The Collected Novels of José Saramago (156 page)

Deux Chevaux crosses the bridge slowly, at the lowest speed permitted, to give the Spaniard time to admire the beauty of the views of land and sea, and also the impressive feat of engineering that links the two banks of the river, this construction, we are referring to the sentence, is periphrastic, and is used here to avoid repeating the word bridge, which would result in a solecism, of the pleonastic or redundant kind. In the various arts, and above all in that of writing, the shortest distance between two points, even if close to each other, has never been and never will be, nor is it now, what is known as a straight line, never, never, to put it strongly and emphatically in response to any doubts, to silence them once and for all. The travelers were so absorbed in the wonders of the city, so thrilled by this prodigious achievement, that they did not even notice how the starlings suddenly took fright. Drunk on altitude, gliding dangerously close to the enormous pillars that rose from the waters to support the sky, on this side the city with its windowpanes aflame, beyond the sea and the sun, and below the great river flowing past, like a sluggish current of lava burning beneath the ashes, the birds abruptly changed course, with a rapid cascade of wing-flaps, and it was as if the earth were rotating around the bridge, the north becoming east and then south, the south west and then north, where in the world shall we end up when we ourselves are forced one day to move just as much or even more. As we have already stated, men, even when they see these things, fail to understand them, nor did these men understand what they saw on this occasion.

They were halfway across the bridge when Pedro Orce murmured, Nice city, words as amiable as these call for no reply, except perhaps for a modest, Yes, isn’t it. There would still be enough timé to leave Pedro Orce settled in a hotel and continue their journey, at least as far as the town in Ribatejo where José Anaiço lives, and where Joaquim Sassa could if he wished spend another night beneath the fig tree, but it would have been impolite to abandon their visitor, so the two Portuguese had made a joint decision, they would remain there for a few days, sufficient time for the Spaniard to get to know the city and once back in Orce to make his own the words of that old saying that innocently boasts, Lisbon the lovely, Lisbon the fair, Never to see her’s to miss something rare, praise be to God who has given us rhymes without denying us His blessings.

Joaquim Sassa and José Anaiço are not short of money, they had gathered what they had for their excursion across the border and back, and they had managed to economize, as we know, sleeping on one occasion under the moonlight, on another spending the night at the home of an Andalusian pharmacist, and, profiting from the anarchy and disorder in the Algarve, they received no bill for their stay in a hotel. Here in Lisbon, hotels have only been besieged and occupied on the outskirts of the city, the more central hotels were spared, two countervailing factors came into play, first, this being the capital, as in most countries you are likely to find the greatest concentration of the forces of law and order, or repression, here, second, that timidity peculiar to the city-dweller, who often becomes uneasy, withdrawing once he senses that he is being observed and judged by his neighbor, and vice versa, the protozoa in the drop of water certainly disturb the lens and the eye behind it that observes and disturbs them. Because of the lack of clients, nearly all the hotels had closed their doors, for repairs, this was their excuse, but some continued to function, offering low-season tariffs and special reductions, to the point where some large families seriously considered abandoning the houses for which they were being charged colossal rents, and taking up residence in the Méridien or some such hotel. The aspirations of the three travelers did not rise to so dramatic a change of status, which is why they decided to install themselves in a modest hotel, at the end of the Rua do Alecrim, on the left as you go down, the name has no bearing on this story, once was enough and perhaps even superfluous.

