The Collected Novels of José Saramago (329 page)

Cipriano Algor looked at his watch when he reached floor zero five again. It was half past four. The service elevator carried him up to the thirty-fourth floor. No one had seen him. Marta silently opened the door to him, and closed it equally carefully, How’s Marçal, she asked, Don’t worry, he’s all right, believe me, you’ve got a fine husband there, So what have they found, Let me sit down first, I feel as if I’d taken a real beating, I’m too old for this kind of thing, So what have they found, Marta asked again when they had both sat down, There are six dead people there, three men and three women, That doesn’t surprise me, that was exactly what I thought, that it must be human remains, it often happens during excavations, what I don’t understand is why all this mystery, all this secrecy, all this security, the bones won’t run away, and I shouldn’t think stealing them would be worth the effort, If you had gone with me, you would understand, in fact you’ve still got time, What nonsense, You wouldn’t think it was nonsense if you had seen what I saw, What did you see, who are those people, Those people are us, said Cipriano Algor, What do you mean, That they are us, me, you, Marçal, the whole Center, probably the world, Explain yourself, please, Pay attention and listen. The story took half an hour to be told. Marta listened without interrupting him once. At the end, all she said was, Yes, I think you’re right, they are us. They did not speak again until Marçal arrived. When he came in, Marta hugged him hard, What are we going to do, she asked, but Marçal did not have time to respond. In a firm voice, Cipriano Algor was saying, You must decide what to do with your own lives, but I’m leaving.

Your things are here, said Marta, there wasn’t very much, it all fitted easily into the smallest suitcase, anyone would think you knew you were going to be here for only three weeks, There comes a time in life when it should be enough simply to be able to carry one’s own body on one’s back, said Cipriano Algor, Fine words, but what I want to know is what you’re going to live on, Consider the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin, More fine words, but that’s why they never got to be anything else but lilies, You’re a rabid skeptic, a disgusting cynic, Pa, please, I’m serious, Sorry, Look, I know it’s been a shock for you, as it was for me, and I wasn’t even there, I understand that those men and those women are far more than just dead people, Don’t go on, it’s precisely because they are far more than just dead people that I don’t want to continue living here, And what about us, what about me, asked Marta, You must decide for yourselves what to do with your lives, as for me, I’ve already made my decision, and I’m not going to spend the rest of my days tied to a stone bench, staring at a wall, But how will you live, Well, I’ve got the money they paid for the figurines, that will last me a month or two, then I’ll see, Yes, but I wasn’t talking about money, one way or another you’ll have enough to feed and clothe yourself, what I mean is that you’ll have to live on your own, I’ve got Found, and you’ll come and visit me now and then, Pa, What, What about Isaura, What’s Isaura got to do with this, You told me that the situation between you had changed, you didn’t say how or why, but that’s what you said, And it’s true, So, So what, Well, you could live together. Cipriano Algor did not reply. He picked up his suitcase, I’ll be off then, he said. His daughter embraced him, We’ll come and see you on Marçal’s next day off, but stay in touch, phone me when you get there to tell me how the house is, and Found, don’t forget about Found. With one foot out of the door, Cipriano Algor said, Give Marçal a hug from me, You already gave him a hug, you’ve already said your good-byes, Yes, but give him another hug. When he reached the end of the corridor, he turned. His daughter was standing there at the door, she waved with one hand, at the same time covering her mouth with the other to keep herself from crying. See you soon, he said, but she didn’t hear him. The service elevator took him down to the garage, now he just had to find where the van was parked and see if it would start after three weeks without moving, sometimes the batteries die. That’s all I need, he thought anxiously. But his fears did not materialize, the van fulfilled its obligations. True, it did not start the first or the second time, but the third time it roared into action with a noise worthy of another engine entirely. Minutes later, Cipriano Algor was driving down the avenue, he didn’t exactly have the open road before him, but things could have been worse, despite its slowness, it was the traffic itself that was actually carrying him along. He wasn’t surprised that the traffic was so heavy, cars love Sundays and for the owner of a car it is almost impossible to resist the so-called psychological pressure, the car just has to be there, it doesn’t need to speak. At last, he left the city behind him, along with the suburbs, soon the shantytowns will appear, will they have reached the road in those three weeks, no, they still have another thirty or so meters to go, and then there’s the Industrial Belt, almost at a standstill, apart from a few factories that seem to have made a religion out of continuous