The Collected Novels of José Saramago (158 page)

Appearing from everywhere on the horizon, the starlings suddenly alit on the trees in the park. From the nearby streets, people came running, looking upward, pointing, They’re back again, José Anaiço sighed impatiently, and worst of all, we won’t be able to speak with all these people around. At this moment, the starlings all took flight together, they covered the park with a great fluttering, a black cloud, people were shouting, some with annoyance, others with excitement, yet others with fear, Joana Carda and José Anaiço stared unable to grasp what was happening, then the huge flock dwindled away to form a wedge, a wing, an arrow, and after circling rapidly three times, the starlings disappeared in a southerly direction, crossed the river, vanished into the distance, over the horizon. The assembled crowd, both curious and frightened, let out cries of amazement, of disappointment too, within minutes the park was deserted, the heat was back, on the bench sat a man and a woman all alone, they had an elm branch and a suitcase. José Anaiçon’t think they’ll ever come back, and Joana Carda replied, Let me tell you what happened to me.

Once the seriousness of the facts related had been established, prudence decreed that Joana Carda should not lodge in that famous hotel where nets had been spread out on the roof, in the vain hope that the starlings would settle there. It was a wise decision on her part, and at least forestalled any further modification of the proverb about killing two birds with one stone, in other words, it prevented this woman well versed in metaphysical skirmishing from falling into the same trap as the three suspects, if they have not already been found guilty. Putting what has been written into somewhat less baroque language and using less convoluted syntax, Joana Carda installed herself further up the street in the Hotel Borges, right in the heart of the Chiado, with her suitcase and her elm branch, which unfortunately is neither telescoping nor easily packed away, so that people stare in amazement when she passes, and the receptionist at the desk, jesting to disguise his genuine curiosity, but without being impolite, makes a discreet reference to wands that are not walking sticks, Joana Carda responded with silence, after all, there is no law to prohibit guests from taking even a branch of holm oak into their room, much less a thin little stick, not even two meters long, which fits easily into the elevator and can be neatly stored away out of sight in a corner.

José Anaiço and Joana Carda carried on their conversation until well after sunset, can you imagine, they discussed the matter from every possible angle, and invariably came to the same conclusion, since it was all so unnatural, things were happening as if a new state of normality had taken the place of what once passed for normal, but without any convulsions, shocks, or changes of color, not that these, if they were to occur, would explain anything. The mistake is entirely ours, with this taste for drama and tragedy, this need for the sublime and the theatrical, we marvel, for example, at the sight of a birth, all the moaning and groaning and shouting, the body opening up like a ripe fig to expel another body, and this is undoubtedly marvelous, but no more marvelous than what we cannot perceive, the burning discharge inside the woman, the fatal marathon, and then the protracted formation of a human being by itself, albeit with some assistance, who will that become, let us stay where we are, the one who is now writing this, inevitably ignorant of what happened to him then, and, let us be frank, not very clear about what is happening to him now. Joana Carda neither knows nor is able to say any more, The stick was lying thère on the ground, I drew a line with it, if these things are happening because of what I did, who am I to swear it, you must go there and see for yourself. They went on debating and discussing and darkness was falling when they went their separate ways, she to the Hotel Borges up the street, he to the Hotel Bragança further down, and José Anaiço is smitten with remorse, he did not have the courage to try and find out what happened to his friends, what a jerk, a woman has only to appear and tell him some fairy tale or other for him to spend nearly the entire afternoon listening to her, You should go there and see for yourself, she repeated, slightly modifying the phrase, perhaps to convince him once and for all, repeating oneself in different words is often the only solution. At the entrance to his hotel José Anaiço raises his eyes, no sign of any starlings, that winged shadow that passed, fleeting and gentle as a discreet caress, was only a bat chasing mosquitoes and moths. The little nobleman on the banister has his lamp lit, he is there to welcome guests, but José Anaiço does not even give him so much as a weary glance, he is certainly in for a bad night if Pedro Orce and Joaquim Sassa have not returned.