Starlings are starlings, and the word is also used for people who are frivolous and giddy, in other words people who rarely reflect on their actions, who are incapable of foreseeing or imagining anything beyond the here and now, which is not incompatible with certain acts of generosity, even the sacrifice of one’s own life, as we saw in the episode at the frontier, when so many tender little bodies dropped dead, shedding their blood for the sake of others, remember we’re speaking about birds, not people. But frivolity and giddiness are the least one can attribute to these thousands of birds who foolishly go and perch on a hotel roof, attracting the attention of the crowd and of the police, of ornithologists and of gourmets who relish a tasty meal of little fried birds, and thus betray the presence of the three men who, with no guilt weighing on their conscience, have nevertheless become the target of some unwelcome attention from the authorities. For unbeknownst to the travelers, the Portuguese papers, on the page that regularly features unusual events, had reported the irresistible attack the starlings waged on the unsuspecting border guards, invoking, as one might have expected, though with scant originality, the Hitchcock film we mentioned earlier. Now the newspapers, the radio and television stations, informed promptly about the strange happenings at the Cais do Sodré, sent reporters, photographers, video technicians to the scene, which might have had no consequences beyond enriching the Lisbon folklore, if the methodical and, why not say it, scientific mind of a certain journalist had not led him to consider a possible connection between the starlings outside on the roof and the guests inside the hotel, either permanent or simply passing through. Unaware of the danger literally hovering over their heads, Joaquim Sassa, José Anaiço and Pedro Orce, each in his own room, were unpacking the little luggage they were carrying, within a few minutes they would be down on the street, having decided to take a quick look around the city, until it was time for dinner. But at this precise moment the quick-witted journalist is consulting the guest list, running through the names of those registered, and suddenly two of those names begin to set the wheels of memory in motion, Joaquim Sassa, Pedro Orce, he would not be much of a journalist had those names escaped his eye, the same thing might have happened with another name, Ricardo Reis, but the book where that name was once registered, many, many years ago, is stored away in the archives, covered with dust in the attic, written on a page that may never come to light, and if it should, most likely the name will be illegible, the line will be faded, or even the entire page, that’s one of the effects of time, to blot out everything. To this day there has been no greater achievement in the art of hunting than killing two rabbits at one blow, from now on the number of rabbits within the scope of the hunter’s skill will be increased from two to three, this will mean reversing all the books of proverbs, so where you see two, read three, and perhaps we won’t stop here.

Requested to come down to reception, then installed in the lounge before the great mirror of truth, when pressed by the journalists Joaquim Sassa and Pedro Orce had no choice but to confirm that they were, respectively, the one who threw the stone into the sea and the living seismograph. But there are the starlings, it’s surely not by chance that so many starlings have gathered here, the observant reporter remarked, whereupon José Anaiço, loyal to his friends and true to the facts, made a statement, The starlings are accompanying me. Most of the questions addressed to Joaquim Sassa, and the corresponding answers, coincided with the dialogue he had imagined between himself and the civil authorities, which explains why they aren’t repeated here, but Pedro Orce, who hadn’t exactly been a prophet in his own country, talked at length about the recent events in his life, Yes sir, he could still feel the earth tremor, deep and intense, as if his bones were vibrating, and in Granada, Seville, and Madrid he had undergone multiple tests to check his emotions and intellect, his sensory reactions and movements, and here he was, prepared to subject himself to similar or different checks if the Portuguese authorities should consider them necessary. Meanwhile, darkness had fallen, the starlings responsible for this investigation had dispersed into the trees of the nearby gardens, the journalists, having run out of questions and slaked their curiosity, departed with their cameras and flashlights, but this did not restore peace in the hotel, waiters and porters invented excuses for coming to the reception desk and looking into the lounge to see what these freaks were like.

Worn out by the endless upheaval, the three friends decided not to go out but to dine in the hotel. Pedro Orce was worried about the consequences of having allowed himself to get carried away and of having talked so much, After they warned me over and over in Spain not to say a word about my situation, they won’t like it when they find out, but perhaps if I stay on here for a few days they will forget all about me. José Anaiço was doubtful, Tomorrow our story will be in all the newspapers, they might even have it on television this evening, and those newscasters on the radio won’t keep their mouths shut, they never get tired, and Joaquim Sassa retorted, Even so, among the three of us, you’re the best off, you can always argue that you’re not to blame if the starlings follow you, you don’t whistle to them or feed them, but we’re both in a tight spot, people stare at Pedro Orce as if he were some crank, the Portuguese scientists won’t want to lose this guinea pig, and they won’t let up on me with this story about the stone, You two have the car, Pedro Orce reminded them, you can leave at the crack of dawn, or even tonight, I’m staying on, if they ask me where you’ve gone, I’ll say I don’t know, It’s much too late now, the moment I appear on television someone will telephone from the town where I live just to say that they know me, that I’m the local schoolmaster, and that they’ve been suspicious for some time, some people thirst for glory, this is what José Anaiço had to say, and he added, It’s better for us to stick together, we just won’t say very much and they’ll get tired pretty quickly.

