Especially our legs because they were nearest to the fire. Tomorrow the hard work begins, said Cipriano Algor, I'll help, said Marta, Oh, you'll help, all right, you've no alternative, although I don't like it, But I've always helped, Yes, but now you're pregnant, Only a month, if that, it doesn't make any difference yet, I feel absolutely fine, What worries me is that we might not be able to see this through to the end, We'll manage, If only we could find someone to help us, You yourself said that no one wants to work in potteries any more, besides, we'd just waste our time teaching whoever came and for very negligible gains, Right, agreed Cipriano Algor, suddenly distracted. He had just remembered that Isaura Estudiosa, or Isaura Madruga, as she seemed to call herself now, was looking for work, and that if she didn't find anything she would leave the village, but this thought barely troubled him, indeed he did not even want to imagine that Madruga woman working at the pottery, with her hands in the clay, the only talent she had shown for the job so far was the way she had clasped a water jug to her breast, but that's no help when what you've got to do is manufacture figurines, not just clasp them to you. Anyone can do that, he thought, although he wasn't entirely sure that this was true. Marta said, What we could do is get someone in to take care of the household chores, leaving me free to work in the pottery, We can't afford a maid or a domestic or a char or whatever they're called, said Cipriano Algor sharply, It could be someone who needs something to do and who doesn't mind not earning very much for a while, insist
ed Marta. Her father impatiently removed the blanket from his shoulders as if he were too hot, If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, we'd better stop this conversation right now, What we don't know is whether it only entered your mind because I thought of it, said Marta, or if you had already thought of it when it entered mine, Please, don't play with words, you're very good at it and I'm not, it's certainly not a talent you inherited from me, There must be some part of us which is all our own work, but anyway, what you call playing with words is just a way of making them more visible, Well, you can cover those particular words up again, because I'm not interested. Marta replaced the blanket, draping it over her father's shoulders again, They're already covered up, she said, and if ever anyone uncovers them again, I can guarantee that it won't be me. Cipriano Algor pushed the blanket off again, I'm not cold, he said, and went to put more wood on the fire. Marta was touched by the meticulous way in which he placed the new logs on the burning embers, careful and precise, like someone who, in order to drive out troubling thoughts, gives all his attention to some unimportant detail. I shouldn't have brought the matter up again, she said to herself, especially not now when he's said that he'll come with us to the Center, besides, if they did get on well enough to want to live together, we would be faced by a difficult, not to say, impossible problem, it's one thing going to the Center with your daughter and son-in-law, it's quite another taking your wife, we wouldn't be one family, we'd be two, I'm sure they wouldn't take us then, Marçal told me that the apartments are tiny, so they would have to stay here and live on, what exactly, two people who hardly know each other, how long would their understanding last, I'm not so much playing with words as playing with the feelings of other people, with the feelings of my own father, what right have I, what right have you, Marta, just put yourself in his place, you can't, of course, well, then, if you can't, just be quiet, they say each person is an island, but it's not true, each person is a silence, yes, that's it, a silence, each of us with our own silence, each of us with the silence that is us. Cipriano Algor came back to the stone bench, and he himself wrapped the blanket around his shoulders even though his clothes were still warm from the fire, Marta snuggled up to him, Pa, she said, Pa, What, Oh, nothing, just ignore me. It was gone one o'clock when the pit began to fill up. We can go in now, said Cipriano Algor, in the morning, when they've cooled off, we can remove the figurines and see how they've turned out. The dog Found accompanied them to the door of the house. Then he went back to the fire and lay down. Beneath the fine layer of ashes, the embers still glowed, giving off a tenuous light. It was only when the embers had burned out completely that Found closed his eyes to go to sleep.

