The Collected Novels of José Saramago (78 page)

Ricardo Reis did not go out to dine. He had some tea and cakes on the large table in the living room surrounded by seven empty chairs. Under a chandelier with seven branches and two bulbs he ate three small sponge cakes, leaving one on his plate. He counted again and saw that the numbers four and six were missing. He soon found the four, the corners of the rectangular room, but for six he had to get up and look around, which resulted in eight, the empty chairs. Finally he decided that he himself would be six, he could be any number if he was truly innumerable. With a smile that expressed both irony and sorrow he shook his head and went into the bedroom muttering to himself, I believe I’m going mad. From the street below came the incessant murmur of rain running down the gutters to the low-lying neighborhoods of Boavista and Conde Barão. Searching among the pile of books that were waiting to be sorted, he fished out
The God of the Labyrinth
, sat in the chair where Fernando Pessoa had sat, took one of the blankets from the bed to cover his knees, and started afresh on the opening page. The body discovered by the first chess player occupied the squares of the King and Queen and their two followers, its arms outstretched in the direction of the enemy camp. He continued to read, but even before reaching the place where he had left off last time, he began to feel drowsy. He lay down, read two more pages with effort, fell asleep between the thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth move, just as the second chess player was pondering the fate of the Bishop. He didn’t remember turning off the light, but it was off when he awoke in the middle of the night, he must have got up and turned it off after all. These are things we do automatically, our body, acting on its own, avoids inconvenience whenever possible, that is why we sleep on the eve of battle or execution, and why ultimately we die when we can no longer bear the harsh light of existence.

Since he had forgotten to close the shutters, the gray light of an overcast morning filled the room. He had a long day before him, a long week, more than anything he wanted to stay in bed, under these warm blankets, let his beard grow, turn into moss, until someone came and knocked at the door, Who’s there, It’s Marcenda, One moment, he would cry out in excitement, within seconds make himself presentable, shaved, his hair combed, fresh from his bath, smartly dressed in clean clothes, ready to receive the expected visitor, Do come in, what a pleasant surprise. Not once but twice they came to knock at his door, first the milkman, to find out if the gentleman wished milk to be delivered every morning, then the baker, to find out if he required bread every day. Yes, he replied to both of them. In that case, sir, put the milk jug out on the doormat each evening, In that case, sir, hang the bread bag from the doorknob the night before. But who told you I had moved in here, The woman on the second floor, I see, and how would you like to be paid, Either weekly or monthly, Shall we say weekly then, That will be fine, Doctor. Ricardo Reis did not ask how they knew he was a doctor, there was no point in asking, but we heard Lydia address him as doctor when she left, and the woman downstairs was there and heard it. Provided with milk, tea, and fresh bread, Ricardo Reis enjoyed a wholesome breakfast. He had no butter or marmalade, but such bread is best savored on its own. Had Queen Marie Antoinette been served bread like this, she would not have needed to subsist on brioches. Now all that’s wanting is a newspaper, but even that will soon be delivered. In his bedroom Ricardo Reis hears the cry of the newsvendor,
O Século, O Notícias.
He rushes to open the window, and the newspaper comes flying through the air, folded like a secret missive, moist from the ink which the weather has not allowed to dry. Greasy black smudges stain his fingers. Now each morning this carrier pigeon will tap on the windowpanes until they are opened from within. The newsvendor’s cry can be heard from the far end of the street, and if the window is slow in opening, which nearly always happens, the paper is thrown up into the air, revolving like a discus, it strikes once, comes back, is thrown a second time. Ricardo Reis has already opened the window wide and received into his arms this winged messenger that brings him the world’s news. He leans over the sill to say, Many thanks, Senhor Manuel, and the newsvendor replies, Until tomorrow, Doctor. But this comes later, when an arrangement is reached, the payment this time will be monthly, as usual when dealing with reliable customers, it saves a person the effort of collecting three cents every day, a paltry sum.

