The Collected Novels of José Saramago (374 page)

THEY ALMOST ALL CAME BACK. TO ECHO THE WORDS USED BY THE
interior minister some days before when obliged by the prime minister to explain the discrepancy between the size of the bomb he had been ordered to plant and the bomb that had actually exploded, there was, in the case of this exodus, another grave failure in the chain of command. As experience has never tired of showing us, after long examination of many cases and their respective circumstances, victims not infrequently bear some responsibility for the misfortunes that befall them. Preoccupied as they were with political negotiations, none of which, as will soon become apparent, had been carried out at a high enough level to ensure the perfect execution of operation xenophon, the busy leaders of the committee had forgotten, or perhaps such a thing had simply never entered their heads, to check that the military would also be informed of their escape and, equally important, of the agreements they had reached. Some families, a half dozen at most, did manage to cross the line at one of the frontier posts, but this was because the young officer in charge had allowed himself to be convinced not just by the fugitives’ repeated protestations of ideological purity and loyalty to the regime, but by their insistent declarations that the government knew about their retreat and had approved it. Meanwhile, in order to free himself from the doubts that soon assailed him, he phoned two other posts nearby, and his colleagues there were kind enough to remind him that their orders, since the beginning of the blockade, had been not to let through a living soul, not even someone on their
way to save their father from the gallows or to give birth to a new baby in their house in the country. Terrified that he had made the wrong decision, which would doubtless be perceived as flagrant and possibly premeditated disobedience of orders received, with the consequent court-martial and more than likely loss of rank, the officer gave orders for the barrier to be lowered at once, thus blocking the kilometer-long caravan of cars and vans, all packed to the gills, that stretched back along the road. The rain continued to fall. Needless to say, brought face to face with their responsibilities, the committee members did not stand by waiting for the red sea to part. Mobile phone in hand, they started waking up all the influential people whom they felt they could safely be wrenched from sleep without provoking too angry a reaction, and it is quite possible that the whole complicated affair could have been resolved in the best possible way for the anxious fugitives had it not been for the fierce intransigence of the minister of defense, who decided to dig his heels in, No one gets through without my say-so, he said. As you will no doubt have guessed, the committee had forgotten to consult him. You might say that a minister of defense is not that important, that above a minister of defense there is a prime minister to whom the former owes obedience and respect, that higher still, is a president who is owed the same, if not greater, obedience and respect, although, if truth be told, as far as this particular president is concerned, this is mostly a matter of show. And indeed, after a hard dialectical battle between the prime minister and the minister of defense, in which the reasons put up by both sides flashed and flickered like an exchange of tracer bullets, the minister finally surrendered. He was greatly put out, it’s true, and in the blackest of moods, but he nevertheless gave in. You will naturally want to know what decisive, unanswerable argument the prime minister used to force his recalcitrant interlocutor into submission. It was simple and direct, My dear minister, he said, put that brain of yours to
work and imagine the consequences tomorrow were we to shut the doors today on the very people who voted for us, As I recall, the order from the cabinet was to let no one pass, May I congratulate you on your excellent memory, but when it comes to orders, one has, from time to time, to be prepared to bend them, especially when it suits one to do so, which is precisely the case now, Sorry, I don’t understand, Allow me to explain, tomorrow, once this problem has been resolved, with subversion crushed and spirits calmed, we will call new elections, isn’t that right, It is, Do you think we could expect those we had turned away to vote for us again, No, they probably wouldn’t, And we need those votes, remember, the party in the middle is hot on our heels, Yes, I understand, In that case, please give the order to allow the people to pass, Yes, sir. The prime minister put down the phone, looked at his watch and said to his wife, At this rate, I might be able to get another hour and a half or two hours’ sleep, and added, I have a feeling that fellow will be sent packing at the next cabinet reshuffle, You shouldn’t let people be so rude to you, said his other half, No one is ever rude to me, my love, they merely take advantage of my good nature, that’s all, It comes to the same thing, she retorted, turning out the light. Before five minutes had passed, the telephone rang once more. It was the minister of defense again, Forgive me, prime minister, I’m sorry to interrupt your well-deserved rest, but unfortunately I have no option, What is it now, A detail we failed to notice, What detail, asked the prime minister, not bothering to disguise the touch of irritation he felt at the other man’s use of we, It’s quite simple, but very important, Get on with it and don’t waste my time, Well, I was just wondering how we can be sure that all the people trying to leave the capital belong to our party, should we just take their word for it that they voted in the elections, couldn’t some of the hundreds of vehicles queuing up along the roads be carrying subversive agents ready to infect with the blank plague the parts of the country that are
