The Collected Novels of José Saramago (9 page)

Blimunda got up from her stool and lit a fire in the hearth and put a pot of soup on the trivet, and when it began to boil she ladled the soup into two large bowls, which she then served to the two men in silence, for she had not spoken since asking Baltasar some hours before, What is your name, and although the priest was the first to finish eating, she waited until Baltasar had finished, so that she could use his spoon, it was as if in silence she were answering another question, Do your lips accept the spoon that has touched the lips of this man, thus making his what was yours, now making yours what was his, until the meaning of yours and mine was lost, and since Blimunda had answered yes before being asked, I therefore declare you man and wife. Padre Bartolomeu Lourenço waited until Blimunda had finished eating the rest of the soup from the pot, then extended his blessing over her person, over the food and the spoon, over the stool and the fire in the hearth, over the oil lamp and the mat on the floor, and over Baltasar’s amputated wrist. Then he left.

Baltasar and Blimunda sat in silence for a whole hour. Baltasar got up only once, to put some wood on the dying fire, and Blimunda stirred once, to trim the wick in the oil lamp, which was consuming the flame, and now that there was light in the room, Baltasar felt able to ask, Why did you ask me my name, whereupon Blimunda replied, Because my mother wanted to know and she was anxious that I should know, How can you tell, when you were unable to speak to her, I can tell, even though I can’t explain why I can tell, don’t ask me questions I cannot answer, behave as you did before, when you followed me home without asking any questions, and if you’ve no place to go, why not remain here, I must go to Mafra, there I have my family, my parents, a sister, Stay here until you have to leave, there will always be time for you to return to Mafra, Why do you want me to remain here, Because it is necessary, I’m not convinced, If you don’t wish to remain, then go, I cannot force you to stay here, I cannot find the strength to go away from this place, you have bewitched me, I have bewitched no one, I have uttered no words, I have not touched you, You looked into my soul, I swear I will never look into your soul, You swear you will never do it, yet you have done so already, You don’t know what you’re saying, I’ve never once looked inside you, If I stay here, where do I sleep, You sleep with me.

They lay down together. Blimunda was a virgin. What age are you, Baltasar asked her and Blimunda replied, Nineteen, but even as she spoke, she became older. Some drops of blood trickled on to the mat. Dipping the tips of her middle and index fingers into the blood, Blimunda made the sign of the cross and marked a cross on Baltasar’s chest, near his heart. They were both naked. From a nearby street they heard the angry shouts of a quarrel, the clashing of swords and scurrying of feet. Then silence. The bleeding had stopped.

When Baltasar woke next morning, he saw Blimunda lying at his side, eating bread, but with her eyes firmly closed. She only opened them when she had finished eating, at that moment they looked grey, and she told him, I shall never look into your soul.

T
O RAISE THIS
bread to one’s mouth requires little effort, an excellent thing to do when hunger demands it, eating bread nourishes the body and benefits the farmer, some farmers more than others, who from the moment the wheat is cut until the bread is eaten know how to turn their labours to profit, and that is the rule. In Portugal there is never enough wheat to satisfy the perpetual hunger of the Portuguese for bread, and they give the impression of being unable to eat anything else, and that explains why the foreigners who live here, in their anxiety to satisfy our needs, which germinate more abundantly than pumpkin seeds, have dispatched from their own and other lands fleets of a hundred ships laden with grain, like the fleets that have just sailed up the Tagus, firing their salute at the Torre de Belem and presenting the customary documents to the Governor and this time there are more than thirty thousand sacks of grain imported from Ireland, and such abundant supplies have transformed the shortage into a temporary surfeit, so that the granaries and private storehouses are so full of grain that the dealers are desperate to hire storage at any price, posting notices on doorways throughout the city for the attention of anyone with space to rent, the importers find themselves in serious difficulties and are obliged to lower prices because of the sudden glut, and to make matters worse, there is talk of the imminent arrival of a Dutch fleet carrying much the same cargo, but subsequently news arrives that the Dutch fleet has been attacked by a French squadron almost at the approach to the straits, causing the price that was about to be lowered to stay where it is and whenever it proves necessary, several granaries are burned to the ground and a shortage is immediately declared because of the grain lost in the blaze, although it is widely known that there is more than enough grain for everyone. These are the mysteries of commerce as taught by foreign merchants and learned by those who live here, though our own merchants are on the whole cretins and leave it to foreigners to arrange the import of merchandise from other lands and are quite content to buy the grain from foreigners who take advantage of our ingenuousness and get rich at our expense, by buying at prices we do not know and selling at prices we do know to be excessive, while we repay them with malicious tongues and eventually with our lives.

