The Collected Novels of José Saramago (308 page)

Cipriano Algor was already up and about. He had slept badly, worried about whether he would get a reply from the head of the buying department that day and what the reply would be, whether positive or negative, whether reticent or dilatory, but what prevented him from sleeping at all for some hours was an idea that sprang into his head halfway through the night and which, as is so often the case with ideas that assail us at dead of sleepless night, he found extraordinary, magnificent, and even, in the case in question, the masterstroke of a negotiating talent worthy of applause. When he woke up from the barely two hours of restless sleep that his desperate body had managed to filch from its own exhaustion, he realized that the idea was, after all, worthless, that the sensible thing would be not to feed any illusions he might have about the nature and character of the person wielding the big stick, and that any order issued by someone invested with more than the usual degree of authority should be treated as if it were an irrefutable diktat from destiny. If simplicity really is a virtue, no idea could be more virtuous than this, as you will soon see, Sir, Cipriano Algor would say to the head of the buying department, I’ve been pondering what you said about having two weeks to remove the stock taking up space in the warehouse, it didn’t occur to me at the time, probably because of my excitement when I saw that there was a slight hope that I might be allowed to continue as a supplier to the Center, but then I started thinking about it and thinking about it, and I realized that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to fulfill two obligations at once, that is, to remove the crockery and make the dolls, yes, I know you haven’t yet put in a firm order for them, but just supposing that you did, it occurred to me, purely as a precaution, to suggest an alternative that would leave me free during the first week to get on with making the dolls, I would then remove half of the crockery in the second week, go back to the dolls during the third week, and remove the remaining crockery during the fourth week, I know, I know, you don’t have to tell me, I’m not pretending that there isn’t another option which would be to start with the crockery the first week and then alternately, in sequence, dolls, crockery, dolls, but I think, in this particular case, one should take into account the psychological factor, everyone knows how different the state of mind of the creator is from that of the destroyer, of someone who destroys, and if I could start making the dolls, that is start with creation, especially in the excellent frame of mind in which I find myself now, I would face with renewed courage the hard task of having to destroy the fruits of my own labor, because having no one to sell them to or, worse still, not even being able to give them away, is tantamount to destroying them. This speech, which, at three in the morning, appeared to its author to be possessed of an irresistible logic, seemed absurd to him in the early dawn and positively ridiculous in the revealing light of the sun. Oh, well, what will be will be, said the potter to the dog Found, the devil isn’t necessarily lurking behind every door. Given the manifest difference in concepts and the different nature of their respective vocabularies, Found could not even begin to understand what his master was trying to tell him, and in a way it was just as well because an indispensable condition for passing on to the next level of understanding would be to ask him who this devil was, a figure, entity, or character who, one supposes, has been absent from the spiritual world of dogs since the beginning of time, and, as you can imagine, if he were to ask a question like that right at the beginning, the discussion would be never-ending. With the arrival of Marta and marçal, both unusually cheerful, as if the night had rewarded them with something more than the usual alleviation of ten days’ worth of accumulated desire, Cipriano Algor dismissed the last remnants of his ill humor and immediately, via mental processes, which, for those aware of the premise and the conclusion, would be easy enough to delineate, he found himself thinking about Isaura Estudiosa, about her personally, but also about her name, unable to understand why we still call her Estudiosa, if the name comes from her husband, who is dead, The first chance I