The Collected Novels of José Saramago

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From that day on, Cipriano Algor interrupted his work in the pottery only to eat and to sleep. His lack of experience of the necessary techniques meant that he mistook the proportions of plaster and water needed for making the mold piece, made everything worse by getting the wrong quantities of clay, water, and deflocculant to make a balanced mixture for the casting slip, and then poured the resulting mixture in far too quickly, thus creating air bubbles inside the mold. The first three days were spent making and unmaking, despairing over his mistakes, cursing his own clumsiness and trembling with joy whenever some delicate operation turned out well. Marta offered to help, but he asked her, please, to leave him in peace, a turn of phrase that bore very little resemblance to the reality inside the old workshop, what with plasters that hardened too soon and water added too late, what with clay that wasn't dry enough and slips that were too thick to be sieved, it would have been far nearer the truth if he had said, Just leave me in peace to wage my own war. On the morning of the fourth day, as if the mischievous, slippery goblins, which were the various materials he was using, had repented of their cruel treatment of this unexpected beginner in the new art, Cipriano Algor began to find softnesses where before he had found only harshness, docilities that filled him with gratitude and secrets that willingly unveiled themselves to him. Every five minutes, he consulted the manual, all sticky and marked with fingerprints, which he kept open on the worktop, sometimes he misunderstood what he had read, at others, a sudden intuition would illuminate a whole page, it would be no exaggeration to say that Cipriano Algor's mood swung between lacerating misery and utter bliss. He got up at first light, bolted his breakfast and then stayed in the pottery until lunchtime, after lunch, he worked all afternoon and into the evening, with only a brief interval for supper, whose frugality owed nothing to the previous meals. His daughter protested, You'll get ill working so hard and eating so little, I'm fine, he said, I've never felt better in my life. This was both true and untrue. At night, when he finally went to bed, having washed away the smells of his labors and the dirt from his work, his joints creaked and his whole body ached. I can't do as much as I used to, he said to himself, but deep down in his consciousness, a voice which was also his disagreed, You've never been able to do as much, Cipriano, you've never been able to do as much. He slept as one imagines a stone must sleep, without dreaming, without stirring, almost it seemed without breathing, laying on the world the whole weight of his infinite weariness. Sometimes, like an anxious mother, unwittingly anticipating future broken nights, Marta would get up and look in to see how her father was. She went silently into his room, walked slowly to the bed, bent over him slightly to listen, then left with her worries unassuaged. That big man, with his white hair and battered face, her father, was also a son, anyone who refuses to understand this knows little of life, the webs that weave around human relationships in general and family relationships in particular, especially close family relationships, are more complex than they seem at first sight, we talk about parents and children, and think we know perfectly well what we mean, and we do not ask ourselves about the profound reasons for the affection that lies therein or indeed the indifference or the hatred. Marta leaves his room and is thinking, He's sleeping, and those words apparently do no more than express the verifiable truth, and yet those eleven letters, those three syllables were capable of translating all the love that a human heart can hold at any one moment. It is worth saying, for the enlightenment of the innocent, that in matters of sentiment, the more grandiloquent the feeling the less true.

The fourth day happened to be the day on which he had to go to the Center to fetch Marçal for his day off, which we would call weekly if it were not, as we know, decimal, that is, every ten days. Marta told her father that she would go, so that he wouldn't have to interrupt his work, but Cipriano Algor said no, what an idea, There are fewer robberies on the road, it's true, but there's always a risk, If there's a risk for me, then there's a risk for you too, In the first place, I'm a man, in the second place, I'm not pregnant, Respectable reasons which do you credit, There's a third reason too, the most important, And what's that, I wouldn't be able to do any work until you got back, so it won't make any difference if I go, besides the journey will help to clear my head, which certainly needs an airing, all I can think about are molds, mold pieces, and slips, It would help to clear my head too, so why don't we both go and pick Marçal up, and Found can stay here to guard the castle, If that's what you want, Don't be silly, I was just kidding, you usually go and fetch Marçal and I usually stay at home, so long live usually, No, seriously, we can both go, No, seriously, you go. They both smiled, and the debate on the central question, that is, the objective and subjective reasons we usually do what we do, was postponed. That afternoon, at the appointed hour, and still in his work clothes so as not to waste time, Cipriano Algor set off. As he was leaving the village, he realized that he had not turned his head when he went past the street where Isaura Madruga lives, and when we say turned his head, that could be in either direction, because in recent days, Cipriano Algor had sometimes turned to see if he could spot her, and sometimes turned away so that he would not see her. It occurred to him to wonder what interpretation to put on that troubling indifference, but a stone in the middle of the road distracted him and the moment was gone. The journey to the city passed without incident, he was delayed only once by a police block that was stopping every other car to check the drivers' documents. While he was waiting for them to return his documents, Cipriano Algor had time to notice that the boundary of the shantytown seemed to have shifted closer to the road, Any day now and they'll push it back again, he thought.

