The Collected Novels of José Saramago (358 page)

It was nearly an hour before the phone rang. Startled, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso leaped up, hoping to hear his mother’s voice, but the voice he heard was that of the clerk at the reception desk, Senhora Carolina Claro is here to speak to you, Oh, it’s my mother, he stammered, I’ll be right down, I’ll be right down. He ran out of the room, at the same time telling himself, I must get a grip on myself, I mustn’t be overly affectionate, the less fuss we make the better. The slowness of the lift helped to moderate the rush of emotions, and it was a fairly acceptable Tertuliano Máximo Afonso who appeared in the foyer and embraced the elderly lady, who, either instinctively or after long reflection in the taxi that had brought her there, prudently returned these displays of filial affection without any of the vulgar, passionate exuberance that finds expression in phrases such as, Oh, my sweet boy, although in the present drama, Oh, my poor boy would be more suited to the situation. The embraces, tears, and sobs had to wait until they got to the room, until the door had closed and the son risen from the dead could say, Mama, and she had no words to say other than those that managed to emerge from her grateful heart, It’s you, it’s you. This woman, however, is not the easily pleased type, for whom a hug is enough to make her forget an offense, an offense, in this case, not against her, but against reason, respect, and common sense too, lest it be said that we have forgotten how much the latter had tried to do to prevent the story of the duplicate men from ending in tragedy. Carolina Máximo will not use that term, she will say only, There are two people dead, now tell me from the beginning how all this happened, and without concealing anything, please, the time for half-truths is over, and that applies to half-lies too. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso drew up a chair for his mother to sit on, sat down on the edge of
the bed, and began his story. From the beginning, as she had requested. She didn’t interrrupt him, and only twice did she look shocked, once when António Claro was saying that he was going to take Maria da Paz to the house in the country in order to make love with her, and again when her son explained how and why he had gone to Helena’s apartment and what had happened there. She moved her lips as if to say, Madness, but the word did not come out. Night had fallen, darkness covered the features of both. When Tertuliano Máximo Afonso stopped speaking, his mother asked the inevitable question, And now what, Now, Mama, the Tertuliano Máximo Afonso I was is dead, and the other one, if he wants to continue to be part of life, will have no option but to be António Claro, And why not just tell the truth, why not say what happened, why not put everything back in its rightful place, You’ve heard what happened, Yes, so, Do you really think, Mama, that those four people, the dead and the living, should be brought out into the public gaze for the pleasure and amusement of the world’s fierce curiosity, and what would we gain with that, the dead wouldn’t come back to life and the living would start to die there and then, So what shall we do, You will go to the funeral of the false Tertuliano Máximo Afonso and you’ll mourn for him as if he were your son, and Helena will go too, but no one must know why she is there, And you, As I said, I’m António Claro, when I turn on the light, the face you will see will be his, not mine, But you’re my son, Yes, I’m your son, but I won’t be able to be your son in the town where I was born, as far as the people there are concerned, I’m dead, and when you and I want to meet, it will have to be in a place where no one even knows of the existence of a history teacher called Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, And Helena, Tomorrow I’ll go and ask her forgiveness and give her back
this watch and this wedding ring, And for this two people had to die, Yes, people I killed, and one of them an innocent victim, entirely innocent. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso got up and turned on the light. His mother was crying. For a few minutes they remained silent, avoiding each other’s gaze. Then, dabbing at her eyes with a damp handkerchief, his mother murmured, Old Cassandra was right, you should never have let the wooden horse in, There’s nothing to be done about it now, No, there’s nothing to be done about it, and there’ll be nothing to be done about it in the future either, we’ll all be dead. After a brief silence, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso asked, Did the police give you any details about the accident, They said that the car left its lane and drove straight into a truck coming in the opposite direction, they also told me that they would have died instantly, That’s odd, What is, Well, I had the impression he was a good driver, Something must have happened, They might have skidded, there could have been oil on the road, They didn’t say anything about that, just that the car left its lane and drove straight into the truck. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso sat down again on the edge of the bed, looked at his watch, and said, I’m going to ask reception to get a room for you, we’ll have supper and you can stay here tonight, No, I’d rather go back to your place, after we’ve eaten, you can call a taxi, But I can take you, no one will see me, And how are you going to take me when you have no car, I’ve got his car, his mother shook her head sadly and said, His car, his wife, all that’s lacking now is for you to have his life too, Well, I’ll have to find a better life for myself, but now, please, let’s go and eat something, and let the tragedy rest for a while. He held out his hands to help her up, then he put his arms around her and said, Remember to erase the messages I left on the answering machine, we can’t be too careful, not like cats that hide in a box but forget to put their tail in. When they had finished supper, his mother said again, Call me a taxi, No, I’ll take you home, You can’t risk being seen, besides, just the thought of getting in that car makes me shudder, All right, but I’ll come with you in the taxi and then come back here, Look, I’m old enough to go alone, don’t insist. When she left, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso said, Try to get some rest, Mama, you need it, Probably neither of us will be able to sleep, neither you nor I, she replied.

