The Collected Novels of José Saramago (136 page)

God was about to rejoice, to rise to His feet and embrace His beloved son, when Jesus stopped Him with a gesture and said, On one condition. You know perfectly well you cannot set conditions, God replied angrily. Then let’s call it a plea rather than a condition, the simple plea of a man sentenced to death. Tell me. You are God and therefore can speak only the truth when asked a question, and being God, You know the past, the present, what lies between them, and what the future will bring. That is so, I am time, truth, and life. Then tell me, in the name of all You claim to be, what will the future bring after my death, what will it contain that it would not had I refused to sacrifice myself to Your dissatisfaction and desire to reign far and wide. As if trapped by His own words, God made a halfhearted attempt to shrug this off, Now then, son, the future is infinite and would take a long time to summarize. How long have we been out here in the middle of the lake, surrounded by mist, asked Jesus, a day, a month, a year, well then, let’s stay another year, month, or day, allow the devil to leave if he wants to, for in any case his share is guaranteed, and if the benefits are proportional, as seems just, the more God prospers, the more the devil prospers. I’m staying, said Pastor, and these were the first words he spoke since revealing his identity. I’m staying, he said a second time, and added, I myself can see things in the future, but I’m not always certain if what I see there is true or false, in other words I can see my lies for what they are, that is, my truths, but I don’t know to what extent the truths of others are their lies. This tortuous statement might have been clearer had Pastor said something more about the future he saw, but he abruptly fell silent, as if he had already said too much. Jesus, who kept his eyes on God, said with wistful irony, Why pretend not to know what You know, You realized I would ask this question, and You know very well You will tell me what I want to hear, so postpone no longer my time of dying. You began dying the moment you were born. True, but now I die all the sooner. God looked at Jesus with an expression which in a person we would describe as respectful, His whole manner became human, and although the one thing did not appear to have anything to do with the other, the mist came nearer the boat, surrounded it like a wall to keep from the world God’s words about the consequences of the sacrifice of Jesus, who He claims is His son, with Mary, but whose real father is Joseph, if we go by the unwritten law that tells us to believe only in what we see, although as everyone knows, we mortals do not always see things in the same way, and this has undoubtedly helped preserve the relative sanity of the species.

God said, There will be a church, a religious society founded
by you or in your name, which comes to the same thing, and this church will spread throughout the world and be called Catholic, because universal, although sadly this will not prevent discord and misunderstanding among those who see you, rather than Me, as their spiritual leader, which will last no more than several thousand years, for I was here before you and will continue to be here after you cease to be what you are and what you will be. Speak more clearly, said Jesus. It’s impossible, said God, human words are like shadows, and shadows cannot explain light, and between shadow and light stands the opaque body from which words are born. I asked You about the future. It’s the future I speak about. What I want to know is how the men who come after me will live. Are you referring to your followers. Yes, will they be happier. Not in the true sense of the word, but they will have the hope of achieving happiness up in heaven, where I reign for all eternity and where they hope to live eternally with Me. Is that all. Surely it is no small thing to live with God. Small, great, or everything, we will only know at the day of final judgment, when You judge men according to the good or evil they have done, until then You reside alone in heaven. My angels and archangels keep Me company. But You have no human beings there. True, and you must be crucified in order that they come to Me. I want to know more, said Jesus, trying hard to shut out the mental image of himself hanging from a cross, covered with blood, dead, How will people come to believe in me and follow me, surely what I say to them or what those who come after me say to them in my name will not be enough, take the Gentiles and Romans, for example, who worship other gods, You don’t expect me to believe they will give them up just like that to worship me. Not to worship you but to worship Me. But did You not say that You and me amounts to the same thing, let us not play with words, however, just answer my question. Whoever has faith will come to us. Just like that, as easily as You’ve just said. The other gods will resist. And You will fight them, of course. Don’t be absurd, war occurs only on earth, heaven is eternal and peaceful, and men will fulfill their destiny wherever they may be. You mean men will die for You and for me. Men have always died for gods, even for false and lying gods. Can gods lie. They can. And You are the one and only true god among them. Yes, the one and only true god. Yet You are unable to prevent men from dying for You when they should have been born to live for You on earth rather than in heaven, where You have none of life’s joys to offer them. Those joys too are false, for they come from original sin, ask your friend Pastor, he’ll explain what happened. If there are any secrets You and the devil do not share, I hope one of them is what I learned from him, even though he says I learned nothing. There was silence, God and the devil faced each other for the first time, both giving the impression of being about to speak, but they didn’t. Jesus said, I’m waiting. For what, asked God, as if distracted. For You to tell me how much death and suffering Your victory over other gods will cause, how much death and suffering will be needed in the battles men fight in Your name and mine. You insist on knowing. I do.

