The Collected Novels of José Saramago (155 page)

At the gates of Albufeira preparations were under way for the decisive battle. The travelers had left Deux Chevaux behind, parked tranquilly
in the shade, in a situation of this kind one cannot rely on its assistance, a car is a mechanical entity, devoid of emotions, wherever you drive it, it goes, it remains where it is parked, it does not care one way or another whether the peninsula goes sailing off, the peninsula’s dislocation is not likely to make distances any shorter. The battle was preceded by a rallying speech, as was common in ancient warfare, with words of defiance and exhortation to the troops, prayers to the Virgin or to their patron, St. James, the words always sound fine at the outset, the outcome is invariably disastrous, at Albufeira, the harangue from the leader of the invading populace was to no avail, and yet how well he harangued, Guards, soldiers, friends, open your ears wide, and give me your attention, you are, and don’t you forget it, sons of the people just like us, this much-sacrificed people that builds houses yet remains homeless, that erects hotels yet never earns enough money ever to stay in one, note that we have come here with our wives and children, but we didn’t come here to ask for the moon, simply for a better and safer roof over our heads, for rooms where we can sleep with the privacy and respect we deserve as human beings, we’re neither animals nor machines, we have feelings, don’t we, and those hotels over there are empty, there are hundreds, thousands of rooms, they were built for tourists, now the tourists have gone and they’re not coming back, so long as they were here we resigned ourselves to this miserable existence, but now, we beg of you, let us in, we’ll pay the same rent we paid for the houses we’ve abandoned, it wouldn’t be right to ask us for more, and we swear, by all that is holy and profane, that you will always find everything clean and tidy, for when it comes to keeping house there have never been women to match ours, I know what you’re going to say and you’re quite right, what about our children, it’s true that kids are a mess, but we’ll get ours washed and smartened up right away, there’s no problem, each room has its own facilities, we hear, choice of shower or bath, hot and cold water, this should make it easy to keep clean, and if any of our children have grown up with bad habits, I promise you they’ll turn into the cleanest children in the world, all they need is a little time, for that matter, time is all that man needs, the rest is nothing but illusion, this was something no one was expecting, that the rebel leader should suddenly start playing the philosopher.

It is obvious from their features, and their identity cards would confirm it, that the soldiers are truly sons of the people, but either their major has disowned his humble upbringing once he reached the benches of the military academy, or else he was born into those very upper classes for whom the hotels in the Algarve were built. It was difficult to tell from his reply, Get back or I’ll smash your face in, for such coarse language is not confined to the lower orders. The troops saw there in the crowd the beloved images of their father and mother, but the call of duty is stronger, You are the light of my eyes, the mother says to her son as he raises his hand to strike her. But the rebel leader called out angrily, turning from pleas to invective in his exasperation, Race of bootlickers, you don’t even recognize the breast that gave you milk, poetic license, an accusation with no real meaning or purpose, for there is no son or daughter who remembers such a thing, although there are numerous authorities ready to affirm that deep down in our subconscious we secretly preserve these and other terrifying memories, and that our whole existence consists of these and other fears.

The major was not pleased to find himself accused of bootlicking, and, beside himself with rage, shouted, Charge, just as the fanatical general of the invaders was calling out, Get them, patriots, and they all surged forward at once, fighting hand to hand in a terrible clash. This was the moment when Joaquim Sassa, Pedro Orce, and José Anaiço arrived on the scene, curious but innocent, and they walked straight into trouble, for once things got out of control the troops did not discriminate between actors and spectators, and one could say that the three friends who had no need of a new home suddenly found themselves obliged to fight for one. Pedro Orce, despite his years, fought as if this were his native land, the others did the best they could, perhaps a little less, belonging as they did to a peaceful race. People were injured, they either dragged themselves or were carried to the side of the road, the women burst into tears and cursed the enemy, the infants had been left in the safety of the chariots, for a battle of this nature can only be called medieval and described with the words of that age. A stone thrown from afar by a youth called David knocked Major Goliath to the ground, blood pouring from a deep gash on his chin, his steel helmet was no protection, this is what happens, ever since soldiers stopped using visors and nosepieces. But the worst thing was that, in the confusion of the onslaught, the rebels rushed past the troops, breaking through their ranks on all sides, only to disperse at once in an instinctive but clever tactical move, up steep roads and alleys, thus ensuring that the soldiers surrounding the occupied hotel did not rush to the aid of the defeated battalion, no one could remember such a humiliation since the time of the French agrarian revolts in the Middle Ages. One hotel manager, whether mentally disturbed or suddenly converted to the popular cause, opened all the doors of his hotel, saying, Enter, enter, I’d rather have you than have the place deserted.

With this unexpected capitulation, Pedro Orce, José Anaiço, and Joaquim Sassa found themselves occupying a room without any real struggle, and two days later they gave it to one of the needier families, with a paralyzed grandmother and wounded relatives requiring treatment. In the upheaval, the like of which had never been seen before, there were husbands who lost their wives, children who lost their parents, but the sequel of these traumatic separations, something no one could ever have invented, which, in itself, confirms the persuasive truth of the story, the sequel, as we were saying, was that members of a given family, scattered but driven by the same dynamism even when apart, ended up in rooms in different hotels, since it had proved extremely difficult to unite under one roof all those who had been demanding that everyone should be under the same roof, and people usually ended up choosing a hotel by the number of stars on its signboard. The police commissioners, army colonels, and captains of the guard asked for reinforcements, for armored cars, for instructions from Lisbon, the government, not knowing where to turn, gave orders and countermanded them, uttered threats and pleas, it was said that three ministers had already resigned. Meanwhile, from the sands and streets of Albufeira jubilant families could be seen at the hotel windows, on those fine, spacious terraces, with their breakfast tables and padded chaises longues, father was hammering the first nails into place and putting up a clothesline, while mother, singing to herself, was already doing her washing indoors in the bathroom. And the swimming pools were teeming with bathers and divers, no one had remembered to explain to the children that they must take a shower before plunging into the blue water, it is not going to be all that easy to make these people change their habits now that they have left their slums.

