José Saramago - Skylight

The final notes of the funeral march dropped like violets onto the tomb of the hero. Then came a pause. A tear that falls and dies, followed immediately by the dionysiac vitality of the scherzo, still heavy with the shades of Hades, but already savoring the joy of life and victory.

A tremor ran through the four women, who were sitting, heads bent. The enchanted circle of light falling from the ceiling held them fast in the grip of the same fascination. Their grave faces bore the intense expression of people witnessing the celebration of mysterious, impenetrable rites. The music, with its hypnotic power, opened doors in the minds of those women. They did not look at one another. Their eyes were focused on their work, but only their hands were present.

The music ran freely about in the silence, and the silence received it on its dumb lips. Time passed. The symphony, like a river that rushes down a mountain, floods the plain and flows into the sea, ended in the profundity of that silence.

Adriana reached out a hand and turned off the radio. A sharp click like a key turning in a lock. The mystery was over.

Aunt Amélia looked up. Her usually hard pupils had a moist gleam to them. Cândida murmured:

“It’s so… so lovely!”

Timid, indecisive Cândida was not an eloquent speaker, but her pale lips were trembling, just as the lips of young girls tremble when they receive their first kiss. Aunt Amélia was dissatisfied with her choice of adjective:

“Lovely? Any silly song could be described as ‘lovely,’ but that music, well, it’s…”

She hesitated. The word she wanted to say was there on her lips, but it seemed to her that she would profane it by speaking it. There are certain words that draw back, that refuse to be uttered, because they are too laden with significance for our word-weary ears. Amélia had suddenly lost some of her unerring confidence with words. It was Adriana who, in a tremulous voice, in the voice of someone betraying a secret, murmured:

“It’s beautiful.”

“Yes, Adriana. That’s precisely what it is.”

Adriana looked down at the stocking she was darning, a prosaic task, like that of Isaura, who was sewing buttonholes into a shirt, or like that of their mother, who was counting the stitches on the crochet work she was doing, or like that of Aunt Amélia, who was adding up the day’s expenses. Tasks appropriate to plain, dispirited women, to narrow shriveled lives, lives lit by viewless windows. The music had ended, the music that kept them company each evening, their daily visitor, consoling and stimulating — and now they could speak about beauty.

“Why should the word ‘beautiful’ be so difficult to say?” asked Isaura, smiling.

“I don’t know,” said her sister. “But it is, and yet it should be just like any other word. It’s easy enough to say, it only has three syllables. I don’t understand the difficulty either.”

Aunt Amélia, still shocked by her earlier inability to pronounce the word, attempted an explanation:

“I think I do. It’s like the word ‘God’ for believers. It’s a sacred word.”

Yes, Aunt Amélia could always come up with the right answer, but it stopped the flow of the debate. There was nothing more to be said. Silence, a silence bare now of music, weighed heavily on the air. Cândida asked:

“Isn’t there anything else on?”

“No, nothing of any interest,” said Isaura.

Adriana was daydreaming, the sock she had been darning lay forgotten in her lap. She was thinking about the mask of Beethoven she had seen in the window of a music shop many years before. She could still see that broad, powerful face, which, even in the form of an inexpressive plaster cast, bore all the marks of genius. She had cried for a whole day because she didn’t have enough money to buy it. That had happened shortly before their father died. His death had meant a sudden diminution in their income and obliged them to leave their old home — and now, even more than it had been then, buying that mask of Beethoven was an impossible dream.

“What are you thinking about, Adriana?” asked her sister.

Adriana smiled and shrugged:

“Oh, silly things.”

“Did you have a bad day?”

“Not particularly. It’s always the same: invoices to receive, invoices to pay, debiting and crediting someone else’s money.”

They both laughed. Aunt Amélia finished her accounts and asked:

“Has there been any mention of a wage increase?”

Adriana shrugged again. She hated being asked this question. It seemed to her that the others thought she didn’t earn enough, a suggestion she found offensive. She said sharply:

“Business is bad, apparently…”

“It’s always the same old story. Some get a lot, some get a little, and others get nothing at all. When are they going to learn to pay people enough to live on?”

Adriana sighed. Aunt Amélia had a real bee in her bonnet about money matters, about employers and employees. It wasn’t envy; she was simply outraged by how much waste there was in a world where millions of people were poor and starving. They weren’t poor, and there was always food on the table, but they existed on a very tight budget, which excluded anything superfluous, even those superfluous things without which our lives are reduced almost to the level of animals. Aunt Amélia went on:

“You must speak up for yourself, Adriana. You’ve been working there for two years now, and what you earn barely pays for your tram fare.”

“But what do you expect me to do, Auntie?”

“You know what to do! And don’t look at me with those great, frightened eyes of yours!”

These words struck Adriana like a blow. Isaura shot her aunt a stern look:

“Auntie!”

Amélia turned first to her, then back to Adriana and said:

“Forgive me.”

She got up and left the room. Adriana got up too, but her mother made her sit down again.

“Pay no attention, child. She’s the one who has to do the shopping, and she really has to struggle to make ends meet, and very often they don’t. You’re both earning, you’re both working, but she, poor thing, is the one who does all the worrying, and I’m the only one who knows just how much she worries.”

Aunt Amélia appeared in the doorway. She seemed upset, but her voice was no less brusque, or perhaps she had to be brusque in order not to reveal how upset she was.

“Would anyone like a cup of coffee?”

(Just like in the good old days! A cup of coffee! Yes, why not, Aunt Amélia! Sit down here with us, that’s right, with your face of stone and your heart of wax. Drink a cup of coffee and tomorrow you can redo your accounts, invent recipes, eliminate expenses, even eliminate this cup of coffee, this pointless cup of coffee!)

The evening resumed, slower and quieter now. Two old women and two who had already turned their backs on youth. They had their past to remember, the present to live in and the future to fear.

Around midnight, sleep slipped into the room. There were a few yawns. Cândida suggested (she was always the first to make the suggestion):

“Shall we go to bed?”

They stood up, their chairs scraping the floor. As usual, Adriana hung back to give the others time to get ready for bed. Then she put away her sewing and went into the bedroom. Her sister was reading her novel. Adriana took a bunch of keys from her bag and opened a drawer. With another, smaller key she opened a box and took out a thick exercise book. Isaura peered up at her over the top of her book and smiled:

“Ah, the diary! One day I’ll find out what it is you write in that book.”

“Oh no, you won’t!” answered her sister angrily.

“There’s no need to get nasty with me.”