as yet uncontaminated. The prime minister felt his heart contract when he realized he had been caught out, It’s certainly a possibility to bear in mind, he murmured, That’s precisely why I phoned you again, said the minister of defense, giving the screw another turn. The silence that followed these words demonstrated once more that time has nothing to do with the time told by clocks, those small machines made of wheels that do not think and springs that do not feel, devoid of a spirit that would allow them to imagine that five insignificant seconds counted off, one, two, three, four, five, could be an agonizing torment for the person at one end of the phone and a pool of sublime pleasure for the other. The prime minister drew one striped pajama sleeve across his forehead, which was now beaded with sweat, then, choosing his words carefully, he said, The matter clearly requires a different approach, a careful evaluation that looks at the problem in the round, cutting corners is always a mistake, My view precisely, How is the situation at the moment, asked the prime minister, Very tense on both sides, at some posts, they’ve even had to fire shots in the air, Do you have any suggestion to make as minister of defense, In more maneuverable conditions, I would order them to charge, but with all those cars blocking the roads, it’s impossible, What do you mean charge, Well, I would get the tanks out, And when the snouts of the tanks came into contact with the first car, and I know tanks don’t have snouts, it’s just a manner of speaking, what, in your opinion, would happen then, People normally take fright when they see a tank advancing on them, But, as I have just heard from your own lips, the roads are blocked, Yes, sir, So it wouldn’t be easy for the car at the front to turn round, No, sir, it would be very difficult indeed, but then, one way or another, if we don’t let them in, they’re going to have to do that, But not in the state of panic that would inevitably be provoked by the sight of a phalanx of tanks with their guns pointing straight at them, No, sir, In short, you have no idea how
to resolve the problem, said the prime minister, ramming the point home, sure now that he had taken back both control and the initiative, I’m afraid not, prime minister, Nevertheless, I am grateful to you for having drawn my attention to an aspect of the matter that had escaped me, It could have happened to anyone, Yes, to anyone, but it shouldn’t have happened to me, You have so many things to think about, And now I have another, solving a problem for which the minister of defense has failed to find a solution, If that is how you feel, then I offer my resignation, Now I don’t think I heard that and I don’t think I want to, Yes, prime minister. There was another silence, shorter this time, barely three seconds, during which it was clear that the sublime pleasure and the agonizing torment had changed places. Another phone rang in the room. His wife answered it, she asked who was calling, then whispered to her husband, at the same time covering the mouthpiece of the phone, It’s the interior minister. The prime minister gestured to her to wait, then issued his orders to the minister of defense, I want no more shots fired in the air and I want the situation stabilized until we can take the necessary measures, make it known to the people in the first few cars that the government is currently studying the situation and hopes to come up with proposals and directives shortly, and emphasize that everything will be resolved for the good of the country and of national security, May I remind you, prime minister, that there are hundreds of cars, So, We can’t get the message to all of them, Don’t worry, as long as the first cars at each post know, they’ll make sure the information passes, like a powder trail, to the back of the queue, Yes, sir, Keep me informed, Yes, sir. The following conversation, with the interior minister, would be different, Don’t waste any time telling me what’s happened, I know already, They may not have told you that shots have been fired, It won’t happen again, Ah, Now what we need to do is to get those people to turn round and go back, But if the army hasn’t managed to do so, They haven’t
and they couldn’t, you surely don’t want the minister of defense to send in the tanks, Of course not, prime minister, From now on, the responsibility is yours, The police are no use in these situations and I have no authority over the army, Ah, but I wasn’t thinking of the police, neither was I considering appointing you army chief of staff, Forgive me, prime minister, but I don’t understand, Get your best speechwriter out of bed and put him straight to work, and meanwhile tell the media that the interior minister will speak on the radio at six o’clock, the television and the press can wait, it’s the radio that matters now, It’s almost five o’clock, prime minister, You don’t have to tell me that, I have a watch, Sorry, I merely wanted to point out that there isn’t much time, If your speechwriter can’t come up with thirty lines in fifteen minutes, with