The Collected Novels of José Saramago (379 page)

The president of the republic slowly placed the piece of paper on his desk and, after a brief silence, asked his cabinet secretary, How many people know about this, No one apart from the clerk who opened it and recorded the letter in the register, Can he be trusted, Yes, I suppose so, president, he’s a party member, but it might be a good idea to let him know that the slightest hint of disloyalty on his part could cost him very dear, and, if I may make a suggestion, that warning should be delivered directly, By me, No, sir, by the police, it’s more effective that way, the man is summoned to the main police station where the toughest policeman they have takes him into an interrogation room and puts the fear of god into him, Oh, I don’t doubt the results would be excellent, but I see one grave difficulty, What’s that, sir, It will be a few days before the case reaches the police and, meanwhile, the fellow’s tongue will start to wag, he’ll tell his wife, his friends, he might even talk to a journalist,
in short, he’ll drop us in the soup, You’re quite right, sir, the solution would be to have an urgent word with the chief of police, if you like, sir, I’ll happily do that myself, Short-circuit the hierarchical chain of government, go over the prime minister’s head, is that your idea, Obviously I wouldn’t dare to do so if the case were not so serious, sir, My friend, in this world, and, as far as we know, there is no other, everything gets out in the end, now while I believe you when you say that the clerk is to be trusted, I couldn’t say the same of the chief of police, what if, as is more than likely, he’s in cahoots with the interior minister, imagine the fuss there would be, the interior minister demanding an explanation from the prime minister because he can’t demand one from me, the prime minister wanting to know if I’m trying to by-pass his authority and his responsibilities, in a matter of hours, the thing we are trying so hard to keep secret will be out in the open, Once again, sir, you are right, Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say, as a certain fellow politician once did, that I’m always right and rarely have any doubts, but I’m not far off, So what shall we do, sir, Send the man in, The clerk, Yes, the one who read the letter, Now, In another hour it might be too late. The cabinet secretary used the internal phone to summon the clerk, Come to the president’s office immediately and be quick about it. Walking down the various corridors and through the various rooms usually took at least five minutes, but the clerk appeared at the door after only three. He was breathing hard and his legs were shaking. There was no need to run, said the president, smiling kindly, The cabinet secretary said I should be quick, sir, said the clerk, panting, Good, now the reason I wanted to see you was this letter, Yes, sir, You read it, of course, Yes, sir, Do you remember what was in it, More or less, sir, Don’t use such expressions with me, answer my question, Yes, sir, I remember it as if I had read it this minute, Do you think you could try to forget its contents, Yes, sir, Think carefully now, you know, of course, that trying to forget and
actually forgetting are not the same thing, No, sir, they’re not, So mere effort won’t be enough, you’ll need to do something more, You have my word of honor, sir, You know, I was almost tempted to tell you again not to use such expressions, but I’d prefer you to explain precisely what you so romantically call your word of honor means to you in the present situation, It means, sir, a solemn declaration that, whatever happens, I will in no way divulge the contents of the letter, Are you married, Yes, sir, Right, I’m going to ask you a question, And I will answer it, sir, Supposing you were to reveal the nature of the letter to your wife and only to your wife, do you think you would, in the strict sense of the term, be divulging anything, I refer, of course, to the letter, not to your wife, No, sir, because divulge, strictly speaking, means to broadcast, to make public, Correct, I am pleased to see that you know your etymologies, But I wouldn’t even tell my wife, Do you mean that you will tell her nothing, Nor