The Stone Raft (Harvest Book)

by José Saramago

  The sun has disappeared. Then the blue thread fluttered in the air, almost invisible in its transparency, searching for some support, grazing hands and faces, Joaquim Sassa held it, was this a coincidence or destiny, let us leave these hypotheses aside, even though there are a number of reasons for not giving credence either to the one or to the other, and now what will Joaquim Sassa do, he cannot travel in the car, with one hand outside holding and accompanying the thread, for a thread at the mercy of the wind does not necessarily follow the line of the road. What should I do with this, he asked, but while the others could not give him an answer the dog could, it left the road and began to descend the gentle slope, Joaquim Sassa followed it, his raised hand followed the blue thread as if it were stroking the wings or the breast of a bird above his head. José Anaiço went back to the car with Joana Carda and Pedro Orce, put it into gear, and, keeping a watchful eye on Joaquim Sassa, began slowly going down the road, he did not want to arrive before him, or for that matter much after him, the potential harmony of things depends on their equilibrium and the time when they occur, not too soon, not too late, which explains why it is so difficult for us to attain perfection.

  When they stopped in the square in front of the house, Joaquim Sassa was ten paces from the door, which was ajar. The dog gave a sigh that seemed almost human and lay down, stretching its neck over its paws. It dislodged the thread from its mouth with its paws and let it fall to the ground. A woman emerged from the dark interior of the house, she had a thread in her hand, the same as the one Joaquim Sassa was still holding. She stepped down from the last step at the front door and said, Come in, you must be tired. Joaquim Sassa was the first to move, his end of the blue thread tied round his wrist.

  One day, Maria Guavaira told them, about this hour and with much the same light, the dog appeared, looking as if it had come from afar, its coat was filthy, its paws bleeding, it came and knocked on the door with its head, and when I went to open it, thinking it might be one of those beggars who travel from place to place, who arrive tapping their stick and plead, Whatever you can give, ma'am or miss, what do I find but the dog, panting as if it had come running from the end of the world and the blood staining the ground under its paws, the most surprising thing of all was that I didn't feel frightened, though there was every reason to take fright, anyone who didn't know just how harmless the dog is would think he was looking at the wildest of beasts, poor creature, the moment it saw me, the dog lay down on the ground as if it had been waiting until it reached me before attempting to rest, and it seemed to be crying, as if trying to speak but unable to, and all the time the dog was here I never once heard it bark. It's been with us now for six days and it hasn't barked once, Joana Carda said. I took it in, cleaned it up, nursed it, it's not a stray, you can tell from its coat, and the dog's owners obviously fed it properly, showed it love and affection, if you want to see the difference you need only compare it with Galician dogs, who are born hungry and die from starvation after a lifetime of being deprived, beaten, and stoned, that's why the Galician dog can't lift its tail, but hides it between its legs in the hope of going unnoticed, it takes its revenge, when it gets the chance, by biting. This one doesn't bite, Pedro Orce assured them, As for knowing where it came from, we'll probably never know, José Anaiço remarked, perhaps it's not all that important, what surprises me is that it should have come to look for us in order to bring us here, you have to wonder why. I don't know, all I know is that one day it went off with a piece of thread in its mouth, looking at me as if to say, Don't move from here until I return, and off it went up the hill there from which it has just descended, What is this thread, Joaquim Sassa asked, as he wound on his wrist, then unwound, the end of the strand that still tied him to Maria Guavaira. I wish I knew, she replied, winding her end between her fingers and stretching the thread like the taut string of a guitar, while neither he nor she appeared to notice that they were tied together, the others did as they stood there looking on, what they were thinking they kept to themselves although it wouldn't be all that difficult to guess. For I did nothing but unravel an old sock, one of those socks people used to keep their money in, but the sock I unraveled would have given only a handful of wool, while the amount of wool here is what you would get from shearing a hundred sheep, not to say a thousand, and how is one to explain such a thing. For days, two thousand starlings kept following me, said José Anaiço, I threw a stone into the sea that weighed almost as much as I did, and it landed far off in the distance, Joaquim Sassa added, aware that he was exaggerating, and Pedro Orce simply said, The earth is trembling, and trembled.

