The Collected Novels of José Saramago (200 page)

Having made up his mind, he left. His coat was still damp after the drenching of the previous evening, putting it on caused him to shiver, as if he were slipping into the skin of a dead animal, and the cufís and collar were particularly uncomfortable, he ought to keep some dry clothes in reserve for such occasions, a necessity rather than a luxury, then he tried to recall whether Dr Maria Sara was wearing a long jacket or a coat when she stepped out of the elevator with the Editorial Director, but he could no longer remember, there had been no time to notice as he made his escape. This was not the first time he had thought about Dr Maria Sara throughout the morning, but before she had acted as a kind of vigilante, lodged somewhere in his mind, keeping an eye on him. Now she was someone who was moving, who was coming out of the elevator and engaged in conversation, under her coat or jacket she was wearing a tweed skirt belted at the waist, and a blouse or chemise, the name is not important since both words are of French origin, in a colour impossible to define, no, not impossible, because Raimundo Silva has already come up with the exact shade, the off-white of the sky at dawn, a colour that does not really exist in nature, since one morning can be so different from another, but that anyone who so wishes, can invent to his own liking and taste, even the blind muezzin unless he was conceived blind in his Moorish mother’s womb.

In the Café Graciosa they did not serve wine by the glass. Raimundo had to wash down his buttered toast with a beer, not very appetising in this cold weather, yet somehow ended up by producing a similar effect in his body, a comforting sense of lassitude. An elderly man with white hair and the look of a retired officer was reading a newspaper at the next table. He did not appear to be in any hurry, he had almost certainly lunched at home and then installed himself here to have a coffee and read the newspaper which the owner of the Café, upholding an old tradition in Lisbon, provided for his customers. But what caught Raimundo Silva’s attention was that white hair, how would he describe this shade of white, the crepuscular white of evening in contrast to the off-white of dawn, bearing in mind the man’s advanced years, but that would be much too obvious, invention is all very well but it has to be justified. It has to be said, meanwhile, that Raimundo Silva was not simply preoccupied with the colour of the old man’s hair, what worried him was the sudden thought that he could not really tell how many white hairs he himself might have, a fair amount or even a lot, when he had more than ten white hairs he started dyeing them, pursuing them with ferocious tenacity as if born for this one great battle. Disconcerted, stupefied, he foolishly began to wish that the time would pass quickly so that he might know his real face, the one that would appear like a new arrival, that would slowly approach, beneath hair that to begin with would be two grotesque strands, the artificial one ever more faded and short-lived, the natural one inexorably gaining ground at the roots, After all, mused Raimundo Silva, you could say that time inclines towards whiteness, and letting his imagination take over, he saw the world coming to an end, life extinguished like a huge white head swept away by the wind, leaving nothing behind except wind and whiteness. The retired officer took a mouthful of coffee, slurping as he drank, and then downed half of the brandy from the liqueur glass sitting in front of him, Aha, he exclaimed, then went on reading. Raimundo Silva felt secretly annoyed with this old fellow, almost envious of his apparent tranquillity, his ingenuous faith in the stability of the universe, it is true that the comforting effect of brandy is infinitely superior to that of beer, and note how in practice, brandy, as alcohol goes, is perfectly acceptable down to the very last drop while this beer is already going flat at the bottom of the glass, only fit for pouring down the sink like rancid water. He quickly ordered a coffee, No thanks, I don’t need a digestive liqueur, the adjective used by waiters in restaurants here to describe a wide variety of cognacs and other fortified spirits, and many swear by their medicinal properties. In one gulp, the retired officer drank the rest of his brandy, Aha, and tapping the glass with the tip of his forefinger, he signalled to the waiter to pour him a refill. Raimundo Silva paid his bill and left, observing in passing that there were thin, yellowish strands in the old man’s hair, perhaps the remains of dye, perhaps the definitive sign of senility, like old ivory that darkens and starts to split.

