The Stone Raft

...

This olive tree is cordovil, or cordovesa, or cordovia, what does it matter, for these three names are used indifferently on Portuguese soil, and the olive fruit it produces, because of its size and beauty, would be referred to here as the queen of olives but not as Cordovan, although we're closer to Cordoba than to the frontier beyond. These seem superfluous details of no real importance, melismatic vocalizations, the ornamental artifices of a plainsong that dreams of wings of sonorous melody, when it is much more important to speak of the three men seated beneath the olive tree, one of whom is Pedro Orce, the second Joaquim Sassa, the third José Anaiço, what prodigious events or deliberate manipulations could have brought them together in this place. But calling the olive tree cordovil will at least serve to show just how remiss the Evangelists were, when, for example, they confined themselves to writing that Jesus cursed the fig tree, this information should be enough for us but it isn't enough, no sir, after all, twenty centuries have passed and we still do not know whether the cursed tree produced white or black figs, early or late, of this or that variety, not that Christian doctrine is likely to suffer because of this omission, but historical truth most certainly suffers. Anyhow, the olive tree is cordovil, and three men are sitting under it. Beyond these hills, and invisible from here, there is a village where Pedro Orce once lived, and by a strange coincidence, the first of them, if this is the first of several coincidences, he and the village bear the same name, a fact that neither diminishes nor increases the verisimilitude of the story, a man can be called Metcalfe or Merryweather without being a butcher or a meteorologist. As we have already observed, these are coincidences and manipulations, but made in good faith.

They are sitting on the ground, in their midst can be heard the nasal twang of a radio that must have weak batteries, and the announcer is making the following statement, According to the latest measurements, the velocity of the peninsula's displacement has stabilized at around seven hundred and fifty meters per hour, more or less eighteen kilometers per day, that may not seem a lot, but if we work it out carefully, that means each minute we move away twelve and a half meters from Europe, and while we should avoid giving way to panic and despair, the situation is truly worrying. And it would be even more worrying if you were to say that we are talking about just over two centimeters and a bit per second, remarked José Anaiço, who was quick at making mental calculations, but incapable of carrying the computations out to tenths and hundredths, Joaquim Sassa asked him to be quiet, he wanted to listen to the announcer, and it was worth his while, According to the latest reports we have received, a great crack has appeared between La Línea and Gibraltar, therefore it is feared, bearing in mind the irreversible outcome of the fractures so far, that El Peñón may end up isolated in the middle of the sea, if this should happen there is no point in blaming the British, we are to blame, yes, Spain is to blame for not having known how to recover in good time this sacred piece of the fatherland, now it is too late, El Peñón itself is abandoning us. This man is an artist with words, said Pedro Orce, but the announcer had already changed his tone, had overcome his emotion. In Great Britain, the Prime Minister's office has issued a statement whereby the government of Her Majesty the Queen reaffirms what is referred to as British rights over Gibraltar, which have now been confirmed, we are quoting, by the incontrovertible fact that El Peñón or The Rock has detached itself from Spain, and all the negotiations that were proceeding toward an eventual, if somewhat problematic, transfer of sovereignty are thus unilaterally and definitively suspended, There are still no signs of the British Empire's imminent end, quipped José Anaiço. In a statement read in the House of Commons, Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition demanded that the north side of the island be fortified without delay, so as to transform the steep rock all around its perimeter into the wall of an unassailable fortress, proudly isolated in the middle of the now widened Atlantic, as a symbol of the enduring power of Albion. They're mad, Pedro Orce muttered, contemplating the heights of the Sierra de Sagra rising before him. For its part, the government, attempting to reduce the political impact of any claim, replied that Gibraltar, in its new geostrategic conditions would continue to be one of the jewels in the crown of Her Britannic Majesty, a formula that like the Magna Carta has the magnificent virtue of satisfying everyone, this ironic conclusion was provided by the announcer, who took his leave by saying, We'll be back with more news in an hour's time, barring any unforeseen circumstances. A flock of starlings flew past like a hurricane passing over a bare mountain, vruuuuuuuuuu, Are they yours, asked Joaquim Sassa, and, without even turning around, José Anaiço replied, They're mine, he ought to know, for ever since that first day, amid the green fields of Ribatejo, they have scarcely ever been apart, only to eat and sleep, a man does not nourish himself on worms and scattered grains and a bird sleeps in the trees without any bedclothes. The flock flew around in a wide circle, fluttering, wings trembling, beaks drinking in the air and sunlight, the few clouds, white and piled high, navigated through space like galleons, the men, these like all others, looked at the different things, and, as usual, did not really understand them.