production, and now the grim Green Belt, the dismal, grubby, gray hothouses, that’s why the strawberries are losing their color, it won’t be long before they are as white outside as they are beginning to be inside, which is why they taste like something that tastes of nothing. On our left, in the distance, where you can see those trees, that’s right, the ones clumped together like a bouquet, there is an important archaeological site yet to explore, I have it from a reliable source, it’s not every day that you’re lucky enough to get such information straight from the maker’s mouth. Cipriano Algor wondered how he could possibly have let himself be shut up inside for three weeks without being able to see the sun or the stars, except by dint of craning his neck at the sealed window of a thirty-fourth-floor flat, when he had this river, smelly and shrunken it’s true, this bridge, old and dilapidated it’s true, and these ruins that were once people’s houses, and the village where he had been born, grown up and worked, with its street down the middle and the square off to one side, those people there, that man and that woman, are Marçal’s parents, this is the first time we have seen them in this whole long story, looking at them now no one would ever think that they were as black as they’ve been painted, even though they have given more than enough proof that they are, this is the dangerous thing about appearances, when they deceive us, it’s always for the worse. Cipriano Algor stuck his arm out of the window and waved to them as if they were his best friends, it would have been better if he hadn’t really, now they will probably think he was making fun of them, and he wasn’t, that wasn’t his intention at all, it’s just that Cipriano Algor is happy, in three minutes’ time, he will see Isaura and have Found in his arms, or, rather, have Isaura in his arms and Found leaping up at them, waiting for them both to give him some attention. He passed the square, and suddenly, without warning, Cipriano Algor’s heart contracted, he knows from experience, they both do, that no amount of sweetness today can diminish the bitterness of tomorrow, that the water of this fountain will never be able to slake your thirst in that desert, I don’t have a job, I don’t have a job, he murmured, and that was the answer he should have given, with no frills and no subterfuges, when Marta asked him what he was going to live on, I don’t have a job. On this same road, at this same place, as he had on the day when he came back from the Center with the news that they would not be buying any more crockery from him, Cipriano Algor slowed the van. He wanted both not to arrive and to have arrived already, and between one thing and another there he was at the corner of the street where Isaura Madruga lives, it’s that house over there, suddenly the van was in a terrible hurry, suddenly it stopped, suddenly Cipriano Algor burst out of it, suddenly he went up the steps, suddenly he rang the bell. He rang once, twice, three times. No one came to open the door, no one called out from inside, Isaura did not appear, Found did not bark, the desert that had been due tomorrow had arrived early. They should both be here, it’s Sunday, there’s no work, he thought. Disconcerted, he went back to the van and sat with his arms folded on the wheel, the normal thing would be to go and ask the neighbors, but he had never liked other people knowing about his life, indeed, when we ask about someone else, we are saying much more about ourselves than we might imagine, luckily for us, most people when questioned don’t have their ears trained to pick up what lies hidden behind such innocent words as these, Have you by any chance seen Isaura Madruga. Two minutes later, after further consideration, he recognized that sitting parked and waiting outside the house must have looked just as suspicious as if he had gone nonchalantly over to ask the first neighbor if she had happened to notice Isaura going out. I’ll go for a drive around, he thought, I might come across them. The drive around the village proved fruitless, Isaura and Found appeared to have vanished from the face of the earth. Cipriano Algor decided to go home, he would try again later that afternoon, They must have gone somewhere, he thought. The van’s engine sang the homecoming song, the driver could already see the highest branches of the mulberry tree, and suddenly, like a black flash, Found appeared at the top and came running and barking down the hill like a mad thing, Cipriano Algor’s heart was a beat away from stopping, not because of the dog, however much he loves the creature, he wouldn’t go that far, but because he realized that Found would not be alone, and that, if he wasn’t alone, only one person in the world could possibly be with him. He opened the van door, the dog leaped up at him, into his arms, so he was, after all, the first to be embraced, licking his face and blocking his view of the path, at the top of which appears an astonished Isaura Madruga, stop everything now, please, don’t anyone speak, don’t anyone move, don’t anyone interfere, this is the really moving bit, the van driving up the hill, the woman who took two steps and then could go no farther, see how she has her hands pressed to her breast, see Cipriano Algor who climbed out of the van as if stepping into a dream, see Found, who follows behind, getting