The Collected Novels of José Saramago (303 page)

As you might imagine, the Algor family library is neither extensive nor of exceptional quality. You wouldn’t expect great erudition in ordinary people and in a place like this, far from civilization, but even so, there are some two or three hundred books on the shelves, some old, some, the majority, middle-aged, the rest more or less recent, although only a few are brand new. The village does not have a shop that would do justice to the old and noble name of bookshop, there is only a small stationer’s that will order any textbooks needed from publishers in the city, and, very rarely, some literary work that has been touted a lot on the radio or the television and whose content, style, and intentions correspond satisfactorily to the average interests of the inhabitants. Although marçal Gacho is not himself a keen and conscientious reader, when he turns up at the pottery with a book as a gift for Marta, it must be said that he knows the difference between what is good and what is merely mediocre, although good and mediocre are such slippery terms that they always give rise to discussion and disagreement. The encyclopedia that father and daughter have just opened on the kitchen table was considered the best of its kind at the time of publication, whereas today its only use would be to find out about areas of knowledge no longer considered useful or which, at the time, were still only articulating their first, hesitant syllables. Placed in a line, one after another, the encyclopedias of today, yesterday, and the-day-before-the-day-before-yesterday represent successive images of frozen worlds, interrupted gestures, words in search of their ultimate or penultimate meaning. Encyclopedias are like immutable cycloramas, prodigious projectors whose reels have gotten stuck and which show, with a kind of maniacal fixity, a landscape which, because it is condemned to be only and for all eternity what it was, will at the same time grow older, more decrepit and more unnecessary. The encyclopedia purchased by Cipriano Algor’s father is as magnificent and as useless as a line of poetry we cannot quite remember. However, let us not be too proud and ungrateful, let us remember the sensible advice of our elders who counseled us to keep what was no longer necessary because, sooner or later, although we might not think so, it could turn out to be just the thing we needed. Today, bent over the old, yellowing pages, breathing in the smell of damp, untouched by the air, unstirred by the light, and that has been contained for years in the smooth thickness of the paper, father and daughter are learning the value of that lesson, looking for what they need in something they had thought to be useless. They found along the way a member of the academy wearing a plumed bicorn hat, rapier, and lace ruffles on his shirt, they found a clown and a tightrope walker, they found a skeleton with a scythe and immediately moved on, they found a horsewoman astride a horse and an admiral without a ship, they found a bullfighter and a man in a smock, they found a boxer and his opponent, they found a carabineer and a cardinal, they found a hunter and his hound, they found a sailor on leave and a magistrate, a jester and a Roman in a toga, they found a dervish and a halberdier, they found a customs officer and a seated scribe, they found a postman and a fakir, they also found a gladiator and a hoplite, a nurse and a juggler, a lord and a minstrel, they found a fencer and an apiarist, a miner and a fisherman, a fireman and a flautist, they found two puppets, they found a boatman, they found a navvy, they found saints of both sexes, they found a demon, they found the holy trinity, they found soldiers and military men of every rank, they found a deep-sea diver and a skater, they saw a sentinel and a woodcutter, they saw a cobbler wearing glasses, they found a man playing a drum and another playing a cornet, they found an old lady in a shawl and head scarf, they found an old man smoking a pipe, they found a venus and an apollo, they found a gentleman in a top hat, they found a bishop in a miter, they found a caryatid and an Atlas, they found one lancer mounted and another on foot, they found an Arab wearing a turban, they found a Chinese mandarin, they found an aviator, they found a condottiere and a baker, they found a musketeer, they found a maid in an apron and an Eskimo, they found a bearded Assyrian, they found a pointsman, they found a gardener, they found a naked man with all his muscles exposed and a map of the nervous and circulatory systems, they also found a naked woman, although she was covering her pubis with her right hand and her breasts with her left. They found many more, but they were not suited to the ends they had in sight, either because making the figures would be too complicated in clay, or because overuse of celebrities past and present with whose portraits, accurate, plausible or imagined, the encyclopedia was filled, might be misinterpreted as a lack of respect and even give rise, in the case of famous people still alive, or of famous people now deceased but with greedy and vigilant heirs, to ruinous court cases for offence caused, moral damage and defamation of character. Who are we going to choose from this lot, then, asked Cipriano Algor, we can’t possibly cope with more than three or four, you have to remember that, between now and then, while the Center is making up its mind whether to buy them, we’re going to have to practice a lot if we want to deliver good-quality, presentable work, Yes, I know, Pa, but I think it would be best if we proposed six different figures, said Marta, then they’ll either accept and we can divide production into two phases, in which case it will be a question of agreeing to deadlines, or, and, initially, this is much more likely, they themselves will choose two or three dolls to start with just to see if their customers would be interested and to test out their possible response, And it might go no farther than that, That’s true, but I think we’ll have more chance of persuading them if we show them six designs, numbers count, numbers influence people, it’s a question of psychology, Psychology never was my strong point, Nor mine, but even in our ignorance we sometimes have prophetic flashes of intuition, Well, don’t aim those prophetic flashes at your father’s future, he has always preferred to find out each day what that day decides to bring him, good or ill, What the day brings is one thing, what we ourselves contribute to the