It certainly was not to listen to a transistor radio in one another's company that Pedro Orce, Joaquim Sassa, and José Anaiço gathered here, having traveled from such different places. For the last three minutes we have known that Pedro Orce lives in the village that lies hidden behind these hills, we have known from the outset that Joaquim Sassa came from the shores of northern Portugal, and José Anaiço, we now know for certain, was strolling through the fields of Ribatejo when he came across the starlings, and we would have guessed as much had we paid sufficient attention to the details of the landscape. What remains to be known is how the three men met one another and why they are hidden away here under an olive tree, unique in this spot, among rare and unruly dwarf trees that cling to the white soil, the sun is reflected on all around the plains, the air shimmers, this is the heat of Andalusia, and although we are surrounded by mountains, we suddenly become conscious of these material things, we have entered the real world, or it has forced its way in.

If one thinks about it, there is no beginning for things and persons, everything that began one day had begun before, the history of this sheet of paper, for example, just to take an item at hand, in order to be true and complete, would have to date back to the origins of the world, the plural has been used here deliberately instead of the singular, yet even so, we could ask whether those first origins were not simply points of transition, sliding ramps, this poor head of ours, subject to such exertions, an admirable head, nevertheless, which for all sorts of reasons is capable of going mad, except for this one.

There is, then, no beginning, but there was a moment when Joaquim Sassa left the spot where he found himself, on a beach in northern Portugal, perhaps Afife, that beach with the enigmatic stones, or better still A-Ver-o-Mar, which means Seaview, to arrive at the most perfect name imaginable for a beach, poets and novelists could not have invented anything better. From there Joaquim Sassa came, having heard that a certain Pedro Orce from Spain could feel the ground shaking beneath his feet when there were no tremors, this is the natural curiosity of someone who threw a heavy stone into the sea with a strength he didn't possess, all the more so since the peninsula wrenched itself away from Europe without any shock or pain, like a hair quietly falling, simply because it was willed by God, as the saying goes. He set out in his old Citroën Deux Chevaux, he did not say good-bye to his family, alas, for he has no family, nor did he give any explanation to the manager of the office where he works. This is vacation time, you can come and go as you please, now they don't even ask to see your passport at the frontier, you simply show your identity card and the peninsula is yours. On the seat, beside him, he carries a transistor radio, distracts himself by listening to music, the prattling of the announcers, sweet and soothing like an acoustic cradle, suddenly irritating, that was in normal times, now the ether is rippling with febrile words, the news coming in from the Pyrenees, the exodus, the crossing of the Red Sea, Napoleon's retreat. Here on the roads of the interior, there is little traffic, nothing in comparison to the Algarve, all that bustle and turmoil, or with Lisbon, and the highways going north and south, Pórtela airport looks now like a besieged stronghold, an invasion of ants, iron filings attracted by a magnet. Joaquim Sassa rolls peacefully through the shady lanes of La Beira, heading for a village called Orce, in the Province of Granada, on Spanish soil, where the aforesaid man lives who spoke on television. I'm going there to see if there is any connection between what happened to me and this business of someone who can feel the ground shaking under his feet, once you start imagining things, you start putting two and two together, more often than not you were mistaken, sometimes you hit the nail on the head, a stone thrown into the sea, the earth shaking, a cordillera that has split open. Joaquim Sassa is also traveling amid mountains, even if they can't be compared with those Titans, but suddenly he feels uneasy. Suppose the same thing were to happen here, suppose A Estrela were to crack, the Mondego to sink into the bowels of the earth leaving the autumn poplars without a mirror in which to reflect themselves, his thoughts have become poetic, the danger has passed.

