The Collected Novels of José Saramago (371 page)

The council leader walked back to where he had parked his car, he was pleased, at least he had managed to warn one person, if the man passed the word on, then in a matter of hours, the whole city would be on the alert, ready for whatever might happen, I’m clearly not in my right mind, he thought, the man won’t say anything to anyone, he’s not a fool like me, well, it’s not foolishness exactly, the fact that I felt a threat I’m incapable of defining is my problem, not his, I should just take his advice and go home, any day during which we’ve been offered a piece of good advice can never be considered to have been wasted. He got into his car and phoned his office to say that he wouldn’t be going back to the town hall. He lived in a street in the center, not far from the overground metro station that served a large part of the eastern sector of the city. His wife, who is a surgeon, will not be at home, she’s on night duty at the hospital, and as for their two children, the boy is in the army, he might even be one of the men defending the frontier with a heavy machine-gun at the ready and a gas mask hanging round his neck, and the girl works abroad as a secretary-cum-interpreter for an international organization, of the sort that always build their vast, luxurious headquarters in the most important cities, important politically speaking, of course. She, at least, will have benefited from having a father well placed in the official system of favors received and paid back, made and returned. Since even the very best advice is, at best, only ever half-obeyed, the council leader did not go to bed. He looked through the papers he’d brought home with him, made decisions about some of them and put others aside for further examination.
When supper time approached, he went into the kitchen, opened the fridge, but found nothing that he fancied eating. His wife had prepared something for him, she wouldn’t let him go hungry, but the effort of setting the table, heating up the food and then washing the dishes seemed to him tonight a superhuman one. He left the house and went to a restaurant. When he had sat down at a table and while he was waiting for his food to come, he phoned his wife. How’s work, he asked her, Oh, not too bad, how about you, Oh, I’m fine, just a bit anxious, Well, in the current situation, I hardly need ask you why, No, it’s more than that, a kind of inner shudder, a shadow, a bad omen, Hm, I had no idea you were superstitious, There’s a time for everything, Where are you, I can hear voices, In a restaurant, I’ll go home afterward, or perhaps I’ll drop in and see you first, being council leader opens many doors, But I might be in the operating theater and I’m not sure how long I’ll be, All right, I’ll think about it, lots of love, And to you too, Loads, Tons. The waiter brought him his first course, Here you are, sir, enjoy your meal. He was just raising his fork to his mouth when an explosion shook the whole building, the glass in the windows inside and out shattered, tables and chairs were overturned, people were screaming and groaning, some were injured, others were stunned by the blast, others were trembling with fright. The council leader was bleeding from a cut to his face caused by a piece of glass. The restaurant had obviously been hit by the shock wave from an explosion. It must have been in the metro station, sobbed a woman struggling to get to her feet. Pressing a napkin to his wound, the council leader ran out into the street. Broken glass crunched beneath his feet, up ahead rose a thick column of black smoke, he thought he could even see the glow of flames, It happened, it’s at the station, he thought. He had discarded the napkin when he realized that holding his hand to his head was slowing him down, now the blood was running freely down his face and neck and soaking into his shirt
collar. Wondering if the service would still be working, he stopped for a moment to dial the emergency number on his mobile phone, but the nervous-sounding voice that answered told him that the incident had already been reported, It’s the council leader here, a bomb has exploded in the main overground station in the eastern part of the city, send all the help you can, firemen, civil defense people, scouts, if there are any, nurses, ambulances, first-aid equipment, whatever you have to hand, oh, and another thing, if there is some way of finding out where any retired police officers live, call them too and ask them to come and help, The firemen are already on their way, sir, we’re doing everything we can do. He rang off and started running again. Other people were running alongside him, some overtook him, his legs felt like lead and it was as if his lungs were refusing to breathe the thick, malodorous air, and a pain, a pain that rapidly fixed itself in his trachea, kept getting worse and worse. The station was about fifty meters away now, the gray, grubby smoke, illuminated by the fire, rose up in furious tangled skeins. How many dead will there be inside, who planted the bomb, the council leader was asking himself. The sirens of the fire engines could be heard getting closer now, the mournful wailing, more like someone asking for help than bringing it, grew shriller and shriller, at any moment now they will come hurtling round one of these corners. The first vehicle appeared as the council leader was pushing his way through the crowd of people who had rushed to see the disaster, I’m the council leader, he said, I’m the leader of the city council, let me through, please, and he felt painfully foolish having to repeat this over and over, aware that the fact of being council leader would not open all doors to him, indeed, inside, there were people for whom the doors of life had closed once and for all. Within minutes, great jets of water were being projected through openings that had once been doorways and windows, or were aimed up into the air to soak the upper part of the buildings in order to reduce
the risk of the fire spreading. The council leader went over to the chief fire officer, What do you make of it, he asked, It’s the worst fire I’ve ever seen, in fact, it has a distinct whiff of arson about it, Don’t say that, it’s not possible, It may just be an impression, let’s hope I’m wrong. At that moment, a television recording van arrived, followed by others from the press and the radio, now, surrounded by lights and microphones, the council leader is answering questions, How many lives do you think will have been lost, What information do you have so far, How many people have been injured, How many people have suffered burns, When do you think the station will be back to normal, Have you any idea who might have been behind the attack, Was any warning received before the explosion, If so, who received it and what measures were taken to evacuate the station in time, Do you think it was a terrorist attack carried out by a group with links to the subversive movement active in the city, Do you think there will be more such attacks, As council leader and sole authority left in the city, what means do you have to carry out the necessary investigations. When the rain of questions had stopped, the council leader gave the only possible reply in the circumstances, Some of these questions are outside my competence, and so I can’t really answer them, I assume, however, that the government will be making an official statement soon, as for the other questions, all I can say is that we are doing everything humanly possible to help the victims, let’s just hope we get there in time, at least for some of them, But how many dead are there, insisted a journalist, We’ll only know that when we go into that inferno, so, until then, please, spare me any more stupid questions. The journalists protested that this was no way to treat the media, who were, after all, only fulfilling their duty to inform and therefore deserved to be treated with respect, but the council leader cut short this corporate speech, One of the newspapers today went so far as to call for a bloodbath, that didn’t happen this time, the burned don’t bleed, they just get fried to a crisp, now, please, let me through, I have nothing more to add, we’ll let you know when we have any concrete information. There was a general murmur of disapproval, and further back a sneering voice said, Who does he think he is, but the council leader made no attempt to find out who the dissenter was, during the last few hours, he, too, had done nothing but ask, Who do I think I am.

