The Collected Novels of José Saramago (338 page)

The house was clean and tidy, the bed as neat as a marriage bed, the kitchen bright as a new pin, the bathroom exuding detergent odors, a sort of lemon smell, which one had only to breathe in for one’s body to be purified and one’s soul to be exalted. On the days when the upstairs neighbor comes to bring order to this single man’s apartment, the occupier eats supper out, he feels it would show a lack of respect to soil plates, light matches, peel potatoes, open cans, and then put a frying pan on the stove, that would be unthinkable, the oil would spurt everywhere. The restaurant is close by, last time he was there he ate meat, this evening he will eat fish, it’s good to make changes, if we’re not careful, life can quickly become predictable, monotonous, a drag. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso has always been a very careful man. The thirty-six videos he brought from the shop are piled up on the small coffee table in the living room, the three remaining from the previous visit, and which have not yet been seen, are in a drawer in the desk, the magnitude of the task ahead is quite simply overwhelming, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso would not wish it on his worst enemy, not that he knows who that might be, perhaps because he is still young, perhaps because he has always been so careful with life. To pass the time until supper, he started putting the videos in order according to the dates when the original film was issued, and since they would not fit on the table or on the desk, he decided to line them up on the floor, at the bottom of one of the bookshelves, the oldest, on the left, is called
A Man Like Any Other,
the most recent, on the right,
The Goddess of the Stage.
If Tertuliano Máximo Afonso had been consistent with the ideas he has been defending about the teaching of history to the point of applying them, insofar as this was possible, to his everyday activities, he would watch this row of videos from front to back, that is, he would begin with
The Goddess of the Stage
and end with
A Man Like Any Other.
We all know, however, that the enormous weight of tradition, habit, and custom that occupies the greater part of our brain bears down pitilessly on the more brilliant and innovative ideas of which the remaining part is capable, and although it is true that, in some cases, this weight can balance the excesses and extravagances of the imagination that would lead us God knows where were they given free rein, it is equally true that it often has a way of subtly submitting what we believed to be our free will to unconscious tropisms, like a plant that does not know why it will always have to lean toward the side from which the light comes. The history teacher will therefore faithfully follow the teaching program placed in his hands and will therefore watch the videos from back to front, from the oldest to the most recent, from the days of effects that we did not need to call natural to these days of effects we call special and which, because we don’t know how they are created, fabricated, or produced, should really be given a much more neutral name. Tertuliano Máximo
Afonso has returned from supper, he did not, after all, have fish, the dish on offer was monkfish, and he does not like monkfish, that benthonic marine creature that lives on the sandy or muddy sea bottom, from inshore areas to depths greater than a thousand meters, that can measure up to two meters in length and weigh more than forty kilos, with a vast, flat head equipped with very strong teeth, which, in short, is a most disagreeable animal to look at and one that Tertuliano Máximo Afonso’s palate, nose, and stomach have never been able to tolerate. He is gleaning all this information now from an encyclopedia, finally prompted by curiosity to find out something about this creature that he has detested since the first day he saw it. This curiosity dates from times past, from years back, but today, inexplicably, he is giving it due satisfaction. Inexplicably, we said, and yet we should know that this is not so, we should know that there is no logical, objective explanation for the fact that Tertuliano Máximo Afonso has spent years and years knowing nothing about the monkfish apart from its appearance and the taste and consistency of the pieces put on his plate, and then suddenly, at a certain moment on a certain day, as if he had nothing more urgent to do, he opens the encyclopedia and finds out more. We have an odd relationship with words. We learn a few when we are small, throughout our lives we collect others through education, conversation, our contact with books, and yet, in comparison, there are only a tiny number about whose meaning, sense, and denotation we would have absolutely no doubts if, one day, we were to ask ourselves seriously what they meant. Thus we affirm and deny, thus we convince and are convinced, thus we argue, deduce, and conclude, wandering fearlessly over the surface of concepts about which we have only the vaguest of ideas, and, despite the false air of confidence that we generally affect as we feel our way along the road in the verbal darkness, we manage, more or less, to understand each other and even, sometimes, to find each other. If we had time and if impatient curiosity were to prick us, we would always end up finding out exactly what a monkfish was. The next time the waiter at the restaurant suggests this inelegant member of the
Lophiidae
family, the history teacher will know what to say, What, that hideous benthonic creature that lives in the sand or on the muddy sea bottom, and will add firmly, Certainly not. Responsibility for this tedious piscine and linguistic digression lies entirely with Tertuliano Máximo Afonso for having taken such a long time to put
A Man Like Any Other
in the VCR, as if he were hesitating at the foot of a mountain, pondering the effort required to reach the summit. Like nature, they say, a narrative abhors a vacuum, which is why, since Tertuliano Máximo Afonso has, in this interval, done nothing worth telling, we had no option but to improvise some padding to more or less fill up the time required by the situation. Now that he has decided to take the video out of its box and put it in the VCR, we can relax.