At this moment, the music stopped, the announcer began to read the news, there was nothing fresh to report, the only item of any interest, was a bulletin from London, the Prime Minister had gone to the House of Commons to state, categorically, that British sovereignty over Gibraltar warrants no discussion, whatever the distance separating the Iberian peninsula from Europe, to which the leader of the opposition had added a formal guarantee promising the most loyal cooperation from his fellow members and party, At this great moment in our history. But he then introduced a note of irony into his solemn speech, eliciting laughter from all the honorable members, The Prime Minister committed a serious mistake by speaking of a peninsula when referring to what is now unquestionably an island, although by no means as solid as our own, of course. The members of parliament cheered this closing remark, exchanging complacent grins with their opponents, and to be sure, there is nothing like the national interest to unite politicians of opposing tendencies. Joaquim Sassa also grinned, Such a comedy, and then suddenly he caught his breath, the announcer had spoken his name, Senhor Joaquim Sassa, who is traveling somewhere in the country, is kindly requested, we repeat, Senhor Joaquim Sassa is kindly requested, they were asking him kindly to present himself as soon as possible to the nearest officials, in order to assist the authorities with their investigations into the causes of the geological fracture observed in the Pyrenees, for the competent bodies are convinced that the aforesaid Joaquim Sassa can give them information of national interest, we repeat our appeal, Senhor Joaquim Sassa is requested, but Senhor Joaquim Sassa was not listening, he had been obliged to stop the car in order to recover his composure, his sangfroid, so long as his hands continued to tremble like this he would not even be able to drive, his ears were roaring like a seashell, Good heavens, how did they find out about the stone, there wasn't another soul on the beach, at least as far as I could see, and I didn't say a word to anyone, for they would have called me a liar, but someone somewhere must have been watching me after all, although no one usually pays any attention to someone throwing stones into the water, yet they spotted me at once, rotten luck, and then you know what happens, one person speaks to another and adds on what he thought he saw but could not have seen, when this story reached the ears of the authorities, the stone must have been as big as I am, at the very least, and now what am I going to do. He would not answer the appeal, he would not present himself to any civil or military official, just imagine what an absurd dialogue that would be, behind closed doors, the tape recorder playing, Senhor Joaquim Sassa, did you throw a stone into the sea, I did, How much would you say it weighed, I don't know, perhaps two or three kilos, Or more, Yes, it could have been more, Here are some stones, try holding them, and tell me which one comes closest in weight to the stone you threw, This one, Let's weigh it, like so, all right now, please check the weight with your own eyes, I'd never have thought it could weigh so much, five kilos, six hundred grams, Now tell me, have you ever experienced anything like this before, Never, Are you certain, Absolutely, You don't suffer from any mental or nervous disorders, epilepsy, somnambulism, trances of any kind, No sir, We'll take an electroencephalogram later, for the moment try your strength on this machine over here, What is it, A dynamometer, put as much pressure on it as you can, This is all I can do, Is that all, I've never had much strength in my arms, Senhor Joaquim Sassa, you couldn't possibly have thrown that stone, I'm inclined to agree, but I did, We know that you threw it, there are witnesses, persons of the utmost reliability, so you must tell us how you managed it, I've already explained, I was walking along the beach when I saw the stone, I picked it up and threw it, That's impossible, The witnesses can confirm it, True, but the witnesses cannot say where that strength came from, only you can tell us, I've already told you I don't know, The situation, Senhor Sassa, is very serious, I'd go so far as to say exceedingly serious, the rupture of the Pyrenees cannot be explained by natural causes, otherwise we would be in the midst of a planetary catastrophe, it was on the basis of this evidence that we began to investigate certain unusual events that have taken place in recent days, and yours is one of them, Surely throwing a stone into the water couldn't cause a continent to crack up, I have no desire to engage in idle philosophizing, but do you see any connection between a monkey's descending from a tree twenty million years ago and the making of a nuclear bomb, The connection is, precisely, those twenty million years, Good answer, but now let's suppose that it might be possible to reduce to hours the time between a cause, which in this case would be the throwing of a stone, and an effect, such as the peninsula's separation from Europe, in other words, let us suppose that, under normal conditions, that stone thrown into the sea would only produce its effect twenty million years hence, but that, under other conditions, precisely those of the phenomenon we are now investigating, the effect is observed some hours, or days, later, That's pure speculation, the cause might well be something else, Or a combination of this and another, concurrent, event, Then other unusual events would have to be investigated, That's what we're in the process of doing, and the Spaniards, too, as in the case of the man who could feel the earth shaking, By adopting this method, once you have examined the unusual events, you will have to proceed to the usual ones, The what ones, The usual ones, What do you mean by usual, Usual is the opposite of unusual, its antonym, If necessary, we shall pass from the unusual to the usual events, but we must discover the cause, You have a lot of investigating ahead of you, We're making a start, tell me where you found the strength. Joaquim Sassa made no reply, he silenced his imagination, all the more so since the dialogue was threatening to go around in circles, now he would have to repeat, I don't know, and the rest would be as before, with some minor variations, albeit mostly of form, yet this was precisely where he would have to be careful, because, as we know, through form one arrives at the substance, through the wrapping at the contents, through the sound of the word at its meaning.

