The Collected Novels of José Saramago (352 page)

T
HE ARITHMETIC WAS EASY ENOUGH TO DO
. I
F SOMEONE TELLS
us that they wrote a letter and that letter subsequently turns up bearing the signature of another person, there are only two hypotheses to choose from, either the second person wrote the letter at the request of the first, or the first person, for reasons António Claro does not know, forged the name of the second person. And that’s that. Whatever the truth may be, bearing in mind that the sender’s address on the letter is not that of the first person but that of the second, to whom the reply from the production company had clearly been addressed, bearing in mind that all the steps taken as a result of knowing the letter’s contents were taken by the first person and not a single step taken by the second, the conclusions to be drawn from this case are not just logical but transparent. Firstly, as is obvious, patent, and manifest, the two parties agreed between them to carry out this piece of epistolary mystification, secondly, for reasons that António Claro again does not know, the aim of the first person was to remain in the shadows until the last possible moment, as he had succeeded in doing. Antonio Claro went over and over these very elementary deductions during the three days it took for the letter sent by the enigmatic
Maria to reach him. The letter was accompanied by a card bearing the following handwritten words, but no signature, I hope this proves useful to you. This was precisely the question that António Claro was asking himself, And now what do I do. Nevertheless, it must be said that were we to apply the theory of filters and word-sieves to the current situation, we would notice the presence of lees, of a residue, a deposit or sediment, as Maria chose to describe it, the same Maria whom Antonio Claro dared to call, although only he will know with what intentions, first, a canary and then a nightingale, anyway, now that we are trained in the analytical process, we would say that the above-mentioned sediment betrays the existence of a purpose, perhaps still undefined, diffuse, but which we would bet our boots would not have arisen if the letter received had been signed not by a woman but by a man. This means that if Tertuliano Máximo Afonso had, for example, a close male friend and had worked out this crafty trick with him, Daniel Santa-Clara would have simply torn up the letter because he would consider it an unimportant detail vis-à-vis the fundamental issue, that is, the complete identity that brought them together and, at this rate, will very probably drive them apart. Alas, the letter is signed by a woman, Maria da Paz is her name, and António Claro, who, in his professional life, has never been cast as the elegant seducer, or even as a lowlier class of cad, does his best to find some balancing compensations in real life, although not always with very auspicious results, as we have recently had occasion to verify in that episode with the assistant at the production company, we should perhaps point out that the reason we have made no previous reference to his amatory propensities is simply because they did not seem relevant to the events being recounted at the time. Since, however, human actions,
generally speaking, are determined by a concurrence of impulses flowing from all the cardinal and collateral points of the instinctive being, we still are, along, of course, with a few rational factors that, against all the odds, we still manage to slip into the motivational web, and since, in these actions, the pure and the sordid are present in equal parts, and honesty counts as much as prevarication, we would not be using António Claro fairly if we refused to accept, however provisionally, the explanation he would doubtless offer us regarding the evident interest he is showing in the signatory of the letter, that is, his natural and very human curiosity to know what kind of relationship exists between Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, the letter’s intellectual author, and, or so he thinks, its material author, this Maria da Paz. We have had many opportunities to observe that António Claro does not lack perspicacity or vision, but the truth is that not even the most subtle of investigators to have left their mark on the science of criminology would have ever imagined that, in this strange matter, and against all the evidence, especially the documentary evidence, the moral author and the material author were one and the same. Two obvious hypotheses cry out for consideration, in ascending order of gravity, either they are simply friends or they are simply lovers. António Claro inclines to the latter hypothesis, firstly, because it fits in with the sentimental plots to which he is a mere witness in the films he usually appears in, and secondly and consequently, because he finds himself then in familiar territory and with a prepared script. It is time we asked if Helena knows what is going on, if António Claro has bothered to tell her about his visit to the production company, about the search through the register and his conversation with the intelligent and aromatic Maria, if he showed her or is going to show her the letter signed
by Maria da Paz, if, in short, given that she is his wife, he will share with her his dangerously fluctuating thoughts. The answer is no, three times no. The letter arrived yesterday morning, and António Claro’s one concern was to find a place to put it where no one else would find it. There it is, pressed between the pages of a history of the cinema that has not caught Helena’s interest since she very cursorily read it during the first few months of their marriage. Out of respect for the truth, we should say that, as yet, and despite the enormous amount of thought he has given to the matter, António Claro has still not produced a satisfactory plan of action deserving of the name. However, the privilege we enjoy of knowing everything that is going to happen up until the very last page of this story, apart from those things that might still need to be invented, allows us to say that tomorrow, the actor Daniel Santa-Clara will make a phone call to Maria da Paz’s apartment, purely to find out if anyone is there, we are, don’t forget, in high summer, the holiday period, but he will not say a word, not a single sound will issue from his lips, total silence, lest there should be any confusion, on the part of the person at the other end, between his voice and that of Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, for in that case, he would probably have no option but to pretend, to assume his identity, with, bearing in mind the current state of affairs, entirely unforeseeable consequences. However unexpected this may seem, in a few minutes’ time, before Helena gets back from work, and, again, to find out if he is away, he will phone the history teacher’s apartment, but this time he will not lack for words, António Claro has his speech already prepared, regardless of whether there is someone there to listen to him or whether he has to speak to the answering machine. This is what he will say, this is what he is saying, Hello, it’s António Claro here, I don’t suppose