Marçal was there waiting for him. Sorry I'm late, said his father-in-law, I didn't leave the house early enough, and then the police wanted to have a nose through my papers, How's Marta, asked Marçal, I didn't manage to phone yesterday, She's fine, I think, but you should ask her yourself really, she's not eating much, no appetite, but she says that's normal in pregnant women, and maybe it is, I don't know much about these things, but if I were you, I wouldn't be too sure, Right, I'll talk to her, don't worry, maybe it's because she's just in the very early stages of pregnancy, We men haven't a clue really, confronted by these things, we're like lost children, you should take her to the doctor. Marçal did not reply. His father-in-law fell silent. They were both probably thinking the same thing, that she would get the best possible treatment at the hospital in the Center, at least that's what people say, although, as the wife of an employee, being resident in the Center isn't a necessary condition for receiving decent treatment. After a moment, Cipriano Algor said, I can bring Marta in any time you want. They had left the city and so could drive more quickly. Marçal asked, How's the work going, We're still only at the beginning really, we've fired the figurines we made, and now I'm tackling the molds, How's that going, We fool ourselves, we think that clay is just clay, that if you can do one thing with it, you can do anything, and then you realize that it simply isn't true, that we have to relearn everything from scratch. He paused, then added, But I feel happy, it's a bit like trying to be born again, well, not quite, Tomorrow I'll give you a hand, said Marçal, I know next to nothing about making pottery, but I'm sure I can be of some help, You need to spend time with your wife, go for a walk somewhere, No, tomorrow we'll be having lunch with my parents, they still don't know about Marta being pregnant, it'll start to show soon, and you can imagine what they'd say then, And quite right too, I mean, be fair, said Cipriano Algor. Another silence. Nice weather, remarked Marçal, Let's hope it lasts another two or three weeks, said his father-in-law, the dolls need to be as dry as possible before we put them in the kiln. Another silence, longer this time. The police block had been removed, and the road was free. Twice Cipriano Algor was about to speak, the third time he did, Any news about your promotion, he asked, No, not yet, replied Marçal, Do you think they've changed their minds, No, there are various procedures that have to be gone through, the bureaucracy in the Center is as nitpicking as anywhere else, With police patrols checking driving licenses, insurance policies, and health certificates, Yes, that's about the size of it, We don't seem to know how else to do things, Perhaps there isn't another way, Or perhaps it's too late to find another way They did not speak again until they reached the village. Marçal asked his father-in-law to stop at the door to his parents' house, I won't be a minute, I just want to tell them that we'll be coming to lunch tomorrow. It was, indeed, not a long wait, but, again, Marçal seemed unhappy when he got back in the van. What was it this time, asked Cipriano Algor, Oh, I don't know, nothing seems to go right between me and my parents, Don't exaggerate, man, family life was never what you might call a bed of roses, we have good times and bad times, and we're extremely lucky if most of the time it's just so-so, Well, I went in, and my mother was there alone, my father hasn't got back yet, and I said what I had to say and then, to jolly things along a bit, I put on a sort of half-solemn, half-happy face and said that I had a big surprise for them tomorrow, And, guess what my mother's response was, My prophetic gifts don't stretch that far, She asked if the big surprise was them coming to live with me at the Center, And what did you say, I said it wasn't worth saving the secret until tomorrow, I have to tell you, I said, that Marta is pregnant, we're going to have a baby, She was pleased, of course, Oh, yes, she couldn't stop hugging me and kissing me, So what are you complaining about, It's just that with them there's always some dark cloud looming in the sky, at the moment, it's their obsession with wanting to go and live at the Center, You know I don't mind giving up my place to them, No, that's out of the question, and it's not that I'm exchanging my parents for my father-in-law, it's just that they have each other, but you'd be left on your own, Well, I wouldn't be the only person in the world to live on his own, As far as Marta is concerned, I can guarantee that you would, Oh dear, I don't know what to say, Some things are just the way they are and need no explanation. Faced by such a categorical display of basic wisdom, the potter again found himself lost for words. Another contributory factor to this sudden silence might be that, at that precise moment, they just happened to be passing Isaura Madruga's street, and, unlike on the outward journey, Cipriano Algor's consciousness was unable to remain indifferent. When they reached the pottery, Marçal had the unexpected pleasure of being greeted by Found as if he were wearing not the intimidating uniform of a Center security guard, but the plainest and most pacific of clothes. The