The Collected Novels of José Saramago (310 page)

The very genuine motives for complaint that Cipriano Algor has about the Center’s pitiless commercial policy, largely presented in this story from the point of view of frank class solidarity without, or so we believe, ever departing from the most rigorous impartiality, cannot disguise the fact, though we run the risk here of stirring up the slumbering bonfire of the historically difficult relationship between capital and work, cannot, as we were saying, disguise the fact that Cipriano Algor bears some of the blame for this himself, the main reason, ingenuous and innocent enough, but also, as so often with the ingenuous and the innocent, the malignant root of all the other reasons, was his assumption that certain tastes and needs common to his founding grandfather’s contemporaries vis-à-vis ceramics would remain unchanged per omnia saecula saeculorum or, at least, for the rest of his life, which, when you think about it, comes to the same thing. We have seen the very traditional way in which the clay here is kneaded, we have seen the rustic, almost primitive wheels they use, we have seen that the kiln outside shows traces of an antiquity unforgivable in this modern age, which, for all its scandalous defects and prejudices, has had the goodness to allow a pottery like this to coexist with a Center like that, at least until now. Cipriano Algor complains and complains, but he does not seem to understand that kneaded clay is no longer stored like this, that it will not be long before the basic ceramics industries of today turn into laboratories with employees in white coats taking notes and with immaculate robots doing all the work. This pottery for example, is crying out for hygrometers to measure the atmospheric humidity and the appropriate electronic mechanisms for keeping it constant and correcting it whenever it gets too high or too low, there is no place now for working things out by eye or by touch, by feel or by smell, according to the retrograde technological procedures of Cipriano Algor, who has just said to his daughter as if it were the most natural thing in the world, The clay’s fine, just the right degree of wetness and plasticity, nice and easy to work, now, we ask ourselves, how can he be so sure of what he’s saying when all he has done is to place his hand on the clay, if all he has done is to pinch the clay between his thumb, forefinger, and middle finger, as if, with eyes closed, depending entirely on the interrogative sense of touch, he were appreciating, not a homogeneous mixture of red clay, kaolin, silica, and water, but the warp and weft of silk. It is likely, as we have recently had occasion to observe and to propose for consideration, that it is not he, but his fingers who know. At any rate, Cipriano Algor’s verdict must be in accordance with the physical reality of the clay because Marta, who is much younger and much more modern, much more in tune with the age we live in, and, as we know, no fool when it comes to making pots, passed without comment to another matter, asking her father, Do you think there’s enough here to make one thousand two hundred figurines, Yes, I think so, but I’ll try to beef it up a bit. They moved into the part of the pottery where they kept the colors and other finishes, recorded what was there and made a note of what was not, We’re going to need more colors than this, said Marta, the dolls have to be attractive to the eye, And we’ll need plaster for the molds and ceramic soap and oil for the paints, added Cipriano Algor, we’d better get everything we need now, so that we won’t have to stop work in order to go and buy things later. Suddenly Marta looked very thoughtful, What’s wrong, asked her father, We’ve got a really serious problem, What’s that, We’d decided to use press molding, Right, But we haven’t discussed the making of the figurines themselves, we can’t possibly make one thousand two hundred figurines using press molding, the molds wouldn’t take it and we wouldn’t be able to work quickly enough, it would be like trying to empty the sea with a bucket, You’re right, Which means that we’re going to have to resort to slip casting, We don’t have much experience with that, but we’re not too old to learn, That isn’t the worst of it, Pa, What is then, Well, I remember reading, I’m sure we’ve got the book in the house somewhere, that to do slip casting, it’s best not to use a clay that contains kaolin, and ours does, at least thirty percent, My brain clearly isn’t what it was, why didn’t I think of that, It’s not your fault, we’re not used to working with casting slip, Yes, I know, but you learn that in pottery kindergarten, it’s