anyone else, sir, Give me your word of honor, Forgive me, sir, but I already have, Imagine that, I had forgotten already, if the fact escapes me again, the cabinet secretary here will remind me, Yes, sir, said the two voices in unison. The president fell silent for a few seconds, then asked, What if I were to look in the letter register and see what you had written, can you save me the bother of getting out of my chair and tell me what I would find there, Just one word, sir, You must have a remarkable capacity for synthesis if you can sum up such a long letter in one word, Petition, sir, What, Petition, that’s the word in the register, Nothing more, Nothing more, But that way no one will know what the letter is about, That was exactly my thinking, sir, that it would be best if no one knew, the word petition covers everything. The president leaned contentedly back and gave the prudent clerk a broad, toothy smile, then he said, Well, if you had said that in the first place you wouldn’t have had to give away something as serious as your word of honor, One precaution guarantees the other, sir, Not
bad, not bad at all, but have a look at the register from time to time, just in case someone should think to add something else to the word petition, I’ve already blocked the line, sir, so that nothing can be added, You can go now, As you wish, sir. When the door had closed, the cabinet secretary said, I must confess I hadn’t thought him capable of showing such initiative, I believe we have just satisfactorily proved to ourselves that he deserves our trust, He might deserve yours, said the president, but not mine, But I thought, You thought rightly, my friend, but, at the same time, wrongly, the safest way of categorizing people is not by dividing them up into the stupid and the clever, but into the clever and the too clever, with the stupid, we can do what we like, with the clever, the trick is to get them on our side, whereas the too clever, even when they’re on our side, are still intrinsically dangerous, they can’t help it, the oddest thing is that in everything they do, they are constantly warning us to be wary of them, but, generally speaking, we pay no attention to the warnings and then have to face the consequences, Do you mean to say, sir, Yes, I mean that our prudent clerk, that prestidigitator of the letter register, capable of transforming a troubling letter like that into a mere petition, will soon be getting a call from the police so that they can give him the fright that you and I, between ourselves, had promised him, he himself said as much, though without quite realizing it, one precaution guarantees the other, You’re right as usual, sir, you’re always so far-sighted, Yes, but the biggest mistake I made in my political life was letting them sit me down in this chair, I didn’t realize at the time that the arms of this chair had handcuffs on them, That’s because it’s not a presidentialist regime, Exactly, and that’s why all they allow me to do is cut ribbons and kiss babies, Now, though, you’re holding a trump card, As soon as I hand it to the prime minister, it will be his trump card, and I will simply have acted as postman, And the moment he hands it to the interior minister, it will belong to the police, since the police are at the end of the assembly line, You’ve learned a lot, I’m at a good school, sir, Do you know something, I’m all ears, sir, Let’s leave the poor devil alone, who knows, tonight, when I get home, or later on, in bed, I might tell my own wife what the letter said, and you, my dear cabinet secretary, will probably do the same, your wife will look at you as if you were a hero, her own sweet husband privy to all the secrets and webs that the state weaves, who’s in the know, who inhales, without benefit of a mask, the putrid stench of the gutters of power, Please, sir, Oh, take no notice, I don’t think I’m as bad as the worst, but sometimes I’m suddenly very conscious that that isn’t enough, and my soul aches more than I can say, Sir, my mouth is and will remain closed, As will mine, as will mine, but there are times when I imagine what the world would be like if we all opened our mouths and didn’t stop talking until, Until what, sir, Oh, nothing, nothing, leave me alone now.