young man's sensitive soul, still smarting from the unfortunate conversation with his mother, was so moved by the animal's effusions that he embraced him as if he were the person he loved most in the world. These are exceptional moments, needless to say, the person Marçal loves most in the world is his wife, and she is waiting beside him, smiling sweetly, for her turn to be embraced, but just as there are times when all it takes for us to dissolve into tears is for someone to place a hand on our shoulder, so the disinterested joy of a dog can reconcile us for one brief minute to the pains, sorrows, and disappointments of this world. Given that Found knows little of human emotions, be they positive or negative, but of whose existence there is ample proof, and given that Marçal knows still less about canine emotions, about which there are few certainties and a myriad of doubts, someone will one day have to explain to us the reasons, apparently perfectly comprehensible to both parties involved, why these two should be locked in an embrace when they do not even belong to the same species. Since the making of molds was such a novelty, Cipriano Algor could not really avoid showing his son-in-law what he had been up to for the past few days, but his pride, which had already led him to refuse his daughter's help, trembled at the thought that Marçal might notice some mistake, some botched repair, or any of the other innumerable signs that provided such clear evidence of the mental agonies he had suffered within those four walls. Although Marçal was far too preoccupied with Marta to pay much attention to clay, sodium silicate, plaster of Paris, mold frames, and molds, the potter decided not to work after supper and to spend the evening with them, thus affording him the opportunity to discourse with a degree of theoretical exactitude on a subject whose practical pitfalls and disastrous consequences he knew better than anyone. Marçal warned Marta that they would be having lunch with his parents the next day, but he did not even mention the painful conversation he had had with his mother, which made his father-in-law think that this was a subject that had moved into the private domain, a problem to be analyzed in the privacy of the bedroom, not to be picked over and analyzed in a three-way conversation, unless, of course, with praiseworthy prudence, Marçal merely wanted to avoid falling yet again into a debate on the thorny topic of moving to the Center, we have seen far too often how it begins and have seen far too often where it usually ends.

The following morning, Cipriano Algor was already at work when Marçal came into the pottery, Good morning, he said, your apprentice reporting for duty. Marta came with him, but she did not offer to help with the work, even though she was sure that this time her father would not send her away. The pottery was like a battlefield on which, for four consecutive days, one person had been battling with himself and with everything around him. I'm afraid it's a bit untidy in here, Cipriano Algor said apologetically, it's not like it used to be when we made pots and plates, we had a system then, an established routine, It's just a matter of time, said Marta, with time, hands and objects become used to each other, and when they do, the objects don't get in the way and neither do the hands, In the evening, I feel so tired that my arms grow heavy just thinking about imposing some order on this chaos, Well, if I wasn't banned from coming in here, I'd be delighted to take on the task, I didn't ban you, protested her father, Not in so many words, no, It's just that I don't want you wearing yourself out, when it's time to do the painting, that will be different, you can work sitting down, you won't have to make much physical effort, Then you'll probably tell me that the smell of the paints could damage the baby, There really is no talking to this woman, Cipriano Algor said to Marçal, in feigned desperation, You've known her longer than I have, so be patient, but, you know, the place certainly could do with a thorough cleaning and a proper tidying, May I have an idea, asked Marta, would you gentlemen allow me to have an idea, You've already had the idea and you'll burst if you don't let it out, muttered her father, What is it, asked Marçal, The clay is resting this morning, so let's get this place shipshape again, and since my beloved father doesn't want me to wear myself out working, I'll just give the orders. Cipriano Algor and Marçal looked at each other to see who would speak first, and since neither one could bring himself to take the lead, they said in unison, All right. Before it was time for Marçal and Marta to go off to lunch, the pottery and everything in it was as clean and tidy as one could expect in a workplace in which mud is the basic ingredient for the product being made. Indeed, whether we mix water and clay, or water and plaster, or water and cement, we can cudgel our brains for as long as we like to come up with a name that is less vulgar, less prosaic, less common, but always, sooner or later, we come back to that word, the word that says all there is to say, mud. Many of the best-known gods chose mud as the material for their creations, but it is hard to know now if that preference represents a point in mud's favor or a point against.