However, since laughter is so close to tears, reassurance so close to anxiety, relief so close to panic, and the lives of individuals and nations hover between these extremes, João Elvas describes for Baltasar Sete-Sóis the splendid martial display the navy of Lisbon marshalled from Belem to Xabregas for two days and two nights, while the infantry and cavalry took up defence positions on land, because a rumour had spread that a French fleet was about to invade, a hypothesis which would transform any nobleman or commoner into another Duarte Pacheco Pereira, and convert Lisbon into another Fortress of Diu, but the invading armada turned out to be a fishing fleet with a consignment of cod, obviously in short supply, judging from the greed with which it was devoured. The ministers received the news with a withered smile, soldiers, arms, and horses were disbanded with a jaundiced smile, and the guffaws of the populace were loud and strident when they found themselves avenged of so many vexations. In short, it would have been much more shameful to have expected a consignment of cod only to find a French invasion than to have expected a French invasion only to be confronted with crates of cod.

Sete-Sóis agrees, But put yourself in the shoes of any soldiers prepared for battle, you know how a man’s heart beats furiously at such moments as he thinks to himself, What will become of me, will I come out of this alive, a soldier tenses up when he faces possible death, and imagine his disappointment when he is told they are simply unloading supplies of cod at Ribeira Nova, if the French were to discover our mistake, they would be even more amused at our stupidity. Baltasar is about to become nostalgic again for the war when suddenly he remembers Blimunda and longs to contemplate the colour of her eyes, a battle he wages with his own memory, which remembers one colour much like any other, his own eyes unable to distinguish the colour of her eyes even when he looks straight into them. These thoughts soon dispel any nostalgia he was about to indulge in, and he remarks to João Elvas, There should be some means of discovering who is arriving and what brings them here, the seagulls know these things when they perch on the ship’s mast, while we, for whom it is much more important, know nothing, and the old soldier rejoined, The seagulls have wings, the angels, too, but the seagulls do not speak, and angels I have never seen.

Padre Bartolomeu Lourenço was crossing the Palace Square, coming from the Palace, where he had gone at the insistence of Sete-Sóis, who was anxious to find out whether he was entitled to a war pension, if the simple loss of a left hand warranted as much and when João Elvas, who did not know everything about Baltasar’s life, saw the priest approach, he continued the conversation and informed Baltasar, That priest who is now approaching is Padre Bartolomeu Lourenço, whom they call the Flying Man, but his wings have not grown sufficiently, so we shall not be able to go and spy out the fleets hoping to enter port or to discover what merchandise they bring or why they have come here. Sete-Sóis was unable to offer any comment, because the priest, pausing at a distance, was beckoning him to approach, and João Elvas was much bemused that his friend should enjoy the protection of Church and State, and began to ask himself if there could be some advantage here for a vagrant soldier like himself. But, busying himself in the meantime, he stretched out his hand for alms, first to a fine gentleman, who readily obliged, then distractedly to a mendicant friar, who passed by bearing a sacred relic that he extended to the faithful so they might kiss it with reverence, with the result that João Elvas finished up by parting with the alms he had collected, Well I’ll be damned, it may be a sin but there is nothing like a good curse for giving vent to one’s feelings.