  Cipriano Algor dreamed that he was inside his new kiln. He felt happy because he had managed to persuade his daughter and his son-in-law that the sudden increase in activity at the pottery called for radical changes in the way they made the pots and a rapid updating of the means and methods of production, beginning with the urgent replacement of the old kiln, an archaic remnant of a way of life that would not even merit preservation as a ruin in an open-air museum. Let us jettison any feelings of nostalgia which will only hinder and hold us back, Cipriano had said with unusual vehemence, progress moves implacably forward, and we have no option but to keep pace with it, and woe to those who, fearful of future upheavals, are left sitting by the roadside weeping for a past that was no better than the present. These words emerged from his mouth so complete, perfect, and polished that it convinced the two reluctant young people. Besides, it must be said that the technological differences between the new kiln and the old were nothing out of the ordinary, everything that had been in the first kiln in antiquated mode was present, in updated form, in the second kiln, the only really striking differences were the sheer size, with twice the capacity of the old kiln, and, although perhaps less noticeable, the slightly abnormal proportions inside the kiln between height, length, and breadth. Given that all this was happening in a dream, however, the latter point is not so very odd. What is odd, regardless of the liberties and excesses that the logic of dreams may allow the dreamer, is the presence of a stone bench, identical to the bench of meditations, of which Cipriano Algor can see only the back, because, most unusually, the bench is turned to face the rear wall and is positioned barely five spans away from it. The builders probably put it here to sit on during their lunch break, then forgot to take it with them, thought Cipriano Algor, but he knew this couldn't be true, builders, and this is borne out by historical fact, always prefer to have their lunch outside, even when working in the desert, and especially when they're in a pleasant rural setting like this, with the drying shelves set out beneath the mulberry tree and a lovely midday breeze blowing. Well, wherever you came from, you'll have to join the other one outside, said Cipriano Algor, the problem is how to shift you, you're too heavy to carry and if I tried to drag you out, it would ruin the floor, I can't understand why they put you inside the kiln in the first place and in that position too, anyone sitting there would have their nose almost pressed against the wall. To prove to himself that he was right, Cipriano Algor slipped carefully in between one end of the bench and the relevant bit of wall and sat down. He had to admit that his nose did not, in fact, run the slightest risk of being grazed by one of the refractory bricks, and that his knees, even though they were further forward, were also safe from any unpleasant abrasions. However, he could, without the slightest effort, touch the wall with his hand. Just as Cipriano Algor's fingers were about to touch it, a voice from outside said, I wouldn't bother lighting the kiln if I were you, my friend. This unexpected advice came from Marçal, and it was his shadow that was cast briefly on the back wall only to disappear immediately. Cipriano Algor thought it rude and disrespectful of his son-in-law to speak to him like that, He's never usually that familiar with me, he thought. He started to turn around and ask why it wasn't worth lighting the kiln and why he should suddenly start being so familiar with him, but he could not turn his head, this often happens in dreams, we want to run and our legs won't respond, it's usually the legs, but this time it was his neck that refused to turn. The shadow had gone, so he couldn't ask it any questions, in the vain and irrational hope that a shadow might have a tongue to articulate an answer, but the harmonics of the words Marçal had spoken continued to reverberate between the ceiling and the floor, between one wall and another wall. Before the vibrations had completely died away and before the scattered substance of the broken silence had had time to reconstitute itself, Cipriano Algor wanted to know for what mysterious reason he should not light the kiln, if that really was what his son-in-law's voice had said, for now it seemed to him that he had said something else even more enigmatic, It's not worth sacrificing yourself, Pa, as if Marçal thought that his father-in-law, whom, it would seem, he had not, in fact, treated with disrespectful familiarity, had decided to try out the powers of the fire on his own body before delivering up to them the work made by his hands. He's mad, the potter muttered to himself, my son-in-law would have to be completely crazy to think such a thing, the reason I came into the kiln was because, but the sentence remained incomplete because Cipriano Algor did not know why he was there, which is hardly surprising, if the same