After an hour, the actor still had not appeared, and it seemed likely that he was not in the film. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso fast-forwarded the tape to the end, carefully read the credits, and removed from his list of participants any names that were repeated. If we had asked him to explain in his own words what he had just watched, he would probably have shot us the angry glance one reserves for the impertinent and replied with another question, Do I look like someone who would be interested in such vulgarities. We would have to agree with him here, because the films he has so far seen clearly belong to the so-called B-movie category, films made quickly for quick consumption and which aspire only to help pass the time without troubling the spirit, as the mathematics teacher had so neatly put it, albeit in other words. Another video has been put in the VCR, this one is called
A Merry Life,
and Tertuliano Máximo Afonso’s twin will appear in the role of doorman at a cabaret or nightclub, it will be impossible to gauge with any clarity which of the two definitions best suits this place of worldly delights that is the scene of jollities shamelessly copied from various versions of
The Merry Widow.
Tertuliano Máximo Afonso thought at first that it wasn’t worth watching the whole film, he already knew what he needed to know, that is, whether his other self appeared in the story, but the plot was so gratuitously convoluted that he let himself be carried along until the end, surprised to notice stirrings inside him of compassion for the poor devil who, apart from opening and closing the doors of cars, did nothing but raise and lower his peaked cap to greet the elegant clientele as they came and went, with a grave though not always subtle blend of respect and complicity. At least I’m a teacher of history, he murmured. A statement like that, made with the overt intention of pointing up and emphasizing his superiority, not only professionally, but also morally and socially, compared with the insignificance of the character’s role, was crying out for a response that would restore courtesy to its proper place, and this was supplied by his common sense with an unusual touch of irony, Beware of pride, Tertuliano, think of what you’ve missed by not being an actor, they could have made your character a headmaster, a teacher of mathematics, but since you obviously couldn’t be an English teacher of the female sex, you’ll just have to be a plain old male teacher. Pleased with the warning note it had sounded, common sense, deciding to strike while the iron was hot, again brought the hammer down hard, Obviously, you’d have to have some slight talent for acting, but apart from that, my friend, as sure as my name is Common Sense, they would be bound to make you change your name, no self-respecting actor would dare to appear in public with that ridiculous Tertuliano, you’d have no option but to adopt an attractive pseudonym, although, on second thoughts, that might not be necessary, Máximo Afonso wouldn’t be bad, think about it.
A Merry Life
returned to its box, the next film appeared with an intriguing title, very promising in the circumstances,
Tell Me Who You Are
it was called, but it contributed nothing to Tertuliano Máximo Afonso’s knowledge of himself and nothing to the research he is embroiled in. To amuse himself, he fast-forwarded it to the end, added a few crosses to his list, and, with a glance at the clock, decided to go to bed. His eyes were red, his temples throbbed, and he could feel a weight on his forehead. I’m not going to kill myself over this, he thought, the world won’t end if I don’t manage to watch all the videos this weekend, and if it did end, this wouldn’t be the only mystery left unresolved. He was in bed, waiting for sleep to answer the call of the tablet he had taken, when something that might have been common sense again, but which did not announce itself as such, said that, quite frankly, in his opinion, the easiest route would be to telephone or to go in person to the production company and ask straight out for the name of the actor in this, this, and this film who played the parts of receptionist, bank clerk, medical auxiliary, and nightclub doorman, they must be used to it, they might find it odd that such a question should be about an insignificant, bit-part actor, little more than an extra, but at least it would make a change from having to talk about stars and superstars all the time. Vaguely, as the first tangled mesh of sleep was wrapping around him, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso replied that it was a stupid idea, far too simple, too humdrum, I didn’t study history just to come up with ideas like that, he added. These last words had nothing to do with anything, they were just another display of pride, but we must forgive him, it’s the sleeping tablet talking, not the person who took it. From Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, on the very threshold of sleep, came the final remark, as strangely lucid as the flame of a candle about to burn out, I want to find him without anyone knowing and without him suspecting. These were definitive words that brooked no argument. Sleep closed the door. And Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is now slumbering.