absolutely basic to the craft. They looked at each other in bewilderment, they were not father and daughter, not future grandfather and future mother, they were just two potters confronted by the enormous and risky task of having to extract the kaolin from the worked clay and then making it less heavy by introducing some lighter clay. In fact, such an alchemical operation is simply impossible. What shall we do, asked Marta, let’s look at the book, perhaps, No, it’s not worth it, you can’t remove kaolin from clay or neutralize it, it doesn’t even make sense, how could you remove or neutralize kaolin I ask myself, the only solution is to prepare more clay with the right components, There isn’t time, Pa, No, you’re right, there isn’t. They left the pottery, two dejected figures whom Found did not even attempt to approach, and now they were sitting in the kitchen, looking at the drawings that were looking back at them, and they could see no way of getting over this sticking point, they knew from experience that heavy clays tend to shrink too much, to crack and become distorted, they are too plastic, soft, pliable, but they did not know how this would affect the casting slip nor what negative consequences this might have for the finished work. Marta looked for and found the book, there it said that to prepare the slip, it was not enough to dissolve the clay in water, you had to use deflocculants, such as sodium silicate, or soda ash, or potassium silicate, or even caustic soda if it wasn’t such dangerous stuff to handle, ceramics is the art in which it is truly impossible to separate chemistry from its physical and dynamic effects, but what the book doesn’t say is what will happen to my dolls if I make them with the only clay I’ve got, and about which there is nothing I can do, the other problem is quantity, if there were only a few of them, we would use press molding, but one thousand two hundred, good grief. If I understand it correctly, said Cipriano Algor, the most important things to bear in mind with casting slip are density and viscosity, Yes, it explains that here, said Marta, Read it, then, The ideal density is one point seven, in other words, one liter of slip should weigh one thousand seven hundred grams, if you don’t have a suitable densimeter and you want to know the density of the slip, use a test tube and a pair of scales, minus the weight of the test tube of course, And what about viscosity, To measure viscosity, use a viscosimeter, of which there are various types, each of them giving readings drawn from scales based on different criteria, It’s not much help that book, Yes, it is, pay attention, All right, One of the most frequently used is the torsion viscosimeter which gives a reading in degrees Gallenkamp, Who was he, It doesn’t say, Read on, According to that scale, the ideal viscosity is between two hundred and sixty and three hundred and sixty degrees, Can’t you find anything in there I can understand, asked Cipriano Algor, Coming up now, said Marta, and she read, In our case we will use a traditional method, which, though empirical and imprecise, can, with practice, give an approximate measurement, Which method is that, Plunge your hand deep into the casting slip, then take it out and let the slip run off your open hand, if it forms a membrane between the fingers like a duck’s webbed foot then the viscosity is right, Like a duck’s webbed foot, Yes, like a duck’s foot. Marta put the book down and said, We’re not much farther forward, Yes, we are, now we know that we won’t be able to work without deflocculants and that until we have duck’s feet we won’t have any usable casting slip, Well, I’m glad you’re in a good mood, Moods are like the tides, they come in and they go out, mine has just come in, we’ll see how long it lasts, It has to last, this house is in your hands, The house is, yes, but not life, Has the tide gone out already, asked Marta, It’s hesitant, vacillating, not quite sure whether it’s high tide or low tide, Then stay with me, because I’m in a fluctuating mood, as if I wasn’t quite sure that I am what I think I am, Sometimes I think we might be better off not knowing who we are, said Cipriano Algor, Like Found, Yes, I imagine that a dog knows less about himself than he does about his master, he can’t even recognize himself in a mirror, Perhaps a dog’s mirror is his master, perhaps that’s the only mirror in which he can recognize himself, suggested Marta, It’s a nice idea, You see, even wrong ideas can be nice, If the pottery goes under, we can always breed dogs, There are no dogs at the Center, Poor Center, not even dogs want to live there, It’s the Center that doesn’t want the