Skylight

21

Lying in bed, his feet resting on a newspaper so as not to dirty the bedspread, Abel was enjoying a cigarette. He had eaten well. Mariana was a good cook and an excellent housewife. You could see this in the way the apartment was furnished, in the small details. His room was further proof. The furniture was poor but clean and had a dignified air about it. There is no doubt that just as pets — well, cats and dogs at least — reflect the temperament and character of their owners, the furniture and even the most insignificant household objects reflect something of the lives of their owners too. They give off coldness or warmth, friendliness or reserve. They are witnesses constantly recounting, in a silent language, what they have seen and what they know. The difficulty lies in finding the best, most private moment, the most propitious light, in which to hear their confession.

Following the seductive movement of the smoke as it rose into the air, Abel was listening to the stories being told to him by the chest of drawers and the table, by the chairs and the mirror, as well as by the curtains. They were not stories with a beginning, a middle and an end, but a gentle flow of images, the language of shapes and colors that leave behind them an impression of peace and serenity.

Doubtless Abel’s satisfied stomach had an important part to play in that feeling of plenitude. He had spent many months deprived of simple homey fare, of the particular taste food has when prepared by the hands and palate of a contented housewife. He had grown used to eating whatever insipid dish of the day cheap restaurants served up and the kind of fried fish that, in exchange for a few escudos, gives those with little money the illusion that they have eaten. Perhaps Mariana suspected as much; how else to explain her invitation to join them in a meal when they had only known each other such a short time? Or perhaps Silvestre and Mariana were different, different from all the other people he had met so far. Simpler, more human and more open. What was it that gave to the poverty of his hosts the ring of pure gold? (This, by some obscure association of ideas, was how Abel experienced the atmosphere in their apartment.) “Happiness? That doesn’t seem enough. Happiness is like a snail; it withdraws into its shell when you touch it.” But if it wasn’t happiness, what was it then? “Understanding, perhaps, but understanding is just a word. No one can understand another person unless he is that other person. And no one can be simultaneously himself and someone else.”

The smoke continued to drift up from his forgotten cigarette. “Is it simply in the nature of certain people, that capacity to give off some life-transforming energy? Something… something that could be everything or almost nothing. But what is it? That’s the question. So let’s ask that question.”

Abel thought and thought again, but only came up with more questions. He was stuck, at a dead end. “What kind of people are they? What is that capacity of theirs? In what way do they transform life? Are those even the right words to describe it? Does the mere need to use words make it impossible to find an answer? But then how do we find the answer?”

Oblivious to Abel’s speculative efforts, his cigarette had burned down as far as the fingers holding it. Taking great care not to drop the long piece of ash, he stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray. He was about to pick up the thread of his reasoning again when he heard two light taps at the door. He got to his feet:

“Come in.”

Mariana appeared, carrying a shirt:

“I’m sorry to bother you, Senhor Abel, but I’m not sure if this shirt can be mended…”

Abel took the shirt from her, looked at it and smiled:

“What do you think, Senhora Mariana?”

She smiled too and said:

“I’m not sure. It’s certainly seen better days…”

“Do what you can, then. You know, sometimes I have more need of an old shirt than I do of a new one. Does that seem odd to you?”

“I’m sure you have your reasons, Senhor Abel.” And she turned the shirt this way and that as if trying to make it clear to him how very decrepit it was. Then she said: “My Silvestre had a shirt a bit like this. I think I still have some scraps, enough at least for the collar…”

“That’s an awful lot of work, do you think perhaps…”

He stopped. He saw in Mariana’s eyes how sad it would make her if he did not allow her to mend his shirt:

“Thank you, Senhora Mariana. I’m sure you can save it.”

Mariana left the room. She was so fat as to be comical, so kind as to make one weep.

“It’s kindness,” thought Abel, “but that doesn’t seem enough either. There’s something here that eludes me. I can see that they’re happy. They’re very understanding and kind, I can see that too, but there’s something I can’t put my finger on, possibly the most important thing, which might be the cause of that happiness, understanding and kindness. Or perhaps — yes, that’s it — perhaps it’s simultaneously the cause and the consequence of that kindness, understanding and happiness.”