you were expecting a call from me, in fact, I’d be surprised if you were, I assume you’re not at home, perhaps you’re off enjoying a holiday in the country somewhere, it’s only natural, it is, after all, the holiday season, anyway, whether you’re there or not, I wanted to ask you a big favor, to phone me as soon as you get back, I genuinely think we have a lot more to say to each other, I believe we should meet, not at my house in the country, which is, frankly, too out-of-the-way, but somewhere else, somewhere discreet where we will be safe from prying eyes, which would do us no good at all, anyway, I hope you agree, the best time to call me is between ten in the morning and six o’clock in the evening, any day except Saturday and Sunday, but, please note, only until the end of next week. He did not add, Because from then on, Helena, that’s my wife’s name, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, will be at home on holiday, but even though I’m not shooting a film, we won’t be going anywhere. That would be tantamount to admitting that she doesn’t know what’s going on, and where there is no trust, nonexistent in the present case, no sensible, well-balanced person would lay bare the secrets of his married life, especially in view of the gravity of the situation. An-tónio Claro, whose sharp wits have been shown to be in no way inferior to those of Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, realizes that the roles they have been playing up until now have been switched and that, from now on, he will be the one who has to disguise himself, and what had, at first sight, appeared to be a tardy and gratuitous provocation on the part of the history teacher, sending him, like a slap in the face, that false beard, did, it appears, have meaning and purpose, was born out of some presentiment. António Claro, not Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, will be the one who has to go in disguise to wherever their next meeting place will be. And just as Tertuliano Máximo
Afonso came to this street, wearing a false beard, in order to catch a glimpse of António Claro and his wife, so António Claro, complete with false beard, will go to the street where Maria da Paz lives to find out what kind of woman she is, and will follow her to the bank and occasionally even to within sight of where Tertuliano Máximo Afonso lives, thus he will be her shadow for however long is necessary and until the compelling force of what is written and what might be written disposes otherwise. After what has been said, it will come as no surprise that António Claro should go to the chest of drawers where he keeps the box containing the mustache that, in times past, adorned the face of Daniel Santa-Clara, a disguise clearly inadequate for the present situation, the same empty cigar box that for some days now has also been home to the false beard that António Claro is going to wear. Also in times past, there lived a king considered to be very wise and who, in a moment of easy philosophical inspiration, stated, one assumes with all the solemnity due to his position, that there was nothing new under the sun. We should never take these phrases too seriously, just in case we should still be saying them when everything around us has changed and the sun itself is not what it once was. The movements and gestures people make, on the other hand, have not changed very much, not just since the third king of Israel, but since that immemorial day when a human face first saw itself in the smooth surface of a pond and thought, That’s me. Now, here, where we are, where we have our existence, even after the passing of four or five million years, those primeval gestures continue to be monotonously repeated, oblivious to any changes in the sun and in the world illumined by that sun, if we need further proof that this is so we have only to watch as, before the smooth surface of his bathroom mirror, António Claro adjusts the beard that once belonged to Tertuliano Máximo Afonso with the same care, with the same concentration of mind, and perhaps with the same tremor of fear with which, not many weeks ago, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, in another bathroom and before another mirror, had drawn António Claro’s mustache on his own face. Less sure of themselves than their brutish common ancestor, they did not fall into the ingenuous temptation of saying, That’s me, for fears have changed a lot since then and doubts have changed even more, now, here, instead of a confident affirmation, all that emerges from our mouth is the question, Who’s that, and probably not even another four or five million years will be enough to provide an answer. António Claro took off the beard and put it back in the box, Helena will be home soon, tired from work, even more silent than usual, moving about the apartment as if it were not her home, as if the furniture were unfamiliar to her, as if the corners and edges of the furniture did not recognize her and, like zealous guard dogs, growled threateningly at her as she passed. A single word from her husband might perhaps change things, but we know that neither An-tónio Claro nor Daniel Santa-Clara will say it. Perhaps they don’t want to, perhaps they can’t, all fate’s reasons are human, purely human, and anyone who, basing themselves on the lessons of the past, says otherwise, be it in prose or in verse, doesn’t know what he or she is talking about, if you’ll forgive such a bold opinion.