or without syntax, then you’d better put him out in the street, And what should he write, Oh, any old line of argument that will convince these people to go home, that will inflame their patriotic feelings, tell them they’re committing the crime of lèse-patrie by abandoning the capital to the subversive hordes, tell them that all those who voted for the parties who built the current political system, including, inevitably, the party in the middle, our direct competitor, constitute the first line of defense of all democratic institutions, tell them that the homes they have left behind them unprotected will be burgled and looted by insurrectionist gangs, but don’t tell them that we will, if necessary, burgle them ourselves, We could add that any citizen who decides to return home, regardless of age or social class, will be considered by the government to be a loyal promoter of legality, Promoter doesn’t seem to me quite the right word, it’s too vulgar, too commercial, besides, legality is getting more than enough promotion, we spend all our time talking about it, All right, then, defenders, heralds or legionnaires, Legionnaires is better, it sounds strong, martial, defenders is a term that lacks pride, it would give a negative impression of passivity, and
heralds has a whiff of the middle ages about it, whereas the word legionnaire immediately suggests combative action, an aggressive mindset, and is also, as we know, a word with solid traditions, Let’s just hope that the people on the road hear the message, It would seem, my dear fellow, that waking up too early clouds your perceptive faculties, I would bet my post as prime minister that at this very moment every one of those car radios is turned on, what matters is that news of the broadcast to the nation is announced at once and the announcement repeated every minute, What I fear, prime minister, is that these people may not be in a frame of mind to be convinced, if we tell them there’s going to be a statement from the government, they will more than likely think that we’re going to authorize them to cross the frontier, and their subsequent disappointment could have very grave consequences, It’s very simple, your speechwriter is going to have to justify both the bread that he eats and his salary, he’s got the lexical and rhetorical skills, let him sort it out, If I may just give voice to an idea that has only this minute occurred to me, Feel free to give voice to anything you like, but may I just point out that we are wasting time, it’s already five past five, The statement would carry much more force if you, as prime minister, were to make it, Oh, I don’t doubt it for a moment, In that case, why don’t you, Because I am reserving myself for another occasion, one more suited to my station, Ah, I think I understand, It is, after all, merely a matter of common sense or, shall we say, hierarchical gradation, just as it would offend against the dignity of the nation’s supreme court for the president to go on the radio to ask a few drivers to get off the roads, so must this prime minister be protected from everything that might trivialize his status as leader of the government, Hm, I see the idea, Good, it’s a sign that you’ve finally managed to wake up, Yes, prime minister, And now to work, by eight o’clock at the latest, I want those roads cleared, and make sure the television companies get out there with all the terrestrial and
aerial means at their disposal, I want the whole country to see the reports, Yes, sir, I’ll do what I can, You won’t do what you can, you will do what is necessary to obtain the results I have just demanded of you. The interior minister did not have time to respond, the prime minister had put the phone down. That’s how I like to hear you talk, said his wife, Well, when someone gets my dander up, And what will he do if he can’t solve the problem, He’ll be given his marching orders and sent packing, Like the minister of defense, Exactly, You can’t just dismiss ministers as if they were servants, They are servants, Yes, but you’ll only have to find new ones, That is a subject that requires calm consideration, What do you mean, consideration, Look, I’d rather not talk about it at the moment, But I’m your wife, no one can hear us, your secrets are my secrets, All I mean is that, bearing in mind the gravity of the situation, it would come as no surprise to anyone if I myself were to take on the portfolios of defense and the interior, that way the state of national emergency would be reflected in the structures and workings of the government, that is, total co-ordination and total centralization, that could be our watchword, It would be a huge risk, you could win everything or lose everything, Yes, but if I could triumph over a subversive action unparalleled anywhere, at any time, an action that attacked the system’s most sensitive organ, that of parliamentary representation, then I would be assured of a lasting place in history, a unique place, as the savior of democracy, And I would be the proudest of wives, whispered his wife, slithering closer to him, as if touched by the magic wand of a rare brand of lust, a mixture of carnal desire and political enthusiasm, but her husband, conscious of the gravity of the hour and making his the harsh words of the poet, Why do you grovel before my rough boots? / Why do you loosen your perfumed hair / and treacherously open your soft arms? / I am nothing but a man with coarse hands / and a cold heart / and if, in order to pass, /1 had to trample you