She was right. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, at least, did not close his eyes for hours and hours, he kept seeing the car leaving its lane and hurtling toward the truck’s huge snout, Why, he asked himself, why did he lose control like that, perhaps a tire blew, no, that can’t be it, the police would have mentioned it, true, the car has been in constant use for a good few years, but I took it in for a full service only three months ago and they found nothing wrong with it, either mechanical or electrical. He fell asleep toward dawn, but his sleep was short-lived, just after seven o’clock he was startled awake by the thought of something urgent he had to do, the visit to Helena presumably, but it was still too early for that, what could it be then, a light suddenly went on in his head, the newspaper, he needed to see what was in the newspaper, an accident like that, just outside the city, was news. He leaped out of bed, pulled on his clothes, and rushed down to reception. The night porter, not the receptionist who had attended him the previous day, eyed him suspiciously, and Tertuliano Máximo Afonso had to say, I’m just going to buy a newspaper, in case the man thought that this agitated guest was trying to leave without paying. He did not have to go far, there was a newspaper kiosk on the corner. He bought three papers, there must be something about the accident in one of them, and strode back to the hotel. He went up to his room and started leafing through them anxiously, looking for the section on road accidents. It was reported only in the third newspaper. There was a photograph showing the car’s ruinous state. With his whole body shaking, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso read the article, skipping over the details to get to the essential facts, Yesterday, at around 9:30
A.M.
, on the outskirts of the city, there was a head-on collision between a car and a truck. The car’s two occupants, So-and-So and So-and-So, immediately identifiable from the papers they had on them, were dead by the time the ambulance arrived. The driver of the truck suffered only minor injuries to his face and hands. Questioned by the police, who do not hold him in any way responsible for the accident, he stated that when the car was still some distance from him, before it left its lane, it had seemed to him that the two occupants were grappling with each other, although he could not be entirely sure because of the glare on the windscreen. Information acquired later on by our reporter revealed that the two unfortunate travelers were engaged to be married. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso read the item again, at the time that it happened, he thought, he was still in bed with Helena, and then, inevitably, he connected António Claro’s early-morning drive back with what the truck driver had said. What went on between them, he wondered, what could have happened at the house in the country for them still to be arguing in the car, no, more than arguing, grappling, as the sole eyewitness to the accident had said with such vivid exactitude. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso looked at his watch. It was a few minutes to eight, Helena would already be up, Or perhaps not, she probably took a sleeping pill so as to be able to sleep, or, more accurately, to escape, poor Helena,
as innocent as Maria da Paz had been, little does she know what awaits her. It was nine o’clock when Tertuliano Máximo Afonso left the hotel. He had asked reception to supply him with shaving equipment, he has had breakfast and is now on his way to say to Helena the word that is still needed for the incredible story of the duplicate men to come to an end once and for all and for normal life to resume its course, leaving, as usual, its victims behind it. If Tertuliano Máximo Afonso were fully aware of what he is about to do, of the blow he is about to deliver, he might well run away without a word of explanation or justification, perhaps leave things in their current state to rot, but his mind is somehow fogged, under the influence of a kind of anesthesia that dulls the pain and is now pushing him beyond his own will. He parked the car opposite the building, crossed the road, and got into the lift. He is carrying the newspaper rolled up under his arm, the bringer of tragic news, the voice and word of fate, he is the worst of Cassandras, the one whose sole duty is to say, It happened. He did not want to open the front door with the key he has in his pocket, there is no room now for vengeance, revenge, retribution. He rang the bell like that seller of books boasting of the sublime cultural virtues of the encyclopedia in which the habits of the monkfish are so minutely described, but what he wants now, with every fiber of his being, is for the person who opens the door to him to say, even if she’s lying, No, thank you, I’ve already got one. The door opened and Helena appeared in the half dark of the corridor. She looked at him in astonishment, as if she had lost all hope of ever seeing him again, she showed him her poor, drawn face, the dark circles under her eyes, clearly the pill she had taken to escape from herself had failed. Where have you been, she stammered, what happened, I’ve been in utter