B
Y ELEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING
, T
ERTULIANO
M
ÁXIMO
Afonso had already watched three films, although none of them from beginning to end. He had risen very early, breakfasted on a couple of biscuits and a warmed-up cup of coffee, and, without wasting time on shaving, and omitting all but the most necessary ablutions, still in his pajamas and dressing gown, like someone who is expecting no visitors, he launched into the day’s task. The first two films passed in vain, but the third, entitled
The Parallel of Terror,
brought to the scene of the crime a jolly, gum-chewing police photographer who kept saying, in Tertuliano Máximo Afonso’s voice, that in life and death it’s all a question of angle. At the end, the list was again brought up-to-date, a name struck through, new crosses added. There were five actors marked five times, as many as the number of films in which the history teacher’s double had appeared, and their names, in impartial alphabetical order, were Pedro Félix, Adriano Maia, Carlos Martinho, Daniel Santa-Clara, and Luís Augusto Ventura. Up until then, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso had been lost on the great sea of the more than five million inhabitants of the city, but from now on, he will only have to deal with fewer than half a dozen, possibly even
fewer than that if one or more of those names is struck off for not answering the roll call, Quite an achievement, he muttered, but it immediately leaped to his notice that this new labor of Hercules had not, after all, been so very arduous, given that at least two million, five hundred thousand people belonged to the female sex and were, therefore, excluded from the field of his research. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso’s oversight should not surprise us, since, in calculations involving such large numbers, as in the present case, the tendency not to take women into account is irresistible. Despite this blow to his statistics, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso went into the kitchen to celebrate the promising results with another cup of coffee. The doorbell rang just as he was taking his second sip, the cup remained suspended in midair, halfway on its journey to the tabletop, Who can that be, he asked, at the same time putting the cup lightly down. It could be his helpful upstairs neighbor, wanting to know if he had found everything to his liking, it could be one of those young people selling encyclopedias that explain the habits of the monkfish, it could be his colleague the mathematics teacher, no, it wouldn’t be him, they had never visited each other’s homes, Who can it be, he said again. He quickly finished his coffee and went to see. Crossing the room, he cast a worried glance at the video boxes scattered about, at the impassive line of videos on the floor at the foot of the bookshelf, waiting their turns, his upstairs neighbor, always assuming it was her, wouldn’t be at all pleased to see the deplorable mess he had made of the place she had taken such pains to tidy up yesterday. It doesn’t matter, she doesn’t have to come in, he thought, and opened the door. It wasn’t his upstairs neighbor standing there before him, it wasn’t a young saleswoman bearing encyclopedias and telling him that, at last, he had within his grasp the
enormous privilege of knowing everything there was to know about the habits of the monkfish, it was a woman who has not yet appeared in person but whose name we already know, Maria da Paz, bank employee. Oh, it’s you, exclaimed Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, and then, trying to hide his perturbation, his confusion, Hello, this is a surprise. He should have asked her in, Come in, come in, I was just having a cup of coffee, or, How nice of you to drop by, just make yourself comfortable while I shave and have a shower, but it was only with an effort that he stood to one side and let her pass, ah, if only he could say to her, Just wait right here while I hide some videos I don’t want you to see, ah, if only he could say, Sorry, but you’ve come at a bad time, I can’t really talk to you right now, come back tomorrow, ah, if only he could say something, but it’s too late now, he should have thought of this before, it’s all his fault, the prudent man should always be on his guard, alert, he should foresee all eventualities, he should, above all, never forget that the best way to proceed is always the simplest, for example, not ingenuously to open the door just because the bell rings, haste always brings complications in its wake, no doubt about it. Maria da Paz entered the apartment with the ease of someone who knows every corner, and asked, How have you been, and then, I got your message and I agree, we need to talk, I hope I haven’t come at a bad moment, No, of course not, said Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, you must forgive me for receiving you like this, hair uncombed, face unshaven, and looking as if I’d just got out of bed, When I’ve seen you like this on other occasions, you’ve never felt the need to apologize, Today is different, In what way, You know what I mean, I’ve never opened the door to you dressed like this, in pajamas and a dressing gown, It has a certain novelty, and there’s not much of that between you and
