The Collected Novels of José Saramago (282 page)

Back at home, Senhor José’s prime concern was for the clothes kept in the niche that he used as a wardrobe. They had been dirty before, but now were transformed into pure filth, exuding a sour smell mingled with a whiff of mould, there was even mildew growing in the cuffs of his pants, imagine it, a dank bundle, jacket, shirt, trousers, socks, underwear, all wrapped in a raincoat, which, at the time, had been dripping wet, what condition would you expect to find it in after a whole week. He stuffed the clothes into a large plastic bag, made sure that the record cards and the notebook were still safely tucked away between the mattress and the base of the bed, the notebook at the head, the record cards at the foot, he checked that the communicating door with the Central Registry was locked, and finally, weary, but with his mind at rest, he set off for a nearby laundry of which he was a customer, although hardly one of the most frequent. The woman there could not or did not care to conceal a reproving look when she emptied out the contents of the bag onto the counter, I’m sorry but anyone would think these clothes had been dragged through the mud, You’re not far wrong, since Senhor José had to He, he decided to do so within the bounds of possibility, Two weeks ago, when I was bringing you these clothes to be cleaned, the bag suddenly burst and all the clothes fell into a big muddy puddle caused by the road-work they were doing at the time, you remember how much it rained then, And why didn’t you bring the clothes in at once, I was confined to bed with the flu, I couldn’t risk leaving the house,
I could have caught pneumonia, It’s going to cost you quite a bit more, it’ll have to go in the machine twice, and even then, Never mind, And these trousers, have you seen the state these trousers are in, is it really worth having them cleaned, I mean the knees are all worn, it looks as if you’d been rubbing against a wall in them. Senhor José had not noticed the terrible state in which the climb had left his poor trousers, almost worn through at the knees, with a small tear on one of the legs, a serious matter for a person like him, so ill provided with clothes. Is there nothing you can do about it, he asked, Oh, I can do something about it, but they’ll have to be sent to an invisible mender, I don’t know of any, Oh, we can deal with that for you, but it’s not going to be cheap, these invisible menders charge quite a bit, It’ll be better than being without a pair of trousers, Or else we could patch them, If they were patched, I’d only be able to use them at home, I’d never be able to wear them to work, No, of course not, You see I work for the Central Registry, Ah, you work for the Central Registry, said the woman with a new tone of respect in her voice that Senhor José thought it best to ignore, regretting having been so indiscreet as to admit for the first time where he worked, a truly professional burglar would not go around scattering clues like that, what if the woman in the laundry were married to the man in the hardware store where Senhor José went to buy the glass cutter or the butcher’s where he bought the lard, and then that night, during one of those banal conversations with which husbands and wives pass the evening, one of them were suddenly to mention these small episodes from daily commercial life, other criminals, convinced that they were above all suspicion, have gone to prison for far less. Anyway, there didn’t seem to be much danger there, not unless the woman was concealing some abject, treacherous intention behind the words she was saying to him now, with a kind smile, that this time they’d give him a special price, with the laundry paying for the invisible mender,
Seeing that the gentleman works for the Central Registry, she explained. Senhor José thanked her politely but uneffusively and left. He felt unhappy. He was leaving too many trails about the city, talking with too many people, this was not the kind of investigation he had imagined, to tell the truth he hadn’t actually imagined anything, the idea had just occurred to him now, the idea of looking for and finding the unknown woman with no one knowing anything about his activities, as if it were a question of one invisible being seeking out another. Instead of that closed secret, that absolute mystery, there were already two people, the wife with the jealous husband and the elderly lady in the ground-floor apartment, who knew what he was up to, and that, in itself, was already a danger, for example, let us suppose that either of them, with the praiseworthy aim of helping him in his search, as befits a good citizen, should appear at the Central Registry during his absence, I’d like to speak to Senhor José, Senhor José isn’t here, he’s on holiday, Oh, that’s a shame, I’ve got some important information for him