As predicted, there was a full report on the final news bulletin on television, they showed the starlings in flight, the façade of the hotel, the manager making statements we know to be false, as will soon become clear, These events are without precedent in the history of this hotel, and the three prodigies, Pedro, José, and Joaquim, answering questions.

As always when it is thought necessary to have the additional backing of some reliable authority, there was an expert in the studio, in this instance a specialist in the modern discipline of psychodynamics, who, among other speculations about the nature of the matter at hand, declared that there was always the possibility that one was dealing with out-and-out charlatans. It’s well known, he declared, in moments of crisis such as this, you can always rely on some impostor or other to turn up, tellers of tall tales who are out to take advantage of the gullible masses, often intent upon destabilizing the political scene or furthering plots for an eventual coup d’état. If people believe him, we’ve had it, Joaquim Sassa observed, And what about the starlings, what’s your opinion about the starlings, the announcer wanted to know, This is indeed a fascinating enigma, either the person the birds are following is carrying some irresistible bait, or it’s a question of collective hypnosis, It can’t be easy to hypnotize birds, On the contrary, a hen can be hypnotized with a simple piece of chalk, even a child can do it, But here we have two or three thousand starlings all at once, how could they fly if they were hypnotized, Observe that for each bird that forms part of it the flock is already a hypnotic agent, agent and result simultaneously, Allow me to remind you that some of our viewers will have difficulty in following such technical jargon, Well, to put it more simply, I’d say that the entire group tends to constitute itself in homogeneous hypnosis, I doubt whether that will be any easier to understand, but I’d like to thank you just the same for coming to the studio, there are sure to be further developments and we’ll have another opportunity to discuss the matter in greater depth, I’m at your disposal, the expert smirked. The one person who was not amused was Joaquim Sassa, who muttered, The man’s a fool, He certainly looks like one, but there are times when even fools must be heeded, José Anaiço replied, and Pedro Orce confided, I didn’t understand a word, this was the first time the Portuguese tongue had left him completely baffled, if we take the meaning of his words literally, what a splendid conversation there must have been between those ancient Portuguese warriors, Viriato and Nuno Alvares Pereira, heroes of the same fatherland, as we’re led to believe. While these grave matters were being discussed in the hotel lounge, in his private office the manager was receiving a delegation of restaurateurs from the vicinity who had come to offer him a deal. How much would you charge us to set up some nets on the roof, sooner or later the starlings will come back and settle there again, we don’t want to put nets on the trees, within everyone’s reach, that would be just like getting other men’s wives pregnant, these are the kind of men who believe that the only innnermost meaning of things is that they have no innnermost meaning, the manager wavers, he’s afraid he might damage the roof tiles, but he finally agrees, suggests a figure, That’s a lot of money, the others say, and start haggling over the price.

Early the next morning, another delegation of solemn-faced gentlemen, neatly turned out, extremely formal, came to ask Joaquim Sassa and Pedro Orce if they would be so good as to accompany them, they were acting on government orders, among the officials there was also a counselor from the Spanish Embassy who greeted Pedro Orce, but with such manifest hauteur as could only stem from outraged patriotism. They wished to carry out a brief investigation, they explained, all very straightforward, the time it takes for a routine inquiry, which will be added to the already voluminous dossier on the rupturing of the peninsula, to all appearances irremediable, if we take into account its continuous displacement, fatal, in other words. They ignored José Anaiço, probably doubting that he could be endowed with powers of attraction and enticement comparable only to those of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, besides, the starlings are nowhere to be seen, they are flying back and forth, together, getting to know the city, inside the nets that had treacherously been set up on the roof only four stray sparrows lay trapped awaiting their fate, but now destiny decreed a different end to their life, Which fate, asks an ironic voice, and thanks to this unexpected intervention we learn that there is more than one fate, contrary to what we are told, in
fados
and folk music, No one escapes his fate, it is always possible that some other person’s fate might befall us, that’s what happened to the sparrows, they met the fate of the starlings.