The Collected Novels of José Saramago (35 page)

The men from the quarry come forward, they are about to finish cutting the small elevation to which the stone was towed, in order to form a vertical wall on the narrower side of the slab. This is where the man-of-war will rest, but first the men who have come from Mafra will open a broad track for the cart to go down, a ramp with a gentle incline sloping down on to the road, and only then can the journey get under way. Armed with picks and shovels, the men from Mafra advanced, the officer had already traced out a diagram of the excavation, and Manuel Milho, who was standing beside the fellow from Cheleiros, measured himself up against the stone, which was now within reach, and said, It’s the mother of all stones, he did not say the father, but the mother of all stones, perhaps because it had come from the bowels of the earth still covered in primeval mud, a gigantic mother capable of supporting or crushing countless men, for the slab is thirty-five spans long, fifteen spans wide, and four spans deep, and to complete our report, once it has been carved and polished in Mafra, it will be only fractionally smaller, thirty-two by fourteen by three in the same order of dimensions, and one day, when measurements will no longer be taken in spans but in metres, others will describe the stone as being seven metres long, three metres wide, and sixty-four centimetres high, take note, and since the old system of weights has disappeared in much the same ways as the old system of measurements, instead of two thousand, one hundred and twelve arrobas, we shall give the weight of the stone forming the balcony of the house that will be known as Benedictione as thirty-one thousand and twenty-one kilos, or as thirty-one tons in round figures, ladies and gentlemen, and now let us pass to the next room, for we still have some way to go.

Meanwhile, the men spent the entire day digging. The drovers came to give a hand, and Baltasar Sete-Sóis returned to his hand-cart without dishonour, for no one should forget what it means to do hard labour, no man knows when he might have to go back to it, and if one day we were suddenly to lose the notion of leverage there would be no other solution except to use our arms and shoulders, until such time as Archimedes could be resuscitated and say, Give me a fulcrum so that you may move the world. When the sun set, the track had been opened to an expanse of one hundred paces right up to the paved road, which they had travelled at a much more leisurely pace that morning. The men ate their supper and went off to get some sleep, they scattered throughout the nearby fields, sheltering under trees or blocks of stone that were white as could be and glistened when the moon appeared. The night was warm. If bonfires could be seen burning, they were simply for gathering around, for the sake of company. The oxen chewed their cud, saliva trickling down and replenishing with its own juices that earth to which everything returns, even the stones that are being hoisted with such difficulty, the men who hoist them, the levers that prise them up, the wedges that support them, you have no idea just how much work there is involved in building this convent.

It was still dark when the bugle sounded. The men got to their feet and rolled up their cloaks, the drovers went off to yoke the oxen, the inspector came down to the quarry from the house where he had lodged for the night, accompanied by his aides and foremen so that the latter could be told what orders they were to give and for what purpose. The ropes and hawsers were unloaded from the carts and the yokes of oxen were lined up along the road in two rows. But the man-of-war still had to arrive. Consisting of a platform made from sturdy wooden planks resting on six massive wheels with rigid axles, it was marginally bigger than the slab itself. The platform had to be pushed manually amid the din and confusion as men struggled to move it and others shouted commands, one man, in a moment of distraction, lost his foot under one of the wheels, he let out a yell, the scream of someone in terrible pain, a bad start to the journey. Baltasar, standing nearby with his oxen, saw the blood spurt from the man’s foot and suddenly imagined himself back in Jerez de los Caballeros, some fifteen years before, how time flies. With time, pain passes, but it will take some considerable time for a pain like this to pass, the man’s agonised cries can still be heard as he is carried off on an improvised stretcher to Morelana where there is an infirmary, perhaps he will escape with a minor amputation to his leg, damn it. Baltasar also spent the night in Morelana, where he slept with Blimunda, and so the world unites, in one and the same place, the greatest joy and the greatest affliction, the consoling smell of wholesome humours and the foul stench of a gangrenous wound, in order to invent heaven and hell, a man would need to know nothing except the human body. There are no longer any signs of blood on the ground, the wheels of the cart have passed over the spot, the men have trampled the ground without forgetting the broad hooves of the oxen, and the earth has sucked in and absorbed the rest, only a pebble tossed to one side still bears the stains of the man’s blood.