about the person he was looking for, What information, what person, Senhor José didn’t even want to think about what would follow, the rest of the conversation between the woman with the jealous husband and the senior clerk, I found a journal underneath a loose floorboard in my room, You mean a magazine, No, sir, a journal, a diary, the kind of thing some people like to keep, I used to keep one before I got married, And what’s that got to do with us, here at the Central Registry we’re only interested in knowing who’s born and who dies, Perhaps the diary I found belongs to some relative of the person that Senhor José has been looking for, I didn’t know Senhor José was looking for anyone, besides, it’s not a matter that affects the Central Registry the Central Registry does not get involved in the private lives of its staff, It’s not private, Senhor José told me he was acting on behalf of the Central Registry, Wait there and I’ll call the deputy, but when the deputy came over to the counter, the elderly
lady from the ground-floor apartment was already leaving, life had taught her that the best way to protect your own secrets is to respect other people’s, When Senhor José gets back from his holidays, would you mind telling him that the old lady from the ground-floor apartment was here, Don’t you want to leave your name, It’s not necessary, he’ll know who I am. Senhor José could breathe easily, the lady in the ground-floor apartment was discretion itself, she would never tell the deputy that she had just received a letter from her goddaughter, The flu has addled my brains, he thought, these are just fantasies, there aren’t any diaries hidden beneath floorboards, and, after a silence of so many years, she wouldn’t suddenly think to write a letter to her godmother, just as well the old lady had the good sense not to give her name, the Central Registry would only have to get hold of that one loose thread to find out everything, the copying of the record cards, the forging of the letter, it would be as easy for them as putting together a jigsaw puzzle while looking at the picture on the lid of the box. Senhor José went back home, on that first day he preferred not to follow the advice the deputy had given him, to go for walks, go to a garden and feel the good sun on his pale convalescent’s face, in a word, to recover the strength that the fever had drained from him. He needed to decide what steps he should take from then on, but he needed above all to quell an anxiety. He had left his small house there at the mercy of the Central Registry, clinging to the monstrous wall as if it were about to be swallowed up by it. There must have been some remnant of fever lingering in his brain for that idea to occur to him, that this was what had happened to the other staff houses, all devoured by the Central Registry so that it could extend its walls. Senhor José quickened his step, if, when he got there, the house had disappeared, and the record cards and the notebook along with it, he didn’t even want to imagine such a misfortune, the efforts of weeks all reduced to nothing, the dangers he had gone through all in vain. Curious people would be there asking him if he had lost anything of value in the disaster, and he would say yes, Some papers, and they would ask again, Shares, Bonds, Credits, that’s the first thing that would occur to ordinary people, people with no spiritual horizons, their thoughts are all concerned with material interests and gains, he would say yes, mentally giving different meanings to those words, they would be his share in other people’s lives, the bonds he had begun to form, the credit he had gained.

The house was there, but it seemed much smaller, unless the Central Registry had grown in size in the last few hours. Senhor José went in, lowering his head, even though it wasn’t necessary to do so, the street door was the same height it had always been, and, as far as one could see, those shares, bonds and credits had not made him grow physically in size. He went and listened at the communicating door, not because he expected to hear the sound of voices from the other side, it was the custom at the Central Registry to work in silence, but to assuage the confused feelings of suspicion he had felt ever since the Registrar had ordered him to take some holiday time. Then he went and lifted the mattress on the bed, removed the record cards and set them out in chronological order on the table, from the oldest to the most recent, thirteen small cardboard rectangles, a succession of faces going from small child to larger child, from the beginning of adolescence to near-womanhood. During those years the family had moved three times, but never so far away that she had to change schools. There was no point drawing up complicated plans of action, the only thing that Senhor José could do now was to go to the address on the last card.