  Maria Guavaira got up and opened a door and said, Look, Joaquim Sassa was standing beside her, but it wasn't the thread that had drawn him, and what they saw was a blue cloud, of a blue that darkened and became almost black in the middle, If I leave this door open there are always ends sticking out, just like the one that went up the road and brought you here, Maria Guavaira said, addressing Joaquim Sassa, and the kitchen where they all had gathered was now deserted, except for these two, joined together by a blue thread, and the blue cloud that appeared to be breathing, firewood could be heard crackling in the hearth where some cabbage soup is on the boil flavored with scraps of meat, not as heavy as the Galician recipe.

  Joaquim Sassa and Maria Guavaira must not remain tied together like this for too long, otherwise this union will begin to look suspicious, so she winds up all the thread and on reaching his wrist she pulls the thread around it as if she were invisibly attaching him to her once more, and then holds the tiny ball of wool against her breast, only a fool would be in any doubt about the gesture, but he would be an even bigger fool not to be in doubt. José Anaiço moved away from the fire burning in the hearth, Although it may seem absurd, we've come to the conclusion that there is some connection or other between what has happened to us and the separation of Spain and Portugal from Europe, you must have heard about it, Yes, I have, but in these parts no one gave it another thought, if we go over the mountains and down to the coast the sea is always the same. It was shown on television, I don't have television, It was broadcast in the news bulletin, News is nothing but words, and you can never really tell if words are news.

  On this skeptical note the conversation was interrupted for several minutes. Maria Guavaira went to fetch some bowls from the shelf, ladled out the soup, the last bowl but one for Joaquim Sassa, the last one of all for herself, for a moment everyone thought there would be one spoon too few, but no, there were enough to go around, so Maria Guavaira did not have to wait for Joaquim Sassa to finish his soup. Then he asked her if she was living alone, for so far they had seen no one else in the house, and she told him that she had been a widow for three years, and that hired hands came to work the land, I'm between the sea and the mountains, without children or family, my brothers emigrated to Argentina, my father died, my demented mother is in an asylum in La Coruña, there can't be many women in this world as lonely as I am, You could have remarried, Joana Carda pointed out, but immediately regretted having spoken, she had no right to say such a thing, she who only a few days ago had broken up her marriage and was already keeping company with another man, I was worn out, and if a woman remarries at my age, it's on account of any land she may own, men are more interested in marrying land than a woman, You're still young, I was young once but I can scarcely remember that time, and with these words she leaned over the hearth so that the flames lit up her face, she looked up at Joaquim Sassa as if to say, This is what I'm like, take a good look at me, you turned up on my doorstep tied to a thread I was holding in my hand, I could, if I so wished, draw you to my bed, and I'm certain you would come, but beautiful I shall never be, unless you can transform me into the most desirable woman who ever lived, that's something only a man can do, and does, but what a pity it can't last forever.

  Joaquim Sassa watched her from the other side of the fire and saw that the flames as they danced kept on changing her expression, one moment making her cheeks look sun
ken, the next moment smoothing away the shadows, but the gleam in her dark eyes did not change, perhaps a suspended tear had been transformed into a membrane of pure light. She isn't pretty, he thought, nor is she ugly, her hands are rough and worn, quite unlike mine, the smooth hands of an office clerk enjoying paid leave, which reminds me that tomorrow, unless I'm mistaken, is the last day of the month, the day after tomorrow I'm due back at work, but no, how can I, how can I possibly leave José and Joana, Pedro and the Dog, they've no reason for wanting to come with me, and if I take Deux Chevaux they're going to find it extremely difficult to get back to their respective homes, but they probably don't want to go back, the only real thing that exists at this moment on earth is our being here together, Joana Carda and José Anaiço conversing in whispers, perhaps about their own life, perhaps about each other's life, Pedro Orce with his hand on Pilot's head, no doubt measuring vibrations and tremors no one else can feel, while I watch and go on watching Maria Guavaira who has a way of looking that isn't exactly looking but rather a way of showing her eyes, she is dressed in black, a widow whom time has consoled but whom custom and tradition restrict to wearing black, fortunately her eyes shine, and there is the blue cloud that doesn't seem to belong to this house, her hair is brown, and she has a rounded chin and full lips, and her teeth, I caught a glimpse of them a moment ago, are white, thank God, this woman is pretty after all and I didn't even notice, I was tied to her and didn't realize, I must decide whether to return home or remain here, even if I get back to work a few days late I'll be excused, with all this upheaval in the peninsula who's going to pay any attention to employees who are a few days late in returning to work, one can always say there was no transportation. One minute she looked common, the next quite pretty, and now, right now, standing beside Maria Guavaira, Joana Carda looks terrible, My woman is much more attractive, Senhor José Anaiço, how can you compare your lady from the city, and her affectations, to this wild creature who clearly tastes of the salty air the breeze carries over the mountains and whose body must be white underneath that black dress, If I could, Pedro Orce, I'd tell you something, What would you tell me, That I now know whom I should love, Congratulations, there are people who have taken much longer, or have never come to know, Do you know any such person, Take me, for example, and with this reply, Pedro Orce then said out loud, I'm going to take the dog for a walk.