Abel could not, for the moment, find a way out of this labyrinth. That evening’s satisfying, comforting meal may have had a role in dulling his reasoning powers. He thought he might read a little before going to sleep. It was still early, just after half past ten, so he had plenty of time ahead of him. But he didn’t really feel like reading either, or going out, even though it was a warm, clear night. He knew what he would see in the street: people idling by or hurrying along, either curious or indifferent. Gloomy houses and brightly lit ones. The egotistical flow of life: greed, fear, longing, hope, hunger, vice, being approached by some woman of the streets — and, of course, the night itself, which removes all masks and shows man’s true face.

He made up his mind to go and talk to Silvestre, his friend Silvestre. He knew it wasn’t a good time, that the cobbler was busy on an urgent task, but if he couldn’t speak to him, at least he could sit near him, watch his skillful hands at work, feel his calm gaze. “Calmness is such a strange thing,” he thought.

Seeing him come out onto the enclosed balcony, Silvestre smiled and said:

“No game of checkers tonight, I’m afraid!”

Abel sat down opposite him. The low lamp lit up Silvestre’s hands and the child’s shoe he was working on.

“Well, that’s what happens when you have no fixed working hours.”

“I used to, but now that I’m an entrepreneur…”

He said this last word in a way that stripped it of all meaning. Mariana, sitting with her back against the sink and mending Abel’s shirt, joked:

“Yes, an entrepreneur with no money.”

Abel took out a pack of cigarettes.

“Would you like one?”

“Yes, please.”

However, Silvestre was too busy with his hands to take the proffered cigarette. So Abel took it from the pack, put it between Silvestre’s lips and lit it. All this was done in silence. No one mentioned the word “contentment,” but that is what they all felt. Abel’s keener sensibility noted the beauty of the moment. A pure beauty. “Virginal,” he thought.

His chair was taller than the benches on which Silvestre and Mariana were sitting. He could see their bowed heads, their white hair, Silvestre’s lined forehead, Mariana’s glossy red cheeks and the familiar light surrounding them. Abel’s face lay in shadow, the glow from his cigarette marking the spot where his mouth was.

Mariana was not one for sitting up late. Besides, her eyesight wasn’t so good at night. To her despair, her head suddenly drooped. She was definitely more lark than owl.

“You’re nodding off,” said Silvestre.

“No, I’m not. I was just resting my eyes.”

It was no good, though. Five minutes later, Mariana got to her feet and apologized to Senhor Abel, but her eyelids were as heavy as lead.

The two men were left alone.

“I still haven’t thanked you for supper,” said Abel.

“Oh, it was nothing.”

“Well, it meant a lot to me.”

“It was just poor folks’ food.”

“Offered to someone even poorer. It’s funny, that’s the first time I’ve ever described myself as poor. I’ve never thought of myself like that.”

Silvestre did not respond. Abel tapped the ash off his cigarette and went on:

“But that isn’t why I said it meant a lot to me. It’s just that I’ve never felt so happy as I do today. When I leave, I’m really going to miss you both.”

“Why do you have to leave?”

Abel smiled and said:

“Don’t you remember what I said the other day? As soon as I feel the octopus of life getting a grip, I cut off the tentacle.” After a brief silence that Silvestre made no attempt to interrupt, he added: “I hope you don’t think me ungrateful.”

“Not at all. If I didn’t know you and know about your life, then I might think that.”

Abel leaned forward, suddenly filled with curiosity.

“How is it that you’re so very perceptive?”

Silvestre looked up, blinking in the light.

“Do you mean that most cobblers aren’t?”

“Yes, maybe…”

“And yet I’ve always been a cobbler. You’re a clerk of works and have had some education. No one would think…”

“But I…”

“I know, but you have had an education, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, so have I. I finished primary school, and then I’ve read quite a lot on my own too. I learned—”

Silvestre stopped abruptly and bowed his head still lower, as if the shoe required all his attention. The lamp lit up his powerful neck and back.

“I’m distracting you from your work,” said Abel.

“No, not at all. I could do this with my eyes closed.”