get, thought the potter, I must remember to ask her what her own name is, her original family name. Absorbed in the grave decision he had just made, one of the most daring of enterprises in the very private territory of names, indeed it is not the first time that a love story, to take but one example, has begun with that fatally curious question, What’s your name, Cipriano Algor did not at first notice that marçal and the dog were fraternizing and playing like old friends who have not seen each other in ages, It was the uniform, his son-in-law was saying, and Marta was repeating, It was the uniform. The potter looked at them oddly, as if everything in the world had suddenly changed its meaning, perhaps it was because he had been thinking about Isaura more in terms of her name than as the woman she was, it really isn’t that common, even when distracted, to get the two things mixed up, maybe there are some things we only begin to understand when we reach that point, Reach what point, Old age. Cipriano Algor walked over to the kiln, muttering, as if it were a senseless litany, Marta, marçal, Isaura, Found, then in a different order, marçal, Isaura, Found, Marta, and yet another, Isaura, Marta, Found, marçal, and another, Found, marçal, Marta, Isaura, finally he added his own name, Cipriano, Cipriano, Cipriano, and he repeated it until he lost count of the number of times he had said it, until a kind of vertigo whirled him outside of himself, until what he was saying became meaningless, then he pronounced the word kiln, the word woodshed, the word mud, the word mulberry, the word floor, the word lantern, the word earth, the word wood, the word door, the word bed, the word cemetery, the word handle, the word jug, the word van, the word water, the word pottery, the word grass, the word house, the word fire, the word dog, the word woman, the word man, the word, the word, and all the things in this world, those with names and those without, the known and the secret, the visible and the invisible, like a flock of birds which, grown weary of flying, descends from the clouds, all gradually took up their places, filling the gaps and reordering the senses. Cipriano Algor sat down on the old stone bench that his grandfather had placed beside the kiln and he rested his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands, he wasn’t looking at the house or at the pottery, or at the fields that stretched out beyond the road, or at the rooftops of the village to his right, he was looking at the ground scattered with tiny fragments of baked clay, at the whitish, grainy earth beneath them, at a stray ant carrying in its powerful mandibles a strand of wheat beard twice its size, at the shape of a stone from behind which the slender head of a lizard was peeping out, only to disappear at once. He had no thoughts or feelings, he was merely the largest of the bits of clay, a small dry clod that would crumble with the slightest pressure of the fingers, a strand of beard from an ear of wheat that had happened to be carried off by an ant, a stone behind which a living creature would hide from time to time, a beetle or a lizard or an illusion. Found seemed to emerge from the void, he wasn’t there and then suddenly he was, he abruptly placed his paws on his master’s knees, thus ruining Cipriano Algor’s pose as a contemplator of the vanities of this world who is wasting time, or, as he believes, gaining time, asking questions of ants and beetles and lizards. Cipriano Algor stroked the dog’s head and asked another question, What do you want, but Found did not answer, he just panted and opened his mouth, as if smiling at the inanity of the question. Just then, he heard marçal’s voice calling, Are you coming, Pa, breakfast’s ready. It was the first time his son-in-law had done such a thing, something unusual must be happening in the house and in the lives of Marta and marçal, and he could not think what it was, he imagined his daughter saying, You call him, or else, even more extraordinarily, marçal anticipating her, I’ll call him, there must be some explanation for all this. He got up from the bench, again stroked the dog’s head, then off they went. Cipriano Algor did not notice that the ant would never again travel the road that would lead it back to the anthill, it still has the strand of wheat beard firmly clenched between its mandibles, but its journey ended there, the fault of that clumsy dog Found, who doesn’t look to see where he’s putting his feet.