Two hours later, the fire was declared to be under control, the intense heat from the charred ruins took another two hours to abate, but it was still impossible to know how many people had died. About thirty or forty people were taken to hospital, suffering from injuries of varying degrees of severity, having escaped the worst of the blast because they had been in a part of the ticket hall farthest from the place where the bomb had exploded. The council leader remained there until the fire had died down completely, and he only left when the fire chief told him, Go and rest, sir, leave us to deal with things, and do something about that cut on your face, I can’t understand why no one here noticed it, It’s all right, they had more serious things on their minds. Then he asked, And now, Now we have to locate and remove the bodies, some will have been blown to pieces, most will have been burned, Yes, I don’t know if I could bear that, In your present state, I don’t think you could either, I’m a coward, It’s not cowardice, sir, even I passed out the first time, Thank you, do what you can, All I can do is put out the last burning ember, which is nothing, At least you’ll be here. Covered in soot, his cheek black with dried blood, he started walking grimly back home. His whole body ached, from running, from nervous tension, from being on his feet for hours. There was no point trying to phone his wife, the person who answered would doubtless tell him, I’m sorry, sir, your wife is in the operating theater, she can’t come to the phone. On either side of the road, people were looking out of their windows, but no one recognized him. A real council leader
travels in his official car, has a secretary with him to carry his briefcase, three bodyguards to clear a path for him, but the man walking along the street is a filthy, stinking tramp, a sad man on the verge of tears, a ghost to whom no one would even lend a bucket of water in which to wash his sheet. The mirror in the lift revealed to him the blackened face he would have had now if he had been in the ticket hall when the bomb exploded, Horror, horror, he murmured. He opened the door with tremulous hands and went straight to the bathroom. He took the first-aid box out of the cabinet, the packet of cotton wool, the hydrogen peroxide, some liquid disinfectant containing iodine, some large sticking plasters. He said to himself, It probably needs a few stitches. His shirt was stained with blood all the way down to the waistband of his trousers, I bled more than I thought. He took off his jacket, painfully undid the sticky knot of his tie and took off his shirt. His vest was stained with blood too, I should have a wash, get in the shower, no, don’t be ridiculous, that would just wash away the dried blood covering the wound and start it bleeding again, he said softly, I should, yes, I should, I should what. The word was like a dead body he had stumbled upon, he had to find out what the word wanted, he had to remove the body. The firemen and the civil defense people are going into the station. They are carrying stretchers and wearing protective gloves, most of them have never before touched a burned body, now they will know what it is like. I should. He went out of the bathroom and into his study, where he sat down at his desk. He picked up the phone and dialed a confidential number. It is almost three o’clock in the morning. A voice answers, The interior minister’s office, who’s calling, It’s the leader of the city council in the capital, I’d like to speak to the minister, it’s extremely urgent, if he’s in, can you please put me straight through to him, One moment, please. The moment lasted two minutes, Hello, A few hours ago, minister, a bomb exploded in
the overground train station in the eastern sector of the city, we don’t yet know how many people have died, but everything indicates that the death toll will be high, there are already about forty or fifty wounded, Yes, I know, The reason I’m phoning you now is that I’ve been at the scene of the explosion all this time, Very commendable. The council leader took a deep breath, then asked, Haven’t you anything to say to me, minister, What do you mean, About who could have planted the bomb, Well, it seems fairly obvious, your friends who cast the blank votes have clearly decided to go in for a bit of direct action, Sorry, but I don’t believe that, Whether you believe it or not, that is the truth, Is or will be, You can make up your own mind about that, What happened here, minister, was a heinous crime, Yes, I suppose you’re right, that’s what people usually call it, Who planted the bomb, minister, You seem upset, why don’t you get some rest and call me when it gets light, but not before ten o’clock, Who planted the bomb, minister, What are you trying to insinuate, A question is not an insinuation, it would be an insinuation if I were to tell you what we are both thinking at this moment, There’s no reason on earth why my thoughts should coincide with those of the leader of a municipal council. Well, they do this time, Careful now, you’re going too far, Oh, I’m not just going too far, I’ve arrived, What do you mean, That I am speaking to the person directly responsible for the blast, You’re mad, If only I was, How dare you cast aspersions on a member of the government, it’s unheard of, From now on, minister, I am no longer the council leader of this besieged city, We’ll talk tomorrow, but bear in mind that I have no intention of accepting your resignation, You’ll have to accept it, just pretend that I died, In that case, I warn you, in the name of the government, that you will bitterly regret doing so, in fact, you won’t even have time to regret it if you don’t keep quiet about this whole affair, but that shouldn’t prove too difficult, given that you say you’re dead, Yes, I never imagined anyone could be so dead. The communication was cut at the other end. The man who had been the council leader got up and went into the bathroom. He took off his clothes and stood under the shower. The hot water quickly washed away the dried blood that had formed over the wound and the blood began to flow again. The firemen have just found the first charred body.