He went there the following morning, but he decided not to go up and ask the present occupants of the apartment and the buildings other tenants if they had known the girl in the photograph. It was more than likely that they would tell him they hadn’t, that they had been living there only a short time, or that they didn’t remember, You know how it is, people come and go, I really can’t remember anything about the family, it’s not worth puzzling your head about, and if someone did say yes and did seem to have a vague recollection, they would probably only go on to add that their relationship had been the usual one among the polite classes, So you never saw them again, Senhor José would ask, No, never, after they moved out, I never saw them again, That’s a shame, I’ve told you everything I know, I’m sorry not to be of more use to the Central Registry. The good fortune of immediately finding the lady in the ground-floor apartment, so well informed, so close to the original sources, could not possibly happen twice, but only much later, when none of what is being related here was of any importance anymore, did Senhor José discover that here too the same good fortune had acted prodigiously in his favour, saving him from the most disastrous of consequences. Unbeknownst to him, by some diabolical coincidence, one of the deputies at the Central Registry lived in that building, you can imagine the terrible scene, our trusting Senhor José knocking at the door, showing the index card, possibly even the forged letter of authority, and the woman who came to the door saying treacherously, Come back later when my husbands at home, he always deals with matters like this, and Senhor José would go back, his heart full of hope, and would come face-to-face with a furious deputy, who would arrest him on the spot, literally not figuratively, for the Central Registry’s regulations permit of neither precipitate actions nor improvisation, the worst thing being that we don’t even know what all the regulations are. Having resolved this time, as if his guardian angel had been whispering the advice urgently in his ear, to turn his attention to the shops in the area, Senhor José had unwittingly saved himself from the worst disgrace in his long career as a civil servant. He contented himself, then, with looking up at the windows of the apartment where the unknown woman had lived when she was young, and in order to get properly inside the skin of a real investigator, he imagined her leaving for school, carrying her satchel, walking to the bus stop and waiting there, it wasn’t worth following her, Senhor José knew perfectly well where she was going, he had the relevant proof hidden between the mattress and the base of his bed. A quarter of an hour later, her father left, he sets off in the opposite direction, that’s why he doesn’t leave with his daughter when she goes to school, unless it’s simply that father and daughter don’t like to walk along together and give this as an excuse or give no excuse at all, but there will be some kind of tacit agreement between the two, so that the neighbours won’t notice their mutual indifference. Now Senhor José needs to be patient for a little while longer, until the mother goes out shopping, as usually happens in families, that way he will know where he should make his inquiries, the nearest commercial establishment three buildings along is that chemist’s shop but Senhor José immediately doubts
that
he will obtain any useful information there, the assistant is a young man young in age and young
as an employee, he himself says so, I don’t know, I’ve only been here two years. But Senhor José won’t be discouraged by that, he has read more than enough newspapers and magazines, not to mention the lessons life has been teaching him, to know that these investigations, carried out in the old way, take a lot of work, involve a lot of walking, pounding streets and pavements, going up stairs, knocking at doors, coming down stairs, the same questions asked a thousand times, identical replies, almost always in a reserved tone of voice, I don’t know, I’ve never heard of such a person, only very rarely does it happen that from the back room there emerges an older pharmacist who has heard the conversation and is, by nature, extremely inquisitive, Can I help you, he asked, I’m looking for someone, replied Senhor José, at the same time raising his hand to his inside jacket pocket in order to show the letter of authority. He did not complete the movement, a sudden feeling of unease stopped him, this time it wasn’t the work of any guardian angel, what made him slowly withdraw his hand was the look in the pharmacist’s eye, a look that was more like a dagger, a perforating drill, no one would think it, with his lined face and his white hair, but the effect of that look is to put even the most ingenuous of creatures immediately on guard, which is probably why the pharmacist’s curiosity is never satisfied, the more he wants to know the less people tell him. That is what happened with Senhor José. He did not even show him the letter of authority, he did not say that he had come on behalf of the Central Registry, he merely took from his other pocket the girl’s most recent school record card, which, fortunately, he had remembered to bring with him, Our school needs to find this lady in order to give her a diploma that she failed to pick up from the secretary’s office, Senhor José felt a pang of pleasure, almost enthusiasm, at the exercise of inventive abilities he had imagined he had, so sure of himself that he remained unperturbed by the pharmacist’s question, And you’re only looking