While they were eating, marçal, as if in reply to a question, told them that he had telephoned his parents to say that an urgent job had come up and that he wouldn’t be able to have lunch with them, Marta, in turn, expressed the view that they should not start transporting the crockery immediately, That way we can spend the day together, I doubt that one day out of two weeks will make a great deal of difference, Cipriano Algor said that the same thought had occurred to him, mainly because the head of the buying department might phone at any time, And I need to be here to talk to him. Marta and marçal looked at each other doubtfully, and marçal said cautiously, If I was in your place, and knowing as I do how the Center works, I wouldn’t get my hopes up, Don’t forget that he was the one who said he might give me an answer today, Even so, that might have just been talk, the sort of thing they say without really thinking about it, It’s not a matter of getting my hopes up, when the power of decision lies in other people’s hands, when we can do nothing to move them one way or the other, the only thing left to do is to wait. They did not have to wait long, the phone rang as Marta was clearing the table. Cipriano Algor rushed forward, grabbed the receiver with trembling hand and said, The Algor Pottery, at the other end, someone, a secretary or a telephonist, asked, Is that Senhor Cipriano Algor, Yes, speaking, One moment, please, I’ll just put you through to the head of the buying department, for a long, long minute, the potter had to listen to some violin music which, with maniacal insistence, filled the waiting time, he kept looking at his daughter, but it was as if he could not see her, at his son-in-law, but it was as if he wasn’t there, suddenly the music stopped, and he was through, Good morning, Senhor Algor, said the head of the buying department, Good morning, sir, I was just saying to my daughter and to my son-in-law, who’s home on leave at the moment, that having promised to phone today, you were bound to do so, We have to make a fuss about the promises that are kept in order to forget about the many that are not, Very true, sir, Now, I’ve been looking at your proposal and I’ve considered the various factors, both positive and negative, Forgive me interrupting you, but did you say negative factors, Not negative in the strict sense of the word, but, rather, neutral factors that could produce a negative influence, Sorry, I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what you mean, What I am referring to is the fact that your pottery has no known experience of making the products you are proposing, That’s true, sir, but both my daughter and myself know how to model clay and I can say without immodesty that we are very good at it too, and the only reason we never went into such work commercially was because, right from the start, we opted for making crockery instead, Yes, I understand, but, given the current climate, it was not easy to defend the proposal, You mean, if you’ll allow me the question and the interpretation, that you did defend it, Yes, I did, And the decision, The decision made was to say yes to an initial phase, Oh, thank you, sir, but I must ask you to explain what you mean by an initial phase, It means that we will place an initial, experimental order of two hundred of each of the figurines and that any future orders will obviously depend on how our customers react to the product, Sir, I don’t know how to thank you, As far as the Center is concerned, Senhor Algor, the best thanks we can get are satisfied customers, if they are satisfied, that is, if they buy and keep buying, we will be satisfied too, just look what happened with your crockery, the customers lost interest in it, and since, unlike certain other products, it was deemed not to merit the trouble and expense involved in convincing the customers that they were wrong, we terminated our commercial relationship, very simple, as you see, Yes, sir, very simple, I just hope these dolls don’t suffer the same fate, Oh, sooner or later they will, like everything else in life, if something no longer serves a useful purpose it will be thrown out, Including people, Exactly, including people, why, I myself will be thrown out when I’m no longer any use, You’re a head of department, Yes, I am, but I’m only that to those below me, there are other judges above me, The Center isn’t a court, That’s where you’re wrong, it is, and I know of no more implacable court, To be honest, sir, I don’t know why you waste your precious time talking about these things to an insignificant potter, May I point out that you are repeating words that I myself spoke yesterday, Yes, I am, more or less, The reason is that there are some things that can only be said to those beneath one, And I’m one of those beneath you, Now I wasn’t the one who put you there, but, yes, you are, At least I serve some purpose, then, but if your career progresses, as it certainly will, you will have many more people beneath you, Should that happen, Senhor Cipriano, you will become invisible to me, As you said earlier, such is life, Yes, such is life, but meanwhile, I am the person who will sign the order, Sir, I have just one more question to put to you, What’s that, It’s about the removal of our surplus crockery from the warehouse, That has already been decided, I gave you a deadline of two weeks, It’s just that in the meantime I’ve had an idea, What idea is that, Since it is in our interests, ours and the Center’s, to carry out the order as quickly as possible, it would be very helpful if we could alternate, Alternate, Yes, I mean spend one week removing the stock from the warehouse, the next working on the figurines, and so on, But that means you would take a month rather than two weeks to clear my warehouse, Yes, but we would gain time by getting ahead with our work, You said one week crockery and the next figurines, Yes, sir, Let’s do it another way, the first week