Now, it is a question of waiting. On this first day, he can pass the time reading the newspapers, the evening editions too, he can reread, analyze, ponder, then work on his odes, or resume his reading of the labyrinth and its god, contemplate the sky from his window, and listen to the woman who lives on the second floor gossiping on the stairs with the woman from the fourth floor. He realizes that he will be hearing those shrill voices a great deal. And he will sleep, dozing and waking up, and leave the apartment only to have lunch, a hasty lunch at a nearby eating house on the Rua do Calhariz, then return to the newspapers he has already read, to his lukewarm odes, to the six hypotheses about the outcome of the forty-ninth move, and pass before the mirror, turning back to see if the person who passed is still there. He will decide that this silence is unbearable without a note of music, that one of these days he must buy a gramophone. To see which model will suit him best he looks through the advertisements for specific makes, Belmont, Philips, RCA, Philco, Pilot, Stewart-Warner. He takes notes, writes superheterodyne, understanding only the super in it and not even that with any certainty. Poor solitary creature, he is flabbergasted when confronted with an advertisement that promises women the perfect bosom within three to five weeks using the Parisian method, Exuber, which combines those three fundamental desiderata, Bust Raffermer, Bust Developer, and Bust Reducer. This Franglais is translated into concrete results under the supervision of Madame Hélène Duroy of the Rue de Miromesnil, which is in Paris, of course, where ravishing women firm up, develop, and reduce their busts, successively or all at the same time. Ricardo Reis examines other startling advertisements, for the restorative tonic Banacao, a wine with nutritional ingredients, for the Jowett automobile, for Pargil mouthwash, for a soap called Silver Night, for Evel wine, for the works of Mercedes Blasco, for Selva, for Saltratos Rodel, for those everpresent
Letters of a Portuguese Nun,
for the books of Blasco Ibanez, for Tek toothbrushes, for the pain killer Veramon, for Noiva hair dye, for Desodorol, which is rubbed into the armpits, then he returns with a sigh to the news items he has already digested, Alexander Glazunov, the composer of
Stenka Razin,
has died, Salazar, the all-paternal dictator, has installed canteens in the National Foundation to keep the workers happy, Germany swears that she will not withdraw her troops from the Rhineland, recent storms caused havoc in the Ribatejo, a state of war has been declared in Brazil and hundreds of people have been arrested, a quote from Hitler, Either we triumph over our destiny or we perish, and military forces were dispatched to the province of Badajoz, where thousands of workers have invaded rural estates. In the House of Commons several speakers declare that the Reich must be granted equal rights, there are new and interesting developments in the Uceda case, they have started filming
The May Revolution
, which tells the story of a refugee who arrives in Portugal to foment revolt, not this one, another one, and he is won over to the Nationalist cause by the daughter of the landlady at the boardinghouse where he is staying incognito. This last item Ricardo Reis read once, twice, three times, in an effort to rid himself of a faint echo buzzing deep inside his memory, but all three times his memory failed him, and it was only when he moved on to another news story, the general strike in La Coruña, that this tenuous thought became clear and defined. It was nothing distant, it was
Conspiracy,
that book, that Marilia, that story of another conversion to Nationalism and its ideals, apparently the tale has its most effective propagandists among the women, with such magnificent results that literature and the seventh art pay tribute to these angels of chastity and self-sacrifice who seek out the wayward if not lost souls of men. No one can resist them when they place a hand upon a shoulder or cast a chaste glance beneath a suspended tear. They don’t need to issue writs, interrogate, become inscrutable like the deputy chief of police, or hover vigilantly like Victor. This feminine influence surpasses the abovementioned techniques of making firm, developing, and reducing, although it might be more correct to say that this influence initially derives from these three, as much in the literary sense as in the biological, for it includes impassioned outbursts, exaggerated metaphors, and wild associations of ideas. Holy women, angels of mercy, Portuguese nuns, daughters of Mary and pious sisters, be they in convents or in brothels, in palaces or in