The following day, after Helena had gone out, António Claro phoned Maria da Paz’s house. He did not feel particularly nervous or excited, silence would be his protective shield. The voice that answered was flat, with the hesitant fragility of someone recovering from some physical ailment, and yet although everything indicated that the voice belonged to a woman
of a certain age, it did not sound as frail as that of an old woman, or, if you prefer euphemisms, an elderly lady. She did not say much, Hello, hello, who is it, say something, will you, hello, hello, honestly, how rude, a person can’t even get any peace in her own home, and she hung up, but Daniel Santa-Clara, although he does not orbit the solar system of the really famous actors, has an excellent ear, for relationships in this case, and so it was easy for him to work out that the elderly woman, if she isn’t the mother, is the grandmother, and if she isn’t the grandmother, she’s the aunt, excluding out of hand, because it bears no relation to actuality, that tired old literary cliché of the old-servant-who-never-got-married-out-of-love-for-her-master-and-mistress. Obviously, given his method of approach, he still doesn’t know if there are any men at home, a father, a grandfather, an uncle, or a brother, but António Claro need not worry overmuch about such a possibility, since, in every respect, in sickness and in health, in life and in death, he will appear before Maria da Paz not as Daniel Santa-Clara, but as Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, who, while they may not fling wide the doors for him, either as friend or lover, must at least enjoy the advantages of a tacitly acknowledged relationship. Were we to ask António Claro what his preference would be, in accordance with the objectives he has in mind, as to the nature of the relationship between Tertuliano Máximo Afonso and Maria da Paz, whether they are lovers or friends, we have no doubt whatsoever as to his reply, that if the relationship were merely one of friendship, it would not hold half the attraction for him as it would if they were lovers. As we can see, the plan of action that Antonio Claro has been working on has not only advanced greatly as regards the setting of objectives, it is also beginning to grow in strength as regards the motivation it previously lacked,
although that strength, unless we have made a grave error of interpretation, seems to be based entirely on malevolent ideas of personal revenge that the situation, as we see it, neither promised nor in any way justified. True, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso did challenge Daniel Santa-Clara directly when, without a word, and that, perhaps, was the worst thing, he sent him the false beard, but with a little common sense, the matter could have ended there, António Claro could have shrugged and said to his wife, The man’s a fool, if he thinks he can provoke me that easily, he’s very much mistaken, throw it in the bin, will you, and if he’s stupid enough to repeat this nonsense, then we’ll call the police and put a stop to this whole story once and for all, whatever the consequences. Unfortunately, common sense does not always appear when it is needed, and its brief absences have often resulted in some major dramas and in some of the most terrifying of catastrophes. The proof that the universe was not as well-thought-out as it should have been lies in the fact that the Creator ordered the star that illumines us to be called the sun. Had the king of the stars borne the name Common Sense, imagine how enlightened the human spirit would be now, both by day and by night, because, as everyone knows, the light we call moonlight comes not from the moon but always and solely from the sun. It’s worth considering that the reason so many theories about the origin of the universe have been created since the birth of speech and the word is that all of them, one by one, have failed miserably, with a regularity that augurs rather ill for the one that, with a few variations, is currently in vogue. Let us return, however, to António Claro. It is clear that he wishes, as soon as possible, to meet Maria da Paz, and that, for entirely wrongheaded reasons, he has become obsessed with revenge, and, as you will no doubt already have