dogs, Well, that problem is of interest solely to those who live there, said Cipriano Algor in an angry tone of voice. Marta did not respond, realizing that anything she said might give rise to another argument. As she reordered the somewhat dog-eared drawings yet again, she thought, If marçal comes home tomorrow and says that he’s been made a resident guard, that we have to move, then what we’re doing now makes no sense, whether Pa comes with us or not, one way or another the pottery will be condemned, even if he insists on staying, he can’t work on his own and he knows that. What thoughts Cipriano Algor had meanwhile remain a mystery, and it’s hardly worth inventing some which might not coincide with any real and actual thoughts he had, however, always supposing that words were not given to man in order to conceal his thoughts, it would be permissible for us to conclude from what the potter said after a long silence, There’s nothing wrong with having illusions, what’s wrong is deluding yourself, that he had probably been thinking the same as his daughter and that, logically speaking, they would both have reached the same conclusions. Anyway, said Cipriano Algor, without realizing, or perhaps only realizing at the very moment in which he spoke it, what sibylline subtleties it contained, anyway, a moored boat goes nowhere, whatever happens tomorrow, we’ve got to work today, there’s no way of knowing if the tree you plant will also turn out to be the tree you hang yourself from, In an oil slick like that our boat will never get anywhere, said Marta, but you’re quite right, time isn’t out there waiting for us, we have to start work, my first task is to draw the side views and back views of the figures and color them in, I should finish them by tonight if no one disturbs me, We’re not expecting any visitors, said Cipriano Algor, and I’ll make the lunch, It’s just a matter of heating it up, so all you have to do is make a salad, said Marta. She went off to get the drawing paper, watercolors, paint pots, and brushes and an old rag to dry them on, placed everything neatly and methodically on the table, sat down, and picked up the drawing of the bearded Assyrian, I’ll start with this one, she said, Simplify as much as possible so that we won’t have any problems with bits sticking or catching when the mold is removed, two molds will be enough, a third one would be beyond us, All right, I won’t forget. Cipriano Algor remained for a few minutes watching his daughter draw, then he went outside to the pottery. He was going to grapple with the clay, to lift the weights and barbells involved in learning something anew, to rediscover a lost dexterity and to make a few experimental figures that are clearly not jesters or clowns, Eskimos or nurses, nor Assyrians or mandarins, figures that anyone, man or woman, young or old, could look at and say, They look just like me. And perhaps one of those people, woman or man, old or young, out of the pleasure or possible vanity of taking home with them that extraordinarily faithful representation of the image they have of themselves, will come to the pottery and ask Cipriano Algor how much that figurine over there costs, and Cipriano Algor will tell them that it’s not for sale, and the person will ask why, and he will reply, Because it’s me. It was late afternoon, almost dusk, when Marta came into the pottery and said, I’ve finished, I’ve left them to dry on the kitchen table. Then, noticing the work her father had been doing, two unfinished standing figures about two spans high, one male, the other female, both naked, and one of whom has a bit of wire sticking out of one shoulder, she said, Not bad, Pa, not bad, but don’t forget that our figurines won’t need to be so big, we were thinking of a height of about one span, They should be a bit bigger than that, I think, then they’ll stand out more on the shelves in the Center, and we have to take into account shrinkage inside the kiln when they lose the last bit of moisture, besides, I was just experimenting, No, I think they’re good, I really do, and they’re not like anything else I’ve ever seen, although the woman does remind me of someone, Make up your mind, said Cipriano Algor, first you say they’re nothing like anything you’ve ever seen and then you say the woman reminds you of someone, It’s a kind of dual impression, of strangeness and familiarity, Perhaps I won’t have to breed dogs after all, perhaps I can take up sculpture, which is, so I hear, one of the more lucrative arts, An exemplary family of artists, commented Marta with a half-ironic smile, Fortunately, we’ve got marçal, so all is not lost, replied Cipriano Algor, but he did not smile.