day is quite another, The day before, Sorry, I don’t know what you mean, The day before is what we bring to the day we’re actually living through, life is a matter of carrying along all those days-before just as someone might carry stones, and when we can no longer cope with the load, the work is done, the last day is the only one that is not the day before another day, Now you’re just trying to depress me, No, I’m not, but if I am, perhaps you’re to blame for that, To blame for what, With you I always end up talking about serious things, All right, let’s talk about something even more serious, let’s select our dolls. Cipriano Algor is not a man much given to laughter, and even frank smiles are rare on his lips, at most one might notice a brief change in his eyes as if the gleam there had suddenly shifted slightly, sometimes one might glimpse a slight compression of the lips as if they had been forced to smile in order to stop themselves from smiling. No, Cipriano Algor is not a man much given to laughter, but, as we have just seen, today there was a smile awaiting its chance to appear. Right then, he said, I’ll choose one and then you choose one, until we’ve got six, but remember we have to bear in mind the ease of the work and the known or presumed taste of our customers, OK, you begin, The jester, said the father, The clown, said the daughter, The nurse, said the father, The Eskimo, said the daughter, The mandarin, said the father, The naked man, said the daughter, No, you can’t choose the naked man, you’ll have to choose another one, the Center won’t want a naked man, Why not, Well, because he’s naked, The naked woman then, That’s even worse, But she’s covering herself up, Covering yourself up like that is worse than showing everything, How come you know so much about the subject, Because I’ve lived, I’ve looked, I’ve read, and I’ve felt, What does reading do, You can learn almost everything from reading, But I read too, So you must know something, Now I’m not so sure, You’ll have to read differently then, How, The same method doesn’t work for everyone, each person has to invent his or her own, whichever suits them best, some people spend their entire lives reading but never get beyond reading the words on the page, they don’t understand that the words are merely stepping stones placed across a fast-flowing river, and the reason they’re there is so that we can reach the farther shore, it’s the other side that matters, Unless, Unless what, Unless those rivers don’t have just two shores but many, unless each reader is his or her own shore, and that shore is the only shore worth reaching, Well observed, said Cipriano Algor, you have shown yet again that old people should never argue with the younger generations, we always end up losing, although we do learn a thing or two on the way, Glad to have been of help, Now let’s get back to the sixth doll, It can’t be the naked man, No, Or the naked woman, No, Then let’s have the fakir, In general, fakirs, like scribes and potters, are sitting down, when he’s standing up, a fakir is just like any other man, and sitting down, he’ll be smaller than the others, In that case, what about the musketeer, The musketeer would do, but we’d have to find a solution to the problem of the sword and the feathers on his hat, we could probably manage the feathers, but the sword would have to be fixed to his leg and then it would look more like a splint, All right then, the bearded Assyrian, Suggestion accepted, let’s have the bearded Assyrian, he’s easy and compact, And I did consider the hunter and his hound, but the dog would cause even more difficulties than the musketeer’s sword, Not to mention the shotgun, said Cipriano Algor, and speaking of dogs, I wonder what Found is up to, we’ve forgotten all about him, He’s probably sleeping. The potter got up and drew back the curtain, I can’t see him in his kennel, he said, He’ll be going about his business, fulfilling his duties as guardian of the house, keeping an eye on the neighborhood, Unless he’s escaped, Stranger things have happened, but I doubt it. Anxious and fearful, Cipriano pulled open the door and almost tripped over the dog. Found was stretched out on the mat, lying diagonally across the sill, his nose pointing toward the door. When he saw his master appear, he got up and waited. Here he is, announced the potter, So I see, replied Marta from inside. Cipriano Algor was about to close the door, He’s looking at me, he said, Well, he’s looked at you before, But what shall I do, Either close the door and leave him outside or invite him in and then close the door, Don’t be funny, I’m not being funny, you’ll have to decide today whether you want Found in the house, but, you know, if he comes in now, that will be it, Old Constante used to come in whenever he wanted to, Yes, I know, but normally he preferred the independence of the kennel, whereas, unless I’m very much mistaken, this dog needs company as much as it needs food, That seems a good enough reason, said the potter. He opened the door wide and made a gesture, Come in. Without taking his eyes off his master, Found took one timid step, then, as if to indicate that he wasn’t quite sure he had understood the order, he stopped. Come in, said the potter again. The dog advanced slowly and came to a halt in the middle of the kitchen. Welcome to our house, said Marta, but you had better know the house rules right away, a dog’s necessities, both solid and liquid, should be taken care of outside, the same goes for food, now, during the day, you can come and go as much as you like, but at night, you go to your kennel, so as to guard the house, and I don’t want you thinking I’m less well-disposed toward you than your master is, and to prove it I was the one who told him that you are a dog who needs company. During the time this lecture lasted, Found didn’t take his eyes off her for a moment. He couldn’t understand what Marta wanted of him, but his small dog’s brain knew that in order to learn, one must look and listen. He waited for a few moments after Marta had finished speaking, then he curled up in a corner of the kitchen, although he did not even have time to warm the spot up, for as soon as Cipriano Algor had sat down, Found got to his feet again and went and lay by his chair. And just so that there should be no doubts in the minds of his owners that he had a clear understanding of his duties and responsibilities, barely a quarter of an hour had passed before he got up from there and went and lay down beside Marta. A dog knows when someone needs his company.

