The Collected Novels of José Saramago (400 page)

YOU MIGHT THINK THAT AFTER ALL THE SHAMEFUL CAPITULATIONS
made by the government during the ups and downs of their negotiations with the maphia, going so far as to allow humble, honest public servants to begin working full-time for that criminal organization, you might think that, morally speaking, they could sink no lower. Alas, when one advances blindly across the boggy ground of realpolitik, when pragmatism takes up the baton and conducts the orchestra, ignoring what is written in the score, you can be pretty sure that, as the imperative logic of dishonor will show, there are still, after all, a few more steps to descend. Through the relevant ministry, that of defense, known, in more honest times, as the ministry of war, orders were issued to the troops positioned along the frontier to limit themselves to guarding only the a-roads, especially those that led into the neighboring countries, leaving all b- and c-roads to wallow in bucolic peace, along with, and this for very good reasons, the complex network of local roads, lanes, footpaths, tracks and shortcuts. This, inevitably, meant a return to barracks for most of the troops, which, while it gladdened the hearts of the rank and file, including corporals and quartermasters, who were all thoroughly fed up with guard duty and patrols day and night, caused, on the other hand, great feelings of discontent among the sergeants, apparently more aware than the others of the importance of the values of military honor and service to the nation. Now if the capillary movement of that displeasure reached as far as the second lieutenants and lost some of its impetus when it got to the first lieutenants, the truth is that it redoubled in strength when it reached the level of the captains. Naturally, none of them would dare to pronounce out loud the dangerous word maphia, but, when they talked about it among themselves, they could not help but recall how in the days prior to their return to barracks they had intercepted a number of vans transporting terminally ill patients and that beside each driver there had sat an officially accredited vigilante who, without even being asked, had produced, with all the necessary stamps, signatures and seals, a piece of paper which, for reasons of national interest, gave express authorization for the transportation of the ailing mr. or mrs. so-and-so to some unspecified destination, and stated that the army should feel obliged to give all the assistance they could in order to ensure the occupants of each van a safe and successful journey. None of this would have provoked any doubts in the minds of the worthy sergeants had it not been for a strange coincidence, for on at least seven occasions, the vigilante had handed the soldier the document to be checked and given him a knowing wink. Considering the geographical distance between the places in which these episodes of country life had occurred, the sergeants immediately dismissed the hypothesis that it might have been, shall we say, an equivocal gesture, a rather primitive come-on in a game of seduction between persons of the same sex or, indeed, although in this case it hardly mattered, of different sexes. However, it was the vigilantes’ evident nervousness, more pronounced in some than in others it’s true, but all of whom behaved as if they were throwing a bottle into the sea with a message inside it calling for help, that led the sharp-eyed corps of sergeants to think that inside these vans skulked that most famous of cats which, when it wants to be discovered, always finds a way to leave the tip of its tail showing. Then came the inexplicable order to return to barracks, followed by a few whispered rumors, which arose who knows how or where, but which some purveyors of news hinted, in confidence, might have come from the interior minister himself. The opposition newspapers spoke of the unhealthy atmosphere being breathed in the barracks, while newspapers close to the government vehemently denied that such miasmas were poisoning the esprit de corps of the armed forces, but the fact is that rumors of a possible military coup, although no one could explain the supposed reasons for such a coup, spread everywhere and, for the moment, forced onto the back burner of public interest the problem of the sick who were unable to die. Not that the problem had been forgotten, as was proved by a phrase in circulation at the time and much repeated by the denizens of cafés, Even if there is a military coup, at least we can be sure of one thing, however many shots they fire at each other, they won’t succeed in killing anyone. Everyone expected, at any moment, a dramatic appeal from the king for national unity, a communiqué from the government announcing a package of urgent measures, a statement from the high commands of the army and the air force, but not the navy, unnecessary in a landlocked country, protesting their absolute loyalty to the legitimately constituted powers, a manifesto from writers, a stance taken by artists, a concert in solidarity, an exhibition of revolutionary posters, a general strike called by the two main trade unions, a pastoral letter from the bishops urging prayer and fasting, a procession of penitents, a mass distribution of pamphlets, yellow, blue, green, red, white, there was even talk of a mass demonstration whose participants would be the thousands of people of all ages and conditions who found themselves in a state of suspended death, parading down the main avenues of the capital on stretchers, in wheelbarrows, in ambulances, or on the backs of their more robust children, with, at the front of the cortège, a huge banner that said, sacrificing a few commas to make the couplet work, We here who cannot die await all of you who pass us by. In the end, none of this proved necessary. It’s true that suspicions of the maphia’s direct involvement in the transportation of the dying did not go away, it’s true that these were even reinforced in the light of subsequent events, but a single hour was all it took for a sudden threat from the enemy-without to calm the fratricidal mood and prompt the three estates, church, nobility and people, for despite the country’s progressive ideas, the three estates still existed, to rally round their king and, with some justifiable reluctance, round the government too. The facts, as tends to be the case, can be told in few words.