Very well then, the church I mentioned will be established, but its foundation, in order to be truly solid, will be dug in flesh, its walls made from the cement of renunciation, tears, agony, anguish, every conceivable form of death. At long last You speak so I can understand, go on. Let’s start with someone you know and love, the fisherman Simon, whom you will call Peter, like you, he will be crucified, but upside down, Andrew too will be crucified, on a cross in the shape of an X, the son of Zebedee known as James will be beheaded. What about John, and Mary Magdalene. They will die of natural causes when their time comes, but you will make other friends, disciples, and apostles who will not escape torture, such as Philip, who
will be tied to a cross and stoned to death, Bartholomew, who will be skinned alive, Thomas, who will be speared to death, Matthew, the details of whose death I no longer remember, another Simon, who will be sawed in half, Judas, who will be beaten to death, James stoned, Matthias beheaded with an ax, also Judas Iscariot hanged from a fig tree by his own hand. Are all these men to die because of You, asked Jesus. If you phrase the question that way, the answer is yes, they will die for My sake. And then what. Then, My son, as I’ve already told you, there follows an endless tale of iron and blood, of fire and ashes, an infinite sea of sorrow and tears. Tell me, I want to know everything. God sighed, and in the monotonous tone of one who chooses to suppress compassion He began a litany, in alphabetical order so as not to hurt any feelings about precedence and importance, Adalbert of Prague put to death with a seven-pronged pikestaff, Adrian hammered to death over an anvil, Afra of Augsburg burned at the stake, Agapitus of Praeneste burned at the stake hanging by his feet, Agnes of Rome disemboweled, Agricola of Bologna crucified and impaled on nails, Agueda of Sicily stabbed six times, Alphege of Canterbury beaten to death with the shinbone of an ox, Anastasia of Sirmium burned at the stake and her breasts cut off, Anastasius of Salona strung up on the gallows and decapitated, Ansanus of Siena his entrails ripped out, Antonius of Pamiers drawn and quartered, Antony of Rivoli stoned and burned alive, Apollinaris of Ravenna clubbed to death, Apollonia of Alexandria burned at the stake after her teeth had been knocked out, Augusta of Treviso decapitated and burned at the stake, Aurea of Ostia drowned with a millstone around her neck, Aurea of Syria bled to death by being forced onto a chair covered with nails, Auta shot with arrows, Babylas of Antioch decapitated, Barbara of Nicomedia likewise, Barnabas of Cyprus stoned and burned at the stake, Beatrice of Rome strangled, Benignus of Dijon speared to death, Blaise of
Sebaste thrown onto iron spikes, Blandina of Lyons gored by a savage bull, Callistus put to death with a millstone around his neck, Cassian of Imola stabbed with a dagger by his disciples, Castulus buried alive, Catherine of Alexandria decapitated, Cecilia of Rome beheaded, Christina of Bolsena tortured repeatedly with millstones tongs, arrows, and snakes, Clarus of Nastes decapitated, Clarus of Vienne likewise, Clement drowned with an anchor around his neck, Crispin and Crispinian of Soissons both decapitated, Cucuphas of Barcelona disemboweled, Cyprian of Carthage beheaded, young Cyricus of Tarsus killed by a judge who knocked his head against the stairs of the tribunal, and on reaching the end of the letter C, God said, And so on, it’s all much the same, with a few variations and an occasional refinement which would take forever to explain, so let’s leave it at that. No, continue, said Jesus, so reluctantly God continued, abbreviating wherever possible, Donatus of Arezzo decapitated, Eliphius of Rampillon scalped, Emerita burned alive, Emilian of Trevi decapitated, Emmeramus of Regensburg tied to a ladder and put to death, Engratia of Saragossa decapitated, Erasmus of Gaeta also called Elmo stretched on a windlass, Escubiculus beheaded, Eskil of Sweden stoned to death, Eulalia of Merida decapitated, Euphemia of Chalcedon put to the sword, Eutropius of Saintes beheaded with an ax, Fabian stabbed and spiked, Faith of Agen beheaded, Félicitas and seven sons beheaded with a sword, Felix and his brother Adauctus likewise, Ferreolus of Besançon decapitated, Fidelis of Sigmaringen beaten to death with a spiked club, Firminus of Pamplona beheaded, Flavia Domitilla likewise, Fortunas of Evora probably met the same fate, Fructoasus of Tarragon burned at the stake, Gaudentius of France decapitated, Gelasius likewise with iron spikes, Gengolf of Burgundy assassinated by his wife’s lover, Gerard Sagreda of Budapest speared to death, Gerean of Cologne decapitated, the twins Gervase and Protase likewise, Godleva