The next three days were a time of intense activity, nervous excitement and a continual making and unmaking of things on paper and in clay. Neither of them wanted to admit that the end result of the idea, and of the work they were having to do in order to give the idea some solidity, would be a blunt refusal, with no explanation other than, The fashion for dolls like that has passed. Shipwrecked, they were rowing toward an island not knowing if it was a real island or only the ghost of an island. Marta was the better of the two at drawing and so she was the one charged with transferring to paper their six chosen types, using the classic grid method to enlarge them to the exact size the dolls would be once they had been fired, a hand span tall, not the span of her hand, which is small, but of her father’s. Then came the business of coloring the drawings, this was complicated not because of any excessive care taken in the execution, but because they had to choose and combine colors which they did not know for certain would be right for the figures since the encyclopedia, illustrated in accordance with the printing technology of the time, contained minutely detailed copperplate engravings, but the only chromatic effects were apparent shades of gray achieved by printing black lines on the unvarying white of the paper. The easiest of all was, of course, the nurse. White hat, white blouse, white skirt, white shoes, all white white white, impeccably white, as if she were an angel of charity come down to earth with the mission of relieving suffering and mitigating pain until, eventually, another identically dressed angel had to be summoned urgently in order to mitigate and relieve her own pain and suffering. The Eskimo did not present any great problems either, the skins he wore could be painted half beige half gray, with a few whitish patches to imitate the skin of a bear turned inside out, the main thing was that the Eskimo should have the face of a real Eskimo, which is what he came into the world to be. As for the clown, the problems would be far greater, simply because he was poor. If, instead of being the miserable ragamuffin he is, he were a rich clown, any bright, cheerful color would do, with a random scattering of sequins on his conical hat, his shirt, and his trousers. But he is a poor clown, really poor, and wears a heterogeneous collection of rags showing neither taste nor judgment and patched from head to toe, a waistcoat that comes down to his knees, baggy trousers, a collar large enough to accommodate three necks, a bow tie that looks like a ceiling fan, a lurid shirt, and shoes as big as barges. All of this can be painted in whatever colors one chooses, because, since he is only a poor clown, no one is going to waste their time checking to see if the colors of this clay creation have the decency to respect the colors the poor man would have worn even when he was not working as a clown. The trouble is that this jack-of-all-trades is not actually going to be any easier to model than the hunter or the musketeer, which had seemed so problematic at the start. Moving from the clown to the jester will mean moving from similar to same, from alike to identical, from comparable to analogous. Though applied differently, the colors used on one can be used on another, and a couple of changes of costume will rapidly transform the jester into a clown and the clown into a jester. Strictly speaking, they almost duplicate each other as regards clothes and function, the only difference between them, from the social point of view, is that clowns do not usually visit the palaces of kings. The mandarin in his long gown and the Assyrian in his tunic will require no special attention either, a few touches to the Eskimo’s eyes and he can serve as a Chinaman, and the Assyrian’s long, curly beard will make it easier to work on the lower part of the face. Marta made three series of drawings, the first totally faithful to the originals, the second stripped of all accessories, the third free of any superfluous detail. This would facilitate any examination of them by whichever Center official has the last word on the fate of the proposal, and, if the proposal is approved, it will perhaps make less likely, or so they hope, the possibility of any future complaints about a discrepancy between the drawing and the actual clay figure. Until Marta had moved on to the third series of drawings, Cipriano Algor had merely watched what was happening, frustrated because he could not help, all the more because he was aware that any intervention on his part would only slow up the work and make it more difficult. However, as soon as Marta had placed before her the piece of paper on which she would set down the last series of drawings, he rapidly gathered together the initial copies and went out to the pottery. She just had time to say, Don’t get annoyed if it doesn’t come out right the first time. Hour after hour, during the rest of that day and part of the following day, until it was time for him to go and fetch marçal from the Center, the potter made, unmade and remade dolls in the form of nurses and mandarins, jesters and Assyrians, Eskimos and clowns, almost unrecognizable at the first attempt, but gradually gaining form and meaning as his fingers began to