Marta left her father's lunch ready for him, You just have to heat it up, she said as she left with Marçal. The feeble noise of the van's engine faded and then rapidly disappeared altogether, silence filled the house and the pottery, for just over an hour Cipriano Algor will be completely alone. Now fully recovered from the nervous excitement of recent days, he soon became aware that his stomach was showing signs of dissatisfaction. First, he gave Found his food, then he went into the kitchen, removed the lid from the pan and sniffed the contents. It smelled good and it was still hot. There was no reason to wait. When he had finished eating and was seated once more in his easy chair, he felt at peace. It is a well-known fact that spiritual contentment is not entirely unrelated to having a well-fed body, however, the reason why Cipriano Algor was, at that moment, feeling at peace, the reason why his whole being was filled by a near ecstasy of joy, had nothing to do with the material fact of having eaten. What also contributed to that happy state of mind were, in order of importance, the undeniable advances he had made in mastering the techniques of molds, the hope that from now on the problems would be largely over or at least prove to be less intractable, the harmonious relationship between Marta and Marçal, which, as people say, was there for anyone with eyes to see, and finally, though less important, the thorough cleaning and tidying they had given the pottery. Cipriano Algor's eyelids slowly closed, lifted once, then again, this time with more difficulty, and the third time was a feeble attempt lacking all conviction. With soul and stomach in this state of plenitude, Cipriano Algor let himself slip into sleep. Outside, in the shade of the mulberry tree, Found was sleeping too. They could have stayed like that until Marçal and Marta got back, but suddenly the dog barked. The tone was neither threatening nor frightened, it was merely a conventional warning, a who-goes-there performed purely out of duty, Although I know the person who has just arrived, I have to bark because that is what is expected of me. However it was not Found's cheerful barking that woke Cipriano Algor, but a voice, the voice of a woman who was standing outside calling, Marta, and then asking, Marta, are you there. The potter did not rise from the chair, he merely sat up, as if preparing for flight. The dog was no longer barking. The kitchen door stood open, the woman was approaching, getting closer all the time, at any moment she would appear in the room, if this new encounter is not the result of mere chance, a mere coincidence, if it was foreseen and set down in the book of destinies, not even an earthquake will stop it in its tracks. Found came in first, wagging his tail, followed by Isaura Madruga. Oh, she said, surprised. It was not easy for Cipriano Algor to get up, the low chair and the fact that his legs had suddenly turned to water were to blame for the pathetic figure he knew he must be cutting. He said, Good afternoon. She said, Good afternoon, I mean, good morning, I'm not quite sure what time it is. He said, It's gone midday. She said, Oh, I thought it was earlier. He said, Marta isn't here, but do come in. She said, I don't want to bother you, I'll come back some other time, it's nothing urgent. He said, She and Marçal have gone to have lunch with his parents, she won't be long. She said, I just came to tell Marta that I've found a job. He said, Where. She said, Here in the village fortunately. He said, What sort of job is it. She said, In a shop, behind the counter, it could be worse. He said, Do you like that kind of work. She said, Well, we can't always do what we want to do in life, and for me, the main thing was being able to stay here, to this Cipriano Algor did not respond, he said nothing, confused by the questions which, almost without thinking, had issued from his mouth, it's obvious to anyone that if someone asks a question it's because he wants to know the answer, and there must be some reason why he wants to know, now the principal question that Cipriano Algor has to make sense of among his tangled feelings is the reason for those questions which, taken literally, and it's hard to see how else to take them, reveal an interest in the life and future of this woman that goes far beyond what one would normally expect in a good neighbor, an interest, moreover, as we know very well, that stands in complete and irreconcilable contradiction to the decisions and ideas which, throughout these pages, Cipriano Algor himself has made and formulated in relation to Isaura, who was Estudiosa but is now Madruga. The problem is a serious one requiring long, uninterrupted consideration, but the orderly logic and discipline of the story, which can, on occasions, be violated and, when appropriate, should be, will not permit us to leave Isaura Madruga and Cipriano Algor in this distressing situation any longer, standing there facing each other, silent and constrained, with the dog looking at them, unable to understand what is going on, with the clock on the wall that must be asking itself, as it tick-tocks on, what these two people want with time if they don't make some use of it. Something must be done. Yes, something, but not just anything. We could and should violate the orderly logic and discipline of the story, but we must never ever violate what constitutes the exclusive and essential character of a person, that is, his personality, his way of being, his own, unmistakable nature. A character can be full of contradictions, but never incoherent, and if we insist on this point it is because, contrary to what dictionaries may say, incoherence and contradiction are not synonymous. A person or character contradicts himself within