He put his Deux Chevaux into gear, into step, if such a thing might be said of a car, he wanted time to think, he needed to give the matter some serious thought. He had been an ordinary traveler heading for the border, a simple man with no particular qualities or importance, that was no longer so, at this very moment they were probably printing posters with his photograph and vital statistics, Wanted in big red letters, a manhunt. He looked into his rearview mirror and saw a police car, it was coming so quickly that it looked as if the car were about to come through the back window, They've caught up with me, he accelerated, then quickly slowed down without braking, all quite unnecessary, the police car overtook him in a flash, it must be rushing to some emergency, they did not so much as look at him, if only those speeding policemen knew who was driving along there, but of course there are lots of Deux Chevaux on the road, the expression is awkward but there is no mathematical contradiction. Joaquim Sassa took another look in the mirror, this time to have a good look at himself, to acknowledge the relief in his eyes, the mirror reflected little else, a tiny bit of his face, which makes it difficult to know to whom the face belongs, to Joaquim Sassa, as we already know, but who is Joaquim Sassa, a man who is still young, in his thirties, closer to forty than to thirty, the day inevitably comes, his eyebrows are black, his eyes brown like those of most Portuguese, his nose sharply outlined, his features really quite unexceptional, we shall learn more about him when he turns toward us. For the moment, he thought to himself, It's only an appeal over the radio, the worst is still ahead of me, at the frontier, and as if that weren't enough, there's this name of mine, Sassa, which unfortunately means stone, when what I need right now is to be any old Sousa, like that other one from Coll de Pertus, one day he consulted the dictionary to see if the word existed, Sassa, not Sousa, and what did he find, he discovered that it was a massive tree from Nubia, that's a pretty name, Nubia, a name for a woman, near the Sudan, in West Africa, page 93 in the atlas, And tonight, where am I going to sleep, certainly not in a hotel, where people are always turning the radio on, by this time every hotel in Portugal must be looking out for hotel guests who request a room for one night, the refuge of the persecuted, you can imagine the scene, Let's see now, yes sir, we have an excellent room available, on the second floor, Room 201, Pimenta, please show Senhor Sassa to his room, and no sooner is he resting on the bed, still fully clothed, than the manager, nervous and flustered, is on the telephone, He's here, come quickly.

He parked Deux Chevaux at the side of the road, got out to stretch his legs and clear his mind, which, instead of giving him good advice, came up with a dubious proposition, Stay in a bigger city, somewhere where there's plenty of nightlife, look for a brothel, spend the night with one of the prostitutes, you can bet they won't ask to see any identification as long as you pay, and if under the circumstances you don't feel like gratifying your flesh, at least you'll be able to get some sleep, and you'll pay less than you would in a hotel, How ridiculous, said Joaquim Sassa in reply to this suggestion, the solution is to sleep in the car, by the side of some quiet road off the beaten track. But suppose some tramps or gypsies came along, they might attack you, rob you, maybe even kill you, It's peaceful around here, But suppose some arsonist or madman were to set the pine forests on fire, there's a lot of those around these days, you would wake up to find yourself surrounded by flames, end up being burned to death, that must be the worst way to die, from what I've heard, just think of the martyrs of the Inquisition. How ridiculous, Joaquim Sassa repeated, I've made up my mind, I'm going to sleep in the car, and he made the image disappear, easy enough if one is strong-willed. It was still early, he could cover some forty or fifty kilometers along these winding roads, he would camp near Tomar, or Santarem, in one of those dirt roads that open onto cultivated fields, with those deep furrows once made by ox-drawn carts and nowadays made by tractors, no one passes at night, Deux Chevaux can be hidden anywhere around here, I might even sleep out in the open, the night is so warm, his mind did not react to this idea and clearly disapproved.