Padre Bartolomeu Lourenço assured Sete-Sóis, I’ve discussed these matters with the judges, they have promised to consider your petition, and when they have reached their decision they will inform me, and when are you likely to know, Father, Baltasar asked with the innocent curiosity
of someone who has just arrived at court and is still unfamiliar with its ways, I cannot tell you, but should things delay, perhaps I shall have a word with His Majesty, who honours me with his esteem and protection, You can speak to the King, Baltasar asked in astonishment, while thinking to himself, He can speak to the King, yet he knew Blimunda’s mother, who was condemned by the Inquisition, what kind of priest can he be, and this final question, which Sete-Sóis was careful not to voice aloud, left him feeling troubled. Padre Bartolomeu made no attempt to reply but looked him straight in the eye, and there they stood confronting each other, the priest somewhat shorter and more youthful in appearance even though they are both the same age, twenty-six years old, the age we have already established for Baltasar, yet their lives could scarcely be more different, that of Sete-Sóis destined to labour and war and although the war is now over the labour is about to commence, Bartolomeu Lourenço, on the other hand, was born in Brazil and arrived in Portugal for the first time as a young lad endowed with a good mind and an excellent memory, so that by the time he was fifteen his enormous potential was already being fulfilled, he could recite Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Quintus Curtius, Suetonius, Maecenas, and Seneca from beginning to end and back again, or from any passage you cared to quote, and he could also interpret all the fables that had ever been written and explain why they had been invented in the first place by the Greeks and Romans, identify the authors of all the books and verse, both ancient and modern, right back to the year twelve hundred, and if someone were to suggest a theme for a poem, he would improvise some ten verses then and there without a moment’s hesitation, he could also expound and defend every philosophical system and discuss the most complicated details, elucidate all the discourses of Aristotle, unravel their intricacies, terms, and middle terms, and clear up all the controversial issues in the Holy Scriptures, whether from the Old or the New Testament, he could recite from memory, in their entirety or in snatches, all the Gospels of the four Evangelists in any order, likewise the Epistles of St Paul and St Jerome, he knew by heart the sequence and dates of every prophet and holy king, and could quote from any passage and in any order from the Book of Psalms, Song of Songs, Book of Exodus, and all the Books of Kings, as well as from the somewhat less canonical Books of Esdras, which, confidentially speaking, do not give the impression of being all that orthodox, this sublime genius, this prodigious intellect and memory, was the product of a land from which the Portuguese have only exacted gold and diamonds, tobacco and sugar, the riches of the jungle, and everything else that may still be waiting to be discovered there, the land of another world, the land of tomorrow and for centuries to come, not to mention the evangelisation of the Tapuyan Indians, which in itself would gain us eternity.

My friend João Elvas has just told me that you are known as the Flying Man, tell me, Father, why have they given you such a nickname, Baltasar asked him. Bartolomeu Lourenço started to move away, but the soldier pursued him and, walking two paces apart, they proceeded alongside the Arsenal de Ribeira das Naus and past the Royal Palace, and further on, when they reached Remolares, where the square opens up towards the river, the priest rested on a boulder and invited Sete-Sóis to join him and finally answered his question as if it had just been asked, They call me the Flying Man because I have flown, Baltasar was puzzled and, begging pardon for his boldness, pointed out that only birds and angels can fly, and men when they are dreaming, although there is nothing very stable about dreams, You haven’t been living in Lisbon very long, at least I don’t recall ever having seen you before, No, I was away in the war for four years, and my home is in Mafra, Well, it was two years ago that I flew, the first time I constructed a balloon it went up in flames, then I made a second balloon which landed on the palace roof, and finally I made a third balloon, which went out through a window of the Casa da India, never to be seen again, But did you fly in person or was it only the balloons that flew, Only the balloons but it was just as if I myself had flown, Surely a balloon flying is not the same thing as a man flying, A man stumbles at first, then walks, then runs, and eventually flies, Bartolomeu Lourenço replied, but suddenly he fell to his knees, because the Blessed Sacrament was being taken to some invalid of rank and importance, the priest carrying the pyx containing the Host walked under a canopy supported by six acolytes, trumpets to the fore, and members of a confraternity behind, wearing red cloaks and bearing candles in one hand as well as the religious objects required for administering the Holy Sacrament, some soul was impatient for flight and only waiting to be released from its anchorage, to be set before the wind blowing in from the high seas, from the depth of the universe, or the ultimate confines of the horizon. Sete-Sóis also knelt, resting his iron hook on the ground as he made the sign of the cross with his right hand.