Angered by the continual invasion of their territories by commandos of gravediggers, either employed by the maphia or there of their own volition, coming from that aberrant land where no one died, and after various futile diplomatic protests, the governments of the three neighboring countries decided, in a concerted action, to bring out their troops and protect their frontiers, with strict orders to shoot after the third warning. It’s worth mentioning that the deaths of a few maphiosi shot down at almost point-blank range after crossing the line of separation, something we usually refer to as an occupational hazard, were immediately used as an excuse for the organization, in the name of personal safety and operational risks, to increase the prices on its list of services offered. Having mentioned this interesting little sidelight on the workings of the maphia’s administration, let us move on to what really matters. Once again, using a tactically impeccable maneuver to circumvent the ditherings of the government and the doubts of the armed forces’ high commands, the sergeants seized the initiative and became, in everyone’s eyes, the promoters, and consequently also the heroes, of the popular protest movement that marched forth to demand, en masse, in squares, avenues and streets, the immediate return of the troops to the battle front. Indifferent to and untouched by the terrible problems faced by the country on this side of the border, struggling, as it was, with its quadruple crisis, demographic, social, political and economic, the countries on the other side had finally dropped their mask and revealed to the light of day their true face, that of harsh conquistadors and implacable imperialists. In shops and homes, on the radio, on the television and in the newspapers, what one heard and read was, They’re jealous of us, they’re envious of the fact that no one here dies, that’s why they want to invade and occupy our territory so that they won’t have to die either. After two days, marching flat out and with flags flying, singing patriotic songs like the “Marseillaise,” “
Ça
Ira,” “Maria da Fonte,” the “Hino da Carta,” “Nao Verás País Nenhum,” “The Red Flag,” the “Portuguesa,” “God Save the King,” “The Internationale,” “Deutschland über Alles,” the “Chant des Marais,” and the “Stars and Stripes,” the soldiers returned to the posts they had left, and there, armed to the teeth, waited staunchly for imminent attack and for glory. There was neither. Neither glory nor attack. There were few conquests and even less empire-building, for the aforementioned neighboring countries simply wanted to stop this new species of forced migrant being buried there without due authorization, and it wouldn’t be so bad if all they did was bury them, but they brought them there to be killed, murdered, eliminated, finished off, since it was at the precise, fateful moment when they crossed the frontier, feet first so that the head would be aware of what was happening to the rest of the body, that the poor unfortunates passed away, uttered their last sigh. The two valiant camps faced each other, but the rivers will not run red with blood this time either. This had nothing to do with the men on this side of the border, for they knew they wouldn’t die even if a burst of machine-gun fire cut them in two. Although, out of perfectly legitimate scientific curiosity, we should ask ourselves how the two halves could survive in cases where the stomach was left on one side and the intestines on the other. Whatever the truth of the matter, only a complete madman would have considered firing the first shot. And, thank god, it never was fired. Indeed, the only consequence of a few soldiers from the other side deciding to desert to the el dorado where no one dies was that they were sent straight back where they came from and where a court martial awaited them. This fact is entirely irrelevant to the narrative of the complicated story we’ve been telling and we will not speak of it again, but neither did we want merely to relegate it to the darkness of the inkwell. The court martial will probably decide a priori not to take account in their deliberations of the ingenuous desire for eternal life that has always inhabited the human heart, What would happen if we all lived forever, where would it end, the prosecution will ask, resorting to the lowest of rhetorical blows, and the defense, needless to say, won’t have wit enough to come up with a fitting answer, for they have no idea where it will end either. Let us only hope that they do not shoot the poor devils. Then it really could be said that they went out for wool and came home shorn.

