The Collected Novels of José Saramago (420 page)

A
FULL MOON,
august moonlight. Everyone is sleeping, with the exception of the two mounted guards patrolling the camp, the only sound the creaking of leather. The sleepers are enjoying a well-deserved rest, for although, during the first part of the day, the men enlisted to push the ox-cart may have given the impression of being a band of lazy good-for-nothings, they had set to work with great brio and shown themselves to be out-and-out professionals. True, the flat terrain had helped a great deal, but you could safely bet that, in the whole venerable history of that ox-cart, there had never been a day like it. During the three and a half hours they had been traveling, and despite a few short breaks, they had covered more than seventeen kilometers. This was the figure finally decided upon by the commanding officer after a lively exchange of words with the mahout subhro, who thought that the distance had been somewhat shorter and that it was best not to deceive themselves. The commanding officer disagreed, believing that it would help to encourage the men, What dif ference does it make if we did only travel fourteen kilometers, we’ll cover the missing three tomorrow and it’ll all work out in the end, you’ll see. The mahout gave up trying to persuade him, I did my best, he thought, and if the commanding officer’s false accounting prevailed, that doesn’t alter the reality of the kilometers we really did travel, yes, subhro, you really must learn not to argue with the man in charge.

He had woken with the impression that he had experienced a sharp pain in his stomach while sleeping, and although it seemed to him unlikely that this would recur, his insides felt suspiciously restless, with a few silent gurglings in his intestines, and then suddenly there it was again, that same stabbing pain. He got up as quickly as he could, indicated to the nearest guard that he needed to leave the encampment and then strode toward a dense row of trees at the top of the gentle slope on which they had pitched camp, so gentle that it was as if they were lying in a bed with the bedhead slightly raised. He arrived just in time. Let us avert our gaze while he takes down his breeches, which, miraculously, he has not yet soiled, and wait for him to look up and see what we have seen already, a village bathed in the marvelous august moonlight that molded every contour, softened the very shadows it created and, at the same time, illuminated the places where it fell unimpeded. The words we were waiting for finally appeared, A village, a village. Doubtless because they were tired, no one else had yet thought to climb the hill to see what was on the other side. It’s always good to see a village, if not this one then another, but it seems improbable that in the very first one we come across we’ll find a powerful pair of oxen capable of righting the leaning tower of pisa with a single tug. Having finished his urgent business, the
mahout cleaned himself as best he could with a handful of the greenery growing round about, and it was fortunate indeed that no nettles, also known as fireweed, were to be found, because they would have made him leap about like a victim of saint vitus dance, so badly would they have burnt and stung his delicate lower mucous membrane. A thick cloud suddenly covered the moon, and the village was plunged in darkness, as if it had vanished like a dream into the surrounding gloom. It didn’t matter, the sun would rise at the appropriate hour and show the way to the stable, where the ruminating oxen already had a sixth sense that their lives were about to change. Subhro walked back through the dense trees and returned to his place alongside the other men in the encampment. On the way, it occurred to him that if the commanding officer was awake, this information would give him the greatest satisfaction in the world, to resort to grandiose planetary terminology. And the glory of having discovered the village would be all mine, he murmured. Because there was no point in fostering vain illusions. During what remained of the night, other men might feel the need to empty their bowels, and the only place where they could do so discreetly was in the middle of those trees, but even supposing that this didn’t happen, it would only be a matter of waiting for the dawn when we would witness a whole procession of men obeying the calls of intestines and bladder, hardly surprising given that we’re all animals under the skin. Feeling mildly disgruntled, the mahout decided to make a detour to the place where the commanding officer was sleeping, you never know, sometimes people suffer from insomnia or wake up distraught because they had a dream that they were dead, or else were being bitten by a bedbug, one of
the many that hide in the hems of blankets, come to drink the sleeper’s blood. Let it be set down here, by the way, that the bedbug was the unwitting inventor of blood transfusions. Vain hope. The commanding officer was sleeping, and not just sleeping, but snoring. A guard came over to ask the mahout what he was doing there, and subhro replied that he had a message for the commanding officer, but seeing that he was asleep, he would return to his own bed, This is no time to be giving anyone messages, wait until morning, It’s important, answered the mahout, but, as elephant philosophy would have it, what cannot be cannot be, If you’d like to give me the message, I’ll pass it on to him as soon as he wakes up. The mahout considered the favorable probabilities and decided that it was worth betting on this one card, that the guard would already have informed the commanding officer of the village’s existence when, at first light, the cry went up, Village ahoy. Hard experience of life has shown us that, generally speaking, it is inadvisable to trust too much in human nature. From now on, we will also know that we should not trust the cavalry either, at least when it comes to keeping secrets. Thus, even before the mahout had fallen asleep again, the other guard had already learned the news, and shortly after that, all the soldiers sleeping nearby knew as well. There was intense excitement, with one soldier even suggesting a reconnaissance trip to the village in order to collect firsthand information, which, given the authenticity of the source, would help strengthen the strategy to be drawn up in the morning. Fear that the commanding officer might wake, get out of bed and find none of the soldiers there, or worse still, find some and not others, forced them to abandon this promising adventure. The hours passed, a pale glow in the east began