Less than an hour had passed when the prime minister, summoned urgently to the palace, entered the office. The president gestured to him to sit down and, as he handed him the letter, said, Read this and tell me what you think. The prime minister sat down in the chair and started to read. He must have been about halfway through the letter when he looked up with an interrogative expression on his face, like someone who has not quite grasped what someone has just said to him, then he went on and, without further interruptions or other gestural manifestations, read to the end. A patriot full of good intentions, he said, and, at the same time, a complete swine, Why a swine, asked the president, If what he says here is true, if this woman, always assuming she did exist, really didn’t go blind and helped these six other people to survive that terrible time, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the writer of this letter owes her the good fortune of being alive today, my parents might be alive too if they had had the good fortune to meet her, He says that she murdered someone, No one knows for certain
how many people were killed during that period, president, it was decided that all the bodies found had died accidentally or from natural causes and the matter was laid to rest, Even things laid to rest can be woken, That’s true, president, but, in this case, I don’t feel it would be for the best, it’s highly unlikely there were any witnesses to the crime and, even if there were, they were just the blind amongst the blind, it would be absurd, a complete nonsense, to bring that woman to trial for a murder no one saw her commit and where the corpus delicti does not exist, The writer of the letter states that she killed someone, Yes, but he doesn’t say that he was a witness to the murder, besides, sir, as I said before, the person who wrote this letter is a complete swine, Moral judgements are beside the point, As I well know, sir, but it does one good sometimes to say what one feels. The president took the letter back, looked at it as if it wasn’t there and asked, What do you think you’ll do, Me, nothing, replied the prime minister, there isn’t a thread of evidence to go on, You noticed, of course, that the writer of the letter suggests the possibility of a link between the fact that this woman didn’t go blind and the massive casting of blank votes that got us into this mess in the first place, Sir, we haven’t always agreed with each other, That’s only natural, Yes it is, as natural as it is for me not to have the slightest doubt that your intelligence and your common sense, which I greatly respect, will reject out of hand the idea that a woman, simply because she did not go blind four years ago, should today be deemed responsible for the fact that a few hundred thousand people, who had never even heard of her, chose to cast blank ballot papers when summoned to vote in an election, Well, put like that, There is no other way to put it, sir, my advice is to file the letter under correspondence from crazies and let the matter drop, while we continue the search for a solution to our problems, real solutions, not the fantasies or grudges of an imbecile, You’re quite right, I was taking a lot of inconsequential twaddle far
too seriously and I’ve wasted your time by asking you to come over here to see me, Oh, that doesn’t matter, sir, my wasted time, if you want to call it that, has been more than made up for by our having reached agreement, Thank you, I’m glad you see it like that, Right, then, I’ll leave you to get on with your work and I’ll return to mine. The president of the republic was about to hold out his hand to say goodbye when the phone rang. He picked up the receiver and heard his secretary say, The interior minister would like to speak to you, sir, Put him through. The conversation was a long one, the president listened and, as the seconds passed, the expression on his face altered, sometimes he murmured Yes, on one occasion he said It’s certainly worth looking into, and he ended with the words Speak to the prime minister about it. He put the receiver down, That was the interior minister, And what did that delightful man want, He’s received a letter along the same lines and he’s decided to begin an investigation, Bad news, But I told him to talk to you first, So I heard, but it’s still bad news, Why, If I know the interior minister, and I’m sure few can know him as well as I do, he will have already spoken to the chief of police by now, Stop him, Oh, I’ll try, but I’m afraid it might be useless, Use your authority, What, and be accused of blocking an investigation into facts that affect the nation’s security, at a moment when everyone knows that the nation is in grave danger, asked the prime minister, adding, You would be the first to withdraw your support from me, the agreement we’ve just reached would be a mere illusion, it already is, since it serves no purpose. The president nodded, then said, A little while ago, in connection with this letter, my cabinet secretary came out with a very illuminating phrase, What was that, He said that the police were at the end of the assembly line, Let me congratulate you, sir, on having such an excellent cabinet secretary, meanwhile, you had better warn him that there are some truths that should not be spoken out loud, This room is soundproof, That doesn’t mean there aren’t a few microphones hidden about the place, Perhaps I’d better have the room searched, Please believe me when I say that, if you do find any microphones, I was not the one who ordered them to be placed here, Very funny, Very sad, May I say how sorry I am, my friend, that circumstances have left you in this blind alley, Oh, there’ll be some way out, although, I confess, I can’t see one at the moment, and going back is impossible. The president accompanied the prime minister to the door, It’s odd, he said, that the man who wrote the letter didn’t write to you as well, He probably did, but your secretariat and that of the interior minister are clearly more diligent than mine, Very funny, No, sir, very sad.