hovels, the daughters of some boardinghouse landlady or of a senator, what astral and telepathic messages must they exchange among themselves, so that from such varied circumstances and conditions there should result so concerted an effect, which is nothing more or less than the redemption of a man in danger of losing his soul. As the supreme reward, these women offer him sisterly friendship, or sometimes their love, even their bodies and all the other advantages a beloved spouse can provide, and this sustains a man’s hope in the happiness that will come, if it comes at all, in the wake of the good angel descended from the altars on high, for ultimately, let us confess it, this is nothing other than a secondary manifestation of the Marian cult. Marília and the daughter of the landlady, both incarnations of the Most Holy Virgin, cast pitying glances and place their healing hands on physical and moral sores, working the miracle of health and political conversion. Humanity will take a great step forward when such women begin to rule. Ricardo Reis smiled as he thought these sad irreverences. There is something disagreeable about watching a man smile to himself, particularly if he is smiling into his mirror, a good thing there is a closed door between him and the rest of the world. Then he asked himself, And Marcenda, what kind of woman is Marcenda. The question is beside the point, a mere mental game for one who has no one to talk to. First he must see if she has the courage to visit him in his apartment, then she will have to explain, however reluctant, however inarticulate, why she came to this enclosed and lonely place like an enormous spiderweb at the center of which lurks a wounded tarantula.

Today is the last day of the fixed term no one has agreed upon. Ricardo Reis looks at the clock, it’s just after four. The window is closed, the few clouds in the sky are high. If Marcenda fails to come, she will not have the simple excuse so common of late, I dearly wanted to come but the rain was so heavy, and although my father was out, no doubt on one of his amorous pursuits, the manager Salvador would almost certainly have asked me, Surely you are not going out, Senhorita Marcenda, in this weather. Ricardo Reis looks at his watch, it is half past four. Mar cenda
has not come and will not come. The light indoors is fast disappearing, the furniture hides behind quivering shadows, one can now understand the suffering of Adamastor. The suspense grows almost unbearable, when suddenly there are two raps from the front door knocker. The building seems to tremble from top to bottom as if an earthquake were rocking the foundations. Ricardo Reis does not rush to the window, so he has no idea who will appear when he goes out onto the landing to pull the wire cord. He hears the woman upstairs open her door and say, Oh, I’m sorry, I thought it was for me, a familiar phrase handed down through generations of nosy women. It is Marcenda. Leaning over the banister, Ricardo Reis sees her. Halfway up the first flight of stairs, she looks up, anxious to make sure that the person she seeks really lives here, and she is smiling, it is a smile that has a future, unlike those reflected in a mirror, that is the difference. Ricardo Reis backs toward the door, Marcenda is climbing the last flight of stairs, only now does he notice that the light in the stairwell is off, that he is about to receive her almost in darkness, and while he vacillates, on another level of thought he wonders with surprise, How is it possible for her smile to be so radiant. When she stands before me, what should I say, I cannot ask, How have you been, nor exclaim in an even more plebeian fashion, Fancy seeing you here, nor sigh romantically, I had almost given up hope, I felt so desperate, why did you take so long. She walks in, I close the door, neither of us has said a word. Ricardo Reis takes her right hand, only to guide her into the domestic labyrinth. Into his bedroom would be improper, into the dining room would be absurd, in which of the chairs around that long table would they sit, side by side or facing, and how many would be seated there, he being innumerable, and she is certainly more than one, so let it be the study, Marcenda on one sofa, I on another. They have entered now, the ceiling light is on, also the lamp on the desk. Marcenda looks around at the heavy furniture, the two bookcases with their handful of books, the green blotting paper, then Ricardo Reis tells her, I am going to kiss you. She is silent. Slowly she supports her left elbow with her right hand, is it a protest, a plea for mercy, a surrender. She places her arm across her body like a barrier. Ricardo Reis takes a step forward, but