me anymore. She was only three steps from the living room, her astonishment would soon become apparent, What the hell’s all this, what are you doing with all these videos, but Maria da Paz pauses to ask, Aren’t you going to kiss me, Of course, was Tertuliano Máximo Afonso’s unfortunate and embarrassed response, as he made to kiss her on the cheek. This masculine modesty, if that’s what it was, proved vain, Maria da Paz’s mouth had come to meet his and was now sucking, pressing, devouring it, while her body glued itself to his from head to toe, as if there were no clothes separating them. Maria da Paz was the first to draw back and murmur, panting, a sentence she never managed to finish, Even if I regret what I’ve just done, even if I’m ashamed of having done it, Don’t be silly, said Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, improvising furiously to gain time, what nonsense, regret, shame, why on earth should anyone regret and feel ashamed of expressing their feelings, You know perfectly well what I mean, so don’t pretend you don’t, You came in, we kissed, what could be more normal, more natural, We didn’t kiss, I kissed you, Yes, but I kissed you back, Only because you had no option, You’re exaggerating as usual, dramatizing, You’re right, I do exaggerate and I do dramatize, I exaggerated in coming to your apartment, I dramatized by embracing a man who no longer loves me, I should leave this very instant, regretful and ashamed, despite all those charitable phrases about how it really doesn’t matter. The possibility that she might leave, although obviously a remote one, sent a ray of hopeful light into the tortuous crannies of Tertuliano Máximo Afonso’s mind, but the words that emerged from his mouth, some might say escaped against his will, expressed a very different sentiment, Honestly, I don’t know where you’ve got this peculiar idea that I don’t care about you, You expressed yourself pretty clearly
on the subject the last time we met, But I never said I didn’t care about you, I never said that, In matters of the heart, about which you know so little, even the most obtuse of intelligences can understand what wasn’t said. To imagine that those words of Tertuliano Máximo Afonso’s, currently under analysis, escaped against his will would be to forget that the skein of the human spirit has many and various ends, and that the function of some of its threads, while seeming to lead the interlocutor to a knowledge of what lies inside, is to give false directions, to suggest detours that will end up in culs-de-sac, to distract from the fundamental subject, or, as in the case that concerns us now, to lessen, in anticipation, the shock of what is to come. In affirming that he had never said he didn’t care about Maria da Paz, thus letting it be understood that he really did care about her, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso’s intention was, if you’ll forgive the banality of the images, to wrap her in cotton wool, to surround her with muffling pillows, to bind her to him with loving feelings when it was no longer possible to detain her further outside the living-room door. Which is what is happening now. Maria da Paz has just taken the necessary three steps, she goes in, she doesn’t want to think about the sweet nightingale song that lightly brushed her ears, but she can think of nothing else, she would even be prepared to recognize, contritely, that her ironic allusion to obtuse intelligences had been not merely impertinent but unjust too, and with a smile on her lips she turns to Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, ready to fall into his arms and determined to forget all about grievances and complaints. Chance, however, chose, although it would be more exact to say that it was inevitable, since alluring concepts like fate, fortune, and destiny really have no place in this narrative, that the arc described by Maria da Paz’s eyes would pass, first, the television set, turned on, then the videos that had not yet resumed their appointed positions, and, finally, the row of videos itself, an unheard-of, inexplicable presence to anyone, like her, who had an intimate knowledge of this place and of the occupier’s tastes and habits. What’s all this, what are all these videos doing here, she asked, It’s material for some work I’m engaged in at the moment, replied Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, looking away, Unless I’m very much mistaken, your work, for as long as I’ve known you, has involved teaching history, said Maria da Paz, and this thing, she was studying the video with curious eyes, called
The Parallel of Terror,