  Darkness has not yet fallen, but it is cold. In the direction of the mountain that hides the sea there is a path that begins to wend its way up the slope ahead in one bend after another, left and right like a winding thread until it disappears from sight. Soon the valley will be plunged into darkness, as on the night of the blackout, although it would be more accurate to say that in the valley where Maria Guavaira lives every night is like a blackout, so there was no need for all the electric cables of civilized and cultured Europe to break down. Pedro Orce left the house because he wasn't needed there. He walks on without looking back, at first as quickly as his strength permits, then, beginning to tire, he slows down. He does not feel the least bit nervous in this silence amid the great walls formed by the mountains, he's a man who was born and bred in a desert, in a land of dust and stones, where one is never surprised to find a horse's skull, a hoof with the metal shoe still attached, there are some who say not even the horsemen of the Apocalypse could survive there, the warhorse died in war, the infected horse died of infection, the starved horse of starvation, death is the supreme raison d'être of all things and their infallible conclusion, what deceives us is this line of the living along which we find ourselves, which advances toward what we call the future, simply because we had to give it a name, where we are constantly gathering in new beings while constantly leaving old ones behind, we are obliged to refer to these as the dead lest they emerge from the past.

  Pedro Orce's heart is already starting to grow old and weary. He now has to rest more often and for longer, but he does not give up, the dog's presence consoles him. They exchange signs with each other, like a code that even though undeciphered is enough, for the simple fact of existing is enough, the animal rubs its back against the man's thigh, the man's hand strokes the soft skin inside the dog's ear, the world is filled with the sound of footsteps, breathing, friction, and now the muffled clamor of the sea can unmistakably be heard behind the summit of the mountain, growing louder, louder, getting clearer and clearer, until the immense surface looms up before one's eyes, vaguely sparkling beneath the night sky that is bereft of moonlight and has few stars, and below, like the living line separating night and death, the dazzling whiteness of spume constantly dissolving and renewing itself. The rocks are blacker where the waves are lashing, as if the stone there had greater density or had been soaked in water since the beginning of time. The wind comes in from the sea, on the one hand it is blowing normally, on the other it can scarcely be felt, this must be due to the peninsula's displacement on the water, it is no more than a breeze, as we well know, and yet there has never been such a typhoon since the world began.

