The Collected Novels of José Saramago (307 page)

During supper, they talked a lot about how Marta had come up with the idea of making the dolls, as well as about the doubts, fears, and hopes that had shaken the house and the pottery during the last few days, and then, passing on to more practical matters, they calculated how much time would be needed for each phase of production, as well as the respective safety margins, which differed in both cases from those required by the products they usually made, It all depends on what quantities they order, neither too much nor too little would be best, which is a bit like asking for sun for the threshing and rain for the turnips, as people used to say in the days before plastic greenhouses, said Cipriano Algor. When they had cleared the table, Marta showed her husband the sketches she had made, the various drafts, the experiments with color, the old encyclopedia from which she had copied the models, at first sight, it looked like a very small amount of work to have provoked such large anxieties, but one must understand that in life’s circumnavigations what for some is a gentle breeze, for others is a fatal storm, it all depends on the draft of the ship and on the state of its sails. In their bedroom, with the door shut, marçal decided that there was no point asking Marta to explain why she had not told him about her idea to make the dolls, first, because that particular water had passed under the bridge several hours since, sweeping along with it all the spite and bad temper, second, because he was concerned now about something far more serious than feeling or merely imagining that he had been ignored. Something more serious and no less urgent. When a man returns to home and wife after a separation of ten days, especially a young man like Marçal, or, indeed an old man, assuming that age has not yet killed off his amatory instincts, the natural impulse is to want to give immediate satisfaction to the tremor of the senses, and to leave any talking until afterward. Women tend to think otherwise. If there is no particular pressure of time, if, on the contrary the night is ours, or indeed the afternoon or the morning, the woman would probably prefer the act of love to be preceded by a leisurely, unhurried conversation, if possible about something other than the idée fixe that is spinning like a humming top inside the man’s head. Like a deep, slowly filling water jug, the woman very gradually draws closer to the man, although it would perhaps be more accurate to say that she draws him closer to her, until the urgency of the one and the longing of the other, declared, concurrent, and unpostponable, make the unanimous water rise singing to the brim. There are exceptions, though, and one such is marçal who, however much he would like simply to drag Marta off to bed, cannot do so until he has emptied out the heavy bag of anxieties he has been carrying, not from the Center, not from the conversation he had with his father-in-law on the way back, but from his parents’ house. Nevertheless, the first word will still be spoken by Marta, The dogs may not know you, marçal, but your wife certainly does, I really don’t want to talk about that, But we should talk about the things that hurt us, It was stupid of me and unfair, Well, let’s leave stupid to one side, because you’re certainly not that, let’s just stay with unfair, Look, I’ve already said that I was, But you weren’t being unfair either, Don’t let’s complicate things, Marta, please, what’s said is said, The things that seem to be over are always the things that never really are, we’re the ones who have been unfair, Who’s we, My father and me, especially me, my father has a married daughter and is afraid of losing her, he doesn’t need any further justification, And what about you, Well, I have no excuse whatsoever, Why, Because I love you and sometimes, too often, I give the impression that I’ve forgotten that I do, no, sometimes I do actually forget that the person to whom I owe that love is a real person, complete in himself, not someone who should make do with some rather diffuse emotion which gradually resigns itself to its own fatal vagueness, as if that were a fate against which there were no possible appeal, That’s what marriage is like, that’s how people live, you just have to look at my parents, There’s something else I’m guilty of too, Don’t go on, please, Let me finish now, marçal, let me finish, Please, Marta, You don’t want me to go on because you know what it is I’m going to say, Please, When you said that not even the dogs know you, what you were saying to your wife was that not only does she not know you, she hasn’t made the slightest effort to get to know you either, well, almost none, That’s not true, you do know me, no one knows me better than you, Only enough to understand the meaning of your words, but I’m no more intelligent in that respect than my father, who cottoned on as quickly as I did, Of the two of us, you’re the adult, I’m still a child, Maybe you’re right, at least you seem to be saying that I’m right, yet this marvelous adult, marçal Gacho’s terribly sensible wife, was incapable of seeing, as she should have done, what it means to be a person who has the simplicity and honesty to say of himself that he is a child, Not that I’ll always be a child, No, you won’t, which is why, while there’s still time, I’ll have to do everything I can to understand you as you are and doubtless reach the conclusion that, in your case, being a child is actually just a different way of being an adult, If you carry on like this, I won’t know who I am, Cipriano Algor will tell you that this is a frequent occurrence in life, You know, I think I’m beginning to get on better with your father, You cannot imagine, or perhaps you can, how happy that makes me. Marta clasped marçal’s hands and kissed them, then pressed them to her breast, Sometimes, she said, we need to return to certain ancient gestures of tenderness, How would you know, you weren’t alive in the days of bowing and hand-kissing, No, but I’ve read about it in books, which is the same as having been there, anyway it wasn’t bowing and