The Collected Novels of José Saramago (46 page)

God has given every proof that He loves His creatures dearly. After testing their patience and constancy for many days and many kilometres by exposing them to unbearable cold and torrential rain, as we have narrated in detail, He decided to reward their faith and resignation. And since with God all things are possible, He only had to raise the atmospheric pressure and, little by little, the clouds lifted and the sun appeared, and all this took place while the ambassadors were drawing up the terms of the treaty between the two realms, a thorny business that took three days of discussion before an agreement was finally reached, and every move, gesture, and word had been carefully calculated, stage by stage, so that neither crown should be tarnished or diminished when compared with its partner. When the King set out from Elvas on the nineteenth and made his way to the River Caia, which lay immediately ahead, accompanied by the Queen and the Crown Princes and all the Infantes, the weather was perfect, with blue skies and the most agreeable sunshine. As you can imagine, everybody was there to see the pomp and splendour of this never-ending procession, the glossy curls of the braided manes of the horses pulling the coaches, the scintillating gold and silver, the alternating sounds of trumpets and kettledrums, the velvet trappings, halberdiers, cavalry troops, the religious insignia and sparkling gems, we have already admired all these sights under the rain, now we shall be able to affirm that there is nothing like sunshine to gladden the hearts of men and enhance festivities.

The people of Elvas and from all the districts for leagues around gathered by the roadside, having raced across fields to find a vantage point overlooking the river, crowds swarm the banks on either side, the Portuguese over here, the Spaniards over there, as one listens to their cheers and vivas, it is difficult to believe that we have been killing one another for centuries, so perhaps the solution would be to wed the people across the frontier to those who live here, so that any wars in future will be purely domestic since the latter are unavoidable. João Elvas has been here for three days and has found himself a good position, a view from the gallery, as it were, if such a thing existed here. Moved by some curious whim, he decided to avoid entering his native city, notwithstanding his deep longing to return. He will go when all the others have departed and he is able to wander undisturbed through the silent streets, with no rejoicing other than his own, unless it should turn to painful bitterness once he tries to retrace the paths of his youth. Thanks to this decision he was able to lend a hand with the movement of baggage and enter the house where the royal parties would meet which was built on a stone bridge that crosses the river. The house has three rooms, one on either side for the sovereigns of each nation, a third in the middle where the exchange will be made, I hereby deliver Bárbara, now hand over Mariana. No one has any idea of the problems that had to be dealt with at the last minute, it fell to João Elvas to carry the heaviest load, but just at this moment there emerged the kind nobleman whose presence had been so providential during the journey, he told João Elvas, If you could see how that house has been transformed beyond recognition, the room allotted to the Portuguese is decked out in tapestries and draperies in crimson damask with valances of gold brocade, and the same is true of our half of the room in the middle, while the other side, allotted to Castile, is adorned with strands of green-and-white brocade suspended from an ornamental branch made of solid gold, and standing in the centre of the room where the Princesses are being presented is an enormous table with seven chairs on our side of the room and seven on the Spanish side, our chairs are upholstered in gold tissue and theirs in silver, this is all I can tell you, for I saw nothing more, and now I am off, but don’t be envious, for even I may not enter there, so imagine if you can, if we should meet again one day, I will tell you what it was like, if anyone tells me first, for if we wish to find out, we must confide in one another.

It was extremely moving to watch the mothers and daughters weep, the fathers put on a severe expression to disguise their true feelings, while the betrothed couples looked out of the corner of one eye to see whether they approved or disapproved of their partners but kept their thoughts to themselves. Gathered along the river-banks, the crowds saw nothing of the proceedings, but they relied on their own experiences and memories of their own wedding days to visualise the scene, in their mind’s eye, they could see the respective parents embrace one another, the sly exchanges between the bridegrooms, and the affected blushes of the brides, now, now then, whether a man be king or commoner, there is nothing more enjoyable than a good fuck, ours is truly a nation of vulgarians.

The ceremony lasted a considerable time. The crowds gradually fell silent, as if by some miracle, the banners and standards scarcely moved in the breeze and all the soldiers turned their gaze towards the house on the bridge. The gentle strains of the sweetest music filled the air, a tinkling of tiny glass and silver bells, an arpeggio, which occasionally sounded hoarse, as if emotion was constricting the throat of harmony, What is that, a woman standing beside João Elvas inquired, and the old man replied, I’m not sure, but it could be someone playing for the pleasure of Their Sovereign Majesties and families, if my nobleman were here I should ask him, because he knows everything, after all, he is one of them. The music ends, everyone goes back where they belong, the River Caia flows quietly past, no shred of bunting remains, nor the tiniest echo of ruffling drums, and João Elvas will never know that he heard Domenico Scarlatti playing his harpsichord.

H
EADING THE PROCESSION
because of their enormous size, which makes it seem natural that they should have pride of place, are the statues of St Vincent and St Sebastian, both martyrs, although of the former’s martyrdom there is no sign other than the symbolic palm, the rest being simply the emblems of his diaconate and the heraldic raven, whereas the other saint is characteristically represented in the nude, lashed to a tree, and with the perforations of those ghastly wounds from which the arrows have been prudently removed in case they should get broken during the journey. Immediately behind come the ladies, three virtuous beauties, and most beautiful of all St Isabel, the Queen of Hungary, then St Clare, and finally St Teresa, who was an extremely passionate woman consumed by spiritual ardour, at least that is what one assumes from her actions and words, and we could assume much more if we understood the souls of the saints. The saint right next to St Clare is St Francis, and this preference comes as no surprise, for they have known each other from their days in Assisi and now they have met up with each other again on the road to Pintéus, their friendship, or whatever it was that brought them together, would count for little if they were not to resume their dialogue at the point where they left off, as we were saying. If this is the most fitting place for St Francis, since of all the saints who are represented in this parade he has the most feminine of virtues, with that soft heart and cheerful disposition, equally well placed are St Dominic and St Ignatius, both Iberian and austere, subsequently demonic, if that does not offend the Demon, if it would not be just, in the end, to say that only a saint could have invented the Inquisition and another saint the spiritual formation of souls. It is evident to anyone familiar with these subtleties, that St Francis is under suspicion.