Let’s change the subject. When we mentioned the suspicions harbored by the sergeants, and by their allies among certain second lieutenants and captains, about the maphia’s direct involvement in the transportation of the dying to the border, we said that these suspicions were strengthened by certain subsequent events. The moment has come to reveal what those were and how they came about. Taking as their example the family of smallholders who began the whole process, what the maphia has been doing is simply crossing the border, burying the dead, and charging a small fortune for the service. With the difference that they paid no attention to the beauty of the site and never bothered to note down in their log-book any orographic or topographic reference points that might, in future, help tearful family members, repenting of their evil deeds, to find the grave again and beg forgiveness of the dead. One doesn’t require a strategically acute mind to understand that the armies ranged along the other side of the three frontiers had begun to constitute a serious obstacle to funerary practices which had, up until then, taken place unobstructed. The maphia would not be what it is had it failed to find a solution to the problem. It really is a shame, if you will allow us a brief aside, that the brilliant intellects leading these criminal organizations should have departed from the strait and narrow path of respect for the law and disobeyed the wise biblical precept that urges us to earn our daily bread by the sweat of our brow, but facts are facts, and while repeating adamastor’s sad words, ah, but my heart is sick to tell the tale, we will set down here the distressing news of the trick deployed by the maphia to get round a difficulty which was, to all appearances, insoluble. Before doing so, however, it might be as well to explain that the word sick, placed by the epic poet in the mouth of the unhappy giant adamastor, meant, in that context, profoundly sad, sorrowful, grief stricken, but for some years now, ordinary people have thought, and quite rightly too, that they could make use of that excellent word to express feelings of disgust, repugnance, loathing, which, as anyone will recognize, have nothing to do with the feelings described above. One cannot be too careful with words, they change their minds just as people do. Obviously, the trick wasn’t as simple as making sausages, stuff ’em, tie ’em up and stick ’em in the smoke-room, the matter took time, it required emissaries with false moustaches and hats with the brim low over their eyes, telegrams in code, conversations down secret phone lines, on red telephones, midnight meetings at crossroads, notes left under stones, all of which elements we had noted in the earlier negotiations, when, so to speak, they were playing at dice with the lives of the vigilantes. Nor must one think that these transactions were, as in the earlier case, purely bilateral. As well as the maphia in this country where no one dies, the maphias in the neighboring countries also took part in these talks, for that was the only way to protect both the independence of each criminal organization within the national framework in which it worked and the independence of their respective governments. It would be completely unacceptable, absolutely reprehensible for the maphia in one of those countries to negotiate directly with the administration of another. Things, however, did not reach that point, having been prevented from doing so up until now, as if by a last vestige of modesty, by the sacrosanct principle of national sovereignty, a principle as important to maphias as it is to governments, and while this is perfectly understandable in the latter, you might have your doubts when it came to criminal associations, until you remembered with what jealous brutality they defended their territories from the hegemonic ambitions of their professional colleagues. Coordinating all this, bringing together the general and the particular, balancing the interests of some with the interests of others, was not an easy task, which explains why, for two long, boring weeks of waiting, the soldiers had passed the time insulting each other over the loudspeakers, although always taking care not to overstep the mark, not to be too rude, in case the offense should go to the head of some particularly prickly lieutenant-colonel and then all hell would break loose. The biggest contributing factor in complicating and delaying the negotiations was the fact that none of the maphias in the other countries had teams of biddable vigilantes, and they therefore lacked the irresistible means of putting pressure on the government that had produced such excellent results here. Although this darker side of the negotiations has never been revealed, except in the form of the inevitable rumors, there are good reasons for thinking that the middle-ranking commanders of the armies in the neighboring countries, with the indulgent approval of their superior officers, had allowed themselves to be persuaded, god alone knows at what price, by the arguments of the local maphia spokesmen, to close their eyes to the unavoidable comings and goings, advances and retreats, in which the solution to the problem consisted. A child could have come up with the idea, but to put it into practice, he would, having reached what we call the age of reason, have had to go and knock on the door of the maphia’s recruiting section and say, My vocation has brought me here, do with me as you will.