torment since yesterday, since you left. She stepped forward into his arms, which did not open, but which, purely out of pity, did not repel her, and then they went in together, she still clinging to him, and he, awkward, gauche, like a clumsy puppet. He did not speak, he will not utter a word until she is sitting on the sofa, and what he has to say will appear to be the innocuous statement of someone who has gone out into the street to buy a newspaper and now, with no apparent hidden motive, says only, I’ve brought you the news, and he will show her the open page, will point out the place where the tragedy occurred, Here it is, and she will not notice his coldness, she will carefully read what is written, will look away from the photo of the crushed car and mutter sadly when she has done, How awful, but she said this only because she is a woman with a kind heart, the misfortune does not really touch her directly, indeed, in contradiction to the apparent solidarity of her words, there was something like relief, clearly involuntary, but to which the words spoken afterward give intelligible expression, That’s terrible, it brings me no joy at all, on the contrary, but at least it puts an end to the confusion. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso had not sat down, he was standing before her, the way messengers always stand when still on duty, because there is more news to give, the very worst news. For Helena, the newspaper is already a thing of the past, the concrete present, the palpable present is this, her husband returned to her, António Claro is his name, he is going to tell her what he did yesterday afternoon and night, what important matters could have made him leave her without a word from him for so many hours. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso realizes that he cannot wait a minute longer, if he does, he will have to remain silent forever. He said, The man who died was not Tertuliano Máximo Afonso. She looked at him with troubled
eyes, then uttered five words that would prove of little use to her, What, what did you say, and he said again, without looking at her, The man who died was not Tertuliano Máximo Afonso. Helena’s disquiet was suddenly transformed into outright fear, Who was it then, Your husband. There was no other way of telling her, there was not a single preparatory speech in the world that would have helped, it was pointless and cruel trying to apply a bandage before there was a wound to bind up. Wild with despair, Helena was still trying to fend off the catastrophe breaking over her head, But the documents the newspaper mentioned belonged to that awful man, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso took his wallet out of his jacket pocket, opened it, removed António Claro’s identity card and held it out to her. She took it, looked at the photograph, looked at the man in front of her, and understood everything. The evidence of the facts took shape in her mind like a rush of harsh light, the monstrousness of the situation overwhelmed her, for one brief moment she seemed about to lose consciousness. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso stepped forward, grasped her hands, and she, opening eyes that were like one vast teardrop, drew back abruptly, then, all strength gone, left them there, convulsive weeping saved her from fainting, sobs were now pitilessly shaking her chest, This is just how I cried, he thought, this is how we all cry when faced by a situation about which we can do nothing. Now what, she asked from the depths of the pool in which she was drowning, I’ll disappear from your life forever, he said, you’ll never see me again, I’d like to ask your forgiveness, but I daren’t, it would be adding insult to injury, You weren’t the only guilty one, No, but I bear most responsibility, I’m guilty of cowardice and because of that two people are dead, Was Maria da Paz really your fiancée, Yes, Did
