The Collected Novels of José Saramago (327 page)

Marta had suggested to her husband that they should use his first day off since moving to the Center to go and fetch a few things from their other home that, according to her, they needed, Normally when you move, you take all your possessions with you, but that wasn’t the case with us, besides, I’m sure we’ll go there on other occasions, and it would be rather nice, we could spend the night in our own bed and come back the following morning, like you used to do. Marçal said that he didn’t think it was a good idea to create a situation in which they ended up not knowing where they really lived, Your father seems to want to give us the impression that he’s having a wonderful time discovering the secrets of the Center, but I know him, behind that mask, his brain is still working away, He hasn’t said a single word to me about what happened at Isaura’s house, he’s just clammed up, and that’s not like him, one way or another, however angrily or reluctantly, he always ends up telling me everything, I think that if we went back to the house now it might help him, he’d obviously want to go and see how Found is, and he’d have another chance to talk to Isaura, All right, if that’s what you want, we’ll go, but remember what I said, we either live here or we live at the pottery, trying to live in two places as if they were one will be like living nowhere at all, Perhaps that’s how it will be for us, What do you mean, Like living nowhere, Everyone needs a home, and we’re no exception, The home we had was taken from us, It’s still ours, But not like it was, This is our home now. Marta looked around her and said, I don’t think it will ever really be our home. Marçal shrugged, these Algors were difficult people to understand, but, then again, he wouldn’t change them for the world. Shall we tell your father, he said, Only at the last moment, so that he doesn’t have too long to brood over it and end up poisoning his blood.

Cipriano Algor never knew that his daughter and his son-in-law had plans for him. Marçal Gacho’s day off was canceled, and the same happened with his colleagues on the same shift. In absolute confidence, the resident guards, because they were considered the most trustworthy, were told that the work on building the new cold-storage units on floor zero five had uncovered something that would require long and careful examination, For the moment, access is limited, said the captain of the security guards, in a few days’ time, a team will be working down there made up of various specialists, geologists, archaeologists, sociologists, anthropologists, forensic experts, and PR people, someone told me there would even be a couple of philosophers too, though don’t ask me why. He paused, scanned the faces of the twenty men lined up before him and went on, You are forbidden to speak to anyone at all about what I have just told you or about anything you might find out in the future, and when I say anyone at all, I mean anyone, wife, children, parents, I require absolute secrecy from you, do you understand, Yes, sir, chorused the men, Good, the entrance to the cave, I forgot to mention that it’s a cave, will be under constant guard day and night, in four-hour shifts, this chart shows you who’s on duty when, it’s five o’clock now, and we start at six. One of the men raised his hand, he wanted to know, if at all possible, when the cave had been found and who had been guarding it since, We will only have responsibility for security from six o’clock onward, he said, so presumably we can’t be held responsible for any slipups that happened before that, The entrance to the cave was discovered this morning when the earth was being shifted manually, work was stopped immediately and the administration informed, since then, three engineers from the construction department have been there all the time, Is there something inside the cave, another guard asked, Yes, said the captain, you will have a chance to see what it is with your own eyes, Is it dangerous, should we be armed, asked the same guard, As far as we know, there is no danger, however, as a precaution, you should not touch anything or go too close, we don’t know what the consequences of any contact might be, For us or for whatever is in there, asked Marçal, For you and for them, So there is more than one of them in the cave, then, Yes, said the captain, and the expression on his face changed. Then, as if making an effort to pull himself together, he went on, Now if there are no further questions, these are your instructions, first, as for whether you should go armed or not, I think it will be enough if you carry your truncheons with you, not because I think you’ll need them, but just so that you feel more confident, the truncheon is like a vital piece of clothing, a uniformed guard feels naked without it, second, anyone not on guard duty should dress in plainclothes and patrol the various floors listening for any conversations that have or seem to have some bearing on the cave, and should that happen, although this is highly unlikely, the central service should be informed immediately and we will take the necessary steps. The captain paused again and concluded, That’s all you need to know, just remember your orders, absolute secrecy, it’s your career that’s on the line here. The guards went over to look at the duty roster, Marçal saw that he would be on the ninth shift, so he would be on duty between two and six o’clock on the morning of the day after next. Down below, thirty or forty meters underground, you would not notice the difference between night and day, there would be nothing but darkness pierced by the crude beams from floodlights and arc lights. As the elevator was carrying him up to the thirty-fourth floor, he was thinking about what he could tell Marta without compromising himself too much, the prohibition seemed to him absurd, a person has not so much a right but an obligation to confide in his family, but this was purely theoretical, for whichever way he looked at it, he would have no option but to do as he was told, orders are orders. His father-in-law was not at home, he was doubtless off on one of his inquisitive-child jaunts, in search of the meanings of things and quite astute enough to find them out however hidden they were. He told Marta that his duties had changed temporarily, he was to wear plainclothes, although it wouldn’t be permanent, just for a few days. Marta asked why and he said that he wasn’t authorized to say, that it was confidential, I gave my word of honor, he said by way of justification, and that wasn’t exactly true, the captain had not asked them to do so, such formulas belong to other times and to other mores, but sometimes we find ourselves saying them without thinking, the same thing happens with our memory, which always has more to offer us than the little we ask of it. Marta did not reply, she opened the wardrobe and removed