When it comes to sanctity, however, there is something for everyone. For those who prefer a saint who devotes his time to working the land and cultivating the written word, there is St Benedict. For those who prefer their saint to lead a life of austerity, wisdom, and mortification, bring forth St Bruno. For those who admire a saint of crusading zeal capable of reviving the missionary spirit, there is none to surpass St Bernard. The three saints are placed together, perhaps because they bear a striking resemblance to one another, perhaps because their combined virtues would make an honest man, or perhaps because the names of all three saints begin with the same letter of the alphabet, it is not uncommon for people to come together because of such coincidences, this could also explain why some people known to us, like Blimunda and Baltasar, should come together, and speaking of Baltasar, he is in charge of the yoke of oxen that is carrying the statue of St John of God, the only Portuguese saint among the confraternity that disembarked from Italy at Santo António do Tojal, and is heading for Mafra, like almost everyone else we have mentioned so far in this story.

Behind St John of God, whose house in Montemor was visited more than eighteen months ago by Dom João V when he accompanied the Princess to the frontier, although we omitted to say so earlier, which shows our lack of respect for national shrines, and may the saint forgive this omission, behind St John of God, as we were saying, come half a dozen more saints of lesser glory whose many laudable attributes and virtues we do not wish to disdain, but daily experience teaches us that unless assisted by fame in this world, one cannot achieve glory in heaven, a flagrant disparity to which all of these saints are subjected and who, because of their inferior status, have to be content with names like John of Matha, Francis of Paola, Cajetan, Felix of Valois, Peter Nolasco, Philip Neri, names that sound like those of ordinary men, but they cannot complain, for each saint has his own cart and is carefully transported horizontally, like the others with five stars on a soft bed of flock, wool, and sackfuls of husks, this prevents the folds in their robes from becoming creased or their ears from getting bent, for these marble statues are fragile, despite their solid appearance, and it takes only two knocks for Venus to lose her arms. We begin to lose our memory as we confuse Bruno, Benedict, and Bernard with Baltasar and Blimunda, and we forget Bartolomeu de Gusmão or Lourenço, whichever form you prefer, but who is never to be readily dismissed. For, as the saying truly goes, Woe to the man who dies, twice woe, unless there be some true or false sanctity to save him.

We have already passed Pintéus, and we are on our way to Fanhões with eighteen statues loaded on eighteen carts and the appropriate number of oxen, and a vast number of men handling the ropes, as already mentioned, but this expedition cannot be compared to the one that transported the Benediction stone, the stone for the balcony from where the Patriarch will give his blessing, these things can happen only once in a lifetime, and if human ingenuity did not invent means of rendering difficult things easy, it would have been preferable to leave the world in its primitive state. The people line the route to greet the procession as it passes, they are all surprised to see the saints lying down, and with good reason, for surely it would have been much nicer and more edifying to see the holy statues standing upright on the carts, as if they were on litters, then even the smallest of the statues, which are under three metres high, our own height, in fact, would have been seen from a distance, and you can imagine the impact of the two statues in front, St Vincent and St Sebastian, which are almost five metres high, two mighty giants, two Christian Hercules and champions of the faith, looking down from their great height over the terraces and crests of the olive groves at the vast world, for them this would truly be a religion comparable with those of ancient Rome and Greece. The procession came to a halt in Fanhões because the local inhabitants insisted upon knowing, name by name, who the various saints were, for it was not every day that they received, even if only in transit, visitors of such corporeal and spiritual stature, the daily transport of building materials is one thing, but quite another was the sight witnessed several weeks ago, when an interminable convoy of bells went past, over a hundred of which will ring out from the bell towers of Mafra, the imperishable memory of these events, and yet another is this sacred pantheon. The local parish priest was summoned to identify the saints, but his answers were not entirely satisfactory, because not all of the statues had the saint’s name clearly inscribed on the pedestal, and in many instances the name was all the parish priest could provide, it is one thing to recognise immediately that this is St Sebastian and quite another to recite from memory, Beloved brethren, the saint you see here is St Felix of Valois, who was a disciple of St Bernard, who is up there in front, and who established, together with St John of Matha who is at the back there, the Order of Trinitarians, which was founded to rescue slaves from the clutches of the infidels, just think of the edifying tales that help strengthen our holy faith, Ha ha ha, laugh the inhabitants of Fanhûes, And when will orders be given to rescue slaves from the clutches of the faithful, Reverend Prior.

Anxious to extricate himself, the priest went to the governor in charge of the expedition and asked to be allowed to consult the documents of exportation that had come from Italy, a cunning move that helped him recover his shaken confidence, and soon the inhabitants of Fanhûes were watching their ignorant pastor mounted on the churchyard wall and heard him read aloud the blessed names of the saints in the order they went past on the carts, right down to the very last saint, who chanced to be St Cajetan, on a cart drawn by José Pequeno, who smiled as much at the applause as at those who were applauding. But, then, José Pequeno is a mischievous fellow who has been justly punished, by God or the devil, with that hump he carries on his back, but it must have been God who punished him, because there is no proof that the devil has any such powers over the human body in this life. The spectacle is over and the procession of saints is now on its way to Cabeço de Monte Achique, Have a good journey.