to trace the curved outline of the door through which the sun would enter, while, on the opposite side, the moon was slipping gently into the arms of another night. And we were thus engaged, postponing the moment of revelation, still wondering if there wasn’t perhaps another more dramatic solution to be found, or, which would be the icing on the cake, one with more symbolic power, when the fateful cry rang out, There’s a village over there. Absorbed in our own lucubrations, we had failed to notice that a man had got up and climbed the slope, but now we see him appear among the trees, we hear him repeat the triumphal news, although the words he uses are not, as we had imagined, Village ahoy, but There’s a village over there. It was the commanding officer. Destiny, when it chooses, is as good or even better than god at writing straight on crooked lines. Sitting on his blanket, subhro thought, It could be worse, he could always say that he had got up in the middle of the night and been the first to see the village. He’ll risk the commanding officer asking him scornfully, as we know he will, And do you have witnesses, to which he will have to reply, metaphorically putting his tail between his legs, No, sir, I was alone, You must have dreamed it then, Not only did I not dream it, I gave the information to one of your guards so that he would tell you when you woke up, None of my soldiers spoke to me about this, But you could speak to him, I’ll tell you which one it was. The commanding officer reacted badly to this proposal, If I didn’t need you to ride the elephant, I would send you straight back to lisbon, and imagine your position then, it would be your word against mine, and I leave you to draw your own conclusions as to the result, or do you want to be deported to india. Having resolved the question of who,
officially, had been the first to discover the village, the commanding officer was about to turn his back on the mahout when the latter said, That isn’t what matters, what matters is finding out if the village has a decent pair of oxen, We’ll find out soon enough, meanwhile, you take care of your business and leave the rest to me, Don’t you want me to go to the village, sir, asked subhro, No, I don’t, I’ll take the sergeant with me and the ox-driver. For once, subhro agreed with the commanding officer. If anyone had a natural right to be there it was the ox-driver. The commanding officer was already busily issuing orders to the sergeant and to the quartermaster’s men, whom he now wanted to provide food both for the soldiers and for the strong men pushing or pulling the cart, for they would lose what strength they had in no time if they had to exist on nothing but dried figs and moldy bread, Whoever planned this journey should be ashamed of themselves, the bigwigs at court must think we live on air, he muttered. The men were already striking camp, rolling up blankets and packing away tools, of which there were many, although most would probably never be used, unless the elephant happened to fall down a ravine and had to be winched up. The commanding officer’s plan was to set off, with or without the new pair of oxen, as soon as he returned from the village. The sun had now detached itself from the horizon and day had dawned, with only a few clouds floating in the sky, let’s just hope it doesn’t get so hot that your muscles melt and you feel as if the sweat on your skin was about to come to the boil. The commanding officer summoned the ox-driver, explained what they were going to do and urged him to take a good look at the oxen, assuming there were any, because on them would depend the
speed of the expedition and its prompt return to lisbon. The ox-driver said Yes, sir twice, not that he cared, he didn’t even live in lisbon, but in a nearby village called mem martins or something of the sort. Since the ox-driver didn’t know how to ride a horse, a flagrant example, as you can see, of the negative consequences of overspecialization, he hoisted himself with some difficulty onto the back of the horse behind the sergeant and off he went, repeating, in a voice that he himself could barely hear, an interminable our father, a prayer of which he was particularly fond because of that bit about forgiving our debts. The problem, and there is always a problem, which sometimes even leaves its tail sticking out just so that we have no illusions about the nature of the beast we’re dealing with, comes in the next line, where it says that it is also our duty as christians to forgive our debtors. It just doesn’t make sense, it’s either one thing or the other, grumbled the ox-driver, if some forgive debts and others don’t pay what they owe, where’s the profit in that, he wondered. They walked down the first street they came to, although you would need a very vivid imagination to call that path a street, for what it most resembled was a roller coaster, had such things existed then, and the commanding officer asked the first person they met what the name of the village was and where they could find the village’s principal landowner. The man, an old peasant carrying his hoe over his shoulder, knew the answers, The principal landowner is the count, but he’s not here, The count, repeated the commanding officer, feeling slightly uneasy, Yes, sir, he owns three quarters or more of the land around here, But you say he’s not at home, Speak to his steward, sir, he’s the captain of the ship, Did you once work at sea, Indeed I did, sir, but the mortality rate was so high, what with drownings and scurvy and other misfortunes, that I resolved to come back home and die on land, And where would I find the steward, If he’s not in the fields, he’ll be up at the palace, There’s a palace here, asked the commanding officer, looking around, It’s not one of those tall palaces with towers, it’s just two floors, ground floor and first, but they say it holds more treasures than all the mansions and palaces in lisbon, Could you show us the way, asked the commanding officer, That’s where I’m heading now, And this count is the count of what. The old man told him, and the commanding officer gave a whistle of amazement, I know him, he said, but I had no idea he owned land hereabouts, And they say he owns land elsewhere too.

