The Collected Novels of José Saramago (80 page)

No reply, so far, from Marcenda. Ricardo Reis has sent her another letter, telling her of his new life, that he is practicing medicine once more, under the borrowed credentials of a well-known specialist, I receive my patients in consulting rooms on the Praça de Luis de Camoes, within a stone’s throw of my apartment and close to your hotel. With its multicolored houses Lisbon is a very small city. Ricardo Reis feels as if he is writing to someone he has never seen, to someone who lives, if she exists at all, in an unknown place, and when he reflects that this place has a name, Coimbra, which is a city he once saw with his own eyes, the thought seems as absurd as the sun rising in the west, because no matter how hard we look in that direction, we shall see the sun only dying there. The person he kissed, the memory he still preserves of that kiss gradually fades behind the mist of time. In the bookshops he can find no text capable of refreshing his memory. He finds, instead, information on cardiac and pulmonary lesions, and even so, it is often said that there are no diseases, only persons diseased. Does this mean that there are no kisses, only persons kissed. It is true that Lydia nearly always comes when she has a free day, and judging from the external and internal evidence Lydia is a person, but enough has been said about the aversions and prejudices of Ricardo Reis. Lydia may be a person, but she is not that person.

The weather improves, the world, however, is getting worse. According to the calendar it is already spring, and new buds and leaves can be seen sprouting on the branches of the trees, but from time to time winter invades these parts. Torrential rains are unleashed, leaves and buds are swept away in the flood, until eventually the sun reappears, its presence helping us forget the misfortunes of the last harvest, the drowned ox that comes floating downstream, swollen and decaying, the shack whose walls caved in, the sudden inundation that pulls the corpses of two men into the murky sewers of the city among excrement and vermin. Death should be a simple act of withdrawal, like a supporting actor who makes a discreet exit. He is denied the privilege of a final speech when his presence is no longer required. But the world, being so vast, contains events more dramatic, it ignores these complaints we mutter with clenched teeth about the shortage of meat in Lisbon. This is not news one should broadcast or leak abroad, leave that to other nations who lack our Lusitanian sense of privacy. Consider the recent elections in Germany, at Brunswick, where the mobilized National-Socialist corps paraded through the streets with an ox carrying a placard that read, This ox casts no vote. Had this been in Portugal, we would have taken the ox to vote, then would have eaten it, fillet, loin, and belly, and used the tail to make soup. The German race is obviously very different from ours. Here, the masses clap their hands, rush to watch parades, salute in Roman style, dream of uniforms for civilians, yet they play a most humble role on the great stage of the world. All we can hope for is to be hired as extras. This explains why we never know where to put our feet or what to do with our hands when we line the streets to honor the youths that march past. An innocent babe in its mother’s arms doesn’t take our patriotic fervor seriously, pulling at our middle finger which is within reach. With a nation like ours it is impossible to be smug and solemn or to offer one’s life on the altar of the fatherland,
we should take lessons, watch how the abovementioned Germans acclaim Hitler in the Wilhelmsplatz, hear how they fervently plead, We want the Führer, we beseech you Führer, we want to see you Führer, shouting until they become hoarse, faces covered with sweat, little old women with white hair weeping tender tears, pregnant women throbbing with swollen wombs and heaving breasts, men endowed with strong muscles and wills, all shouting and applauding until the Führer comes to the window, then their hysteria knows no bounds, the multitude cries out with one voice, Heil. That’s more like it. If only I had been born a German. But one need not be quite so ambitious. Without comparing them with the Germans, consider the Italians, who are already winning their war. Only a few days ago their planes flew all the way to the city of Harar and reduced everything to ashes. If a nation like Italy, known for its tarantellas and serenatas, can take such risks, why should we be hindered by the fado and the vira. Our misfortune is the lack of opportunities. We have an empire, one of the greatest, which could cover the whole of Europe and still have land left over, yet we are unable to conquer our immediate neighbors, we cannot even win back Olivença. But where would such a bold initiative lead us. Let us wait and see how things turn out over the border, and in the meantime let us continue to receive into our homes and hotels those affluent Spaniards who have escaped the turmoil, this is traditional Portuguese hospitality, and if someday they are declared Spain’s enemies, we will hand them over to the authorities, who will deal with them as they see fit, the law was made to be enforced. Among the Portuguese there is a strong desire for martyrdom, an eagerness for sacrifice and self-denial, only the other day one of our leaders said, No mother who has ever begotten a son could guide him to a loftier and nobler destiny than that of giving his life in defense of the fatherland. The bastard. We can just see him visiting maternity wards, probing the bellies of pregnant women, asking when they expect to give birth, telling them that soldiers are needed in the trenches, which trenches, never mind, there will be trenches. As we can see from these omens, the world promises no great happiness. Now Alcalá Zamora has been removed from the presidency of the Republic and the rumor is spreading that there will be a military coup in Spain. If that happens, sad times lie ahead for many people. But this is not the reason people emigrate. The Portuguese do not care whether they live in the fatherland or the outside world, the important thing is to find a place where we can eat and save a little money, whether it be Brazil, to which six hundred and six Portuguese emigrated in March, or the United States of North America, to which fifty-nine emigrated, or Argentina, to which more than sixty-five emigrated, but to all the other countries put together only two went. France is no place for Portuguese bumpkins, there one finds another kind of civilization.