Raimundo Silva has not visited the castle in months, but he is on his way there now, he has just made up his mind, although he thinks that may be why he decided to go out in the first place, otherwise the idea would not have occurred to him so naturally, at heart, let us assume, he felt a certain repugnance, an irresistible reluctance to enter the kitchen, but he did it all the better to deceive himself, he feared that to the suggestion, Let’s visit the castle, he might churlishly have replied, To do what, and this is precisely what he was unable or at a loss to confess deep down. Savage gusts rent the air, the proof-reader’s hair is windswept, the lapels of his coat flap like wet sheets. It is ridiculous to go to the castle in such weather, to climb those exposed towers, he could even be blown off one of those stairways without a handrail, the advantage is not to have anyone there, to be able to enjoy the place without any onlookers, to see the city, Raimundo Silva wants to see the city, although he cannot think why. The vast esplanade is deserted, the ground flooded with puddles of water transformed by the wind into tiny waves, and the trees creak as they are shaken about by the wind, this is almost a cyclone, an exaggeration permissible in a city which in the year nineteen hundred and forty-one suffered the as yet modest effects of the tail-end of a hurricane which people still speak of today when they complain of the damaging consequences there will be a hundred years hence in the wake of the great fire that destroyed the Chiado. Raimundo Silva goes up to the wall, looks way down into the distance, the roof-tops, the upper regions of the façades and gables, to the left the muddy river, the triumphal arch of the Rua Augusta, the tangle of intersecting streets, the odd corner of a square, the ruins of the Carmo, as well as those resulting from the fire. He does not linger there, and not because he is greatly troubled by the wind, he vaguely knows that this unusual outing has a purpose, he has not come here to contemplate the towers of the Amoreiras, it was nightmare enough to have them appear in a dream. He entered the castle, he never ceases to be surprised that it should be so small, almost like a toy castle, another Lego or Meccano set. The high walls reduce much of the wind’s impact, breaking it down into many contrasting currents that penetrate the arches and passageways. Raimundo Silva is on familiar territory, he will climb to the ramparts near Sâo Vicente, from there to examine the lie of the land. And there is the mound of the Graça, facing the highest of the towers, and the descent to the Campo de Santa Clara, where Dom Afonso Henriques encamped his soldiers, our own men and the first parents of the nation, because their ancestors who were born much too soon, could not possibly have been Portuguese. This is an aspect of genealogy that is often overlooked, the need to examine what for all its lack of importance, gave life, place and occasion to the importance acquired by what we now consider to be important.

This was not the place where the meeting took place between the crusaders and the king, it must have been further down on the other bank of the estuary, but what Raimundo Silva is looking for, if the phrase has any meaning, is an impression of something visually tangible, something he would not be able to define, yet capable, for example, of transforming him this very moment into a Moorish soldier watching the shadowy forms of the enemy and the glinting of swords, but which, in this instance, by means of some secret mental circuit, hopes to receive, as tangible evidence, the detail missing from the narrative, namely, the indisputable reason for the crusaders’ departure after that decisive
Not.
The wind continues to buffet Raimundo Silva, obliging him to hold on to the battlements in order to keep his balance. For a moment, the proof-reader feels utterly ridiculous, becomes aware of his theatrical, or better still, cinematographic posturing, his coat has become a medieval cloak, his flowing hair plumes, and the wind is no longer wind, but a current of air produced by a wind-machine. And just at that moment, as he became somewhat defenceless and innocent because of the irony directed at himself, there finally surfaced clearly in his mind and with no less irony, the much sought-after motive, the reason for that
Not
, the ultimate and irrefutable justification for his assault on historical truth. Now Raimundo knows why the crusaders refused to help the Portuguese to besiege and capture the city, and he is about to return home to write
The History of the Siege of Lisbon.

I
T IS STATED
in
The History of the Siege of Lisbon,
the other one, that there was much excitement amongst the crusaders when it was announced that the King of Portugal was coming to make proposals whereby he hoped to enlist the support of those brave warriors who had set their sights on rescuing the Holy Land. Drawing on the providential source of Osbern, never actually written by Osbern, the author also states that nearly all of those people, both rich and poor, to quote his very words, on hearing that Dom Afonso Henriques was approaching, went to meet him in festive mood, so we are led to believe, otherwise they might as well have awaited his arrival, without further ado, as is the custom at such gatherings, that is to say, in the rest of Europe, when the king arrives, the people rush to shorten his journey and welcome him with cheers and applause. Fortunately, we were given this explanation right away, to chasten national pride, lest we should naively imagine that the Eurppeans of that time, like those of today, allowed themselves to fall completely under the spell of a Portuguese king of recent vintage, who was arriving on horseback with a troop of soldiers, Galicians like himself, some of them nobles, others clergymen, all of them rustic and uneducated. For we know that the monarchy at that time still had enough prestige to bring crowds out on to the road, saying to each other, Let’s go and see the king, let’s go and see the king, and the king is this bearded gentleman, smelling of sweat, with miserable weapons, and the horses are no thoroughbreds but simply unkempt beasts of burden, destined to die in battle rather than execute graceful voltes in some riding school, but despite there being so little to see in the end, one must not lose the opportunity, for when a king comes and goes, who knows whether he will ever return.

