The Collected Novels of José Saramago (168 page)

The farmhands went into the fields and Maria Guavaira returned to the bedroom. Joaquim Sassa was fast asleep. Slowly, so as not to awaken him, she opened her trunk and began sorting out clothes in the light colors she used to wear before going into mourning, shades of pink, green, blue, white, and red, orange or lilac, and all the other color combinations popular with women, not that this was any stage wardrobe or that she was a wealthy landowner, but as everyone knows, two dresses are enough to strike a festive note, and two skirts with two blouses create a rainbow. The clothes smell of mothballs and staleness, Maria Guavaira will hang them out in the sun to allow the miasma of chemicals and the musty smell to evaporate, and just as she is about to go down, her arms a riot of color, she bumps into Joana Carda, who has also left her man tucked snugly between the sheets and who, seeing at once what is happening, offers to help. The two of them laugh at the display, the wind blows their hair about, the clothes make a smacking sound and flutter like flags, one feels like shouting, Long live liberty.

They go back into the kitchen to prepare food, the place smells of freshly brewed coffee, there is milk, bread, no longer fresh but edible, some hard cheese, jam, these appetizing odors will rouse the men, first José Anaiço appeared, then Joaquim Sassa, next to appear was not a man but a dog, it appeared in the doorway, had a good look, and went away. It’s gone to call its master, said Maria Guavaira, who in theory has more claims to ownership, but she has already given them up. Pedro Orce finally appeared, said good morning, and sat down in silence, there’s a hint of resentment in his expression when he observes the still very discreet gestures of affection with which the other four express themselves, whether as couples or all together. The world of contentment has its own distinctive sun.

Pedro Orce’s resentment may look bad, he knows he is an old man, but we must try to understand his feelings if he is still not resigned to the idea. José Anaiço tries to include him in the conversation, asks if he enjoyed his nocturnal stroll, if the dog had been good company, and Pedro Orce, already mollified, is inwardly grateful for the olive branch offered, it came at just the right moment before any bitterness could further complicate the feeling of privation, I walked as far as the sea, he said, and this caused great surprise, most of all in Maria Guavaira, who knows perfectly well where the sea lies and how difficult it is to get there. But if I hadn’t taken the dog with me I couldn’t have managed, Pedro Orce explained, and suddenly the stone ship came to mind, he felt uneasy, incapable of deciding for a few seconds whether he had seen it in a dream or whether it had been concrete and real, If I wasn’t dreaming, if it wasn’t some vision in a dream, it exists, it’s there at this precise moment, I’m sitting here drinking coffee and the ship is there, and, such are the powers of imagination, despite his having seen it only under the feeble light of those few stars, he could now visualize it in full daylight with the sun and the blue of the sky, the black rock beneath the petrified ship. I’ve found a ship, he said, and without thinking he might be deceived, he expounded his theory, explained the chemical process without always knowing the precise terms, but little by little words began to fail him, Maria Guavaira’s look of disapproval had disturbed him, and he wound up defensively with another cautious theory, Of course, this could also be an unusual effect due to erosion.

Joana Carda said she wanted to go and take a look, José Anaiço and Joaquim Sassa agreed at once, only Maria Guavaira remained silent, she and Pedro Orce looked at each other, gradually the others fell silent, they realized that the last word remained to be said, if there really exists a last word for everything, which raises the delicate question of knowing how things will stand after everything has been said about them. Maria Guavaira held Joaquim Sassa’s hand as if she were about to take an oath, It’s a stone ship, you said, That’s right, it turned to stone with time, perhaps through petrification, but perhaps it is just a coincidence that it has taken on this form because of the wind and other atmospheric agents, the rain, for example, and even the sea, for there must have been a time when the sea level was higher, It’s a stone ship that was always made of stone, it’s a ship that came from afar, and there it remained after all the persons sailing in it had disembarked. Persons, asked José Anaiço, Or person, of this I can’t be sure, And of what you claim as being certain, what certainty is there, Pedro Orce asked skeptically, The ancients used to say, for their forefathers had told them, as their forefathers in turn had told them, some saints landed on this coast in ships of stone, coming from the deserts on the other side of the world, some arrived alive, others dead, as in the case of St. James, the ships have been stranded since that time and this is only one of them. Do you believe in any of what you’re saying, It’s not a question of believing or not believing, everything we go on saying is added to what is, to what exists, first I said granite, then I said ship, when I get to the end of what I’m saying, I have to believe in my having said it, that’s often all that’s needed, just as water, flour, and yeast make bread.