Bad example has always prospered and borne more fruit than good advice, and who can tell by what rapid means bad example is transmitted, for within a few hours this popular movement of occupation had jumped over the border and spread throughout Spain, you can imagine what it must have been like in Marbella and Torremolinos, where the hotels are like cities and three are enough to form a megalopolis. Europe, upon receiving these alarming reports, began shouting Anarchy, Social Chaos, Invasion of Private Property, and a French newspaper, influential in forming public opinion, prophetically spelled out in bold print across its front page, You Can’t Change Human Nature. These words, however unoriginal, struck a chord in the hearts of Europeans, whenever they spoke of the former Iberian peninsula, they would shrug their shoulders and say to each other, What can you do, they’re like that, you can’t change human nature, the only exception to this accusing chorus came from a certain modest but Machiavellian newspaper published in Naples, Housing Problem Solved in Portugal and Spain.

During the remaining days the three friends spent in Albufeira, the riot police, bolstered by a special squad, tried to clear one of the hotels by force, but the joint and coordinated resistance of the new arrivals and the owners, the former resolved to hold out to the last, the latter fearful of the havoc usually caused by the so-called rescuers, resulted in the suspension of the operations, which were postponed until another opportunity might arise when time and promises would have weakened the rebels’ vigilance. By the time Pedro Orce, Joaquim Sassa, and José Anaiço resumed their journey to Lisbon there already existed democratically elected residents’ committees in the occupied buildings, with subcommittees responsible for such matters as hygiene and maintenance, kitchen and laundry, entertainment and recreation, cultural activities, education and counseling, gymnastics and sports, everything, in short, that is essential for the smooth and efficient running of any community. On their own improvised flagpoles the squatters hoisted banners and pennants of every conceivable color, they used anything that came to hand, flags of foreign countries, of sports clubs, of various associations, under the aegis, as it were, of the national colors fluttering at the top, there were even bedspreads hanging from the windows, in admirable imitation of these decorations.

However, an adversative adverb that invariably denotes opposition, restriction, or difference, and that, applied to this situation, reminds us that even the things that are good for some are precisely those that disadvantage others, the savage occupation of these hotels was the drop of water that caused the disquiet that from the outset gripped the rich and powerful to overflow. Many of them, afraid that the peninsula might sink, sweeping away their property and their lives, had fled at once during the exodus of tourists, which obviously does not mean that the former were suddenly foreigners in their own country, although people can belong in various degrees to the country that is naturally and administratively theirs, as history has shown time and time again.

Now, amid the general condemnation of these outrages, which was more universal than general, if we leave aside the incongruous attitude of that insignificant Neapolitan paper, there occurred a second emigration, so massive one feels justified in thinking that it had been carefully planned once it became clear to all that the wounds inflicted on Europe would never heal, that the physical structure of the peninsula had split, who would ever have believed it, just where it seemed strongest. The huge bank accounts suddenly dwindled, leaving a bare minimum, just a token sum, about five hundred escudos in Portugal, about five hundred pesetas in Spain, or perhaps a little more, current accounts were practically wiped out, time deposits were closed with some loss of interest, and everything, all of it, gold, silver, precious stones, jewels, works of art, bonds, everything was carried off by the strong gusts of wind that swept the fugitives’ personal property over the sea, in all thirty-two directions of the compass, they hoped to recover the rest one day, with time and patience. Clearly, these great removals could not be achieved within twenty-four hours, but a week was all that was needed for the social physiognomy of these two Iberian countries to be transformed from top to bottom, from side to side. Any observer unaware of the facts and motives, and allowing himself to be taken in by appearances, would have come to the conclusion that the Portuguese and the Spaniards had been reduced to poverty from one minute to the next, when in fact all that had happened was that the rich had gone away, and without them the demographics soon showed a dramatic decline.

To those observers who can see an entire Olympus of gods and goddesses where there are nothing but passing clouds, or to those who have Jupiter Tonans before their eyes but refer to him as atmospheric vapor, we shall never tire of pointing out that it is not enough to speak of circumstances, with their bipolar division into antecedents and consequences, as one does to reduce the mental effort, but that one must rather consider what is infallibly situated between the former and the latter, let us spell them all out in the right order, time, place, motive, means, person, deed, manner, for unless we measure and ponder everything, we are bound to make some fatal mistake in the very first opinion we offer. Man is undoubtedly an intelligent being, but not as intelligent as one would like, and this is a proof and confession of humility, which should always begin at home, as one says of charity in the proper sense of the word, before you reproach us.

They arrived in Lisbon as night was falling, at that hour when the gentle light fills souls with sweet remorse, now one sees how right that admirable judge of sensations and impressions was when he maintained that landscape was a state of mind, what he was not able to tell us was what it looked like in the days when there was nothing but pithecanthropus in the world, with as yet scant soul, and not just scant but confused as well. Thousands of years later, and thanks to evolution, Pedro Orce can now recognize in the apparent melancholy of the city the faithful image of his own intimate sadness. He had grown accustomed to the company of these Portuguese who had come to look for him in those inhospitable parts where he was born and lived, soon they will have to go their separate ways, each man to his own destination, not even families can resist the erosion of necessity, so what are mere acquaintances to do, friends of recent vintage and delicate roots.