The Collected Novels of José Saramago (281 page)

At last, Senhor José got out of bed, put his feet in his slippers and drew on the dressing gown that he also used as an extra blanket on cold nights. Although gripped by hunger, he opened the door and looked out into the Central Registry. He could feel within himself a strange boldness, a feeling of absence, as if many days had passed since the last time he had been there. Nothing had changed though, there was the long counter where they dealt with petitioners and supplicants, beneath them the drawers where they kept the index cards of the living, then the eight tables for the clerks, the four for the senior clerks, the two for the deputies, the large desk belonging to the Registrar with the light above it still on, the huge shelves reaching up as far as the ceiling, the petrified darkness on the side inhabited by the dead. Although there was no one in the Central Registry, Senhor José locked the door, there was no one in the Central Registry, but still he locked the door. Thanks to the new plasters that the nurse had put on his knees, he could walk more easily, the dressing no longer pulled on his wounds. He sat down at the table, undid the package, there were two pans, one on top of the other, first the soup and below it a dish of meat and potatoes, still warm. He ate the soup eagerly, then, unhurriedly, finished off the meat and potatoes. I’m lucky to have a boss like him, he murmured, remembering the nurse’s words, if it weren’t for him, I’d be stuck here dying of hunger and neglect, like a lost dog. Yes, I’m lucky, he repeated, as if he needed to convince himself of what he had just said. Feeling restored, he returned to bed, first visiting the cubicle that served as his bathroom. He was just about to fall asleep when he remembered the notebook in which he had set down the first stages of his search. I’ll write it tomorrow, he said, but this new urgency was almost as pressing as that of eating, which was why he went to fetch the notebook. Then, sitting on the bed, wearing his dressing gown, his pyjama jacket buttoned up to the neck and bundled up in blankets, he picked up the story where he had left off. The Registrar said to me, If you’re not ill, how do you explain the poor work you’ve been doing recently, I don’t know, sir, perhaps it’s because I haven’t been sleeping well. Assisted by his fever, he continued writing long into the night.

It took not three days but a week for Senhor José’s fever to subside and for his cough to get better. The nurse came every day to give him an injection and to bring him some food, the doctor came every other day, but this extraordinary assiduousness, on the doctor’s part that is, should not lead us to any hasty conclusions about some imagined standard of efficiency among health officials and home visits, since it was quite simply the consequence of a clear-cut order from the head of the Central Registry, Doctor, treat that man as if you were treating me, he’s important. The doctor did not understand the reasons behind this evidently favoured treatment that he was being asked to administer, still less the lack of objectivity of the value judgement expressed, he had occasionally visited the Registrar’s own house for professional reasons, and he had seen his comfortable, civilised way of life, an inner world that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the rough hovel of this permanently ill-shaven Senhor José who appeared not even to have a change of sheets. Senhor José did have sheets, he wasn’t that poor, but, for reasons known only to him, he rejected out of hand the nurse’s offer to air the mattress for him and replace the sheets, for they stank of sweat and fever, It’ll only take me five minutes and the bed will be like new, No, I’m fine as I am, don’t worry, It’s all part of my job you know, Like I said, I’m fine as I am. Senhor José could not reveal to anyone’s eyes that he was hiding between the mattress and the base of the bed the school records of an unknown woman and a notebook containing the story of his break-in at the school where she had studied as both a child and a young girl. To put them somewhere else, amid the files he used for his clippings about famous people, for example, would immediately resolve the difficulty, but the sense of defending a secret with his own body was too strong, too thrilling even, for Senhor José to give it up. In order not to have to discuss the matter again with the nurse, or with the doctor, who, although he made no comment, had already cast a critical glance over the crumpled sheets and visibly wrinkled his nose at the smell, Senhor José got up one night and, making a supreme effort, he himself changed the sheets. And so as not to give either the doctor or the nurse the slightest excuse to reopen the matter and, who knows, go and report the clerks incorrigible lack of hygiene to the Registrar, he went to the bathroom, shaved and washed as best he could, then took an old but clean pair of pyjamas from a drawer and went back to bed. He felt so pleased with himself and so restored that, like someone playing a game with himself, he decided to set down in his notebook an explicit, detailed account of all the hygienic preparations and treatments he had just put himself through. His health was returning, as the doctor was quick to tell the Registrar The man is cured in another two days he can go back to work without any danger of a relapse. The Registrar said only Good but with distracted air as if he “were thinking about something else.