noticed, there is no power in heaven or on earth that will dissuade him from this. Obviously, he cannot go and stand outside the building where she lives and ask every woman who goes in or out, Are you Maria da Paz, nor could he entrust himself to the hands of chance and fortune and, for example, walk up and down her street once, twice, three times and, on the third occasion, address the first woman he saw, You look like Maria da Paz, you can’t imagine what a pleasure it is finally to meet you, I’m a movie actor and my name’s Daniel Santa-Clara, allow me to invite you to a coffee, it’s just across the road, I’m sure we’re going to have lots to talk about, ah, the beard, yes, I congratulate you on your perspicacity, on not being deceived, but I ask you, please, don’t be alarmed, keep calm, when we can meet in some more private place, a place where I can remove the beard without danger, you will see before you a person you know well, intimately I believe, and whom I, without a flicker of envy, would congratulate were he here, our very own Tertuliano Máximo Afonso. The poor woman would be utterly overwhelmed by the prodigious transformation, which would, however, be quite inexplicable at this point in the narrative, for it is vital to keep in mind the fundamental, guiding idea that things should patiently await their moment and not push or reach over the shoulders of those who arrived first, shouting, I’m here, although we would not entirely reject the hypothesis that if, occasionally, we did let them through, certain potential evils might lose some of their virulence or vanish like smoke in the air, for the banal reason that they had missed their turn. This outpouring of thoughts and analyses, this benevolent scattering of reflections and their offshoots over which we have been lingering, should not make us lose sight of the prosaic reality that, deep down, what António Claro wants to know is if Maria
da Paz is worth it, if she is really worth all the trouble he is going to. If she was unattractive, as thin as a rail, or, on the contrary, suffering from an excess of fat, neither of which, we hasten to add, would constitute any great obstacle if love were playing a part, then, we would see Daniel Santa-Clara taking a rapid step backward, as must have happened so often in the past, during encounters based on friendships formed through correspondence, the ridiculous stratagems, the ingenuous means of identification, I’ll be carrying a blue parasol in my right hand, I’ll be wearing a white flower in my buttonhole, and, in the end, no parasol and no flower, perhaps one person waiting in vain at the arranged spot, perhaps neither, the flower thrown hastily into the gutter, the parasol hiding a face that preferred not to be seen. Daniel Santa-Clara, however, need not worry, Maria da Paz is young, pretty, elegant, with a nice figure and a good character, that last attribute, though, is irrelevant to the matter at hand, for, nowadays, the scales on which the fate of the parasol or the destiny of the flower were once decided are not particularly sensitive to considerations of this nature. Meanwhile, António Claro has an important problem to resolve if he does not want to spend hours and hours hanging about on the pavement outside Maria da Paz’s building, waiting for her to appear, with fatal and dangerous consequences arising from the natural apprehensions of the neighbors, who would, in no time, be phoning the police to alert them to the suspicious presence of a bearded man who certainly wasn’t there just to keep the building propped up. He must have recourse, therefore, to reason and to logic. It is likely that Maria da Paz works, that she has a regular job and leaves and returns at regular hours. Like Helena. But António Claro does not want to think about Helena, he tells himself that the two things have nothing to do
with each other, that whatever happens with Maria da Paz will not put his marriage at risk, you could almost call it a whim, of the kind to which men are said to be so easily prone, if, in the present case, the right words were not vengeance, revenge, retaliation, retribution, redress, reprisal, rancor, vindictiveness, if not the very worst of them all, hatred. Good heavens, how ridiculous, where will it all end, cry those happy people who have never come face-to-face with a copy of themselves, who have never suffered the terrible affront of receiving in the post a false beard in a box without even a pleasant, good-humored note to soften the blow. What is, at this moment, going through António Claro’s head will show to what extent, and contrary to the most elementary good sense, a mind dominated by base feelings can make its own conscience fall in with them, slyly forcing it to reconcile the worst actions with the best reasons and to use both to justify each other, in a kind of double game in which the same player will always win or lose. What António Claro has just thought, incredible though it may seem, is that taking Tertuliano Máximo Afonso’s lover to bed under false pretenses would, as well as being a way of returning the slap in the face with a still more resounding one, be the most extreme way, now can you imagine anything more absurd, of avenging his wife Helena’s wounded dignity. However hard we pleaded, Antonio Claro would be unable to explain what extraordinary offenses these were that could, theoretically, be avenged only by a new and no less shocking offense. This has now become in him an idée fixe, and there is nothing to be done. It is something of an achievement that he is still capable of returning to his interrupted reasoning, when he recalled that Helena was similar to Maria da Paz in having work obligations, a regular job, and particular hours for leaving and returning. Instead of walking up