doesn’t look to me as if it has very much to do with your speciality, There’s no law that says I can only study history for the rest of my life, No, of course not, but it’s only natural that I should find it odd to see you surrounded by videos, as if you had suddenly developed a passion for the cinema, when, before, you weren’t really interested at all, As I said, I’m engaged in a piece of work, a sociological study, if you like, Look, I may be an ordinary clerk, a bank employee, but even my rather dim intelligence can sense you’re not telling the truth, Not telling the truth, exclaimed Tertuliano Máximo Afonso indignantly, not telling the truth, that really is the limit, There’s no point getting angry, I’m just saying how it seems to me, Now I know I’m not perfect, but dishonesty is not one of my faults, you should know me better than that, Forgive me, That’s all right, you’re forgiven, we won’t mention the matter again. That is what he said, but he would in fact have preferred to continue talking about it, if only to avoid talking about the other subject he was much more afraid to broach. Maria da Paz sat down in the armchair in front of the television set and said, I came to talk to you, I’m not interested in your videos. The nightingale’s song had got lost in the
stratospheric regions of the ceiling, it was already, as they used to say in days gone by, but a sweet memory, and Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, who cut a deplorable figure in his dressing gown and slippers, his face unshaven, all of which put him in a position of clear inferiority, was aware that an acerbic conversation, even though the angry words he might use would suit what we know to be his final aim, that is, to end his relationship with Maria da Paz, would be difficult to conduct and doubtless even harder to bring to a close. So he sat down on the sofa, covered his legs with his dressing gown, and began in a conciliatory tone of voice, My idea, What are you talking about, broke in Maria da Paz, us or your videos, We’ll talk about us afterward, for the moment I just want to explain to you the kind of work I’m involved in, If you must, replied Maria da Paz, reining in her impatience. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso prolonged the ensuing silence for as long as possible, he racked his brain for the words he had used to put the assistant in the video shop off the track, and he experienced a strange and contradictory feeling. Although he knows he is going to lie, he thinks, nevertheless, that this lie will be a kind of warped version of the truth, that is, although the explanation may be completely false, the mere fact of repeating it will, in a way, make it plausible, and all the more plausible if Tertuliano Máximo Afonso does not stop at this first attempt. At last, feeling himself master of his material, he began, My interest in looking at a number of films by this production company, chosen at random, for, as you will see, they are all made by the same company, was born out of an idea I had some time ago, that of making a study of the tendencies, inclinations, intentions, and messages, explicit, implicit, and subliminal, in short, the ideological signals disseminated among its consumers, image by image, by a particular film company,
And how did it come about this sudden interest, or as you call it, this idea, what has it got to do with your work as a history teacher, asked Maria da Paz, completely unaware that she had just handed to Tertuliano Máximo Afonso on a plate the very answer which, in his hour of dialectical need, he might not have been capable of finding for himself, It’s very simple, he replied with a look of relief on his face that could easily have been mistaken for the virtuous satisfaction experienced by any good teacher taking delight in the act of transmitting his knowledge to the class, It’s very simple, he said again, just as the history that we write, study, or teach penetrates every line, every word, and even every date, what I termed ideological signals, inherent not just in the interpretation of facts, but also in the language we use to express those facts, not forgetting the various types and degrees of in-tentionality in our use of that language, so it is that the cinema, a storytelling mode that, given its particular efficacy, acts upon the actual contents of history, at once contaminating and falsifying them, so it is, I repeat, that the cinema, with far greater speed and no less intentionality, participates in the general propagation of a whole network of those ideological signals, usually in a way that promotes its own interests. He paused and, with the indulgent half smile of someone apologizing for the aridity of an explanation that failed to take into consideration his audience’s inadequate ability to understand, added, I hope to clarify my ideas when I write them down. Despite her more than justified reservations, Maria da Paz couldn’t help looking at him with a certain admiration, after all, he is a skilled history teacher, a trained professional of proven competence, one presumes he knows what he’s talking about even when he ventures into matters outside his speciality, while she is a mere middle-ranking bank employee, without