He set the shoe aside, picked up three pieces of thread and began waxing them. He did so in long, harmonious movements. Gradually, with each coating of wax, the white thread took on an ever-brighter yellow tone.

“I only do it with my eyes open out of habit,” he went on. “And of course if I closed my eyes, it would take much longer.”

“Plus it wouldn’t be very good,” added Abel.

“Exactly. This only goes to show that even when we could close our eyes, we ought to keep them open.”

“That sounds rather like a riddle.”

“Not really. It’s true, isn’t it, that I could do the job with my eyes closed?”

“Up to a point. You also agreed that, if you did, you wouldn’t do a very good job.”

“Which is why I keep them open. But isn’t it also true that, at my age, I could easily close my eyes?”

“You mean die?”

Silvestre, who had picked up the awl and was piercing the leather with it in order to begin sewing, stopped what he was doing:

“Die?! What an idea! I’m in no hurry to do that!”

“What do you mean?”

“Closing your eyes just means not being able to see.”

“But not being able to see what?”

Silvestre made a sweeping gesture.

“All this… life… people.”

“The riddle continues. I really don’t know what you mean.”

“How could you? You don’t know…”

“Now you’re intriguing me. Let’s see if I can work this out. You said that even when we can close our eyes, we should keep them open, right? You also said that you kept them open so as to see life, people…”

“Exactly.”

“Well, we all have our eyes open and can see life and people, but you can do that whether you’re six or sixty…”

“That depends on how you look at things.”

“Aha. Now we’re getting somewhere. You keep your eyes open so as to see in a certain way. Is that what you mean?”

“That’s what I said.”

“But see things in what way?”

Silvestre did not answer. He was stretching the threads now, the muscles in his arm tense.

“Look, I’m bothering you,” said Abel. “If we carry on talking, you won’t have the shoes ready for tomorrow.”

“And if we don’t carry on talking, you won’t sleep all night for thinking about it.”

“That’s true.”

“You’re dying to know, aren’t you? You’re like I was the other day. After twelve years immersed in the stream of life, you’ve just discovered a very rare bird: a philosophical cobbler! It’s like winning the lottery!”

Abel had the feeling Silvestre was making fun of him, but he disguised his displeasure and said in a slightly bittersweet voice:

“Oh, I would certainly like to know, but I’ve never forced anyone to say anything they didn’t want to. Not even people I used to trust…”

“Ah, that, I think, was aimed at me! Touché.”

The tone in which he said this was so playful and mocking that Abel had to suppress the impulse to give a somewhat sour response, and since that was the only possible response, he preferred to say nothing. Deep down, he wasn’t angry with Silvestre at all, and knew that he couldn’t be angry with him even if he wanted to be.

“Are you annoyed at me?” asked Silvestre.

“No… no…”

“That no means yes. I’ve learned from you to listen to everything that people say to me and how they say it.”

“Don’t you think I’m right to feel annoyed?”

“Annoyed, yes, and impatient too.”

“Impatient? But I just said that I’ve never forced anyone to tell me anything…”

“But if you could?”

“If I could, I would. Now are you satisfied?”

Silvestre laughed out loud:

“Twelve years immersed in the stream of life and you still haven’t learned to control your impatience.”

“I’ve learned other things, though.”

“You’ve learned not to trust people.”

“How can you say that? I trusted you, didn’t I?”

“You did, but what you told me could have been told to anyone. You would simply have to feel the urge to get it off your chest.”

“That’s true, but you were the one I chose to tell.”

“And I’m grateful… I’m not joking now. I really am grateful.”

“There’s no need to be.”

Silvestre put down the shoe and the awl and pushed his workbench to one side. He moved the lamp too, so that he could see Abel’s face.

“Goodness, you are annoyed.”

Abel’s face darkened. He was tempted to get up and leave.

“Listen, listen,” said Silvestre. “Isn’t it true that you distrust everyone, that you’re a, oh, what’s the word?”

“A skeptic?”

“Yes, that’s it, a skeptic.”

“Possibly, but given the blows life has dealt me, it would be astonishing if I wasn’t. But what made you think I was a skeptic?”

“Everything you told me.”