thing happens often enough when we're awake, not knowing why we are doing this or that or why we did something else, what can we expect when we are asleep and dreaming. Cipriano Algor thought that the best and easiest solution would be to get up from the stone bench and go outside and ask his son-in-law what the hell he was talking about, but his body felt like a lead weight, or not even that, because no lead weight could possibly be so heavy that it could never be lifted, he was, in fact, tied to the back of the bench, tied without ropes or chains, but tied nevertheless. He again attempted to turn his head, but his neck would not obey him, I'm like a stone statue sitting on a stone bench looking at a stone wall, he thought, although he knew that this was not strictly true, the wall, as his eyes, those of a man who knew about matters mineral, could see, had not been built
of stone but of refractory bricks. Just then Marçal's shadow again appeared on the wall, I've brought you the good news we've been expecting for so long, said his voice, I've finally been promoted to resident guard, so there's no point in continuing production, we'll tell the Center we've closed the pottery, they'll understand, it had to happen sooner or later, so you might as well come out of there, the truck's here to take all the furniture away, it was a complete waste of money buying this kiln. Cipriano Algor opened his mouth to reply, but the shadow had already gone, what the potter wanted to say was that the difference between the word of a craftsman and a divine commandment was that the latter had had to be written down, with the disastrous consequences with which we are all familiar, anyway, if he was in such a hurry he could just bugger off, a rather vulgar expression that contradicted the solemn declaration he himself had made not many days since, when he had promised his daughter and his son-in-law that he would go and live with them if Marçal was promoted, since if both of them moved to the Center, he could not possibly continue to work in the pottery. Cipriano Algor was just rebuking himself for having promised to do something that his honor would never allow him to go through with when a new shadow appeared on the wall. In the feeble light that can squeeze in through the door of a kiln this size, it is very easy to confuse two human shadows, but the potter knew at once whose shadow it was, neither the shadow, which was darker, nor the voice, which was deeper, belonged to his son-in-law, Senhor Cipriano Algor, I have come to tell you that we have just canceled our order for the clay figurines, said the head of the buying department, I don't know and I don't want to know why you're in there, if you fancied yourself as some romantic hero waiting for the wall to reveal the secrets of life to you, that strikes me as plain ridiculous, but if you were intending to go further than that, if your intention was to perform some act of self-immolation, you should know right now that the Center takes no responsibility for your death, that's all we need, getting blamed for the suicides of incompetents who go bust because of their own failure to understand the dictates of the market. Cipriano Algor did not turn his head toward the door, although he was certain that now he would be able to do so, he knew that the dream had ended, that nothing would prevent his getting up from the stone bench whenever he wanted to, only one thing still troubled him, doubtless absurd, doubtless foolish, but understandable if we bear in mind the perplexed state in which he was left by the dream of having to go and live in the very Center that had just spurned his work, and what troubled him, we will get there, don't worry, we haven't forgotten, has to do with the stone bench. Cipriano Algor is asking himself if he has taken a stone bench to bed with him or if he will wake up covered with dew on that other stone bench, the bench of meditations, that is what human dreams are like, sometimes they attach themselves to real things and transform them into visions, at others they make delirium play hide-and-seek with reality, which is why we so often say that we don't know where we are, our dream pulling at us from one side, reality pushing us from the other, the truth is that straight lines exist only in geometry and even then they are only an abstraction. Cipriano Algor opened his eyes. I'm in bed, he thought, relieved, and at that moment he realized that his memory of the dream was about to flee, that he would only manage to hold on to bits of it, and he did not know whether he should rejoice over the little that remained or regret the much that was lost, this is something else that often happens after we have dreamed. It was still dark, but the first changes in the sky presaging the dawn, would soon be revealed. Cipriano Algor did not go back to sleep. He thought a lot of things, he thought that his work had become totally pointless, that his existence had ceased to have any real or even halfway acceptable justification, I'm just an impediment, he