Senhor José was cured, but he had lost a lot of weight, despite the bread and victuals brought regularly by the nurse, albeit only once a day, but quite sufficient in quantity to maintain an adult body not subject to any exertions. One has to bear in mind, however, the debilitating effect of fever and prolonged sweating on the adipose tissues, especially when, as in this case, there wasn’t much of them to start with. Personal remarks were frowned upon in the Central Registry, especially if in any way connected with people’s state of health, which is why Senhor José’s frail appearance and extreme thinness were not the object of any comment on the part of colleagues or superiors, that is, of any spoken comments, for the way they looked at him was fairly eloquent in their common expression of a kind of scornful commiseration, which other people, unfamiliar with the customs of the place, would have erroneously interpreted as a discreet and silent reserve. So that people would see how troubled he was to have been absent from work for so many days, Senhor José was first in Une at the door of the Central Registry in the morning, awaiting the arrival of the newest deputy, whose job it was to open the door and to close it at the end of the day. The original key, a real work of art by an old Baroque engraver, as well as a physical symbol of authority, of which the deputy’s key was merely an austere, inferior copy, was in the possession of the Registrar, though he apparently never used it, either because of the weight and complexity of the design, which made it awkward to carry around, or because, according to some unwritten hierarchical protocol, in effect since the remotest of times, he always had to be the last to enter the building. One of the many mysteries of life in the Central Registry, which really would be worth investigating if the matter of Senhor José and the unknown woman had not absorbed all our attention, was how the staff, despite the traffic jams afflicting the city, always managed to arrive at work in the same order, first the clerks, regardless of length of service, then the deputy who opened the door, then the senior clerks, in order of precedence, then the oldest deputy and, finally, the Registrar, who arrives when he has to arrive and does not have to answer to anyone. Anyway, the fact stands recorded.

The feeling of scornful commiseration which, as we have said, greeted Senhor José’s return to work, lasted until the arrival of the Registrar, half an hour after the office had opened, and
was instantly replaced by a feeling of envy, understandable in the circumstances, but, fortunately, not manifested in words or deeds. What else could one expect, the human soul being what we know it to be, though we cannot claim to know everything. A rumour had been going around the Central Registry, slipping in through the back door, so to speak, and whispered in corners, that the Registrar had been unusually concerned about Senhor José’s bout of flu, even going so far as to have the nurse bring him food, as well as visiting him in his house at least once, and during office hours too, in front of everyone, who knows, he may well have visited him again. It is easy, therefore, to imagine the suppressed outrage, in every rank, when the Registrar, even before going to his own desk, stopped beside Senhor José and asked him if he was now completely recovered from his illness. The outrage was all the greater because this was the second time it had happened, they could all remember that other occasion, not so long ago, when the boss had asked Senhor José if his insomnia had improved, as if Senhor José’s insomnia was, as far as the normal running of the Central Registry was concerned, a matter of life or death. Hardly able to credit what they were hearing, the staff witnessed a conversation between equals, utterly absurd however you looked at it, with Senhor José thanking the Registrar for his kindness, even referring openly to the food, which, in the strict atmosphere of the Central Registry, had. all the force of a profanity an obscenity and the Registrar explaining that he couldn’t possibly have abandoned him to the wretched fate of those who live alone without having anyone to give him a bowl of soup and smooth his sheets. Loneliness, Senhor José, declared the Registrar solemnly never made for good company all the great sadnesses, great temptations and great mistakes are almost always the result of being alone in life without a prudent friend to advise us when we are troubled by something more serious than our normal everyday problems, Well I don’t know
that I would say I was actually sad, sir, replied Senhor José, perhaps I am rather melancholy by nature, but that’s hardly a defect, and as for temptations, well, I have to say that I am little inclined to them either by my age or my circumstances, I mean, I don’t seek them out and they don’t seek me, And what about mistakes, Are you referring to mistakes at work, sir, No, I’m referring to mistakes in general, mistakes at work are departmental mistakes which the department ultimately resolves, All I can say is that I’ve never harmed anyone, at least not knowingly, And what about mistakes committed against yourself, I must have made many of those, perhaps that’s why I’m alone, In order to make more mistakes, Only those born of loneliness, sir. Senhor José, who, as was his duty, had got to his feet as the Registrar approached, suddenly felt his legs buckle and a wave of sweat sweep over his body. He went pale, his hands anxiously sought the support of his desk, but that support was not enough, Senhor José had to sit down on his chair, murmuring, Excuse me, sir, excuse