The Collected Novels of José Saramago (144 page)

It is common knowledge that every effect has its cause, and this is a universal truth, but it is impossible to avoid certain errors of judgment, or of simple identification, for we might think that this effect comes from that cause, when after all it was some other cause, beyond any understanding we possess or any knowledge we think we possess. For example, there appeared to be proof that if the dogs of Cerbère barked it was because Joana Carda scratched the ground with an elm branch, and yet only a very credulous child, if any child has survived from the golden decades of credulity, or an innocent one, if the holy name of innocence can thus be taken in vain, only a child capable of believing that by closing its hands it has trapped the sunlight inside would believe that dogs could bark that had never barked before, for reasons as much historical as physiological. In these tens and tens of thousands of hamlets, villages, towns, and cities, there are many people who would swear that they were the cause or causes of the barking of the dogs and of all that was to follow, because they slammed a door, or split a fingernail, or picked a fruit, or drew back the curtain, or lit a cigarette, or died, or, not the same people, were born, these hypotheses about death and birth would be more difficult to credit, bearing in mind that we are the ones who would have to propose them, for no child comes out of its mother’s womb speaking, just as no one speaks any more once he has entered the womb of the earth. And there is no point in adding that any one of us has reasons enough for judging himself the cause of all effects, the reasons we have just mentioned as well as those that are our exclusive contribution to the functioning of the world, and I should dearly like to know what it will be like when people and the effects they alone cause will exist no more, best not to think of such an enormity, for it is enough to make one dizzy, but it will be quite sufficient for some tiny animals, some insects, to survive for there still to be worlds, the world of the ant and the cicada, for example, they will not draw back curtains, they will not look at themselves in the mirror, and what does it matter, after all, the only great truth is that the world cannot die.

Pedro Orce would say, if he so dared, that what caused the earth to tremble were his feet hitting the floor when he rose from the chair, great presumption on his part, if not ours, since we are frivolously expressing doubt, if every person leaves at least one sign in the world, this could be that of Pedro Orce, which is why he declares, I put my feet on the ground and the earth shook. It was an extraordinary trembling, so much so that no one appeared to have felt it, and even now, after two minutes, as the wave on the beach began to recede and Joaquim Sassa said to himself, If I were to tell anyone they would call me a liar, the earth still vibrates just as the chord continues to vibrate although it can no longer be heard, Pedro Orce can feel it in the soles of his feet, he continues to feel it as he leaves the pharmacy and steps out into the street, and no one there notices a thing, it’s like watching a star and saying, What lovely light, what a beautiful star, without knowing that it went out in mid-sentence, and your children and grandchildren will repeat the same words, poor things, they speak of what is dead and say that it is alive, this deception is not confined to the science of astronomy. Here precisely the opposite happens, everyone would swear that the earth is firm and only Pedro Orce would say that it is trembling, just as well he kept his mouth shut and did not run away in terror, besides the walls are not swaying, the lamps hanging from the ceiling are as straight as a plumb line, and the little caged birds, who are usually the first to sound the alarm, doze peacefully on their perches, each with its head tucked under one wing, the needle of the seismograph has traced and continues to trace a straight horizontal line on the millimetric graph paper.

The next morning, a man was crossing an uncultivated plain, part scrubland, part swampy pasture, he was making his way along paths and tracks between the trees, poplars and ash, as elevated as the names by which they are known, and clumps of tamarisks, with their African scent, this man could not have chosen greater solitude or a loftier sky, and overhead, making the most incredible din, a flock of starlings followed him, so many of them that they formed a huge dark cloud, like the prelude to a storm. Whenever he paused the starlings began to fly in a circle or swooped noisily to roost in a tree, disappearing amid the branches until all the leaves were shaking and the crown echoed with harsh, strident sounds, giving the impression that some ferocious battle was being fought inside. José Anaiço started walking again, for that was his name, and the starlings took sudden flight, all at once,
vruuuuuuuuuu.
If we did not know this man, and started guessing, we might decide that he was a bird-catcher by trade or, like the snake, had the power to charm and entice, when, in fact, José Anaiço is as puzzled as we are about the reason for this winged festivity. What can these creatures desire of me, do not wonder at this archaic phrasing, for there are days when one does not feel like using commonplace words.

The man was traveling from east to west, for this was the route he favored, but, forced out of his way by a great reservoir, he now turned south around the bend, hugging the water’s edge. By late morning the temperature will soar, but meanwhile there is a fresh, clean breeze, what a pity one cannot store it in one’s pocket and keep it there until it is needed once the heat builds up. José Anaiço was turning these thoughts over in his mind as he walked, vague and involuntary as if they did not belong to him, when he suddenly became aware that the starlings had stayed behind, were fluttering over where the road curves to skirt the reservoir, their behavior was quite extraordinary, but when all is said and done, whoever goes, goes, whoever remains, remains, good-bye little birds. José Anaiço had now circled the lake, an awkward journey that took nearly half an hour, amid thistles and nettles, and he picked up his original route, proceeding as he had begun, east to west like the sun, when suddenly,
vruuuu,
the starlings reappeared, where had they been hiding. Well, here’s something for which there is no explanation. If a flock of starlings accompanies a man on his morning stroll, like a dog faithful to his master, and waits for him the time it takes to go around a reservoir, and then follows him as before, one doesn’t ask him to explain or investigate their motives, birds don’t have reasons, just instincts, often vague and involuntary as if they were not part of us, we spoke about instincts, but also about reasons and motives. So let us not ask José Anaiço who he is and what he does for a living, where he comes from and where he is going, whatever we find out about him, we shall only find out from him, and this description, this sketchy information will also have to serve for Joana Carda and her elm branch, for Joaquim Sassa and the stone he threw into the sea, for Pedro Orce and the chair he got up from, life does not begin when people are born, if it were so, each day would be a day gained, life begins much later, and how often too late, not to mention those lives that have no sooner begun than they are over, which has led one poet to exclaim, Ah, who will write the history of what might have been.