interpret for themselves and in accordance with their own laws the instructions transmitted to them by the brain. Indeed, very few people are aware that in each of our fingers, located somewhere between the first phalange, the mesophalange, and the metaphalange, there is a tiny brain. The fact is that the other organ which we call the brain, the one with which we came into the world, the one which we transport around in our head and which transports us so that we can transport it, has only ever had very general, vague, diffuse and, above all, unimaginative ideas about what the hands and fingers should do. For example, if the brain-in-our-head suddenly gets an idea for a painting, a sculpture, a piece of music or literature, or a clay figurine, it simply sends a signal to that effect and then waits to see what will happen. Having sent an order to the hands and fingers, it believes, or pretends to believe, that the task will then be completed, once the extremities of the arms have done their work. The brain has never been curious enough to ask itself why the end result of this manipulative process, which is complex even in its simplest forms, bears so little resemblance to what the brain had imagined before it issued its instructions to the hands. It should be noted that the fingers are not born with brains, these develop gradually with the passage of time and with the help of what the eyes see. The help of the eyes is important, as important as what is seen through them. That is why the fingers have always excelled at uncovering what is concealed. Anything in the brain-in-our-head that appears to have an instinctive, magical, or supernatural quality—whatever that may mean—is taught to it by the small brains in our fingers. In order for the brain-in-the-head to know what a stone is, the fingers first have to touch it, to feel its rough surface, its weight and density, to cut themselves on it. Only long afterward does the brain realize that from a fragment of that rock one could make something which the brain will call a knife or something it will call an idol. The brain-in-the-head has always lagged behind the hands, and even now, when it seems to have overtaken them, the fingers still have to summarize for it the results of their tactile investigations, the shiver that runs across the epidermis when it touches clay, the lacerating sharpness of the graver, the acid biting into the plate, the faint vibration of a piece of paper laid flat, the orography of textures, the crosshatching of fibers, the alphabet of the world in relief. And then there are colors. The truth is that the brain knows far less about colors than one might suppose. It sees more or less clearly what the eyes show it, but when it comes to converting what it has seen into knowledge, it often suffers from what one might call difficulties in orientation. Thanks to the unconscious confidence of a lifetime’s experience, it unhesitatingly utters the names of the colors it calls elementary and complementary, but is immediately lost, perplexed and uncertain when it tries to formulate words that might serve as labels or explanatory markers for the things that verge on the ineffable, that border on the incommunicable, for the still nascent color which, with the eyes’ often bemused approval and complicity, the hands and fingers are in the process of inventing and which will probably never even have its own name. Or perhaps it already does—a name known only to the hands, because they mixed the paint as if they were dismantling the constituent parts of a note of music, because they became smeared with the color and kept the stain deep inside the dermis, and because only with the invisible knowledge of the fingers will one ever be able to paint the infinite fabric of dreams. Trusting in what the eyes believe they have seen, the brain-in-the-head states that, depending on conditions of light and shade, on the presence or absence of a wind, on whether it is wet or dry, the beach is white or yellow or golden or gray or purple or any other shade in between, but then along come the fingers and, with a gesture of gathering in, as if harvesting a wheat field, they pluck from the ground all the colors of the world. What seemed unique was plural, what is plural will become more so. It is equally true, though, that in the exultant flash of a single tone or shade, or in its musical modulation, all the other tones and shades are also present and alive, both the tones or shades of colors that have already been named, as well as those awaiting names, just as an apparently smooth, flat surface can both conceal and display the traces of everything ever experienced in the history of the world. All archaeology of matter is an archaeology of humanity. What this clay hides and shows is the passage of a being through time and space, the marks left by fingers, the scratches left by fingernails, the ashes and the charred logs of burned-out bonfires, our bones and those of others, the endlessly bifurcating paths disappearing off into the distance and merging with each other. This grain on the surface is a memory, this depression the mark left by a recumbent body. The brain asked a question and made a request, the hand answered and acted. Marta put it another way, Now you’re getting the hang of it.