José Saramago - The Collected Novels of José Saramago

The dawn was a foggy one, but despite a mist almost as thick as a soup made solely of boiled potatoes, no one had got lost, everyone had found their way to the church just as the guests to whom the villagers had given shelter had found their way back to the encampment earlier. The whole village was there, from the tiniest babe-in-arms to the oldest man still capable of walking, thanks to the aid of a stick that functioned as his third leg. Fortunately, he didn’t have as many legs as a centipede, for centipedes, when they get old, require an enormous number of sticks, a fact that tips the scales in favor of the human species, who need only one, except in the very gravest of cases, when the aforementioned sticks change their name and become crutches. Of these, thanks to the divine providence that watches over us all, there were none in the village. The column was advancing at a steady pace, screwing up its courage in readiness to write a new page of selfless heroism in the annals of the village, the other pages not having much to offer the erudite reader, only that we were born, we worked and we died. Almost all the women had come armed with their rosaries and were murmuring prayers, doubtless in order to strengthen the resolve of the priest, who walked in front, bearing an aspergillum and a container of holy water. Now because of the mist, the men in the convoy had not yet dispersed as would have been natural, but were waiting in small groups to be given their usual breakfast chunk of bread, including the soldiers, who, being earlier risers, had already harnessed the horses. When the villagers began to emerge from the potato soup, the people in charge of the elephant instinctively went forward to meet them, with the cavalrymen in the vanguard, as was their duty. When the two groups were within hailing distance, the priest stopped, raised his hand in a sign of peace, said good morning and asked, Where is the elephant, we want to see it. The sergeant considered both question and request quite reasonable and replied, Behind those trees, although if you want to see him, you’ll have to speak first to the commanding officer and the mahout, What’s a mahout, The man who rides on top, On top of what, On top of the elephant, what do you think, So mahout means the person who goes on top, Search me, I’ve no idea what it means, all I know is that he rides on top, it’s an indian word apparently. This conversation would have looked set to continue for some time in this vein had not the commanding officer and the mahout approached, attracted by the curious sight, glimpsed through the now slightly thinning mist, of what could have been two armies face to face. Here’s the commanding officer now, said the sergeant, glad to be able to leave a conversation that was already beginning to get on his nerves. The commanding officer said, Good morning, then asked, How may I help you, We would like to see the elephant, It really isn’t the best moment, said the mahout, he’s a bit grumpy when he wakes up. To which the priest responded, As well as seeing the elephant, my flock and I would like to bless him before he sets off on his long journey, which is why I’ve brought the aspergillum and the holy water, That’s a very nice idea, said the commanding officer, none of the other priests we’ve met along the way so far has offered to bless solomon, Who’s solomon, asked the priest, The elephant’s name is solomon, replied the mahout, It doesn’t seem right to me to give an animal the name of a person, animals aren’t people and people aren’t animals, Well, I’m not so sure, said the mahout, who was starting to get fed up with all this blather, That’s the difference between those who are educated and those who are not, retorted the priest with reprehensible arrogance. And with that, he turned to the commanding officer and asked, Would you allow me, sir, to do my duty as a priest, That’s fine by me, father, although I’m not the person in charge of the elephant, that’s the mahout’s job. Instead of waiting for the priest to address him, subhro said in suspiciously friendly tones, Please, father, solomon is all yours. It is time to warn the reader that two of the characters here are not acting in good faith. First and foremost, there is the priest, who, contrary to what he said, has not brought with him holy water, but water from the well, taken directly from the jug in the kitchen, without ever having been touched by the empyrean, not even symbolically, secondly, there is the mahout, who is hoping something will happen and is praying to the god ganesh that it does. Don’t get too close, warned the commanding officer, he’s three meters high and weighs about four tons, if not more, He can’t be as dangerous as the leviathan, a beast that has been subjugated forever by the holy catholic and apostolic roman church to which I belong, The responsibility is yours, but I’ve given you due warning, said the commanding officer, who, during his time as a soldier, had listened to many brave boasts and witnessed the sad outcome of almost all of them. The priest dipped the aspergillum in the water, took three steps forward and sprinkled the elephant’s head with it, at the same time murmuring words that sounded like latin, although no one understood them, not even the tiny educated minority present, namely, the commanding officer, who had spent some years in a seminary, the result of a mystical crisis that eventually cured itself. The priest continued his murmurings and gradually worked his way round to the other end of the animal, a movement that coincided with a rapid increase in the mahouts prayers to the god ganesh and the sudden realization on the part of the commanding officer that the priest’s words and gestures belonged to the manual of exorcism, as if the poor elephant could possibly be possessed by a demon. The man’s mad, the commanding officer thought, and in the very instant in which he thought this, he saw the priest thrown to the ground, with the holy water container to one side, the aspergillum to the other, and the water spilled. The flock rushed to help their pastor, but the soldiers stepped in to avoid people getting crushed in the confusion, and quite right too, because the priest, helped by the village titans, was already trying to get up and had clearly sustained an injury to his left hip, although everything indicated that no bones were broken, which, bearing in mind his advanced age and his stout, flabby body, could almost be considered one of the most remarkable miracles ever performed by the local patron saint. What really happened, and we will never know why, yet another inexplicable mystery to add to all the others, was that solomon, when he was less than a span or so from the target of the tremendous kick he was about to unleash, held back and softened the blow, so that the effects were only those that might result from a hard shove, but not a deliberate one and certainly not one intended to kill. Lacking that important piece of information, the dazed priest merely kept repeating, It was a punishment from heaven, a punishment from heaven. From that day on, whenever anyone mentions elephants in his presence, and this must have happened many times given what occurred here, on this misty morning, with so many witnesses present, he will always say that these apparently brutish animals are, in fact, so intelligent that, as well as having a smattering of latin, they are also capable of distinguishing ordinary water from holy water. The priest let himself be led, limping, to the rosewood chair, a magnificent piece of joinery almost worthy of an abbot’s throne, that four of his most devoted followers had run to the church to fetch. We will not be here when they finally return to the village. The discussion will be a stormy one, as is only to be expected among people not much given to exercising their reason, men and women who come to blows over the slightest thing, even when, as in this case, they are trying to decide on the pious task of how best to carry their pastor back to his house and put him to bed. The priest will not be of much help in settling the dispute because he will fall into a torpor that will be a cause of great concern to everyone, except the local witch, Don’t worry, she said, there are no signs of imminent death, not today or tomorrow, and nothing that can’t be put right by a few vigorous massages of the affected parts and some herbal tea to purify the blood and avoid corruption, meanwhile, stop this bickering, it will only end in tears, all you need do is to take turns carrying him and change places every fifty paces, that way friendship will prevail. And the witch was quite right.