The village was of a kind not to be found anymore, if it were winter, it would have been a pigsty awash with water and asquelch with mud, now, though, it reminds one of something else, the petrified ruins of an ancient civilization, covered in dust, as happens sooner or later to all outdoor museums. They emerged into a square and there was the palace. The old man rang the bell at the service door, and after a minute or so someone opened it and the old man went in. Things were not happening as the commanding officer had imagined, but perhaps it was better that way. The old man would begin negotiations, so to speak, and then it would fall to him to explain precisely why they were there. After a good fifteen minutes, there appeared at the door a fat man sporting a large, droopy mustache resembling nothing so much as a ship’s mop. The commanding officer rode over to him and addressed his first words to him from the saddle, just to keep the social demarcations absolutely clear, Are you the count’s steward, At your service, sir. The
commanding officer then dismounted and, showing unusual astuteness, grasped the words that the steward had presented to him as if on a plate, In that case, serving me and serving the count and his highness the king is all one, If you will be so kind as to explain what you want, sir, and as long as it does not compromise the salvation of my soul or the interests of my master, then I am your man, Neither the interests of your master nor the salvation of your soul will be put at risk by me, I can assure you, but let us get down to the matter that brings me here. He paused, beckoned to the ox-driver to join him and said, I am an officer in the king’s cavalry, and the king has charged me with taking to valladolid, in spain, an elephant to be delivered to archduke maximilian of austria, who is currently a guest at the palace of his father-in-law, charles the fifth. The steward’s eyes bulged and his mouth dropped open, and the commanding officer made a mental note of both these encouraging signs. Then he went on, We have with us in the convoy an ox-cart to transport bundles of forage for the elephant to eat and a water trough in which he can quench his thirst, now this cart is drawn by a pair of oxen who have, up until now, performed valiantly, but I very much fear that they will not be up to the task when it comes to climbing mountain slopes. The steward nodded, but said nothing. The commanding officer took a deep breath, leaped over a few ornamental phrases he had been lining up in his head and came straight to the point, I need another pair of oxen for the cart and I thought I might find them here, The count is not at home, and only he. The commanding officer interrupted him, You do not seem to have heard what I said, that I am here in the name of the king, it is not I who am asking you for the loan of a pair of
oxen for a few days, but his highness the king of portugal, Oh, I heard you, sir, but my master, Is not at home, I know, but his steward is, and he understands his duty to the nation, The nation, sir, Have you never seen it, asked the commanding officer, launching into a lyrical flight of fancy, you see those clouds that know not where they go, they are the nation, you see that sun, which is sometimes there and sometimes not, that is the nation, you see that line of trees, where, with my trousers round my ankles, I first spotted the village this morning, they, too, are the nation, you cannot, therefore, deny me or obstruct my mission, If you say so, sir, My word as a cavalry officer, but enough talk, let us go to the stable and see what oxen you have there. The steward stroked his grubby mustache as if asking its advice, and finally came to a decision, the nation above all else, however, still fearing the consequences of what he was about to do, he asked the officer if he could leave him some kind of guarantee, to which the commanding officer replied, I will leave you a letter written in my own hand in which I will undertake to return the pair of oxen to you as soon as the elephant has been delivered to the archduke of austria, so you will only have to wait for as long as it takes us to travel from here to valladolid and from valladolid to here, Let’s go to the stable, then, where we keep the oxen, said the steward, This is my ox-driver, who will come with me, said the commanding officer, for I know more about horses and war, when there is a war. There were eight oxen in the stable. We have another four, said the steward, but they’re out in the fields. At a signal from the commanding officer, the ox-driver went over to the animals and examined them closely, one by one, then made two that were lying down stand up, examined them as well, and finally declared,