Joaquim Sassa now saw her as a wise shepherdess, a Minerva from the Galician mountains, we generally fail to notice, but the truth is that people know much more than we think, the majority of people do not even suspect how much knowledge they possess, the trouble is that they try to pass for what they are not, they lose their knowledge and wit, they would do better if they were like Maria Guavaira, who simply says, I’ve read a number of books in my life, the wonder is that I profited so much from them, this woman is not so presumptuous as to say this of herself, it is the narrator, a lover of justice, who cannot resist making this comment. Joana Carda is about to ask when they will go to see the stone ship when Maria Guavaira, perhaps so as to cut short this discussion, which is above her head, when, as we were saying, Maria Guavaira switched on the radio she keeps in the kitchen, the world must have some news to report, it is like this every morning, and the news is always startling, even when one has not caught the opening words, these can be reconstructed later. Since last night the speed of the peninsula’s displacement has inexplicably altered, the latest measurement registers more than two thousand meters per hour, practically fifty kilometers each day, that is, three times the daily displacement recorded since the drift began.

At this moment there must be silence everywhere in the peninsula, people are listening to the news in their homes and in the public squares, but there are some who will find out only later what has happened, such as those two men who are working for Maria Guavaira, they are way out in the fields, remote from everything, I’ll bet the younger one will forget the compliments and flattery and think of nothing except his own life and safety. But there’s worse to come, when the announcer reads a bulletin from Lisbon, the news had to be leaked sooner or later, the secret has lasted for a long time, There is grave concern in official and scientific circles in Portugal, since the archipelago of the Azores is situated precisely on the route the peninsula has been following, the first signs of the population’s anxiety are already in evidence, for the moment one cannot speak of panic, but it is expected that within the next few hours steps will be taken to evacuate people living in those cities and towns along the coast that are at greatest risk in the event of a collision, as for those of us here in Spain, we can consider ourselves safe from any immediate effects, insofar as the Azores are distributed between the thirty-seventh and fortieth parallels, while the entire region of Galicia lies north of the forty-second parallel, it is fairly obvious that unless there are modifications in the route, only our neighboring country, ever unfortunate, will suffer the direct impact, without forgetting, of course, the no less unfortunate islands themselves, which, because of their lesser dimensions, run the risk of disappearing under the great mass of stone that is now being displaced, as we mentioned, at the terrifying speed of fifty kilometers each day, although it is just possible that those very islands could form a providential barrier, halting this approaching peril that has so far proved relentless, we are all in the hands of God, since human might is not sufficient to avoid the catastrophe should it happen, fortunately, we repeat, we Spaniards are more or less safe, there’s no place for excessive optimism, however, the secondary consequences of the collision are always to be feared, so the utmost vigilance is called for and only those whose duties and obligations prevent them from moving inland should remain on the Galician coast. The announcer broke off, then there was music composed for an altogether different occasion, and José Anaiço, suddenly remembering, said to Joaquim Sassa, You were right when you spoke of the Azores, and such is human vanity, even when one’s life is at such serious risk, that Joaquim Sassa was very pleased that his judgment should be publicly acknowledged in the presence of Maria Guavaira, albeit the merit was not his, it was just something he had picked up when he was taken around the laboratories with Pedro Orce.

As in a recurring dream, José Anaiçome calculations, he had asked for paper and pencil, this time he would not say how many days Gibraltar would take to pass in front of the battlements of the Serra de Gàdor, that had been a time of festivity, now it was necessary to ascertain how many days lay ahead before the Cabo da Roca crashed into the island of Terceira, one shudders just to think of that horrendous moment, once the island of Sào Miguel has been buried like a spike in the soft earth of Alentejo, truly, truly I tell you, nothing but evil can come of it. Having made his calculations, José Anaiço tells them, So far we’ve gone about three hundred kilometers, all right, since the distance from Lisbon to the Azores is more or less twelve hundred kilometers, we still have nine hundred to go, and nine hundred kilometers at fifty kilometers a day, rounding off, makes eighteen days, in other words, we’ll reach the Azores around the twentieth of September, perhaps even sooner. The blandness of this conclusion was a forced and bitter irony that did not bring a smile to anyone’s face. Maria Guavaira reminded him, But we’re here in Galicia, beyond its reach, You can’t rely on it, Pedro Orce cautioned her, it only needs to change course ever so slightly toward the south, and we are the ones who will take the full impact, the best thing, the only thing to do is to escape inland, as the announcer said, and even then we can’t be sure, Abandon our homes and lands, If what they’re telling us should happen, there won’t be any homes or lands. They were seated, for the time being they could remain seated, they could remain seated for eighteen days. The fire was burning in the hearth, the bread was on the table, there were other things too, milk, coffee, cheese, but it was the bread that attracted everyone’s gaze, half of a large loaf, thick-crusted and firm in the center, the taste lingered on their palates, even after a while, but their tongues recognized the crumbs that were left after chewing, when the last day of the universe comes we shall look at the last ant with the painful silence of someone who knows he is taking his leave for the last time.