He did not stop in Tomar, nor reach Santarem, he dined incognito in a town on the banks of the Tagus, the local inhabitants are inquisitive by nature, but not to the extent of saying, point-blank, to the first traveler who arrived, Tell me, what's your name, but if he were to linger here, then certainly they would very soon start asking questions about his past life and his plans for the future. The television was on, as he ate his dinner Joaquim Sassa watched the last part of a documentary about underwater life, with numerous shoals of tiny fishes, undulating rays and sinuous moray eels, and an ancient anchor, then came the commercials, some fast-moving, built of images in dazzling montage, others deliberately, voluptuously, slow, like some achingly familiar gesture, there were children's voices shouting loudly, the insecure voices of adolescents, or of women who were somewhat hoarse, the men were all virile-sounding baritones, at the back of the house the pig grunted, fattened on slops and leftovers. At last the news came on, and Joaquim Sassa shuddered, he wouldn't stand a chance if they showed his photograph. The appeal was read, but no photograph appeared, they were not pursuing a criminal, after all, they were simply requesting, with polite insistence, that he make his whereabouts known, thus serving the highest national interest, no citizen worthy of the name would shrink from fulfilling such a duty, would fail to appear before the authorities, who simply wished him to make a statement. Three other guests were eating dinner, an elderly couple, and at another table the usual man, sitting by himself, of whom one always says, He must be a commercial traveler.

The conversation ceased when they heard the first news from the Pyrenees, the pig went on grunting but no one paid any attention, and, all this in an instant, the landlord got up on a chair to turn up the volume, the girl who waited on the tables stood wide-eyed, the guests carefully rested their silverware on the edge of their plates, and little wonder, on the screen they were showing a helicopter that was being filmed from another helicopter, both were entering the fearsome channel, and then they showed the towering walls, so tall that the sky was scarcely visible overhead, the merest thread of blue, Good heavens, it's enough to make you dizzy, the girl said, and the landlord snapped, Be quiet, now extremely powerful floodlights were showing the gaping hole, this is what the Greeks' notion of the entrance to hell must have looked like, but where Cerberus would have barked, a pig is grunting, mythologies aren't what they used to be. These dramatic pictures, the announcer reeled off, were taken under hazardous conditions, human lives were at risk, the voice became husky, muffled, the two helicopters transformed themselves into four, the phantoms of phantoms, Damned aerial, the landlord muttered.

By the time sound and picture were once more stable and intelligible, the helicopters had disappeared and the announcer was reading the same old appeal, now addressed to the public at large, Anyone who may know of any strange events or inexplicable phenomena, of anything that seems suspicious, is requested to inform the nearest authorities at once. Prompted by these words addressed directly to her, the girl remembered how people had gossiped locally when a kid had been born with five legs, four black and one white, but the landlord shot back, That was months ago, you fool, kids with five legs and chicks with two heads are nothing out of the ordinary, now what's really odd is this business of the teacher's starlings, What starlings, what teacher, Joaquim Sassa asked, The local teacher, his name is José Anaiço, for some days now, wherever he goes, he is followed by a flock of starlings, as many as two hundred of them, Or more, the commercial traveler corrected him, only this morning I saw them as I was arriving, they were circling above the school, and the racket they were making, flapping their wings and screeching, was unbelievable. At this point the elderly man interrupted, Unless I'm mistaken, we should inform the mayor about the starlings, He already knows, the landlord observed, He knows all right, but he doesn't connect the one thing with the other, he can't tell his ass from his elbow, if you'll forgive the expression, Then what should we do, Let's go and talk to him tomorrow morning, besides it would be good publicity for the region if the story were on television, it would be good for our economy, But let's keep it a secret among ourselves, not tell anyone, And that teacher, where does he live, Joaquim Sassa asked as if he were not really very interested in the answer, so the distracted landlord was not in time to prevent the girl from blurting out, He lives in the teacher's house right next to the school, there's always a lighted window even late at night, there seemed to be a note of sadness in her voice. Furious, the landlord scolded the poor girl, Shut your mouth, imbecile, you'd better go and see if the pig needs feeding, hard to imagine a more foolish command, for pigs do not eat at this hour, they are usually asleep, perhaps the landlord's angry outburst was caused by worry, for here, too, in the stables and paddocks around the countryside, the mares neigh and shake their heads, nervous, restless, and in their impatience they paw the loose gravel on the ground, tear at the straw. It must be the moon, in the opinion of the foreman.

