The Collected Novels of José Saramago (287 page)

When I’d finished talking, she asked me, And what do you think you’ll do now, Nothing, I said, Are you going to go back to your collections of famous people, I don’t know, possibly, I’ll have to fill my time somehow, I fell silent, thinking, and then said, No, I don’t think I will, Why, Well, when you think about it, their lives are always the same, they never change, they appear, they talk, they show themselves off, they smile for the photographers, they’re always arriving or departing, Just like us, Not like me, Like you and me and everyone, we all show ourselves off in various places, we talk, we leave our homes and come back, sometimes we even smile, the difference is that no one takes any notice of us, We can’t all be famous, Just as well, imagine if your collection were as big as the Central Registry, It would have to be even bigger, the Central Registry only wants to know when we’re born and when we die, and that’s about it, Whether we marry, get divorced, widowed or remarried, the Central Registry has absolutely no interest in finding out if we were happy or unhappy while all that was going on, Happiness and unhappiness are just like famous people, they come and they go, the worst thing about the Central Registry is that they’re not interested in what we’re like, for them we’re just a piece of paper with a few names and dates on it, Like my goddaughter’s card, Or yours, or mine, What would you have done if you’d actually met her, I don’t know, perhaps I’d
have spoken to her, perhaps not, I never really thought about it, And did it occur to you that, at the moment when she was actually there before you, you would know as much about her as you did on the day you first decided to look for her, that is, nothing, and that if you wanted to know who she was, you would have to begin looking again and that, from then on, it would be much more difficult, if, unlike famous people, who like showing themselves off, she preferred not to be found, You’re right, But, since she’s dead, you can go on looking for her, she won’t mind now, I don’t understand, Up until now, despite all your efforts, the only thing you’ve found out is that she went to a school, in fact, the very one I told you about, I’ve got photographs, Photographs are just bits of paper too, We could share them, And we would imagine that we were sharing her out between us, one bit for you, one bit for me, There’s nothing more to be done, that’s what I said at the time, assuming that she considered the matter closed, but she asked me, Why don’t you go and talk to her parents, to her ex-husband, What for, To try and learn something more about her, how she lived, what she did, Her husband probably wouldn’t want to talk about her, it’s all water under the bridge, But her parents are bound to, parents never let slip a chance to talk about their children, even if they’re dead, at least that’s been my experience, I didn’t go and see them before and I’m certainly not going to now, before, I could have said that I’d been sent by the Central Registry, What did my goddaughter die of, I don’t know, How is that possible, her death must be registered at the Central Registry, On the card we just put the date of death, not the cause, But there must be a certificate, doctors are obliged by law to certify a death, when she died, they wouldn’t just write She’s dead, The death certificate wasn’t with the papers I found in the archive of the dead, Why, I don’t know, they must have dropped it when they were taking her file to be put away, or else I dropped it, anyway, it’s lost, it would be like looking for
a needle in a haystack, you can’t imagine what it’s like in there, From what you’ve told me I can, You can’t, it’s impossible, you’d have to actually be there, In that case you’ve got a perfect reason to go and talk to her parents, tell them that, unfortunately, her death certificate has got lost in the Central Registry, that you have to complete the file otherwise your boss will punish you, show them how humble and anxious you are, ask the name of the doctor who came, where she died, and what of, if it happened at home or in the hospital, ask everything, you’ve still got your letter of authority, I suppose, Yes, but don’t forget it’s a false one, It fooled me, it’ll probably fool them too, no life is without its lies, perhaps there’s some deceit involved in this death as well, If you worked at the Central Registry, you’d know that there is no deceiving death. She must have thought the remark didn’t merit a response, and she was perfectly right, because what I’d said was just for effect really, one of those essentially empty expressions that appear to be deep but have nothing inside. We were silent for about two minutes, she was looking at me reproachfully, as if I had made her a solemn promise which I had broken at the last moment. I didn’t know where to put myself, I just wanted to say goodnight and leave, but that would have been both stupid and rude, a lack of consideration which the poor lady certainly didn’t deserve, it’s just not in my nature to do something like that, that’s the way I was brought up, it’s true I can’t remember ever having gone to tea at someone’s house when I was small, but it comes to the same thing. I was thinking that it would be best to take up her idea and begin searching again, only from the opposite direction this time, that is, from death into life, when she said, Take no notice, I get these ridiculous ideas now and then, when you’re old and realise that time is running out, you start imagining that you have the cure for all the ills of the world in your hand, and get frustrated because no one pays you any attention, I’ve never had ideas like that, You will, in time,