you love her, Yes, I cared about her deeply, we were going to be married, And yet you allowed her to go with him, As I said, out of cowardice, out of weakness, And you came here to have your revenge, Yes. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso straightened up and took a step back. Repeating the same movements that António Claro had performed forty-eight hours before, he took off the wristwatch, which he placed on the table, then he put the wedding ring down beside it. He said, I’ll return the suit I’m wearing by post. Helena picked up the ring and looked at it as if for the first time. Distractedly, as though trying to remove the invisible mark left behind, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso rubbed the ring finger on his left hand with the index finger and thumb of his right hand. Neither of them thought, neither of them will ever think that the lack of that ring on António Claro’s finger could have been the direct cause of two deaths, and yet that is how it was. Yesterday morning, at the house in the country, Antonio Claro was still asleep when Maria da Paz woke up. He was lying on his right side, with his left hand resting at eye level on her pillow. Maria da Paz’s thoughts were confused, oscillating between a sense of languid physical well-being and a spiritual unease for which she could find no explanation. The light, steadily growing in intensity and seeping in through the gaps in the rustic window shutters, was gradually filling the room. Maria da Paz sighed and turned to look at Tertuliano Máximo Afonso. His left hand almost covered his face. On his ring finger was the round white mark that wedding rings leave on the skin after years of wear. Maria da Paz shuddered, her eyes must be deceiving her, or else she was having the worst of nightmares, this man identical to Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is not Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso has not worn a ring since his divorce, the mark on his finger has
long since faded. The man is sleeping placidly. Maria da Paz slipped gingerly from the bed, picked up her scattered clothes, and left the room. She got dressed in the hallway, still too stunned to think clearly, incapable of coming up with an answer to the question going around and around in her head, Am I mad. The man who had brought her here and with whom she had spent the night was not Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, of that she was sure, but if it wasn’t him, who could it be, and how could there possibly be two people in the world so exactly alike that they could be mistaken for each other, in their body, in their gestures, in their voice. Little by little, like someone looking for and finding the right pieces for a jigsaw puzzle, she began to relate events and actions, she remembered Tertuliano Máximo Afonso’s equivocal words, his evasive answers, the letter from the production company, the promise he had made to her that, one day, he would tell her everything. She could go no further, she would still not know who this man was, unless he told her. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso’s voice came from the bedroom, Maria da Paz. She did not reply, and the voice insisted, insinuating, caressing, It’s still early, come back to bed. She got up from the chair in which she had been slumped and went toward the bedroom. She went no farther than the door. He said, What’s the idea of getting dressed, come on, take your clothes off and jump in, the party’s not over yet, Who are you, asked Maria da Paz, and before he could reply, Where did you get that mark on your ring finger. Antonio Claro looked at his hand and said, Oh, that, Yes, that, you’re not Tertuliano, No, I’m not, I’m not Tertuliano, Who are you then, For the moment, you’ll have to make do with knowing who I’m not, but when you see your friend again, you can ask him, Oh, I will, I need to know just who I’ve been deceived by, By me, in the first place, but he helped, or, rather, the poor man had no option, your fiancé is not exactly a hero. António Claro got out of bed completely naked and came toward Maria da Paz, smiling, What does it matter which one I am, stop asking questions and come to bed. In despair, Maria da Paz screamed, You bastard, and fled into the living room. António Claro appeared shortly afterward, dressed and ready to leave. He said coolly, I’ve no patience with hysterical women, I’ll drop you off at your house and that’ll be that. Thirty minutes later, at high speed, the car collided with the truck. There was no oil on the road. The one eyewitness told the police that, although he couldn’t be absolutely sure because of the glare on the windscreen, it seemed to him that the car’s two occupants were grappling with each other.