for her now, all these years later, It’s quite possible she won’t be interested, he replied, but the school is under an obligation to do all it can to make sure the diploma is delivered, And you’ve waited all this time for her to appear, To tell you the truth, we didn’t even notice, it was a lamentable lack of attention on our part, a bureaucratic error, if you like, but it’s never too late to right a wrong, It will definitely be too late if the lady’s already dead, We have reason to believe that she’s still alive, Why, We began by consulting the records, Senhor José was careful not to mention the words Central Registry, that was what saved him, because, at least at that moment, it meant that the pharmacist did not suddenly recall that a deputy registrar from the said Central Registry was one of his customers and lived three buildings down. For the second time, Senhor José had escaped the ultimate punishment. It’s true that the deputy only rarely went into the chemist’s, such purchases, and indeed all other purchases, apart from condoms, which the deputy was morally scrupulous enough to go and buy elsewhere, were made by his wife, so it’s not that easy to imagine a conversation between the pharmacist and him, although one can’t exclude the possibility of another conversation, the pharmacist saying to the deputy’s wife, There was some school administrator in here looking for someone who used to live in the building where you live, at one point he mentioned consulting the records it was only after he’d gone that I thought it strange that he should have said records rather than Central Registry, it seemed to me that he had something to hide, there was even a moment when he raised his hand to his inside jacket pocket as if he were about to show me something, but he had second thoughts and instead took a school record card from his other pocket, I’ve been racking my brains to think what it could all be about, I think you should talk to your husband, you never know, there are some funny people about, Perhaps it’s the same man I noticed the day before yesterday, standing
on the pavement looking up at our windows, A middle-aged chap, a bit younger than me, who looked as if he’d only recently recovered from an illness, That’s the one, You know I’ve got an instinct for these things, it never fails, there aren’t many people can pull the wool over my eyes, It’s a shame he didn’t knock at my door, I’d have told him to come back in the afternoon, when my husband was home, then we’d know who he was and what he wanted, I’m going to keep an eye out in case he shows up again, And I’ll make a point of mentioning it to my husband. Which she did, but she didn’t tell the whole story, she unwittingly left out the most important detail, perhaps the most important of all, she did not say that the man who had been hanging around the building looked as if he had only recendy recovered from an illness. Accustomed to making links between causes and effects, since that is essentially what underpins the system of forces which, from the beginning of time, has ruled in the Central Registry, where everything was, is and will continue to be forever linked to everything, what is still alive to what is already dead, what is dying to what is being born, all beings to all other beings, all things to all other things, even when the only thing they seem to have in common, both beings and things, is what at first sight appears to separate them, the wise deputy would immediately have thought of Senhor José, the clerk who, with the inexplicably benevolent compliance of the Registrar, had been behaving very strangely lately. Finding the end of the thread and then untangling the whole skein would be only a step. That will not happen, though, Senhor José will not be seen again in that area. Of the ten different shops he went into to ask questions, including the pharmacy, in only three of them did he find someone who claimed to remember the girl and her parents, the picture on the report card jogged their memories, unless, of course, it merely took the place of their memories, it’s quite likely that the people questioned simply wanted to be nice and did not want to disappoint
this man who looked as if he had just got over a nasty bout of flu and who spoke to them of a school diploma issued twenty years earlier and never delivered. When Senhor José got home, he felt exhausted and discouraged, this first stage in the new phase of his investigations had indicated no route along which to continue, quite the contrary, it seemed to have placed before him an unscalable wall. The poor man threw himself down on the bed wondering why he didn’t do what the pharmacist, with ill-disguised sarcasm, had suggested, If I were you, I would already have solved the problem, How, asked Senhor José, I’d have looked in the phone book, that’s the easiest way of finding someone these days, Thanks for the suggestion, but we’ve already done that, and the lady’s name isn’t there, replied Senhor José, thinking that would shut the man up, but the pharmacist returned to the charge, Go to the tax office then, they know everything about everyone. Senhor José stood staring at this spoilsport, struggling to disguise his embarrassment, the lady in the ground-floor apartment hadn’t thought of that, then he managed to murmur a response, That’s a good idea, I’ll tell the head teacher. He left the pharmacy feeling furious with himself, as if, at the last moment, he had lacked the presence of mind to respond to an insult, he was all set to go back home without asking any more questions, but then, resigned, he thought, The wine has been poured, I must drink it, he did not, like someone else, say, Take this cup away from me, what you want is to kill me The second shop was a hardware store the third a butcher’s, the fourth stationer’s, the fifth an electrical goods shop the sixth a haberdasher’s the usual routine suburban selection, and so on to the tenth shop, fortunately, his luck held, after the pharmacist no one else mentioned the tax office or the telephone directory: Now lying on his back, with his hands interlaced behind his head, Senhor José looks up at the ceiling and asks What am I going to do now and the ceiling replied, Nothing, your knowing her last address, I mean, the last address she lived at during her schooldays, gave you no clue as to how to continue your search, of course, you could go to earlier addresses, but that would be a waste of time, if the most recent shopkeepers couldn’t help you, the others certainly won’t be able to, So you think I should give up then, You’ve probably got no option, unless you go to the tax office, it shouldn’t be difficult with that letter of authority you’ve got, besides they’re civil servants like you, It’s a forgery, Yes, you’re right, you’d probably better not use it, I wouldn’t like to be in your skin if one day they catch you redhanded, You couldn’t be in my skin, you’re just a plaster ceiling, I know, but what you’re seeing of me is also a skin, besides, the skin is only what we want others to see of us, underneath it not even we know who we are, I’ll hide the letter, If I were you, I’d tear it up or burn it, I’ll put it with the bishop’s papers, where I kept it before, Well, it’s up to you, I don’t like the tone you said that in, it doesn’t augur at all well, The wisdom of ceilings is infinite, If you’re such a wise ceiling, then give me an idea, Keep looking at me, sometimes it works.