This one and this one, A good choice, they’re the best we have, said the steward. The commanding officer felt a wave of pride rise up from his solar plexus to his throat. Every gesture, every step, every decision he made, revealed him to be a strategist of the first water, deserving of the highest recognition and, for a start, swift promotion to the rank of colonel. The steward, who had left the stable, returned with quill and paper, and there the agreement was set down in writing. When the steward received the document, his hands were trembling with excitement, but he calmed down when he heard the ox-driver say, We need harnesses too, They’re over there, said the steward. Now, this story has not so far lacked for reflections, of varying degrees of acuity, on human nature, and we have recorded and commented on each one according to their relevance and the mood of the moment. We never expected, however, that one day we would set down such a generous, exalted, sublime thought as that which then passed like lightning through the commanding officer’s mind, namely, that to the coat of arms of the count who owned those animals should be added a pair or yoke of oxen, in memory of this event. May that wish be granted. The oxen had been yoked up and the ox-driver was already leading them out of the stable, when the steward asked, And the elephant. Put in this way, as rustic as it was direct, the question could simply have been ignored, but the commanding officer felt that he owed the man a favor, and a feeling akin to gratitude made him say, He’s behind those trees, where we spent the night, You know I’ve never in my life seen an elephant, said the steward sadly, as if his happiness and that of his loved ones depended entirely on him seeing an elephant, Well, we can put that right this minute, come with us, You
go on ahead, sir, I’ll harness the mule and catch up. The commanding officer returned to the square, where his sergeant was waiting for him, and he said, Right, we’ve got the oxen, Yes, sir, they passed by here just now, and the ox-driver looked as pleased as a dog with two tails, Come on then, said the commanding officer, mounting his horse, Yes, sir, said the sergeant, following suit. It did not take them long to reach the rest of their men, and there the commanding officer was faced with a serious dilemma, should he gallop into camp and announce this victory to the assembled hosts or ride alongside the oxen and receive the applause in the presence of that living proof of his ingenuity. It took a good one hundred meters of intense reflection to find an answer to this problem, a solution which, anticipating the term by some five centuries, we might call the third way, and this was to send the sergeant on ahead with the news in order to predispose the men to offer him the most enthusiastic of receptions. And so it was. They had not gone very far when they heard the mule approaching with ungainly step, for the creature had never been required to break into a trot before, still less a gallop. Out of politeness, the commanding officer stopped, as did the sergeant, although he did not know why, and only the ox-driver and the oxen, as if they belonged to another world and were ruled by different laws, continued at their usual pace, that is, a very slow one. The commanding officer gave orders for the sergeant to ride on ahead, but soon regretted having done so. His impatience was growing by the minute. It had been a gross error to send the sergeant on ahead. By then, he would already have received the kind of rapturous applause that always greets good news when given at first hand, and any subsequent applause, however loud, always has a taste of yesterday’s warmed-up stew about it. He was wrong. When the commanding officer reached the camp, whether accompanied by or accompanying the ox-driver and the oxen it would be hard to say, the men had formed up into two lines, the laborers on one side, the soldiers on the other, and, in the middle, the elephant with the mahout perched on top, and everyone whooping and applauding wildly, and if this were a pirate ship, it would be the moment to say, A double ration of rum all round. Although this does not preclude the possibility of a quart of red wine being served to the whole company later on. When everyone had calmed down, the convoy began to get itself organized. The ox-driver yoked the count’s oxen to the cart, because they were stronger and fresher, and the two that had traveled all the way from lisbon went ahead of them, so that they could rest a little. Whatever the steward may have been thinking, mounted on his mule, he kept crossing himself and then crossing himself again, scarcely able to believe what his eyes were seeing, An elephant, so that’s an elephant, he murmured, why, he must be at least four ells high, and then there’s the trunk and the tusks and the feet, look how big those feet are. When the convoy set off, he followed it as far as the road. He bade farewell to the commanding officer, to whom he wished a good journey and an even better return, and waved furiously as he watched them move off. Well, it isn’t every day that an elephant appears in our lives.