They have returned. They are waiting in the hotel lounge, seated in the same chairs in which Joana Carda and José Anaiço had sat, and to think that there are people who do not believe in coincidences, when
one is constantly discovering coincidences in the world and is beginning to wonder if coincidences are not the very logic of this world. José Anaiço pauses in the doorway of the lounge, it’s as if everything were about to be repeated, but no, not just yet, the wooden floor has remained firm, the distance of four paces is no more than a distance of four paces, there is no interstellar void, no leap of death or life, legs moved by themselves, then mouths spoke to say what one might expect, Were you out looking for us, Joaquim Sassa asked, but José Anaiço cannot give a simple answer to such a simple question, Yes, No, both answers would be true, both would be false, he would need a great deal of time to explain, so he replied with a question of his own, as reasonable and natural as the other, Where the hell have you two been all this time. One can see that Pedro Orce is tired, and little wonder, the years, whatever people might say to the contrary, take their toll, but even a young and vigorous man would have come away a wreck from the hands of the doctors, one examination after another, analyses, X rays, questionnaires, tiny hammerblows on the tendons, hearing tests, eye tests, electroencephalograms, no wonder his eyelids feel as heavy as lead, I must lie down, he says, these Portuguese specialists have almost killed me off. It was decided there and then that Pedro Orce should retire to his room until dinnertime, when he could come down and have some broth and breast of chicken despite his poor appetite, he felt as if his stomach were still full of X-ray pap, But you didn’t have your stomach X-rayed, Joaquim Sassa reminded him, That’s true, but I feel as if I had, Pedro Orce replied, his smile as wan as a withered rose. Have a good rest, José Anaiço suggested, Joaquim and I will eat at some restaurant nearby, we’ll talk things over, and when we come back we’ll knock on your door and see how you’re feeling, Don’t knock, I’ll almost certainly be asleep, all I want right now is to sleep with no interruptions until tomorrow morning, and off he went shuffling his feet. Poor fellow, what a nice mess we’ve got him into, this comment was made by José Anaiço, They tormented me as well, with their cross-examining and their endless questions, but that’s nothing compared to what they did to him, shall I tell you what this reminds me of, a story I read years ago entitled At the Mercy of the Quacks, Do you mean the story by Rodrigues Miguéis, That’s the one.

