José Saramago - Skylight

“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…”