muttered, and, at that moment, a fragment of his dream appeared to him with absolute clarity as if it had been cut out and stuck on a wall, it was the head of the buying department saying to him, If your intention is to perform some act of self-immolation, good luck to you, I warn you, though, that it is not one of the Center's eccentricities, if it had any, to send representatives and floral tributes to the funerals of our ex-suppliers. Cipriano Algor had dropped off for a few seconds, and it should be said, before anyone points out to us the apparent contradiction, that dropping off for a few seconds is not the same as falling asleep, the potter merely dreamed briefly about the dream he had had, and, if the words spoken by the head of the buying department did not come out exactly the same as they did the first time, this was for the simple reason that it is not only when we are awake that the words we say depend on the mood of the moment. That unpleasant and quite uncalled-for reference to a possible act of self-immolation did, however, manage to draw Cipriano Algor's thoughts back to the clay figurines left to be fired in the pit, and then, by paths and alleyways in the brain that it would be impossible for us to reconstruct and describe with sufficient precision, to a sudden recognition of the advantages of the hollow figurine over the solid figurine, both as regards the amount of time spent and the quantity of clay used. The frequent reluctance of obvious truths to reveal themselves without first playing hard to get really ought to be the object of deep analysis by experts, who must be out there somewhere, on the different, but certainly not opposing, natures of the visible and the invisible, in the sense of finding out if, in the innermost part of what is revealed to us, there exists, as there are strong motives to suspect, some chemical or physical quality with a perverse tendency toward negation or extinction, a threatening slide in the direction of zero, an obsessive dream of the void. Be that as it may, Cipriano Algor is pleased with himself. Only a few minutes ago he had considered himself an impediment to his daughter and son-in-law, a hindrance, an obstacle, a complete waste of space, a catchall term to describe something that is no longer useful, and yet he had been capable of producing an idea whose intrinsic goodness is already proven by the fact that others have not only thought of it before, but have frequently put it into action. It is not always possible to have original ideas, it is enough to have ideas that are at least practicable. Cipriano Algor would like to go on luxuriating in the tranquillity of his bed, to take advantage of that delicious morning sleep, which, perhaps because we are vaguely aware of it, is always the most restoring, but the excitement provoked by the idea he has just had, the thought of the figurines under the doubtless still-warm ashes, and, let's be honest, the rather rash statement given earlier that he had not gone back to sleep, all of this made him push back the covers and slip out of bed as lightly and nimbly as he used to in his salad days. He got dressed noiselessly, left the room carrying his boots in his hand and tiptoed into the kitchen. He did not want to wake his daughter, but he did, unless, of course, she was already awake and busily patching together fragments of her own dreams or had ears pricked for the secret work that life, second by second, was carpentering together inside her womb. Her voice rang out light and clear in the silence of the house, Pa, where are you off to so early, I can't sleep, so I'm going to see how the firing went, but you stay where you are, don't get up. Marta said only, All right, knowing him, it was not difficult to imagine that he would want to be alone during the serious business of removing the ashes and the figurines from the pit, just as a child, in the silent depths of night, trembling with fear and excitement, feels his way down the dark corridor to find out what long-imagined toys and presents have been placed in his stocking. Cipriano Algor put on his shoes, opened the kitchen door and went out. The dense foliage of the mulberry tree still had a firm grip on night, it would not let it leave just yet, the first dawn twilight would linger for at least another half an hour. He glanced at the kennel, then looked around him, surprised not to see the dog. He gave a low whistle, but there was still no sign of Found. The potter went from perplexed surprise to outright concern, I can't believe he's just gone, he muttered. He could call out the dog's name, but he did not want to alarm his daughter. He'll be out there somewhere, on the trail of some nocturnal creature, he said to reassure himself, but the truth is that