hand-kissing I had in mind, They had different customs, different ways of feeling and communicating quite unlike our own, Strange though the comparison may sound, to me gestures are more than just gestures, they are like drawings made by one body on another body. The invitation could not have been more explicit, but marçal pretended not to have heard, although he knew that the moment had come to draw Marta to him, to stroke her hair, slowly kiss her cheek, her eyelids, gently, as if he felt no desire at all, as if he were merely distracted, it would be a grave mistake to think that what happens on such occasions is that desire takes absolute control of the body in order to make use of it, forgive the materialistic, utilitarian simile, as if we were talking about a tool with multiple applications, as capable of smoothing as of carving, as powerful a transmitter as a receiver, as precise at counting as at measuring, as capable of going up as going down. What’s wrong, asked Marta, suddenly uncertain, Nothing important, just a few niggling little problems, At work, No, What then, We have so little time together and yet they still won’t leave us alone, We don’t live in a bell jar, I dropped in at my parents’ house, Did something happen, some complication. marçal shook his head and went on, They started asking lots of questions about whether I had heard anything about when I might be promoted to resident guard, and I said that I hadn’t, and that I didn’t even have any solid proof that it would happen, You’re almost sure that you will be, though, Yes, almost sure, but you know what they say, don’t wash your basket out, until the last grape’s in, I know, I know, so what else did they say, They kept circling around and around the subject, and I just couldn’t make out what it was they were getting at, until finally, they told me their great idea, And what great idea would that be, Only that they’re thinking of selling their house and coming to live with us, With us, where, At the Center, Am I understanding you right, your parents want to come and live at the Center with us, Exactly, And what did you say, I started by pointing out that it was still a bit early to be thinking about that, but they said that selling a house wasn’t something that happened overnight, that they weren’t going to wait until we had moved in, you and me, and that they would start looking for a buyer, And what did you say, Well, thinking that it would settle the matter, I said that we were intending having your father to live with us when we moved, so that he wouldn’t be left alone here, especially now that the pottery is going through a crisis, You told them that, Yes, but they took no notice, they practically started yelling at me and crying, well, my mother did, my father’s not really the sloppy type, he just protested and waved his arms around a lot, what kind of a son am I, putting the interests of people who aren’t of the same blood over the needs of my own progenitors, they actually used the word progenitors, heaven knows where they found it, that they would never have imagined that one day they would hear me saying that I was rejecting the very people to whom I owe my life, the people who brought me up and educated me, that there’s certainly a deal of truth in the old saying that a son is a son until he gets him a wife, but nothing had prepared them for such indifference, anyway I wasn’t to worry about them, they hadn’t quite been reduced to begging in the streets, but one day I would regret what I’d done, not perhaps while they were alive, but after they were dead, which is always much worse, and they just hoped I didn’t have children who would treat me as cruelly as I was treating my own parents, And that was the final word, To be honest, I don’t know if it was or not, I’ve probably forgotten a few others, but they were all out of the same mold, You should have explained that they needn’t worry, you know my father doesn’t want to live at the Center, Yes, but I didn’t want to tell them that, Why not, That would just encourage them to think that they’re the only candidates, If they insist, you’ll have no option, In that case, I won’t accept the promotion, I’ll just have to find some convincing excuse to give the Center, Well, I doubt you’ll find one. They were sitting on the bed, almost touching, but the moment for caresses had passed, apparently as distant now as the days of hand-kissing and bowing, or even as that other moment when the man’s two hands were kissed and then pressed to the woman’s breast. marçal said, I know a son shouldn’t say things like this, but the fact is that I don’t want to live with my parents, Why, We’ve never really understood each other, I’ve never understood them and they’ve never understood me, They’re your parents, Yes, they’re my parents, and on one particular night, they went to bed, happened to be in the mood, and I was the result, when I was little I remember hearing them say, like someone telling a funny story, that he was drunk at the time, With or without wine, that’s the way we’re all born, Look, I know it’s unreasonable, but I hate the idea that my father was drunk when I was conceived, it’s as if I were the son of another man, it’s as if the man who really should have been my father couldn’t be there, as if his place had been taken by another, the one who said to me today that he hoped my children would be cruel to me, That isn’t quite what he said, But it’s what he thought. Marta took marçal’s left hand, held it between hers, and murmured, All fathers were sons once, many sons become fathers, but some forget what they were and no one can explain to the others what they will become, That’s a bit deep, Oh, I don’t understand it myself really, it just came to me, pay no attention, Let’s go to bed, All right. They got undressed and lay down. The moment for caresses came back into the room and apologized for having spent so much time outside, I got lost, it said, by way of an excuse, and suddenly, as sometimes happens with moments, it became eternal. A quarter of an hour later, their bodies still entwined, Marta said softly, marçal, What is it, he asked sleepily, I’m two days late.