Joaquim Sassa paid for his dinner, said goodnight, left a generous tip in recompense for the information the girl had given him, the landlord might pocket it, out of pique rather than greed, people's generosity is no better than their deepest selves, no less subject to eclipses and contradictions, rarely constant, as in the case of this girl, scolded and abruptly dismissed, now trying unsuccessfully to feed a pig that is not hungry, scratching its forehead between the eyes. The evening is pleasant, Deux Chevaux is resting beneath the plane trees, refreshing its wheels in the water that runs idly from the spring, and Joaquim Sassa lets it stay there, goes on foot to look for the school and the illuminated window, people cannot hide their secrets even though they may say they wish to keep them, a sudden shriek betrays them, the sudden softening of a vowel exposes them, any observer with experience of the human voice and human nature would have perceived at once that the girl at the inn is in love. The town is nothing but one large village, in less than half an hour you can walk past all the houses from one end to the other, but Joaquim Sassa will not have to walk quite so far, he asked a little boy he met where the school was and could not have found a better-informed guide, You take that street there, you come to a square, you see a church, you turn left, then you keep to the right, you can't go wrong, you'll see the school right away, And does the teacher live there, Yes sir, he does, there's a light in the window, but there was no hint of love in any of these words, the boy is probably a bad pupil and school is his first experience of purgatory, but his voice suddenly became cheerful, children are never resentful, that is their saving grace, And the starlings are always flying overhead, and they're always screeching, if he does not abandon his studies too soon, the boy will learn to shape his sentences without repeating the same constructions so insistently.

There is still a clear patch in one half of the sky, the other half has not completely darkened, the sky is blue as if dawn were about to break. But inside the houses the lights are already on, the tranquil voices of weary people can be heard, quiet sobbing from a cradle, people are really so lacking in awareness, you put them out to sea on a raft and they go on living their lives as if they were still on terra firma, babbling like Moses when he floated down the Nile in a little basket made of rushes, playing with the butterflies, so blessed that even the crocodiles could not harm him. At the end of the narrow street is the school, surrounded by its walls, had Joaquim Sassa not been warned he would have thought the house was just a house like any other, at night they all look drab, by day some are still drab, meanwhile darkness has started falling, but some time remains before the street lamps will light up.

In order not to contradict the girl at the inn and the little boy who kept his feelings to himself, there is a light in the window, and Joaquim Sassa goes and knocks on the pane, the starlings are not so noisy after all, they are settling down for the night, with their habitual squabbling and neighborly disputes, but it will not be long before they calm down beneath the enormous leaves of the fig tree where they are roosting, invisible, black amid the inky darkness, only later will the moon rise, some will stir at the touch of its white fingers before going back to sleep, they do not know how far they will have to travel. From inside the house came a man's voice, Who is it, and Joaquim Sassa replied, If you don't mind, magic words that substitute for any formal identification, language is full of these and other more perplexing enigmas. The window has opened, against the light it is not easy to see who lives in this house, but as if in compensation Joaquim Sassa's face is perfectly clear, some of his features we described earlier, the rest conform, dark brown hair, smooth, sunken cheeks, the nose quite commonplace, the lips full only in speech, Forgive me for disturbing you at this hour, It isn't late, said the teacher, but he had to raise his voice because the starlings, now disturbed, sent up a chorus of protest and alarm, It's really because of them that I'd like to talk to you, Them, who, The starlings, Ah, And about a stone I threw into the sea, much heavier than I can manage, What is your name, Joaquim Sassa, Are you the person they keep mentioning on the radio and on television, That's me, Please come in.