she does not move. When he is almost touching, Marcenda releases her elbow, allows her right hand to drop, it hangs as dead as her other hand, whatever life is within her is divided between her throbbing heart and her trembling knees as she watches this man draw near. She feels a sob forming in her throat, their lips touch, Is this a kiss, she wonders. But it is only the beginning of a kiss. His mouth presses against hers, his lips open hers, this is the body’s destiny, to be opened. The arms of Ricardo Reis now are around her waist and shoulders, and for the first time her bosom is in contact with a man’s chest. The kiss, she realizes, is not over yet, it is inconceivable that it could ever end and the world return to its primeval innocence, she also realizes that she must do something other than stand there with her arms down. Her right hand moves up to the shoulders of Ricardo Reis, her left hand, dead or asleep, dreams, recalls the movements it once made, fingers entwining fingers, crossing behind the man’s neck. She repays Ricardo Reis kiss for kiss, her hands in his hands, I knew it when I decided to come, I knew it when I left the hotel, I knew it when I climbed those stairs and saw him leaning over the banister, I knew that he would kiss me. Her right hand leaves his shoulder, slips down, weary, her left hand was never there. This is the moment when the body recoils, almost staggers, when the kiss has reached the point where it is no longer enough. Let us separate them before the rising force compels us to proceed to the next stage, a renewed explosion of kisses, precipitate, short-lived, eager, lips no longer satisfied with lips yet constantly returning to them. Anyone with any experience knows this sequence, but not Marcenda, who is being kissed and embraced by a man for the first time in her life and suddenly finds that the longer a kiss lasts, the greater the need to repeat it, a crescendo of need that seems to have no end. Her escape lies elsewhere, in this sob in the throat, which neither swells nor finds release, a faint voice that pleads, Let me go, then adds, moved by who knows what scruples, as if afraid of having given offense, Let me sit down. Ricardo Reis leads her to the sofa, does not know what to do next, what to say, whether he should make a declaration of love or simply ask her forgiveness, whether he should kneel at her feet or remain silent, waiting for her to speak. All this strikes him as false, the only true thing was when he said, I’m going to kiss you, and did. Marcenda is seated, her left hand resting in her lap in full view, like a witness. Ricardo Reis is also seated, and they look at each other, conscious of their bodies, as if each were a great whispering shell. Marcenda tells him, Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but I knew you would kiss me. Ricardo Reis leans forward, raises her right hand to his lips, and finally speaks, I don’t know whether I kissed you out of love or despair. She replies, No one has ever kissed me before, therefore I cannot tell the difference between love and despair. But at least you must know what you felt. I felt your kiss as the sea feels the wave, if these words have any meaning. I have been waiting for you all these days, asking myself what would happen if you came, I never thought that things would turn out like this, but when you walked in here, I realized that to kiss you was the only thing I could do, when I said a moment ago that I could not tell whether I had kissed you out of love or despair, if I knew then what I meant, I no longer do. So you feel no despair after all, and no love for me. Every man feels love for the woman he kisses, even if the kiss is one of despair. What reasons do you have for despair. Only one, this sense of emptiness. How can a man who has the use of both hands complain. I am not complaining, I am simply saying that a man has to experience despair before saying to a woman, as I’ve just said to you, I am going to kiss you. You might have said it out of love. Had it been love, I’d have kissed you without telling you beforehand. So you do not love me. I’m extremely fond of you. But that is not why we kissed each other, Well, no. What are we going to do now, after what has happened, here I am in the apartment of a man with whom I’ve conversed three times in my whole life, I came here to see you, to speak with you and be kissed, I don’t want to think about the rest. Someday we may have to think about it, Someday perhaps, but not today. I’ll get you a cup of tea, I have some cakes. Let me help you, but then I must go, my father might return to the hotel and ask where I am. Make yourself comfortable, why don’t you take off your jacket. I’m fine like this.