“But at a certain point, what I said moved you.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. I was moved by what you told me about your life, what you’d been through. I’m equally moved by the terrible things I read in the newspapers.”

“That’s avoiding the question. Why, in your view, am I a skeptic?”

“All lads your age are. At least nowadays…”

“And how many lads do you know who have led the life I’ve led?”

“Only you. And that’s why your life hasn’t taught you very much. You want to know life, you said. Why? For your own personal use, for your own benefit, that’s all.”

“Who told you that?”

“I guessed. I have a gift for it.”

“Now you’re joking again.”

“I’ll stop now. Do you remember telling me about the tentacles that try to grab hold of us?”

“I mentioned them again just now.”

“That’s the heart of the matter! That anxiety of yours about being grabbed and held—”

Abel interrupted him. His frown had vanished; he was interested now, almost excited:

“So would you like to see me stuck in the same job for the rest of my life? Would you like to see me attached to some woman? Would you like to see me living life just as everyone else does?”

“Yes and no. If you really want to know, I just hope that your preoccupation with avoiding imprisonment of any kind doesn’t end up with you becoming your own prisoner, the prisoner of your skepticism…”

Abel gave a bitter laugh:

“And there I was, thinking I’d been leading an exemplary life…”

“You would be if you could take from it what I’ve taken from mine.”

“And may one know what that is?”

Silvestre opened his tobacco pouch, took out a cigarette paper and very slowly rolled himself a cigarette. He took a first puff, then said:

“A certain way of seeing.”

“Now we’re back where we started. You know what you mean, and I don’t, so there’s no real possibility of us having a conversation.”

“Yes, there is, once I tell you what I know.”

“At last! Perhaps if you’d told me that in the first place, we would have got off to a better start.”

“I don’t think so. Just hear what I have to say first.”

“Fine, I’m listening. But woe betide you if you fail to convince me!”

He was wagging his finger at Silvestre, but there was a smile on his face, and Silvestre responded likewise to the threat. Then he leaned his head back and stared up at the ceiling. The tendons in his neck resembled taut ropes. His unbuttoned collar revealed the top of his chest, covered in dark hairs scattered with a few curly silver threads. Slowly, as if he were returning from his abstraction laden with memories, Silvestre looked at Abel. Then he began to talk, in a deep voice that trembled when it uttered certain words and grew firmer and more rigid with others:

“Listen, my friend, when I was sixteen, I was already what I am today: a cobbler. I was working from morning to night in a cramped workshop with four other men. In the winter the damp streamed down the walls, and in the summer we almost died from the heat. You were right when you said that life for me at sixteen wasn’t exactly marvelous. You suffered cold and hunger because you wanted to. I did the same, but not out of choice. That makes a big difference. You chose to lead that life, and I don’t blame you for that. I didn’t have a choice about the life I led. I won’t tell you about my childhood either, even though I am, as you put it, old enough to take pleasure in talking about it. It was so wretched that, if I did tell you, it would only upset you. Bad food, not enough clothes and a lot of beatings just about sums it up. So many children have the same experience that people aren’t surprised anymore.”

Abel was listening intently, his chin resting on one fist. His dark eyes were shining. His slightly feminine mouth had grown harder. He was a picture of concentration.

“That’s how I was living when I was sixteen,” Silvestre went on. “I was working in Barreiro. Do you know Barreiro? I haven’t been there for about two years, and so I’ve no idea what it’s like now, but anyway… As I told you, I finished junior school — at night school. I had a teacher who certainly didn’t spare the rod. I got beaten along with all the others. I really wanted to learn, but sometimes sleep got the better of me. He must have known what I did during the day, I remember telling him once, but it made no difference. He didn’t treat me any better. He’s dead now, and may the earth weigh lightly on him. At the time, the monarchy was on its last legs, the very last, as it happens.”

“I assume you’re a republican,” said Abel.