you’re still very young, Me, young, I’m nearly fifty-one, You’re in the prime of life, Don’t make fun of me, You only become wise after seventy, and then it’s no use to you anyway, not to you or anyone else. Since I still have a long way to go before I reach that age, I didn’t know whether to agree or not, so I thought it best to say nothing. It was time I said goodbye, so I said, I won’t trouble you any more, thank you for all your patience and kindness, and forgive me, it was that mad idea of mine that got me into this, it’s all absolutely absurd, there you were, sitting contentedly in your home, and along I come with my lies, my deceitful stories, I blush to think of some of the questions I asked you, Contrary to what you’ve just said, I wasn’t sitting here contentedly, I was lonely, being able to tell you some of the sad things that have happened in my life was like getting rid of a great weight, Well, if that’s how you feel, then I’m glad, It is and I don’t want you to leave without asking you something, Ask anything you like, as long as it’s within my power to help, You’re the only person who can help, what I have to ask you is very simple, come and see me now and then, when you remember or feel like visiting, even if it’s not to talk about my goddaughter, Why I’d be delighted to come and visit you, There’ll always be a cup of coffee or tea waiting for you, That would be reason enough to come, but there are plenty of others, Thank you and, look, don’t take any notice of that idea of mine, it’s as mad as yours was, I’ll think about it. I kissed her hand as I had on the first occasion, but then something unexpected happened, she kept hold of my hand and raised it to her lips. No woman had ever done that to me, I felt something like a shock in my soul, a tremor in my heart, and even now, now that it’s morning, and many hours have passed, while I finish writing up the events of the day in my notebook, I look at my right hand and it seems different to me, although I can’t quite say how, it must be an internal rather than an external matter. Senhor José stopped writing, put down his pen, put
the unknown woman’s school record cards carefully away in the notebook, he had, in fact, left them on top of the table, and went and hid them away again between the mattress and the base of the bed. Then he heated up the stew left over from lunch and sat down to eat. There was an almost absolute silence, you could scarcely hear the noise made by the few cars still out and about in the city. What you could hear most clearly was a muffled sound that rose and fell, like a distant bellows, but Senhor José was used to that, it was the Central Registry breathing. Senhor José went to bed, but he wasn’t sleepy. He remembered the events of the day, the unpleasant surprise of seeing his boss go into the Central Registry out of hours, and his troubling conversation with the lady in the ground-floor apartment, which he had set down in his notebook, faithful as to the meaning, less so as regards form, which is both understandable and forgivable, since memory, which is very sensitive and hates to be found lacking, tends to fill in any gaps with its own spurious creations of reality, but more or less in line with the facts of which it has only a vague recollection, like what remains after the passing of a shadow. It seemed to Senhor José that he had still not reached a logical conclusion about what had happened, that he still had to make a decision, otherwise his last words to the lady in the ground-floor apartment, I’ll think about it, would be no more than a vain promise, of the sort that is always cropping up in conversation and that no one expects will be kept. Senhor José was desperate to get to sleep when, suddenly, from unknown depths, the longed-for solution welled up within him, like the end of a new Ariadne’s thread, On Saturday, I’ll go to the cemetery, he said out loud. The excitement made him sit up in bed, but the calm voice of good sense stepped in with some advice, Now that you’ve decided what you’re going to do, lie down and go to sleep, don’t be such a child, you don’t really want to go there at this time of night, do you, and jump over the cemetery wall, although that’s just a manner of speaking, of course. Obediently, Senhor José slipped down between the sheets, pulled them up to his nose and lay for a minute, his eyes open, thinking, I’m not going to be able to get to sleep. A minute later he was sleeping.