The platform was lowered very slowly, held on the slope by men who cautiously loosened the ropes in easy stages, until it finally made contact with the wall of earth that the masons had smoothed out. Now knowledge and skill would be put to the test. All the wheels of the cart were wedged with great boulders so that it would not move from the wall when the slab was heaved from the pine trunks and gently lowered and eased on to the platform. Its entire surface had been covered with mud to reduce the friction of the stone against the wood, and then the ropes were passed along and tied around the slab lengthwise, one on each side and clear of the trunks, while another was tied around the width of the slab, thus forming six ends, which were joined at the front of the cart and tied to a solid beam reinforced with iron plates, from these emerged two thicker hawsers, which acted as the main straps of the harness, to which thinner ropes were successively added for the oxen to pull. This operation took considerably longer to achieve than to explain, and the sun had already risen way above those mountains we can see over there, as the last knots were being tied, water was sprinkled on to the mud that had dried in the meantime, but the first priority was to spread out the yokes of oxen along the road and make certain that all the ropes were sufficiently taut, so that their drawing power would not be lost through any discordance, I pull, you pull, so much so that in the end there was not enough room for the two hundred yokes of oxen, and the traction had to be exerted to the right, the front, and above, It’s a hellish job, said José Pequeno, who was the first man on the hawser to the left, if Baltasar expressed any opinion, it could not be heard, because he was too far away. Up there on the top, the master of works was about to raise his voice, his shout began in a drawl and ended hoarsely, like a blast of gunpowder, without echoes, Heave, if the oxen pull too much in one direction, we are in serious trouble, Heave, the order rang out clearly this time, and two hundred oxen jostled, first they pulled with one great tug, then with continued force, then stopped because some of the animals slipped while others turned
inward or outward, everything depended upon the drovers’ skill, the ropes chafed the animals’ rumps until, amid shouts, insults, and incitements, the traction was just right for a few seconds and the slab moved forward one span, crushing the pine trunks underneath. The first pull was perfect, the second misfired, the third had to balance out the other two, now only these men were pulling, while the others took the strain, at last the slab began to move forward on the platform, still resting on the pine trunks, until it slipped and landed brusquely on the cart, a tombstone, its rough edge cutting into the wood, and there it lay motionless, to have covered or not covered the cart with mud would have come to the same thing if other solutions to the problem had not been devised. Men clambered on to the platform and with long, powerful levers began to lift the stone, which was still quite unstable, while others inserted wedges underneath with a metal base that slid easily over the mud, now it will be much easier, Heave, Heave, Heave, everybody pushed with enthusiasm, men and oxen alike, and what a pity Dom João V was not standing up there on the mountain, for no nation toils as willingly as this one. The hawsers on each side had already been removed and all the traction was now concentrated on the rope tied lengthwise around the slab, that is all it required, and the slab looks almost lightweight as it slides readily over the platform, only when it finally comes down can one hear the resounding thud of its weight, and the whole cart creaks, had it not been for the natural paving on that road, with stones upon stones, the wheels would have sunk right up to their hubs. The great blocks of marble that served as wedges were removed, since there was no further danger of the cart escaping. Now the carpenters came forward with their mallets, boring tools, and chisels, and at regular intervals cut rectangular holes in the thick platform on a level with the slab, into which they hammered quoins, which were then secured with thick nails, the job took considerable time. Meanwhile, the other workers rested in the shade of the trees nearby, the oxen chewed their cud and shook off the gadflies, and the heat was oppressive. The mess bugle summoned the men to dinner just as the carpenters were finishing the job, and the inspector gave instructions that the slab should be tied to the cart, an operation entrusted to the soldiers, perhaps because of the discipline and responsibility involved, perhaps because they were accustomed to handling artillery, within half an hour, the slab was securely tied with ropes and yet more ropes, as if it were part of the platform, so that wherever the one might go the other would have to follow. There were no further adjustments to be made, and the job was finished. Viewed sideways, the cart becomes an animal with a carapace, a squat turtle on short legs, and because it is covered with mud, it looks as if it has just come out of the soil, as if it formed part of the earth itself and were extending the elevation against which it is propped. The men and oxen are eating their dinner, and afterwards they will have their siesta, if life did not offer certain pleasures such as eating and resting, there would be little joy in building a convent.