and down the street in the hope of some highly unlikely chance encounter, what he should do is get there really early, stand somewhere inconspicuous, wait for Maria da Paz to come out, and then follow her to work. What could be easier, one might think, and yet how wrong one would be. The first problem is that he does not know if Maria da Paz, on leaving her building, will turn left or right, and therefore to what extent the position he chooses to keep watch from, as regards both the direction she chooses to take and the place where he will leave his car, will complicate or facilitate the task of following her, not forgetting, and here is the second and no less serious problem, the possibility that she may have her own car parked outside the door, which would not give him enough time to run back to his car and join the traffic without losing sight of her. What will probably happen is that he will fail completely on the first day, return on the second to fail in one respect but succeed in another, and then trust that the patron saint of detectives, impressed by his pertinacity, will take it upon himself to make the third day a perfect and definitive triumph in the art of following a trail. António Claro will still have one other problem to resolve, relatively insignificant, it is true, compared with the enormous difficulties already overcome, but which will have to be dealt with using a remarkable degree of tact and spontaneity. Apart from when he has to drag himself from between the sheets when obliged to do so by work, an early-morning shoot or one taking place outside the city, Daniel Santa-Clara, as you will have noticed, prefers to remain snug in his bed for one or two hours after Helena has left for the day. He will, therefore, have to come up with a good explanation for the unusual fact that he intends to get up at the crack of dawn, not on one day, but on two, possibly even three, when, as we know, he is currently resting professionally, waiting for the call for action on
The Trial of the Charming Thief,
in which he will play the part of a lawyer’s assistant. Telling Helena that he has a meeting with the producers wouldn’t be a bad idea if his investigations into Maria da Paz were concluded in one day, but, given the circumstances, the likelihood of this happening is remote to say the least. On the other hand, he does not necessarily need to carry out his inquiries on consecutive days, in fact, when he thinks about it, this could even prove inappropriate for the purpose he has in mind, since the appearance of a bearded man three days in a row on the street where Maria da Paz lives, quite apart from arousing the suspicion and alarm of the neighbors, as we said earlier, could provoke the anachronistic, and thus doubly traumatic, rebirth of childish nightmares just when we were convinced that the advent of television had once and for all erased from the imaginations of modern children the terrible threat that the bearded bogeyman represented to generation upon generation of innocent infants. Thinking along these lines, António Claro rapidly reached the conclusion that there was no sense in worrying about hypothetical second and third days before he even knew what the first might have to offer. He will therefore tell Helena that he has a meeting tomorrow with the producers, I have to be there by eight at the latest, That’s awfully early, she will say, although without a great deal of interest, Yes, I know, but it has to be at eight because the director’s leaving for the airport at noon, Fine, she said and went into the kitchen, closing the door behind her, to decide what to make for supper. She had more than enough time, but she wanted to be alone. She had said the other day that her bed was her castle, she could equally well have said that the kitchen was her fortress. Meanwhile, deft and silent as the charming thief, António Claro went and opened the drawer where he kept the box containing the false beard and mustache, removed the beard, and, silent and deft, hid it under one of the cushions on the big sofa in the living room, on the side where they hardly ever sit. So that it doesn’t get too squashed, he thought.