And so Dom Afonso Henriques arrived, and the leaders of the crusaders whom we have already mentioned, except where there are no reliable sources, were lined up with some of their men to greet him, since most of the soldiers were still confined to the ships until their masters decided their fate, not excluding their own. The king was accompanied by the Archbishop of Braga, Dom João Peculiar and the Bishop of Oporto, Dom Pedro Pitões, both well-versed in Latin, and enough dignitaries to form a royal cortege with some decorum, namely, Fernão Mendes, Fernão Cativo, Gonfalo Rodrigues, Martim Moniz, Paio Delgado, Pêro Viegas, also known as Pêro Paz, Gocelino de Sousa, another Gocelino called Sotero or Soeiro, Mendo Afonso de Refoios, Múcio de Lamego, Pedro Pelágio, or Pais da Maia, João Rainho, or Ranha, and others whose names have not been recorded but who were there. Both parties finally met up and having gone through the endless formalities of being introduced, for not only were the names and surnames of everyone given, but also a list of their achievements and personal qualities, the Bishop of Oporto announced that the king was about to make a speech, and swore before the laws of God and man that he would faithfully interpret his words. Meanwhile, the riders had dismounted from their mules, the king had climbed on to a boulder where he could be seen by everyone, and from where, moreover, he could see over the heads of the crusaders and get a splendid view of the entire estuary, the abandoned orchards destroyed by the Portuguese who for the last two days had stripped them of all the vegetables and fruit. Up there on the fortress, tiny human forms could be seen on the battlements, and, descending, the city wall, with its two gates on this side, that of Alfofa and that of Ferro, shut and bolted, you could sense the disquiet of the Moors on the other side, for the moment in safety, as they wondered what was about to befall them, the river cluttered with ships
and a large crowd gathered on the hill opposite, standards and pennants fluttering in the breeze, a fine spectacle, some fires burning, who knows for what reason, because the weather is warm and it is not yet time for eating, the muezzin listens to the explanations being given by a nephew and starts to fear the worst, another way of saying that the bad is still more or less bearable. The king then raised his powerful voice, Although we may live in this God-forsaken corner of the earth, we have heard good things about you, that you are men of great strength and unequalled when it comes to using weapons, and who would doubt it, judging from your impressive physique, and as for your skill in waging war we need only consider the list of your achievements, both religious and secular. Despite the difficulties we face, caused as much by this ungrateful soil as from the many deficiencies in the Portuguese character yet to be fully formed, we try to do our best, neither fish nor fowl, moreover we have had the misfortune to be landed with these Moors, people who have no great wealth if compared with those of Granada and Seville, all the more reason for getting them out of here once and for all, and this raises a question, a problem, I would ask you to consider, and it is the following, What we would need, in a manner of speaking, is some voluntary assistance, that is to say, you would remain here for some time to help us, and once this proved to be no longer necessary, you would be rewarded with some symbolic token of our appreciation and proceed to the Holy Land where you would be rewarded a hundredfold, both in material goods since the wealth of the Turks cannot be compared with that of the Moors, and in spiritual goods, which pour down on the believer the moment he sets foot on that soil, and let me warn you Dom Pedro Pitões that I know sufficient Latin to judge how the translation is going, as for you crusaders, I beseech you, don’t get annoyed, what I meant by a symbolic token of our appreciation was that in order to guarantee our nation’s future we are anxious to preserve all the riches we possess here in the city, which will come as no surprise, yet how true the proverb that says or will come to say, No one helps the poor like the poor themselves, people reach an understanding by talking to each other, you tell me how much you want for your services and we shall see if we can meet your price, although the truth that passes through these lips dictates that I have my own good reasons for believing that even if we should reach no agreement, we shall be able to overcome the Moors and take the city on our own, just as three months ago we captured the city of Santarém with a ladder and half a dozen men, and once the army went in they took the sword to men, women and children, no matter their age or whether they were armed or defenceless, the only survivors were those who managed to escape and they were few, now then, if we succeeded in Santarém, we shall also succeed in besieging Lisbon, and if we tell you these things, it is not because we despise your aid, but lest you should judge us lacking in strength and courage, not to mention that we Portuguese have faith in the succour of Our Lord Jesus Christ, be quiet Afonso.