José Saramago - Skylight

Two weeks into her new job, Maria Cláudia returned home one evening aglow with happiness. Her boss, Paulino Morais, had called her into his office for a long chat, which had lasted more than half an hour. He had told her how pleased he was with her work and that he was sure they would get on famously. He had asked various questions about her family, about her parents and if she got on well with them, if they lived comfortably, and other things that Cláudia had now forgotten.

Rosália saw in all this the beneficent influence of Dona Lídia and said that she would thank her the next time she saw her. Anselmo appreciated the interest Senhor Morais had taken in the family and was flattered when his daughter told him that she had taken the opportunity to praise her father’s qualities as an office worker. Anselmo began to savor the seductive possibility of moving to a post in an important company like that of Senhor Morais. That would certainly be one in the eye for his present colleagues. Unfortunately, Claudinha added, there were currently no vacancies, nor any hope of there being any. This fact presented no obstacle to Anselmo: after all, life is full of surprises, and he saw no reason, therefore, to doubt that a cushier future awaited him. It seemed to him that life owed him a great many things and he had the right to expect payment.

That night, there was no darning, no shorthand, no selecting of the national team. After Maria Cláudia’s enthusiastic account, her father felt it appropriate to give her some advice:

“You must be very careful, Claudinha. There are envious people everywhere, and I speak from painful experience. If you start getting promoted too quickly, your colleagues will get jealous. So be careful!”

“But everyone there is so nice!”

“They are now, but they won’t be later on. You must try to stay on good terms with your colleagues and with your boss. If not, they’ll start plotting against you and might harm your chances of success. Believe me, I know that world well.”

“Yes, but you don’t know the people in my office. They’re all really decent. And Senhor Morais couldn’t be nicer!”

“Maybe, but have you never heard anything bad about him?”

“Nothing of any importance!”

Rosália wanted to join in the conversation:

“Your father has a lot of experience of office life! The only reason he hasn’t risen further up the ladder is because they cut the legs from under him!”

This reference to such a violent act did not provoke the surprise one might expect when one considers that Anselmo’s lower limbs were still firmly attached to their owner. A foreigner unfamiliar with Portuguese idioms and taking this expression literally would assume he must be in a madhouse when he saw Anselmo nodding gravely and saying earnestly:

“It’s true. That’s exactly what happened.”

“Please, just let me deal with things my own way.”

And with these words Claudinha brought the conversation to a close. Her confident smile could only possibly have its source in a thorough knowledge of how to “deal with things,” although what those “things” were, no one, possibly not even Maria Cláudia, really knew. She probably thought, as was only natural, that along with being young and pretty, having a ready wit and a ready laugh, would come the solution to all those “things.” In any case, the family let the matter drop.

As Maria Cláudia herself discovered, those attributes turned out not to be enough. She was making no headway with her shorthand. Studying from a book was fine for learning the rudiments, but then the subject grew more complicated, and Maria Cláudia’s progress came to a halt. Insurmountable difficulties arose on every page. Anselmo tried to help. True, he knew nothing about shorthand, but he had thirty years’ experience and practice of office work behind him. He was a past master when it came to writing business letters, and, for heaven’s sake, what could possibly be so hard about shorthand? Hard or not, he made a complete and utter mess of it. Claudinha burst into tears, and Rosália, upset to see her husband so defeated, blamed the shorthand.

It was Maria Cláudia who saved the day, which spoke well for her declared ability to deal with things. She announced that what she needed was a teacher who could give her lessons in the evening. Anselmo immediately saw in this yet another expense, but then decided to view it as a capital investment that would, in just over two months, begin to pay dividends. He took it upon himself to find a teacher. Claudinha mentioned various private schools, all of which had imposing names in which the word “Institute” was de rigueur. Her father rejected all these suggestions. First, because they were expensive; second, because he didn’t think it would be possible to join a course at that time of year; and third, because he had heard talk of “mixed classes,” and he didn’t want his daughter going to one of those. After a few days, he found just the right person: a retired teacher, eminently respectable, with whom a nineteen-year-old girl would be perfectly safe. As well as charging very little, he had the inestimable advantage of giving lessons at times that would not involve Claudinha being out on the city’s streets late at night. If she left the office at six, she could get the tram to São Pedro de Alcântara where the teacher lived, a thirty-minute journey. The lesson would go on until half past seven, when it was just beginning to grow dark, and it would then take her forty-five minutes to get home. Allowing another quarter of an hour for possible delays, Claudinha should be safely home by half past eight. And, initially, that is precisely what happened. When it was half past eight by Anselmo’s watch, Claudinha would just be coming in through the front door.

She made great strides with her shorthand, and it was this that provided her with an excuse the first time she arrived home late, saying that the teacher, pleased by her keenness to learn, had decided to give her another quarter hour of instruction at no extra cost. Anselmo was pleased by this and believed her, especially when his daughter repeated the teacher’s willingness not to charge more for his time. From Anselmo’s utilitarian viewpoint, had he been the teacher, he would have milked the situation for all it was worth, but, he reminded himself, there were still some good, honest people in the world, which is just as well, especially when that same goodness and honesty favors those who, not being good or honest themselves, have the necessary nous to use them to their own advantage. Anselmo’s nous consisted solely in having found just such a teacher.

However, when his daughter started arriving home at nine o’clock, he began to find that lack of self-interest on the part of her tutor excessive, not to say incomprehensible. He asked questions and received answers: Claudinha had been kept at the office until after half past six, finishing an urgent piece of work for Senhor Morais. Since she was still only on probation, she couldn’t possibly have refused or alleged personal reasons for doing so. Anselmo agreed, but felt suspicious. He asked his boss to let him leave work a little early and waited outside his daughter’s office. From six until twenty to seven he was forced to acknowledge that he had been wrong: Claudinha really was leaving work later than usual, doubtless kept behind by some other urgent task.

He considered abandoning his spying mission, but decided instead to follow his daughter, more because he had nothing else to do than in order to dispel any lingering suspicions. He followed her to São Pedro de Alcântara and installed himself in a café opposite the teacher’s house. He had barely finished drinking the coffee he had ordered when he saw his daughter coming out again. He hurriedly paid the bill and followed her. A bareheaded young man smoking a cigarette was standing on a corner, and Claudinha went straight over to him. Anselmo froze when he saw her link arms with the young man and walk off down the street with him, chatting. He thought for a moment that he should intervene, but was prevented from doing so by his deep-seated horror of causing a scene. He followed the couple for a while at a distance; then, when he was sure his daughter was heading homeward, he jumped onto a tram in order to arrive before her.