Now that Easter has arrived, the government is distributing alms and provisions throughout the land, thus uniting the Roman Catholic commemoration of the sufferings and triumphs of Our Lord Jesus Christ with the temporary appeasement of protesting stomachs. The poor, not always orderly, form lines at the doors of the parish councils and almshouses, and there are already rumors that at the end of May a splendid banquet will be held on the grounds of the Jockey Club for the benefit of those left homeless by the floods in Ribatejo, unfortunates who have been going around with the seat of their pants soaking wet for many months. The organizing committee has already enlisted some of the most prominent names in Portuguese high society, one more distinguished than the next in terms of both moral and material wealth, Mayer Ulrich, Perestrello, Lavradio, Estarreja, Daun e Lorena, Infante da Camara, Alto Mearim, Mousinho de Albuquerque, Roque de Pinho, Costa Macedo, Pina, Pombal, Seabra e Cunha, the inhabitants of Ribatejo are extremely fortunate, provided they can put up with their hunger until May. In the meantime, governments, even if they are as supreme as ours, which is perfect in every respect, are showing symptoms of failing eyesight, perhaps because of too much bookwork or strain. The fact is that, situated as they are on high, they can see things clearly only at a distance, not noticing that salvation is often to be found, as it were, under one’s nose, or in this case in a newspaper advertisement. There is no excuse for missing this one, because it even has a sketch of a recumbent lady in a nightgown that allows a glimpse of a magnificent bosom that probably owes something to the treatment provided by Madame Hélène Duroy. Yet the delicious creature looks a trifle pale, not so pale as to suggest that her illness might prove fatal, we have every confidence in the doctor who is seated at her bedside, bald-headed with mustache and goatee, saying to her in tones of mild reproach, If you had taken It, you would not be so pale. He is offering her salvation in the form of a jar of Bovril. If the government paid more attention to those newspapers it scrupulously censors morning, noon, and night, sifting proposals and opinions, it would discover how simple is the solution to the problem of famine. The solution is here, it is Bovril, a jar to every Portuguese citizen, for large families a five-liter flagon, a national diet, a universal nutrient, an all-purpose remedy. If we had drunk Bovril from the outset, Dona Clotilde, we would not now be skin and bones.

Ricardo Reis gathers information, takes note of these useful remedies. He is not like the government, which insists on ruining its eyes by reading between the lines, overlooking the facts to dwell on the theories. If it is a fine morning, he goes out, a little gloomy despite Lydia’s solicitude and attentiveness, to read his newspapers sitting in the sun under the protective gaze of Adamastor. As we have already seen, Luis de Camôes greatly exaggerated the scowl, the tangled beard, the sunken eyes. The giant’s attitude is neither menacing nor evil, it is only the suffering of unrequited love, Adamastor could not care less whether the Portuguese ships succeed in rounding the Cape. Contemplating the luminous river, Ricardo Reis recalls two lines from an old ballad,
From the window of my room / watch the mullet leap.