In the safe silence of the bedroom, between sheets rumpled by the recent amorous agitations, the man heard his wife tell him that her period was two days late, and the news seemed to him extraordinary and utterly amazing, a kind of second
fiat lux
in an age in which Latin has ceased to be used and practiced, a vernacular
surgeet ambula
which has no idea where it is going and which is frightening for that very reason. Only an hour before, at most, in a moment of touching openness rare in the masculine sex, marçal Gacho had admitted to being a child, when, quite unbeknownst to him, he had been a father in embryo for some weeks, which just goes to show that we should never be too sure about what we think we are because it could easily happen that, at that precise moment, we are, in fact, something completely different. Almost everything that Marta and marçal said to each other that night, before falling asleep out of sheer exhaustion, is described in a thousand and one stories of couples with children, but the concrete analysis of the concrete situation in which this married couple find themselves did not leave un-examined certain questions peculiar to them, for example, Marta’s diminished ability to cope with the hard physical work of the pottery, but it failed to resolve, because this was dependent on the expected promotion, whether the baby would be born before or after their move to the Center. On the first point, Marta said she was sure that her mother, the late Justa Isasca, who had worked tirelessly up until the last day of her life, would never have succumbed to the pleasures of complete idleness just because she was pregnant, I myself would be a witness to that if only I could dredge up my memories of the nine months I lived inside her, A child in the womb can’t possibly know what’s going on outside, replied marçal, yawning, I suppose so, but you must at least admit that a baby would have an intimate knowledge of what’s going on inside its mother’s womb, it’s all just a question of remembering, We don’t even remember the trauma of birth, Well, that’s probably when we lose the first of all our memories, Now you’re just inventing things, give me a kiss. Before this delicate conversation and that kiss, marçal had expressed a vehement wish that the move to the Center should take place before the birth, You’ll have the best medical treatment and the best nursing you could possibly imagine, there’s nothing like it anywhere, either near or far, as regards both medicine and surgery, How do you know if you’ve never been to the hospital at the Center, you’ve probably never even been inside it, No, but I know someone who was admitted as a patient, a superior of mine who was at death’s door when he went in and came out a new man, there are people outside who try to use their influence to get admitted as patients, but the rules are very strict, To hear you talk anyone would think that no one at the Center ever dies, Of course they do, but death is less obvious somehow, That’s certainly an advantage, You’ll see when we go there, See what, that death is less obvious, is that what you mean, No, I wasn’t talking about death, Yes, you were, Look, I’m not interested in death, I was talking about you and our child, about the hospital you’ll go to, Always assuming your promotion isn’t too long in coming, If they don’t promote me within nine months, they never will, Give me a kiss, Mr. Security Guard, and let’s go to sleep, All right, here’s your kiss, but there’s still one other thing we need to talk about, What’s that, From now on you’ll do less work in the pottery and in two or three months’ time you’ll stop working altogether, Do you expect my father to do everything, especially if the Center puts in an order for the dolls, Get someone in to help, You know there’s no point, no one wants to work in a pottery, In your condition, What about my condition, my mother carried on working when she was pregnant with me, How do you know, Because I can remember. They both laughed, then Marta said, Let’s not tell my father about this just yet, he’ll be thrilled, but it’s best we don’t say anything to him, Why, Oh, I don’t know, he’s got too much on his mind as it is, The pottery, The pottery’s just one thing, The Center, The Center’s another thing, whether or not we’ll get the order, the stock he’s got to remove from the warehouse, but there are other things too, a certain water jug with a loose handle, for example, but I’ll tell you about that later. Marta was the first to go to sleep. marçal was feeling less shaken by then, he knew more or less which road he would have to take after the birth, and when, nearly half an hour later, sleep touched him with its smoky fingers, he let himself drift unresistingly off, his spirit at peace. His last conscious thought was to ask himself if Marta really had said something about the handle on a water jug, Ridiculous, I must have dreamed it, he thought. He was the one who slept the least, and he was the one to wake up first. The dawn light was sifting in through the gaps in the shutters. You’re going to have a child, he said to himself, and he repeated, a child, a child, a child. Then, moved by a curiosity quite without desire, almost innocent, if innocence still exists in that place in the world we call bed, he lifted the covers and looked at Marta’s body. She was turned toward him, with her knees slightly bent. The lower half of her nightshirt was caught up around her waist, her white belly was only just visible in the half-darkness and disappeared completely into the dark area of the pubis. marçal lowered the covers and realized that the moment for caresses had not gone away, it had remained in the room all night, and there it was, waiting. Doubtless touched by the draft of cold air caused by the movement of the bedcovers, Marta sighed and changed position. Like a bird gently testing out the site for its first nest, Manual’s left hand lightly brushed her belly Marta opened her eyes and smiled, then said jokingly, Good morning, Father-to-be, but her expression changed abruptly, she had just realized that they were not alone in the room. The moment for caresses had slipped in between them, had got in between the sheets, it could not have said precisely what it wanted, but they did exactly as it wished.