me. The Registrar regarded him for some seconds with an impenetrable look on his face and went to his desk. He called over the deputy responsible for Senhor José’s section and gave him a muttered order, adding, more audibly, There’s no need to go through the official channels, which meant that the instructions the deputy had just received, intended for a clerk, should, against all the rules, customs and traditions, be carried out by himself. The hierarchical chain had been subverted once before, when the Registrar had ordered this same deputy to take Senhor José the pills, but that infraction could be justified by the suspicion that the senior clerk responsible would prove incapable of satisfactorily carrying out the mission which consisted not so much in taking a few anti-flu tablets to a sick man as having a look around the house and reporting back. A senior clerk would find the damp stain on the floor perfectly acceptable that is unremarkable and easily explained by the wintry weather they had been
having at the time, and would probably not even have noticed the record cards on the bedside table, he would return to the Central Registry in the happy belief that he had done his duty, declaring to the Registrar, Nothing unusual to report, sir. It must be said, however, that the two deputies, and this one in particular, more direcdy involved in the process by his active participation in it, realised that the Registrar’s behaviour was determined by an objective, a strategy, a central idea. They couldn’t imagine what that idea or objective might be, but all their experience and knowledge of their boss told them that, in this affair, every word and every deed must inevitably point to one end, and that Senhor José, placed by his own actions or by a chance circumstance on the path towards that end, either was merely an unwittingly useful instrument or was himself its unexpected and entirely surprising cause. Such opposing arguments, such contradictory feelings, meant that the order, from the tone in which it was subsequently communicated to Senhor José, sounded far more like a favour the Registrar had ordered to be asked of him than the clear, categorical instruction that had effectively been issued, Senhor José, said the deputy, the Registrar is of the opinion that, given your fainting fit of a moment ago, your health is not suffciently recovered for you to come to work, It wasn’t a fainting fit, I didn’t lose consciousness, it was just a momentary weakness, Well, weakness or fainting fit, momentary or lasting, what the Central Registry wants is for you to make a complete recovery, I’ll work sitting down as much as I can, in a few days’ time I’ll be right as rain, The Registrar thinks it would be best if you took a short holiday, not your whole twenty days, of course, perhaps ten, ten days to rest and regain your strength, take it easy, go for a few strolls round the city, there are gardens to visit, parks, and the weather’s glorious just now, a proper period of convalescence, we won’t even recognise you when you come back. Senhor José looked at the deputy in amazement, this really wasn’t the kind
of conversation a deputy had with a mere clerk, there was something almost indecent about it. Obviously the Registrar wanted him to go on holiday, which was, in itself, intriguing, but, as if that were not enough, he was showing an unusual, indeed disproportionate, interest in his health. None of this corresponded to the usual patterns of behaviour in the Central Registry, where holiday plans were always calculated with meticulous precision in order to achieve, by pondering multiple factors, some of which were known only to the Registrar, a fair distribution of the time set aside for annual leisure. It was unheard of for the Registrar to ignore the plans already made for the current year and simply send a clerk home. Senhor José was confused, you could see it in his face. He could sense his colleagues’ perplexed eyes on his back, he could feel the deputy’s growing impatience with what must seem to him baseless indecision, and he was about to say, Yes, sir, like someone simply obeying an order, when suddenly his face lit up, he had just seen what those ten days of freedom could mean, ten days during which he could carry out his investigations without being tied down to the servitude of work, to a timetable, never mind about parks, gardens or convalescence, God bless whoever invented flu, and so Senhor José smiled when he said, Yes, sir, he should have been more discreet in the way he expressed himself, you never know what a deputy might go and tell the boss, In my opinion, he reacted very strangely, first, he seemed upset, or as if he hadn’t quite understood what I’d said, then, it was as if he’d won first prize in the lottery, he didn’t seem the same person, Do you have any evidence that he’s a gambling man, I don’t think so, it was just a manner of speaking, Then there must be some other reason. Senhor José was already saying to the deputy, It would really suit me to have a few days off, I must thank the Registrar, I’ll pass your thanks on to him, Perhaps I should do it personally You know perfectly well that is not the custom Nevertheless, considering the exceptional nature of the matter, and having said those, bureaucratically speaking, most pertinent of words, Senhor José turned to where the Registrar was sitting, he wasn’t expecting him to be looking in his direction, still less that he would have heard the whole conversation, which was what he doubtless intended to indicate with that abrupt gesture of the hand, at once bored and imperious, No ridiculous words of gratitude, please, just fill out the form and leave.