“If being a republican means not liking the monarchy, then yes, I’m a republican. But it seems to me that, in the end, ‘monarchy’ and ‘republic’ are just words. That’s what I think now. At the time, though, I was a convinced republican, and ‘republic’ was more than just a word. The republic duly arrived. Nothing to do with me, of course, but I wept as joyfully as if it had all been my work. You, who live in these hard, distrustful times, can’t imagine how hopeful we all were then. If everyone felt as happy as I did, then there was a time when there were no unhappy people in the whole of Portugal. I was a child, I know, and I felt and thought like a child. Later on, I realized that my hopes were being stolen from me. The republic was no longer a novelty, and here people only appreciate novelties. We enter like lions and leave like broken old nags. It’s in our blood. We were as overflowing with enthusiasm and energy as if a child had been born to us. But there were also plenty of people bent on destroying our ideals. And they didn’t care how. Then the worst of it was that a few others turned up wanting, at all costs, to save the Fatherland. As if it needed saving. People no longer knew what they wanted. Men you were friends with yesterday became enemies the next day, without anyone quite knowing why. I listened to both sides and pondered it all. I wanted to do something, but didn’t know what. There were times when I would gladly have given my life if necessary. I started talking to my fellow cobblers. One of them was a socialist. He was more intelligent than all of us put together. He knew a lot. He believed in socialism and could explain why. He lent me books. I can see him now. He was older than me and very thin and pale. His eyes flashed when he spoke about certain things. But because of the position he worked in and because he wasn’t very strong physically, his back was quite bent and his chest very sunken. He used to say that he liked me because I had it all, brawn and brains!” He paused and relit his cigarette, which had burned out. “He had the same name as you — Abel. That was over forty years ago. He died before the war. One day he didn’t turn up for work, and so I went to see him. He lived with his mother. He was in bed with a high fever. He had spat blood. When I went into his room, he smiled. It made a real impression on me, that smile, it was as if he was saying goodbye to me. Two months later, he died. He left me all his books. I still have them…”

Silvestre’s eyes seemed to withdraw and go back to the distant past. They could see the dying man’s shabby room, as shabby as his own, see his long fingers with their purplish nails, his pale face with eyes like burning coals.

“You’ve never had a friend, have you?” he asked.

“No, never.”

“That’s a shame. You don’t know what it’s like to have a friend. You also don’t know what it’s like to lose one, nor how much you miss him when you think about him. That’s one of the things life hasn’t taught you.”

Abel said nothing, but he nodded. Silvestre’s voice and the words he was hearing were reordering his ideas. A dim but insistent light was shining into his mind, illuminating its shadows and dark corners.

“Then came the war,” Silvestre said. “I went off to France, not because I wanted to, but because they sent me. I had no choice. There I was, up to my knees in the mud of Flanders. I was at La Couture. When I talk about the war, I can’t say much. I imagine what this last one must have been like for those who lived through it, and I say nothing. If that first one was the Great War, what will they call this second war? And the one after that?” Without waiting for a reply, he went on: “When I came back, something was different. Well, after two years away, things are bound to change, but what had changed most was me. I returned to my work as a cobbler, but in another workshop. My new colleagues were family men who, as they said quite openly, didn’t want any trouble. And so as soon as they found out who and what I was, they told the boss. I got the sack and was threatened with the police…”

Silvestre gave a toothless smile, as if remembering some bitterly comic episode, but soon recovered himself:

“Times had changed. Before I went to France, I could say what I liked to my colleagues and no one would have dreamed of denouncing me to the police or to the boss. Now I had to keep quiet. It was then that I met my Mariana. Seeing her now, you can’t possibly imagine what she looked like then. She was lovely as a May morning!”

Almost without thinking, Abel asked:

“Do you love your wife?”

Taken by surprise, Silvestre hesitated. Then, calmly and with deep conviction, he answered:

“Yes, I do, very much.”

“It’s love,” thought Abel, “it’s love that gives them this calmness, this peace.” And suddenly he was gripped by a violent desire to love, to give himself, to find the red flower of love growing in his arid life. Silvestre continued to speak in his serene voice:

“I thought of my friend Abel, my other friend Abel.”

Smiling, Abel nodded his thanks for the compliment.