, as he crossed the yard in the direction of the kiln, he was thinking more about Found than about his precious clay figurines. He was only a few steps away from the pit when he saw the dog appear from beneath the stone bench, You gave me quite a fright, you rascal, why didn't you come when I called you, he scolded him, but Found said nothing, he was busily stretching, getting his muscles back into their appointed places, first stretching his front paws, lowering his head and spine, then carrying out what one can only assume to be, to his way of thinking, a vital exercise of adjustment and rebalancing, lowering and stretching his hindquarters as if he wanted to detach himself from his legs entirely. Everyone tells us that animals stopped talking a long long time ago, however, no one has yet been able to prove that they have not continued to make secret use of thought. In the case of this dog Found, for example, despite the faint light that is only gradually beginning to fall from the skies, you can see from his face what he's thinking, neither more nor less than Ask a silly question and you'll get a silly answer, which means in his language that Cipriano Algor, with his long, albeit not very varied experience of life, should not need to have the duties of a dog explained to him, we all know that human sentinels will only keep watch properly if they are given a definite order to do so, whereas dogs, and this dog in particular, do not wait for someone to tell them, Stay there and watch the fire, we can be sure that, until the coals have burned right down, they will simply remain on watch, eyes open. However, in all fairness to human thought, its famous slowness does not always prevent it from reaching the correct conclusions, as has just happened inside Cipriano Algor's head, a light suddenly came on, allowing him to read and then pronounce out loud the words of recognition that Found so richly deserved, So while I was tucked up asleep in my warm sheets, you were out here on guard, it doesn't matter that your vigilance would not have helped the firing one iota, it's the gesture that counts. When Cipriano Algor had finished praising him, Found ran off to cock his leg and relieve his bladder, then he returned, wagging his tail, and lay down a short distance from the pit, ready to watch the removal of the figurines from the fire. At that moment, the light in the kitchen went on, Marta had gotten up. The potter turned his head, he wasn't clear in his mind whether he wanted to be alone or whether he wanted his daughter to come and keep him company, but he found out a minute later, when he realized that she had decided to allow him to play the principal role to the very last. The frontier of the morning was slowly moving westward, rather like the lip of a luminous vault pushing in front of it the dark cupola of night. A sudden low breeze whipped up, like a dust storm, the ashes on the surface of the pit. Cipriano Algor knelt down, removed the iron bars and, using the same small spade with which he had dug the pit, he began to remove the ashes, along with small bits of as yet un-burned coal. The white, almost weightless particles stuck to his fingers, some, even lighter, were sucked in on his breath or went up his nose and made him snort, the way Found sometimes does. As the spade reached farther into the pit, the ashes became hotter, but not enough to burn him, they were merely warm, like human skin, and just as smooth and soft. Cipriano Algor put the spade down and plunged his two hands into the ashes. He touched the thin and unmistakable roughness of the fired clay. Then, as if he were helping at a birth, he grasped between thumb, forefinger, and middle finger the still buried head of a figurine and pulled it out. It happened to be the nurse. He brushed the ashes from her body and blew on her face, as if he were endowing her with some kind of life, giving to her the breath of his own lungs, the beating of his own heart. Then, one by one, the remaining figurines, the bearded Assyrian, the mandarin, the jester, the Eskimo, and the clown were taken out of the pit and placed beside the nurse, more or less clean of ashes, but without the extra benefit of that vital breath. No one was there to ask the potter about that difference in treatment, apparently determined by the difference in sex, unless that demiurgic intervention occurred simply because the nurse was the first to emerge from the hole, it was ever thus, since the world began, creators tire of their creation as soon as it ceases to be a novelty. Remembering, however, the difficulties that Cipriano Algor had had to grapple with when shaping the nurse's bust, it would not be too bold to suggest that the real reason for that breath is to be found, in however obscure and imprecise a form, in the immense effort it took to achieve what the very ductility of the clay denied him. Who knows. Cipriano Algor refilled the hole with the earth that rightfully belonged to it, pressed it down well so that not so much as a handful was lost, and with three figurines in each hand, he went back to the house. Curious, his head up, Found bounded along beside him. The shade of the mulberry tree had bidden farewell to the night, the sky was beginning to open up into the first blue of morning, the sun would soon appear above a horizon that could not be seen from there.