and Ghistelles strangled, Gratus of Aosta decapitated, Hermenegild clubbed to death, Hero stabbed with a sword, Hippolytus dragged to his death by a horse, Ignatius of Azevedo murdered by the Calvinists, who are not Catholics, Januarius of Naples decapitated after being thrown to wild beasts and then into a furnace, Joan of Arc burned at the stake, John de Britto beheaded, John Fisher decapitated, John of Nepomuk drowned in the river Vltava, John of Prado stabbed in the head, Julia of Corsica whose breasts were cut off before she was crucified, Juliana of Nicomedia decapitated, Justa and Ruffina of Seville the former killed on the wheel and the latter strangled, Justina of Antioch thrown into a caldron of boiling tar and then beheaded, Justus and Pastor, not our Pastor but the one from Alcalá de Henares, decapitated, Kilian of Würzburg decapitated, Lawrence burned on a gridiron, Léger of Autun decapitated after his eyes and tongue were torn out, Leocadia of Toledo thrown to her death from a high cliff, Livinus of Ghent decapitated after his tongue was torn out, Longinus decapitated, Lucy of Syracuse beheaded after having her eyes plucked out, Ludmila of Prague strangled, Maginus of Tarragon decapitated with a serrated scythe, Mamas of Cappodocia disemboweled, Manuel, Sabel, and Ismael, Manuel put to death with an iron nail embedded in each nipple and an iron rod driven through his head from ear to ear and all three beheaded, Margaret of Antioch killed with a firebrand and an iron comb, Maria Goretti strangled, Marius of Persia put to the sword and his hands amputated, Martina of Rome decapitated, the martyrs of Morocco, Berard of Carbio, Peter of Gimignano, Otto, Adjuto, and Accursio, beheaded, those of Japan, all twenty-six crucified, speared, and burned alive, Maurice of Agaune put to the sword, Meinrad of Einsiedeln clubbed to death, Menas of Alexandria also put to the sword, Mercurius of Cappadocia decapitated, Nicasius of Rheims likewise, Odilia of Huy shot with arrows, Paneras beheaded, Pantaleon
of Nicomedia likewise, Paphnutius crucified, Patroclus of Troyes and Soest likewise, Paul of Tarsus, to whom you will owe your first church, likewise, Pelagius drawn and quartered, Perpetua and her slave Felicity of Carthage both gored by a raging bull, Peter of Rates killed with a sword, Peter of Verona his head slashed with a cutlass and a dagger driven into his chest, Philomena shot with arrows and anchored, Piaton of Tournai scalped, Polycarp stabbed and burned alive, Prisca of Rome devoured by lions, Processus and Martinian probably met the same fate, Quintinus nails driven into his head and other parts of his body, Quirinus of Rouen scalped, Quiteria of Coimbra decapitated by her own father, Reine of Alise put to the sword, Renaud of Dortmund bludgeoned to death with a mason’s mallet, Restituta of Naples burned at the stake, Roland put to the sword, Romanus of Antioch strangled to death after his tongue was torn out, have you had enough, God asked Jesus, who retorted, That’s something You should ask Yourself, go on. So God continued, Sabinian of Sens beheaded, Sabinus of Assis stoned to death, Saturninus of Toulouse dragged to his death by a bull, Sebastian pierced by arrows, Secundus of Asti decapitated, Servatius of Tongres and Maastricht killed by a blow to the head with a wooden clog, Severus of Barcelona killed by having nails embedded in his head, Sidwell of Exeter decapitated, Sigismund king of Burgundy thrown into a well, Sixtus decapitated, Stephen stoned to death, Symphorian of Autun decapitated, Taresius stoned to death, Thecla of Iconium mutilated and burned alive, Theodore burned at the stake, Thomas Becket of Canterbury a sword driven into his skull, Thomas More beheaded, Thyrsus sawed in half, Tiburtius beheaded, Timothy of Ephesus stoned to death, Torquatus and the twenty-seven killed by General Muça at the gates of Guimarães, Tropez of Pisa decapitated, Urbanus, Valeria of Limoges, and Valerian and Venantius of Camerino met the same fate, Victor decapitated, Victor of Marseilles beheaded, Victoria of Rome put to death after having her tongue pulled out, Vincent of Saragossa tortured to death with millstone, grid, and spikes, Virgilius of Trent beaten to death with a wooden clog, Vitalis of Ravenna put to the sword, Wilgefortis or Livrade or Eutropia the bearded virgin crucified, and so on and so forth, all of them meeting similar fates.