Joaquim Sassa said, My vacation ends today, if I’m going to stick to the rules, I should be back at work in Oporto tomorrow morning, these objective words were only the beginning of a statement, I don’t know if we’ll keep on together, that’s a matter we must decide here, but speaking for myself, I want to be with Maria, if she agrees and wants to be with me. And so that everything should be said at the right moment and each piece fitted into the right order and sequence, they waited for Maria Guavaira, who had been summoned, to speak first, and she said, That’s what I want too, without needless elaboration. José Anaiço said, If the peninsula should collide with the Azores, the schools won’t reopen all that soon, in fact they might never open again, I’ll stay with Joana and with the rest of you if she decides to remain. Now it was the turn of Joana Carda, who like Maria Guavaira said no more than five words, women have so little to say for themselves, I’m staying with you, these were her words, for she was looking straight at him, but everyone understood the rest. Last of all, because someone had to be last, Pedro Orce said, Wherever we go, I go, and this phrase, which obviously offends grammar and logic with its excess of logic and very likely of grammar too, must stand uncorrected, exactly as it was said, perhaps there is some special meaning that will justify and absolve it, anyone who knows anything about words knows to expect anything from them. Dogs, as everyone knows, do not speak, and this one cannot even give a loud bark as a sign of jovial approval.

That same day they walked all the way to the coast to see the stone ship. Maria Guavaira was wearing her brightest clothes, she had not even bothered to iron them, the wind and light would smooth out the creases after their years in darkest limbo. Pedro Orce, their experienced guide, led the way, although he trusts the dog’s instinct and scent more than his own eyes, to which everything in the light of day looks like a different route. While we cannot expect any guidance from Maria Guavaira, her route is another one, everything with her is an excuse to hold hands with Joaquim Sassa and draw near to him until their bodies touch long enough to steal a kiss, a variable time span as we know, which explains why they do not so much accompany the expedition as trail behind it. José Anaiço and Joana Carda are more discreet, they have been together for a week now, have sated their initial hunger, slaked their initial thirst, desire comes to them when they summon it, and if truth be told, they do so frequently. Even last night, when Pedro Orce saw that splendor in the distance, it was not just Joaquim Sassa and Maria Guavaira who were making love, there could have been ten couples sleeping in that house and all making love at the same time.

The clouds come from the sea and speed away in haste, they form and disintegrate rapidly as if each moment lasted no more than a second or a fraction of a second, and all the gestures of these men and women are, or appear to be, at the very same instant, both slow and swift, one would think the world had gone crazy, if one could ever fully grasp the meaning of such an impoverished but popular expression. They reach the top of the hill and the sea is tempestuous. Pedro Orce scarcely recognizes these places, the enormous rounded boulders that are piled up, the almost invisible ox cart descending in stages, how could he have taken this route by night, even with the dog’s guidance, this is a feat he simply cannot explain. He tries to make out the stone ship but it is nowhere to be seen, now it is Maria Guavaira who leads the group, and none too soon, because she knows these paths better than anyone. They arrive at the spot, and Pedro Orce is about to open his mouth to say, It’s not here, but he has stopped himself in time, he has before his eyes the stone of the helm with its broken tiller, the great mast looks even thicker in daylight, and as for the ship, this is where he finds the greatest change, as if the erosion of which he had been speaking that morning had accomplished in one night the work of thousands of years, where is it, I cannot see it, the tall pointed prow, the concave belly, the stone certainly has the broad outline of a ship, but not even the most glorious of saints could work the miracle of keeping such a precarious vessel afloat without bulwarks, there is no doubt that it is made of stone, but somehow it seems to have lost the form of a ship, after all, a bird only flies because it looks like a bird, Pedro Orce thinks to himself, but now Maria Guavaira is saying, This is the ship in which a saint came from the east, here you can still see the marks of his feet when he disembarked and started walking inland, the marks were some cavities in the rock, now tiny puddles that the ebb and flow of the waves at high tide would constantly renew, clearly any doubts are legitimate, but things depend on what one accepts or refutes, if a saint came from afar sailing on a slab of stone, then why should it not be possible for his fiery feet to have marked the rock up to the present day. Pedro Orce has no choice but to accept and confirm, but keeps to himself the memory of another ship that he alone saw on a night almost without stars yet inhabited by sublime visions.