And now this woman called Maria Guavaira, such a strange name, who climbed up into the attic of the house and found an old sock, of the real old-fashioned kind that were used to keep money as safely as in any bank vault, symbolic hoardings, gratuitous savings, and upon finding the sock empty she set about unraveling the stitches to amuse herself, having nothing else with which to occupy her hands. An hour passed and another and yet another, and the long strand of blue wool is still unwinding, yet the sock does not appear to get any smaller, the four enigmas already mentioned were not enough, which shows us that at least on this occasion the contents can be greater than the container. The sound of the waves does not reach this silent house, the shadow of passing birds does not darken the window, there must be dogs but they do not bark, the earth, if it trembled, trembles no more. At the feet of the woman unraveling the thread is the mountain that goes on growing. Maria Guavaira is not called Ariadne, with this thread we shall not emerge from the labyrinth, perhaps it will help us to succeed at last in losing ourselves. Where is the end of this thread.

The first crack appeared in a large slab of natural stone, as smooth as the table of the winds, somewhere in these mountains of Alberes, which, at the eastern end of the Pyrenees, slope gently down to the sea and where the ill-starred dogs of Cerbère now rove, an allusion that is not inappropriate in time or place, for all these things, despite their appearances, are interconnected. Excluded, as has been stated, from any domestic sustenance, and consequently forced by necessity to recall in his unconscious memory the skills of his predatory ancestors in order to catch some stray rabbit, one of those dogs, Ardent by name and endowed with the acute hearing characteristic of the species, must have heard the stone cracking, for, although incapable of sniffing, the dog approached the stone, dilating his nostrils, his hairs bristling as much from curiosity as from fear. The crack, ever so fine, would remind any human observer of a line drawn with the sharpened point of a pencil, altogether different from that other line made with a branch on hard soil or in the loose, soft dust, or in the mud, should we choose to waste our time on such daydreams. But as the dog was approaching, the crack grew bigger, grew deeper and began to spread, splitting the stone up to the edges of the slab, and then all the way across, there was room to put a hand inside, a whole arm in width and length, had there been any man around with enough courage to cope with this phenomenon. The dog Ardent prowled around, agitated, yet unable to escape, attracted by the snake of which neither the head nor the tail could be seen, and suddenly he was lost, not knowing on which side to stay, whether in France, where he now found himself, or in Spain, no more than three spans away. But this dog, thanks be to God, was not one of those creatures who adapt to situations, the proof being that, with a single jump, he leapt over the abyss, if you’ll pardon the obvious exaggeration in this expression, and ended up on this side, he preferred the infernal regions, and we shall never know what longings influence a dog’s soul, what dreams, what temptations.

The second crack, but for the world the first, appeared a considerable distance away, toward the Bay of Biscay, not far from a place called Roncevalles, alas all too famous in the history of Charlemagne and his twelve Paladins, where Roland died when he blew on Oli-phant, without Angelica or Durandal to come to his assistance. There, descending along the northeastern strip of the Sierra Abodi, runs the River Irati, which, originating in France, flows into the Spanish Erro, in its turn an affluent of the Aragón, which is a tributary of the Ebro, which, bearing all their waters, will finally deposit them in the Mediterranean. At the bottom of the valley, on the edge of the Irati, there is a town, Orbaiceta by name, and upstream exists a dam, or weir, as it is called in those parts.

It is time to explain that what is reported here, or may come to be reported, is the truth and nothing but the truth, as you may verify on any map, provided it is sufficiently comprehensive to include certain details that might seem insignificant, for that is the virtue of maps, they show what can be done with limited space, they foresee that everything can happen therein. And it does. We’ve already mentioned the rod of destiny, we’ve already shown that a stone, even if it be removed from the highest tidemark, can end up falling into the sea or make its way back to the shore, now it is the turn of Orbaiceta, where, after the salutary upheaval caused by the construction of the dam many years ago, calm had been restored, a city in the Province of Navarre and dormant amid mountains, now thrown into turmoil once more. For some days Orbaiceta became the nerve center of Europe, if not of the world, invaded by government ministers, politicians, civil and military authorities, geologists and geographers, journalists and mineralogists, photographers, film and television crews, engineers of every kind, inspectors and sightseers. But Orbaiceta’s fame will not last for long, a few fleeting days, not much longer than the roses of Malherbe, and how long could the latter, grown on poor soil, have lasted, but we are talking about Orbaiceta, nothing else, until some more notable event is reported elsewhere, which is what happens with notable events.

In the history of rivers there had never been anything like it, water flowing eternally and suddenly it flows no more, like a tap abruptly turned off, as when someone is washing his hands in a basin after shutting off the tap, he pulls the plug, the water drains away, goes down the pipe, disappears, what has remained in the enameled basin will soon evaporate. To put it more aptly, the waters of the Irati retreated like waves that ebb from the shore and vanish, leaving the riverbed exposed, nothing but pebbles, mud, slime, fishes that gasp as they leap and die, then sudden silence.