you work on the figurines, the second you remove the crockery, it’s basically a question of applied psychology, creating is always so much more stimulating than destroying, You’re very kind, sir, I would never have dreamed of asking for so much, Oh, I’m not kind, I’m just practical, said the head of the buying department sharply, Perhaps kindness is a question of practice, muttered Cipriano Algor, Could you say that again, I didn’t quite catch it, Oh, it doesn’t matter, sir, it wasn’t important, But say it again anyway, I said that perhaps kindness is a question of practice, That’s the opinion of a potter, Yes, sir, but not all potters would share it, Potters are dying out, Senhor Algor, And so are opinions like mine. The head of the buying department did not respond immediately, he must have been considering whether it was worth amusing himself further with this kind of cat-and-mouse game, but his position on the Center’s organization chart reminded him that the whole definition and maintenance of hierarchical configurations is based on their being scrupulously respected and never contravened or transgressed, and, of course, the inevitable result of being too free and easy with one’s inferiors or subalterns is to undermine respect and to encourage license, or, to put it more explicitly and unambiguously, it all ends in insubordination, indiscipline and anarchy. Marta, who for some moments had been vainly trying to attract her father’s attention, so absorbed was he in this verbal dispute, had finally scribbled down two questions in large letters on a piece of paper and placed it under his nose, Which ones, How many When he read them, Cipriano Algor raised his unoccupied hand to his head, there was no excuse for his distraction, a lot of talk for talk’s sake, a lot of argument and counterargument, and yet he had only found out part of what he really needed to know, and then only because the head of the buying department had told him, that is, that they would be placing an order for two hundred of each of the figurines. The silence did not last as long as it no doubt seems, but it must be remembered that in one moment of silence, even briefer than this one, many things can happen, and when, as in the present case, it is necessary to enumerate them, describe them and explain them in order fully to understand the meaning of all these things both jointly and individually, someone immediately jumps in to say that it’s impossible, that you can’t fit the whole world in the eye of a needle, when the truth is that the whole universe, even two universes, would fit easily. However, using a circumspect tone, so as not to awaken the sleeping dragon too abruptly, it is now time for Senhor Algor to mutter, Er, sir, time too for the head of the buying department to draw to a close a conversation which tomorrow, for the reasons given above, he may perhaps regret and may even wish had never happened, Right, then, we’re agreed, you can start work, the requisition will be sent off today, and, finally, it is time for Cipriano Algor to say that there is still one detail to resolve, And what detail is that, Which ones, sir, Which ones of what, you mentioned one detail, not several, Which of the figurines will you be ordering, that’s what I need to know, All of them, replied the head of the buying department, All of them, repeated Cipriano Algor, astonished, but the other man did not hear him, he had hung up. Stunned, the potter looked at his daughter, then at his son-in-law, Well, I never expected that, I heard what I heard and I don’t believe it, he said they’re placing an order for two hundred of each of the figurines, All six, asked Marta, Well, I think so, that’s what he said, all of them. Marta ran to her father and hugged him hard, not saying a word, marçal also went over to his father-in-law, Some days everything seems to go wrong, but then there are other days that bring only good news. Had Cipriano Algor been paying slightly more attention to what was being said, had he not been so distracted by the joyful prospect of guaranteed work, he would certainly have wanted to know what other good news that day had brought. Besides, the pact of silence that the two parents-to-be had agreed to a few hours before was almost broken right there and then, as Marta realized when she found her lips forming the words, Pa, I think I’m pregnant, however, she managed to bite them back. marçal, steadfast in keeping his part of the bargain, did not notice, nor did Cipriano, entirely innocent of suspicion. The truth is that such a revelation would be given only to someone who could not only read lips, a relatively common skill, but could also predict what they were going to say when the mouth was just about to open. This magical gift is as rare as that other gift mentioned elsewhere, that of being able to see into bodies through the skin that encloses them. However, we will immediately have to abandon the seductive profundity of both subjects, so rich in juicy reflections, to listen to what Marta has just said, Pa, do the sums, six times two hundred is one thousand two hundred, we’re going to have to deliver one thousand two hundred figurines, it’s a lot of work for two people, especially with so little time in which to do it. The other good news of the day, the likelihood of a child for marçal and Marta, which they felt to be certain, paled into insignificance beside that enormous number, it became a simple everyday possibility, the chance or intentional result of a man and a woman having come together in sexual union, by what we call natural methods and without taking any precautions. The security guard marçal Gacho said, half serious, half joking, I can see that from now on I will vanish from the landscape, I hope, at least, that you don’t forget I exist, You’ve never existed so much as now, said Marta, and Cipriano Algor stopped thinking for a moment about the one thousand two hundred figurines to wonder to himself what she meant.