  Pedro Orce measures the dimension of the ocean and at that moment finds it small, because on taking a deep breath he feels his lungs expand so much that all the chasms of liquid could rush in and still leave space for the raft that with its stone battering rams is forcing its way through the waves. Pedro does not know if he is man or fish. He goes down to the sea, the dog goes ahead to sniff out and choose the path, and this prudent and astute guide was much needed, for without daylight, Pedro Orce on his own could not have found entrance or exit in this labyrinth of stones. At last they reached the great slabs of rock that descend to the sea, there the roar of waves breaking is deafening. Beneath this pitch-black sky and the cries of the sea, should the moon now appear, a man could die of rapture, while believing himself to be dying of anguish, of fear and solitude. Pedro Orce no longer felt cold. The night became clearer, more stars appeared, and the dog, which had been gone for a moment, came running back, it had not been trained to tug its master's trousers, but we know it well enough to be certain that it is perfectly capable of making its wishes known, and now Pedro Orce must accompany it to examine its discovery, a castaway swept up on the shore, a treasure chest, some vestige of Atlantis, the wreckage of the Flying Dutchman, an obsessive memory, and when he arrived he saw that it was nothing but stones, but since this was a dog not easily fooled, there had to be something unusual there, that was when he noticed that he was actually standing on it, the thing, an enormous stone, roughly in the form of a boat, and there was another one, long and narrow like a mast, and yet another, this must be the helm with its tiller, although it was broken. Thinking that the dim light was deceiving him, he started walking around the stones, touching and probing them, and then he was no longer in any doubt, this side, tall and pointed, is the prow, this other flat one is the stern, the mast is unmistakable, and the helm, for example, could only be made for a giant, were it not for the fact that this is definitely a stone ship standing here. A geological phenomenon, to be sure. What Pedro Orce knows about chemistry is more than enough to explain the discovery, an ancient wooden vessel brought here by the waves or abandoned by mariners, stranded on these rocks since time immemorial, then the fragments were covered by earth, their organic material petrified, once more the earth has retreated, thousands of years will be needed, until today, to blunt the edges and reduce these volumes, wind, rain, the erosion of cold and heat, the day will come when one stone will be indistinguishable from another. Pedro Orce sat right inside the boat, from where he's sitting he can see nothing but sky and the distant sea, if this ship were to pitch ever so slightly he would imagine himself to be sailing, and then, which shows you what the imagination can do, he absurdly began to imagine that this petrified ship was indeed sailing and towing the peninsula, one cannot trust these flights of fantasy, obviously it is not impossible, one has witnessed even more difficult feats, but as it happens the ship's stern is facing out to sea as if ironically, no reputable vessel would ever sail backward. Pedro Orce stood
up, he now feels cold, and the dog has jumped onto the parapet, Time we were going home, master, you're rather old for these late nights, if you didn't go in for them when you were young, it's too late now.

  When they reached the summit of the mountains, Pedro Orce could scarcely walk, and his poor lungs, which only a short time ago could have inhaled the entire ocean, gasped like a punctured bellows, the harsh air chafed his nostrils, parched his throat, these mountain tracks are not for a pharmacist getting on in years. He sank down onto a boulder, had to rest, his elbows resting on his knees, holding his head in his hands, the sweat glistening on his forehead, the wind ruffling loose strands of hair, he's a physical wreck, weary and dejected, alas, no one has yet discovered ways of petrifying a human being in the flower of youth and transforming him into an eternal statue. His breathing is more relaxed, the air has softened, it comes and goes without that grating noise like sandpaper. Aware of these changes, the dog, which had been stretched out waiting, made as if to get up. Pedro Orce raised his head, looked down into the valley where the house stood. There seemed to be em aura hovering over it, a diffused radiance, a kind of light without any luminosity, if this phrase, which like all others can be formed only with words, can be understood without ambiguity. Pedro Orce suddenly remembered that epileptic back in Orce who, in the wake of those fits that left him prostrate, tried to explain the confused sensations that preceded them, it could be a vibration of the invisible particles of the air, the radiation of energy, like heat in the distance, the distortion of luminous rays just beyond his reach, this night was truly filled with wonders, the thread and the cloud of blue wool, the stone ship grounded on the rocks on the shore, and now this house that is shaking, or so it appears to us, seen from here. The image flickers, the outline blurs, it appears to recede until it becomes an almost invisible point, then it returns, slowly vibrating. For an instant, Pedro Orce was afraid of being left abandoned in this other desert, but the fear passed, just enough time to realize that down there Maria Guavaira and Joaquim Sassa had got together, times have changed a lot, nowadays a man no sooner sets eyes on a woman than he is poking the fire, if you'll pardon this crude metaphor, both plebeian and obsolete. Pedro Orce had risen to start going down the slope, but sat down again and patiently waited, shivering with cold, for the house to return to his image of a home, where there would be no flames other than that last one still burning in the hearth, if he lingers here too long he is much more likely to find only ashes instead of the fire.