one of Marçal’s two suits from its hanger, Will this do, she said, That will be fine, said Marçal, glad that they were in agreement on this important point. He thought it best to warn her about what else was involved, to sort the matter out once and for all, if he were in his colleague’s shoes, he would be going on duty very shortly and he would have to tell Marta right there and then, I’m on duty from six until ten, don’t ask me any questions, it’s a secret, that’s all he has to say, he just has to change the hours and the day, I’m on duty the day after tomorrow, from two until six in the morning, don’t ask me any questions, it’s a secret. Marta looked at him, intrigued, But the Center’s closed then, Well, I won’t be in the Center exactly, You’ll be outside, then, No, inside, but not in the Center, I don’t understand, Look, I’d prefer it if you didn’t ask me any questions, All I’m saying is that I can’t understand how something can happen inside and outside at the same time, It’s in the excavations they’re doing for the new cold-storage units, but I won’t say any more, Have they struck oil or found a diamond mine or the stone that marks the belly button of the world, asked Marta, I don’t know what they’ve found, And when will you know, When I go on guard duty, Or when you ask your colleagues who have been on duty before you, We were forbidden to talk to each other about it, said Marçal, looking away because these words could not strictly be described as true, they were, rather, a partial version of the captain’s orders and recommendations, freely adapted to suit his current rhetorical difficulties, It’s obviously a great mystery, said Marta, Yes, so it seems, agreed Marçal, taking exaggerated care over getting just the right amount of shirt cuff to appear beneath the sleeves of his jacket. In plainclothes he looked older than he really was. Will you be here for supper, asked Marta, I haven’t been told otherwise, but, if I can’t make it, I’ll phone. He left before his wife could come up with any more questions, relieved to have escaped her insistent curiosity, but sad too because the conversation, on his part, had not been exactly a model of honesty, No, I was just being loyal, he protested to himself, I told her right away that it was a secret. Despite the vehemence and good sense of this protest, Marçal remained unconvinced. When, more than an hour later, Cipriano Algor returned home, barely recovered from the terrors of the ghost train, Marta asked him, Did you see Marçal, No, I didn’t, Well, even if you had, you probably wouldn’t have recognized him, Why, He came home to change his clothes, now he’s a plainclothes security guard, That’s new, Those were his orders, Being a plain-clothes guard isn’t guarding, it’s spying, declared her father. Marta told him what she knew, which was almost nothing, but it was enough to quell Cipriano Algor’s interest in the amazon river complete with indians where he had been intending to go the next day, That’s odd, but you know, right from the start, I’ve had the feeling that something was going to happen here, What do you mean, right from the start, asked Marta, The floor trembling and vibrating, the noise of excavators, do you remember, when we first came to see the apartment, We would be in a real state if we had presentiments every time we heard an excavator at work, like the sewing machine noise we used to think we could hear in the kitchen wall and which Mama used to say was a sign that some poor seamstress had been condemned for the sin of having worked on a Sunday, But this time I’ve been proved right, Yes, so it seems, said Marta, repeating her husband’s words, We’ll see what he has to say when he comes back, said Cipriano Algor. They learned nothing more. Marçal clung to the answers he had given before, repeating them over and over, and he finally resolved to put an end to the matter, If you were to press me, I would be the first to find the order ridiculous, but that was the order I was given, so there’s nothing more to be said about it, At least tell us why you suddenly had to start patrolling in plainclothes, asked his father-in-law, We don’t patrol, we just keep an eye on security in the Center, All right, whatever, Look, I’ve nothing more to add, so please don’t ask, said Marçal angrily. He glanced at his wife as if wanting to know why she said nothing, why she didn’t defend him, and she said, Marçal is right, Pa, don’t go on at him, and addressing Marçal and at the same time planting a kiss on his head, Forgive us, we Algors can be terrible bullies. After supper, they watched a television program broadcast on the Center’s own channel, exclusively for residents, then they went to their rooms. With the lights out, Marta apologized again, Marçal gave her a kiss and the only reason he did not continue with a second and a third kiss was that he realized just in time that, if he carried on like that, he would end up telling her everything. Cipriano Algor, meanwhile, was sitting on his bed, with the light on, he had thought and thought again, only to conclude that he had to find out what was going on in the depths of the Center, and that, if there was another secret door down there, they would at least not be able to tell him that there was nothing on the other side. There was no point in cross-questioning Marçal again, besides, it was unfair to the poor boy, if he had orders not to say anything and he was carrying them out, he should be congratulated, not submitted to the various shameless forms of emotional blackmail at which families excel, I’m your father-in-law, you’re my son-in-law, tell me everything, Marta was right, he thought, we Algors are bullies. Tomorrow he would leave the river amazon complete with indians to its own devices and devote himself to walking through the whole Center, from end to end, listening to people’s conversations. In essence, a secret is rather like the combination to a safe, although we don’t know what it is, we know that it is made up of six digits, that one or more of them might even be repeated, and that however numerous the possible sequences, they are not infinite. As with all things in life, it is just a question of time and patience, a word here, another word there, an insinuating remark, an exchange of glances, a sudden silence, small disparate cracks that start opening up in the wall, the art of sleuthing lies in knowing how to bring them all together, how to eliminate the rough edges separating them, there will always come a moment when we must ask ourselves if the dream, the ambition, the secret hope of all secrets is, in fact, the possibility, however vague, however remote, of ceasing to be a secret. Cipriano Algor got undressed, turned out the light, thought that he was in for a sleepless night, but after only five minutes, was sleeping such a dense, opaque sleep that not even Isaura Madruga could have managed to peer around the last door as it closed upon him.