caught up in his master’s legs, although nothing bad will happen, that’s all we need, having one of the principal characters stumble inaesthetically at the culminating moment, this embrace and this kiss, these kisses and these embraces, how often must we remind you that this same devouring love is begging to be devoured, it was always thus, always, we just notice it more at some times than at others. In an interval between two kisses, Cipriano Algor asked, What are you doing here, but Isaura did not answer at once, there were other kisses to give and to receive, as urgent as the very first kiss, then she found enough breath to say, Found ran away on the day you left, he dug a hole under the garden hedge and came here, and I couldn’t get him to leave, he was determined to wait for you until who knows when, so I thought it best to leave him here and to bring him food and water and keep him company sometimes, not that I think he needed it. Cipriano Algor felt in his pockets for the key to the house, while he was still thinking and imagining, Let’s both go in, let’s go in together, and he actually had the key in his hand when he saw that the door was open, which is how doors should be when someone arrives back after a long journey, he didn’t need to ask why, Isaura explained calmly, Marta left me a key so that I could come and air the house occasionally, get rid of the dust, and so, what with Found being here, I started coming every day, in the morning, before going to the shop, and in the afternoon, when I finished work. She seemed to have something else to add, but her lips closed firmly as if to bolt the door on those words, You will not come out, they ordered, the words, however, regrouped, joined forces, and all that modesty could do was to make Isaura bow her head and lower her voice to a murmur, One night, I slept in your bed, she said. Now let us make something quite clear, this man is a potter and therefore a manual laborer, with no elevated intellectual and artistic training apart from that required to carry out his profession, a man of more than mature years, brought up in an age when it was normal for people to repress their individual feelings and, indeed, other people’s feelings too, to damp down any expressions of emotion or any bodily desires, and although it is true that not many in his social and cultural milieu could best him when it came to sensitivity and intelligence, however energetically he might be striding toward the house where this equivocal act took place, hearing suddenly like that, from the mouth of a woman with whom he had never lain in intimacy, that she had slept in his bed, would be sure to stop him in his tracks, to make him stare in amazement at this bold creature, men, let us confess at once, will never understand women, fortunately, though without quite knowing how, this man managed to discover in the midst of his confusion the exact words that the occasion called for, And you will never sleep in any other. This phrase was just as it should be, the whole effect would have been lost had he said, for example, like someone putting their signature to a mutually advantageous agreement, Right, then, since you’ve slept in my bed, I’ll go and sleep in yours. Isaura had embraced Cipriano Algor again after what he had said, and it is not hard to imagine the enthusiasm with which she did so, but he had a sudden thought in which his feelings of passion apparently had no part, I forgot to take my suitcase out of the van, was what he said. Not foreseeing the consequences of this prosaic act, with Found bounding at his heels, he opened the van door and took out the suitcase. He had the first inkling of what was going to happen when he went into the kitchen, the second when he went into his bedroom, but he was only absolutely certain when Isaura, in a voice that struggled to remain steady, asked him, Have you come back for good. The suitcase was on the floor, waiting for someone to open it, but that operation, though necessary, can be left until later. Cipriano Algor closed the door. There are such moments in life, when, in order for heaven to open, it is necessary for a door to close. Half an hour later, at peace now, like a beach from which the tide is retreating, Cipriano Algor told her what had happened at the Center, the discovery of the cave, the imposition of secrecy, the increased security, his visit to the excavation site, the blackness inside, the fear, the dead people tied to the stone bench, the ashes of the bonfire. At first, when she had seen him coming up the hill in the van, Isaura had thought that Cipriano was coming home because he had been unable to stand the separation and absence any longer, and that idea, as you can imagine, warmed her yearning lover’s heart, but now, with her head resting in the hollow of his arm, feeling his hand on her waist, the two reasons seem to her equally right, and besides, if we take the trouble to observe that in at least one respect, that of unbearability, both reasons touch and become one, there is clearly no evidence that the two reasons are in fact mutually contradictory. Isaura Madruga is not particularly well-versed in ancient stories and mythological inventions, but it took only three simple words for her to grasp the essence. Although we already know what those words are, we lose nothing by writing them down again, They were us.