the bounds of his own inner coherence, whereas incoherence, which, far more than contradiction, is a constant behavioral characteristic, resists contradiction, eliminates it, cannot stand to live with it. From this point of view, and at the risk of falling into the paralyzing webs of paradox, we should not exclude the hypothesis that contradiction is, in fact, one of the most coherent contraries of incoherence. Oh dear, these speculations, perhaps not entirely without interest for those who do not content themselves with the apparent and accepted nature of concepts, have diverted us still further from the difficult situation in which we left Cipriano Algor and Isaura Madruga, alone with each other, while Found, realizing that nothing much was going to happen there, had decided to leave and return to the shade of the mulberry tree to continue his interrupted sleep. It is time, therefore, to find a solution to this inadmissible state of affairs, for example, by having Isaura Madruga, who, being a woman, is the more resolute of the two, say a few words just to see what happens, these will do as well as any others, Well, I'll be off then, often that's all that's needed, it's enough just to break the silence, moving the body slightly as if about to leave, and in this case, at least, it proved to be a sovereign remedy, although, unfortunately for the potter Cipriano Algor, the only thing that occurred to him to ask was a question which, later on, will cause him to strike his head with the palm of his hand, we can each judge for ourselves if he was right, So, what news of our water jug, he asked, is it still doing a good job. Cipriano Algor will later strike his head as a punishment for what he considers an unforgivable gaffe, but we hope that later, when his self-punishing fury has passed, he will remember that Isaura Madruga did not unleash an offensive guffaw of mocking laughter, she did not give a sarcastic titter, she did not even smile the slightly ironic smile that the situation seemed to call for, on the contrary, she looked very serious and folded her arms over her chest as if she were still embracing the water jug, which Cipriano Algor, without noticing the slip, had called ours, perhaps later that night, when sleep will not come, this word will question him as to his intentions when he said it, if the water jug was ours simply because one day it had passed from his hand to hers and because he was referring to that moment, or ours because it was ours, plain and simple, just ours, ours as in belonging to us, ours full stop. Cipriano Algor will not reply, he will merely mutter as he has before, How stupid, but he will do so automatically and, indeed, vehemently, though without any real conviction. Only when Isaura Madruga had left with a murmured, See you again, then, only when she had gone out through that door like a subtle shadow, only when Found, having accompanied her to the top of the slope that leads to the road, had come into the kitchen with a patently interrogative look about him, head cocked, tail wagging, ears up, did Cipriano Algor realize that she had not said a word in response to his question, not a yes or a no, just that gesture of embracing her own body, perhaps in order to find herself inside it, perhaps to defend it or to defend herself from it. Cipriano Algor looked around him perplexed, as if lost, the palms of his hands were sweating, his heart was pounding, with the anxiety of someone who has just escaped a danger the gravity of which he has not yet fully grasped. And that was the first time that he struck his head with the palm of his hand.

When Marta and Marçal returned from lunch, they found him in the pottery, pouring liquid plaster into a mold, Did you manage all right without us, asked Marta, I didn't pine away if that's what you mean, I gave the dog his food, had lunch, had a rest, and here I am again, and how did things go at your parents' house, Oh, the usual, said Marçal, I'd already told them about Marta, so there wasn't any great fuss, just the hugs and kisses you'd expect on these occasions, and we didn't talk about the other matter, Just as well, said Cipriano Algor, continuing to pour the liquid plaster into the mold. His hands were trembling slightly. I'll come and help you, I'll just go and change my clothes, said Marçal. Marta did not leave with her husband. A minute later, Cipriano Algor, without looking at her, asked, Do you want something, No, I don't want anything, I was just watching you work. Another minute passed, and this time it was Marta's turn to ask, Are you feeling all right, Of course I am, You seem odd, different, That's just your eyes, Generally speaking, my eyes and I agree, You're very lucky, then, I never know who I agree with, replied her father brusquely. Marçal would soon be back. Marta asked again, Did anything happen while we were out. Her father put the bucket down on the ground, wiped his hands on a cloth and, looking straight at his daughter, replied, Isaura was here, Isaura Estudiosa or Madruga, or whatever her name is, she wanted to talk to you, You mean Isaura came here, That's what I just said, isn't it, We don't all have your analytical powers, and may one ask what she wanted, To tell you that she'd found a job, Where, Here, Oh, I am glad, very glad, I'll pop around and see her in a while. Cipriano Algor had started work on another mold, Pa, Marta began, but he stopped her, If it's about that same subject, please don't go on, I've given you the message I had to pass on and there's nothing more to be said, Seeds get buried too, but end up springing into life, oh, sorry, is that the same subject. Cipriano Algor did not respond. Between his daughter's departure and his son-in-law's return he again struck his head with his open palm.