Once outside, they decided to go for a long drive in Deux Chevaux, they had plenty of time before dinner, and they could talk freely. People are totally bewildered, began Joaquim Sassa, and if they’re latching onto us like this, it’s because they’ve nothing else to go on, or rather, now they’re beginning to have almost too much, probably because of the news on television yesterday, and today’s reports in the press, did you see the headlines in the evening paper, people are taking leave of their senses, they’re turning up from everywhere claiming to have felt the earth trembling, saying that they threw pebbles into the river and a nymph came out of the water, and that their pet budgies are making strange noises, It’s always the same, news creates news, but we probably won’t see our budgies again, Why not, what’s happened, I think they’ve gone, Just gone, just like that, after following you everywhere all week, So it would appear, Did you see them, Yes, I saw them, they crossed the river heading south and never returned, How did you know they were going away, were you standing near the window in your room, No, I was in a public park nearby, Instead of hanging around there, you might have tried to find out where we were, That was the idea, but then I strolled into the park and stayed there, Getting some fresh air, Speaking to a woman, Well, how about that, a fine friend you’ve turned out to be, here we are suffering the tortures of the damned and you’re putting the moves on a woman, after you got nowhere with the archaeologist from Granada, you’re making up for lost time, She wasn’t an archaeologist, she was an anthropologist, What’s the difference, This one is an astronomer, You’re joking, To be honest, I don’t know what she does, this business about her being an astronomer comes from something I said to her, Well, that’s your business, and I’ve got no reason to interfere in other people’s lives, You’ve got every reason, what she told me concerns both of us, I know what you’re going to tell me, she’s also been throwing pebbles, No, Then she can feel the earth shaking, You still haven’t got it, Her canary has changed its color, If you start being sarcastic, you’ll never find out, Forgive me, but to tell you the truth, I’m really very annoyed, I cannot forget that you didn’t bother to come and look for us, I’ve already explained to you that I meant to, but then this woman appeared just as I was getting ready to leave, my idea was to start making inquiries at the Spanish Embassy, then she appeared and she told me this story, she showed up carrying a stick in one hand and a suitcase in the other, she was wearing blue slacks and a jacket to match, she had black hair and the whitest of skin, her eyes were strange and difficult to describe, These are interesting details for the history of the peninsula, I suppose you’re now going to tell me that this woman is beautiful, Yes, she is, Young, Yes, she does look young, although not exactly a girl. From the way you’re talking, you’re infatuated, Infatuation is a big word, but it’s true that I could feel the floor of the hotel lounge shaking, I’ve never heard it described like that before, Lay off, Unless you’ve been drinking and you don’t remember, Lay off, will you, All right, I’ll lay off, but what did Lady Strange Eyes want, and what kind of stick was it, The branch of an elm tree, I don’t know much about trees, what’s an elm, Elm is the common word for
ulmus,
and if you’ll allow me to digress for a moment, I must say you’re pretty skilled when it comes to asking questions. Joaquim Sassa laughed, I must have learned something from those smartalecks who were pestering me earlier, I’m sorry, do finish telling me about the woman, does she have any other name apart from Strange Eyes, She’s called Joana Carda, Now that she’s been introduced, let’s get to the point, Imagine that you find a stick by the road and in a moment of distraction, without any conscious aim, you draw a line on the ground, As a boy I did that quite often, And what happened, Nothing, nothing ever happened, unfortunately, Now imagine that through some magical effect, or something like that, this line produced a crack in the Pyrenees, and that the said Pyrenees split open from top to bottom and the Iberian peninsula began to sail out to sea, Your Joana is mad, There have been other mad Joanas, but this one hasn’t come to Lisbon to tell us that because she drew a line on the ground the peninsula broke away from Europe, Thank God there’s still some common sense left in the world. What she does say is that the line she drew can’t be made to disappear, whether in the wind or by pouring water over it, by scraping it or sweeping it with a brush, or by trampling it underfoot, Nonsense, As nonsensical as your being the most powerful shot-putter of all time, six kilos hurled five hundred meters without cheating, even the great Hercules, demigod that he was, couldn’t have beaten your record, Are you trying to tell me that a line drawn on the ground, you said on the ground, didn’t you, can resist wind, water, and a sweeping brush, And that even if you rake the soil, the line reappears, That’s impossible, You’re not being very original, I also used that word, and Little Joana Strange Eyes simply replied, You Must Go There And See For Yourself or You Should Go There And See For Yourself, I can’t remember her exact words. Joaquim Sassa fell silent, at this point they were passing through Cruz Quebrada, which means Broken Cross. What sacrilege might these words conceal, words that have now become so innocuous, and José Anaiço said, All this would be absurd if it weren’t happening, whereupon Joaquim Sassa asked, But is it really happening.

There was still some daylight, not much, barely enough to glimpse the sea as far as the horizon, from this summit where one descends to Caxias you can judge the scale of these immense waters, perhaps that’s why José Anaiço murmured, It’s different, and Joaquim Sassa, who had no idea what he was referring to, asked him, What’s different, The water, the water is different, life transforms itself like this, it has changed and we haven’t even noticed, we were calm, we thought we hadn’t changed, an illusion, pure deception, we were moving on with life. The sea pounded against the parapet of the road, and no wonder, for these waves are also different, they are accustomed to having freedom of movement, and no witnesses, except when some tiny vessel passes, not this leviathan that is ploughing the ocean. José Anaiço suggested, Let’s eat a little farther down at Paço de Arcos, then we can go back to the hotel, see how Pedro is, Poor guy, they nearly did him in. They parked Deux Chevaux in a side street, went in search of a restaurant, but before they entered, Joaquim Sassa said, During the inquiries and cross-examinations I heard something we never thought of, it was only a word but that was enough, the person who let it slip may have thought I wasn’t listening, What are you talking about, Until now, the peninsula, It isn’t a peninsula, Then what the hell should we call it, anyway, it has dislocated itself almost in a straight line, staying between the thirty-sixth and forty-third parallels, So what, You may be a good teacher in most subjects, but you’re weak when it comes to geography, I don’t understand, You’ll understand at once if you remember that the Azores lie between the thirty-seventh and fortieth parallels, What the hell, That’s what it’s going to be, hell, The peninsula is about to collide with the islands, Precisely, It will be the greatest catastrophe in history, Maybe, maybe not, and, as you said yourself a little while ago, all this would be absurd if it weren’t happening, now let’s go and eat.