The saying goes that no misfortune lasts forever, although judging by the weariness misfortune brings in its train, one is sometimes tempted to believe otherwise, what is certain is that good fortune does not last forever. A man is enjoying the most delightful slumber as he listens to the cicadas, and if the meal was not exactly lavish, a stomach accustomed to hunger is satisfied with very little, besides, the sunshine is also nourishing, when his peace is rudely interrupted by the blare of a trumpet, were we in the Valley of jehoshaphat we should awaken the dead, but here there is no alternative other than for the living to rouse themselves. The various tools are checked and loaded onto the carts, for everything has to be accounted for in the inventory, the knots are checked, the cables are attached to the cart, and with another cry of Heave, the restless oxen start to pull unevenly, their hooves getting stuck on the irregular surface of the quarry, the ox-goads sting their necks, and the cart moves forward slowly, as if it were being drawn from the furnace of the earth, its wheels grind the marble splinters scattered on the ground, no stone as large as the one we are transporting today has ever been excavated from this quarry. The inspector and some of his qualified assistants have already mounted the mules, while others will make the journey on foot, in keeping with their rank as subalterns, although all of them can boast of some expertise and authority, the expertise because of their authority, the authority because of their expertise, but the same cannot be said of this encampment of men and oxen, who are simply under orders, the former as much as the latter, and any status they enjoy depends on the strength they can muster. Some additional skills, however, are expected of these men, for example, not to pull in the wrong direction, to put the wedge under the wheel in good time, to master the expressions that help encourage the animals, to know how to join strength to strength and multiply both, which, after all, is no mean feat. The cart has already progressed halfway up the track, some fifty paces at most, and it continues to sway awkwardly on the stones, for this is no royal coach or episcopal litter that is sprung as God intended. Here the axles are rigid, the wheels like weights, there are no brightly polished harnesses to admire on the backs of the oxen, or smart uniforms worn by the men as they go about their duties, this is a rabble, which one would never associate with a triumphal march or be likely to find taking part in the Corpus Christi procession. It is one thing to transport the stone for the balcony from where the Patriarch will give all of us his blessing in a few years’ time, but it would be something else, and infinitely preferable, if we were both the blessing and the giver of that blessing, like sowing bread and eating it.

It is going to be a fine journey. From here to Mafra, even though the King has ordered the pavements to be repaired, the road is awkward, an endless climbing and descending, a constant skirting of valleys, scaling of heights, and plunging into depths, if there was any error in the counting of those four hundred oxen and six hundred men, it was to have underestimated their numbers, not that they are in any way superfluous. The inhabitants of Pêro Pinheiro went down to the road to admire the procession, they had never seen so many oxen assembled since the work first started, or heard such a commotion, some, however, felt a tinge of sadness as they watched the departure of that magnificent stone, which had been extracted from the earth here in Pêro Pinheiro, may it reach its destination in one piece, otherwise it would have been preferable to leave it undisturbed beneath the soil. The inspector was already heading the convoy like a general marching into battle with his captains, adjutants, and orderlies, they are about to reconnoitre the terrain, to measure the curve in the road, assess the slope, and choose a site for the encampment. Then they go back to meet the cart, to establish how far it has progressed, if it has left Pêro Pinheiro or is still there. By the end of the first day, it had only advanced some five hundred paces. The road was narrow, the yokes of oxen kept jostling each other, with a rope on each side, little room for manoeuvre, and half of the force of traction was lost because they were pulling in disarray and orders could scarcely be heard. And there was the incredible weight of the stone. Whenever the cart had to pause, either because a wheel got stuck in a hole in the road, or because the oxen were straining as they tried to tackle some slope, it looked as if the stone would move no further. When it did finally advance, all the planking creaked as if it were about to free itself from the iron plates and clamps. But there would be even greater difficulties ahead.