“I reread the books he’d left me and began to live a double life. By day, I was a cobbler, a silent cobbler who could see no farther than the soles of the shoes he was mending. By night, I was my true self. Don’t be surprised if the way I speak is too refined for my profession. I knew a lot of very cultivated people, and although I may not have learned as much as I should, I learned what I could. I sometimes risked my life. I never refused to do anything they asked of me, however dangerous.”

Silvestre was speaking more slowly now, as if drawing back from a painful memory or as if, unable to avoid talking about it, he were trying to find a way to do so:

“There was a strike by railway workers. After twenty days they were ordered back to work by the government. In response, the central committee gave orders for the workers to abandon all train stations. I was in touch with the railway workers and had a particular mission to carry out. I was a trusted member, despite my youth. They put me in charge of a group that was supposed to distribute leaflets in an area of Barreiro, at night. In the early hours we got into a fight with some members of the Monarchist Youth Movement…”

Silvestre rolled another cigarette. His hands were shaking slightly and he avoided Abel’s eyes:

“One of them died. I only caught a glimpse of his face, but he was very young. He was left lying in the road. A very cold, fine drizzle was falling, and the streets were full of mud. The police arrived, and we ran away before they could identify us. We never found out who had killed the lad.”

A heavy silence fell, as if the dead man had come and sat down between them. Silvestre kept his head lowered. Abel cleared his throat and asked:

“And then?”

“Well, it went on like that for years. Later, I got married. Mariana had a pretty tough time on my account, but she always suffered in silence. She thought I was doing the right thing and never criticized me, never tried to divert me from my path. I owe her that. The years passed, and here I am, an old man.”

Silvestre went into the apartment and returned shortly afterward bearing the bottle of cherry brandy and two glasses:

“Would you like a drink to warm you up?”

“I would.”

With their glasses full, the two men fell silent.

“So,” said Abel a few minutes later.

“So what?”

“Where is this ‘way of seeing life’?”

“You haven’t worked it out for yourself yet?”

“Possibly, but I’d prefer you to tell me.”

Silvestre drank his cherry brandy down in one, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said:

“If you haven’t worked it out for yourself, that means I’ve failed to tell you what I feel. Nothing surprising about that. There are some things that are very difficult to put into words. We think we’ve said all there is to say, and it turns out…”

“Now don’t run away.”

“I’m not. I learned to see beyond the soles of these shoes. I learned that behind this wretched life we lead there is a great ideal, a great hope. I learned that each individual life should be guided by that hope and by that ideal. And people who don’t feel that must have died before they were born.” He smiled and added: “Those aren’t my words. It’s something I heard someone else say years ago.”

“In your view, then, I belong to the group who died before they were born?”

“No, you belong to another group, the ones who haven’t yet been born.”

“Aren’t you forgetting about all my experience of life?”

“Not at all, but experience is only worth anything when it’s useful to other people, and you’re not useful to anyone.”

“I agree that I’m not useful, but in what way has your life been useful?”

“I tried to do something, and even if I failed, at least I tried.”

“You tried in your own way, yes, but who’s to say it was the best way?”

“Almost everyone nowadays would say it was the worst. Is that the group you belong to?”

“To be perfectly honest, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? At your age and after everything you’ve seen and been through, you still don’t know?”

Abel could not look Silvestre in the eye and lowered his head.

“How can you not know?” Silvestre said again. “Has twelve years of living the way you’ve been living not shown you how badly people live? The poverty, the hunger, the ignorance, the fear?”

“Yes, but times have changed…”

“Yes, times have changed, but people haven’t.”

“Some have died. Your friend Abel, for example.”

“But others have been born. My other friend Abel, for example, Abel Nogueira.”

“Now you’re contradicting yourself. Just now you were saying I belonged to the group who haven’t yet been born.”

Silvestre again drew the bench closer to him, picked up the shoe and resumed his work. With a tremor in his voice, he said:

“Perhaps you didn’t understand me.”

“I understand you better than you think.”

“Don’t you agree that I’m right, then?”

Abel got to his feet and looked out through the glass panes at the back yard. It was a dark night. He opened the window. All was shadows and silence, but there were stars in the sky. From horizon to horizon the Milky Way unfurled its luminous path. And from the city, rising to the heavens, came a dull volcanic rumble.