All those glints in the waves are fish leaping, restless, inebriated by the light. How true, that all bodies are beautiful as they emerge, quickly or slowly, from the water, like Lydia the other day, dripping, within arm’s reach, or these fish too far away for the eye to distinguish. Seated on another bench, the two old men converse, waiting for Ricardo Reis to finish his newspaper, because he usually leaves it on the bench. The old men come here every day in the hope that the gentleman will appear in the park. Life is an inexhaustible mine of surprises, we reach an age where we have nothing else to do but watch the ships below from the Alto de Santa Catarina and suddenly we are rewarded with a news paper, sometimes for two days in succession, depending on the weather. Once Ricardo Reis actually saw one of the old men break into a nervous trot and hobble toward the bench where he had been sitting, so he did the charitable thing, offering it with his own hand and saying, The newspaper. They accepted, of course, but are resentful now that they owe him a favor. Reclining comfortably on the bench with his legs crossed, feeling the gentle warmth of the sun on his half-closed eyelids, Ricardo Reis receives news of the vast world. He learns that Mussolini has promised the imminent annihilation of the Ethiopian military forces, that Russian weapons have been sent to the Portuguese refugees in Spain, besides other funds and resources intended to establish a Union of Independent Ibero-Soviet Republics, that in the words of Lumbrales, Portugal is God’s creation throughout successive generations of saints and heroes, that some four thousand five hundred workers are expected to take part in a parade organized by the Corporative Movement in northern Portugal, in their number are two thousand stevedores, one thousand six hundred and fifty coopers, two hundred bottlers, four hundred miners from Sao Pedro da Cova, four hundred workers from the canning factories at Matosinhos, and five hundred associate members from the union organizations in Lisbon, and he learns that the
Afonso de Albuquerque,
a luxury steamboat, will depart for Leixões in order to attend the workers’ celebration to be held there, that the clocks will be set forward by one hour, that there is a general strike in Madrid, that the newspaper
O Crime
is on sale today, that there has been another sighting of the Loch Ness Monster, that members of the government presided over the distribution of food to three thousand two hundred paupers in Oporto, that Ottorino Respighi, composer of
The Fountains of Rome
, has died. Fortunately the world has something for everyone. Ricardo Reis does not relish everything he reads, but he cannot choose the news and must accept it, whatever it is. His situation is entirely different from that of a certain old American who each morning receives a copy of
The New York Times,
his favorite newspaper. It is a special edition, which guards the precarious health of this senile reader who has reached the ripe age of ninety-seven, because each day it is doctored from start to finish, with nothing but good news and articles brimming with optimism, so that the poor old man will not be troubled by the world’s disasters, which are likely to grow more disastrous. His private copy of the newspaper explains and proves that the economic crisis is fast disappearing, that there is no more unemployment, and that Communism in Russia is tending toward Americanism, as the Bolshevists have been forced to recognize the virtues of the American way of life. Fair tidings, these, that are read out to John D. Rockefeller over breakfast, and after he has dismissed his secretary he will peruse with his own weary, myopic eyes the paragraphs that reassure and delight him. At long last there is peace on earth, war only when it is advantageous, dividends are stable, interest rates guaranteed. He does not have much time left to live, but when the hour comes, he will die happy, the sole inhabitant of a world privileged with a strictly individual and nontransferable happiness. The rest of mankind has to be satisfied with whatever remains. Fascinated by what he has just learned, Ricardo Reis rests this Portuguese newspaper on his lap and tries to picture old John D. opening the magic pages of printed happiness with tremulous, scrawny hands, unaware that they are telling him lies. Everyone else knows it, because the deception has been telegraphed by news agencies from continent to continent, that in the editorial offices of
The New York Times
orders have been issued to suppress all bad news in the special copy for John D., the household cuckold who won’t even be the last to know. Such a wealthy and powerful man allowing himself to be fooled in this way. The two old men pretend to be lost in conversation, arguing at their leisure, but keep looking out of the corner of one eye, waiting for their version of
The New York Times.
Breakfast used to be only a crust of bread and a cup of barley coffee, but our bad news is assured now that we have a neighbor who is so rich that he can afford to leave newspapers on park benches. Ricardo Reis rises to his feet, gestures to the old men, who exclaim, Oh, thank you so much, kind sir. The fat one advances, smiling, lifts the folded paper as if from a silver tray, good as new, this is the advantage of having the skilled hands of a medical practitioner, hands as soft as those of any lady, and he returns to his bench, settling once more beside the thin man. Their reading does not begin on the first page, first we must check to see if there are reports concerning riots or outbreaks of violence, disasters, deaths, crimes, especially, oh, how it makes one shudder, the mysterious death of Luis Uceda, still unsolved, and that dreadful business about the martyred child in the Rua Escadinhas das Olarias, number eight, ground floor.