He woke late, shortly before the Central Registry was due to open, he didn’t even have time to shave, he pulled on some clothes and left the house at a crazy gallop quite inappropriate to his age and his condition. All the other staff, from the eight clerks to the two deputies, were sitting down, their eyes fixed on the wall clock, waiting until the minute hand was resting exactly on the number twelve. Senhor José addressed the senior clerk in charge of his section, to whom he was expected to offer his first excuse, and he apologised for being late, I slept badly, he said, even though he knew, from long years of experience, that such an explanation was pointless, Sit down, came the abrupt reply. When, immediately after that, the minute hand slipped forward to indicate the transition from waiting time to work time, Senhor José, tripping over his shoelaces, which he had forgotten to tie, still had not reached his desk, a fact coldly observed by the senior clerk, who noted down this remarkable fact in the day’s diary. More than an hour passed before the Registrar arrived. He looked rather withdrawn, almost sombre, and this filled the staff with fear, at first sight, anyone would say that he had slept badly too, but he was his usual composed self, perfectly shaven, without a crease in his suit or a hair out of place. He paused for a moment by Senhor José’s desk and looked at him severely, though without saying a word. Embarrassed, Senhor José began a gesture that seems instinctive in men, that of raising his hand to rub his cheek to see if his beard had grown, but he stopped halfway, as if, by doing so, he might disguise what was obvious to everyone else, his unforgivably scruffy appearance. Everyone thought that a reprimand would not be long in coming. The Registrar went over to his own desk, sat down and called over the two deputies. The general
feeling was that things were looking very bad for Senhor José, if not, the boss would not have summoned both of his immediate inferiors, he must have wanted to hear their opinion of the heavy sanction he intended to impose, His patience has run out, the other clerks thought gleefully, for they had been scandalised by the recent unmerited favouritism shown to Senhor José by the boss, About time too, they said to themselves sententiously. They soon realised, however, that this was not the case. While one of the two deputies gave orders for everyone, senior clerks and clerks, to turn and face the Registrar, the other went around the counter and closed the entrance door, having first affixed a notice outside saying Closed temporarily for official business. What on earths going on, wondered the staff, including the deputies, who knew as much as the others, or perhaps slightly more, only that the Registrar had told them that he was going to speak. The first thing he said was Sit down. The order passed from the deputies to the senior clerks, from the senior clerks to the clerks, there was the inevitable noise produced by the scuffing of chairs, placed with their backs to their respective desks, but all this was done quickly, in less than a minute the silence in the Central Registry was absolute. You couldn’t hear a fly, although everyone knew they were there, some perched in safe places, others dying in the filthy spiders’ webs hanging from the ceiling. The Registrar rose slowly to his feet, equally slowly he surveyed the staff, one by one, as if he were seeing them for the first time, or as if he were trying to recognise them after a long absence, oddly enough, his expression was no longer sombre, or, rather, it was, but in a different sense, as if he were tormented by some moral pain. Then he spoke, Gentlemen, in my role as head of the Central Registry, the latest in a long line of Registrars begun when the oldest of the documents existing in our archives was first collected, in fulfilment of the responsibilities bestowed on me and following the example of my predecessors, I have been scrupulous in obeying and in making others obey the written laws that regulate our work, never forgetting, indeed, at every moment, always mindful of tradition. I am aware that times have changed, I am aware of society’s need for a continuous updating of working methods and processes, but I understand, as did those who were in charge of the Central Registry before me, that the preservation of the spirit, of the spirit of what I will call continuity and organic identity, must prevail over any other consideration, for if we fail to proceed along that path, we will witness the collapse of the moral edifice which, as the first and last depositories of life and death, we continue here to represent. There will doubtless be those who protest because there is not a single typewriter to be seen in the Central Registry, still less other far more modern equipment, because the cabinets and shelves are made of wood, or because the staff still have to dip their pens in inkwells and use blotters, there will be those who consider us to be ridiculously frozen in time, who demand of the government the rapid introduction into our work of advanced technologies, but while it is true that laws and regulations can be altered and substituted at any moment, the same cannot be said of traditions, which is, as such, both in form and sense, immutable. No one is going to travel back in time in order to change a tradition that was born in time and that was fed and sustained by time. No one is going to tell us that what exists did not exist, no one would ever dare, like a child, to want what has happened not to have happened. And if they did, they would be wasting their time. These are the foundations of our reason and our strength, this is the wall behind which we have, until today, been able to defend both our identity and our autonomy. Thus we have continued and thus we would continue if new thoughts had not surfaced indicating to us the need for new paths.