José Saramago - The Collected Novels of José Saramago

It happened, early the following morning, when the soldiers were still barely awake, that an emissary from the basilica of saint anthony appeared in the camp. He had, he said, although not perhaps in these exact words, been sent by a superior of the church’s ecclesiastical team to speak to the man in charge of the elephant. Now any object three meters high can be seen from some distance away, and suleiman almost filled the celestial vault, but, even so, the priest asked to be taken to him. The cuirassier who accompanied him shook the mahout awake, for he was still asleep, snug in his greatcoat. There’s a priest here to see you, he said. He chose to speak in castilian, and that was the best thing he could have done, given that the mahout’s as yet limited grasp of the german language was not sufficient for him to understand such a complex sentence. Fritz opened his mouth to ask what the priest wanted, but immediately closed it again, preferring not to create a linguistic confusion that might lead him who knows where. He got up and went over to the priest who was waiting at a prudent distance, You wish to speak to me, father, he asked, Indeed, I do, my son, replied his visitor, putting into those five words all the warmth of feeling he could muster, How can I help you, father, Are you a christian, came the question, I was baptized, but as you can see from my complexion and my features, I am not from here, No, I assume you’re an indian, but that is no impediment to your being a good christian, That is not for me to say, for, as I understand it, self-praise is a shameful thing, Now, I have come to make a request, but first, I would like to know if your elephant is trained, Well, he’s not trained in the sense that he can perform circus tricks, but he usually comports himself in as dignified a fashion as any self-respecting elephant, Could you make him kneel down, even if only on one knee, That is something I’ve never tried, father, but I have noticed that suleiman does kneel motu proprio when he wants to lie down, but I can’t be certain that he would do so to order, You could try, This is not the best time, father, suleiman tends to be rather bad-tempered in the morning, If it would be more convenient, I can come back later, for what brings me here is certainly not a life-or-death affair, although it would be very much in the interests of the basilica if it were to happen today, before his highness the archduke of austria leaves for the north, If what happens today, if you don’t mind my asking, The miracle, said the priest, putting his hands together, What miracle, asked the mahout, feeling his head beginning to spin, If the elephant were to kneel down at the door of the basilica, would that not seem to you a miracle, one of the great miracles of our age, asked the priest, again putting his hands together in prayer, I know nothing of miracles, where I come from there have been no miracles since the world was created, for the creation, I imagine, must have been one long miracle, but then that was that, So you are not a christian, That’s for you to decide, father, but even though I was anointed a christian and baptized, perhaps you can still see what lies beneath, And what does lie beneath, Ganesh, for example, our elephant god, that one over there, flapping his ears, and you will doubtless ask me how I know that suleiman the elephant is a god, and I will respond that if there is, as there is, an elephant god, it could as easily be him as another, Given that I need you to do me a favor, I forgive you these blasphemies, but, when this is over, you will have to confess, And what favor do you want from me, father, To take the elephant to the door of the basilica and make him kneel down there, But I’m not sure I can do that, Try, Imagine if I take the elephant there and he refuses to kneel down, now I may not know much about these things, but I assume that even worse than no miracle would be a failed miracle, It won’t have failed if there are witnesses, And who will those witnesses be, First of all, the whole of the basilica’s religious community and as many willing christians as we can gather at the entrance to the church, secondly, the public, who, as we know, are capable of swearing that they saw what they didn’t and stating as fact what they don’t know, And does that include believing in miracles that never happened, asked the mahout, They’re usually the best ones, and although they involve a lot of preparation, the effort is usually worth it, besides, that way we relieve our saints of some of their duties, And god as well, We never pester god for miracles, one has to respect the hierarchy, at most, we consult the virgin, who also has a gift for working miracles, There seems to be a strong vein of cynicism in your catholic church, Possibly, but the reason I’m speaking so frankly, said the priest, is so that you will see how much we need this miracle, this or another, Why, Because luther, even though he’s dead, is still stirring up a lot of prejudice against our holy religion, and anything that will help us curtail the effects of protestant preaching will be welcome, remember, it’s only thirty years since he nailed his vile theses to the door of the castle church in wittenberg, and since then, protestantism has swept through the whole of europe like a flood, Look, I don’t know anything about those theses or whatever, You don’t need to, you just need to have faith, Faith in god or in my elephant, asked the mahout, In both, replied the priest, And what do I stand to gain from this, One does not ask things of the church, one gives, In that case, you should speak to the elephant first, since the success of the miracle depends on him, Be careful, you have a most impertinent tongue, mind you don’t lose it, And what will happen to me if I take the elephant to the door of the basilica and he doesn’t kneel down, Nothing, unless we suspect that you’re to blame, And if I was, You would have good reason to repent. The mahout thought it best to give in, At what time do you want me to bring you the animal, he asked, At midday on the dot, not a minute later, Well, I hope I have enough time to get the idea into suleiman’s head that he must kneel at your feet, Not at our feet, for we are unworthy, but at the feet of our saint anthony, and with those pious words, the priest went off to tell his superiors the results of his evangelical work, Is there any hope of success, they asked, Very much so, even though we are in the hands of an elephant, Elephants don’t have hands, That was just a manner of speaking, like saying, for example, that we’re in the hands of god, The main difference being that we are in the hands of god, Praised be his name, Indeed, but getting back to the point, why exactly are we in the elephant’s hands, Because we don’t know what he will do when he arrives at the door of the basilica, He’ll do whatever the mahout tells him to do, that’s what education is for, Let us trust in god’s benevolent understanding of the facts of this world, if god, as we suppose, wants to be served, it will suit him to help his own miracles, those that will best speak of his glory, Brothers, faith can do anything, and god will do what is necessary, Amen, they chorused, mentally preparing an arsenal of auxiliary prayers.

Meanwhile, fritz was trying, by all possible means, to get the elephant to understand what was required of him. This was no easy task for an animal of firm opinions, who immediately associated the action of kneeling with the subsequent action of lying down to sleep. Little by little, though, after many blows, innumerable oaths and a few desperate pleas, light began to dawn in suleiman’s hitherto obstinate brain, namely, that he had to kneel, but not lie down. Fritz even went so far as to say, My life is in your hands, which just goes to show how ideas can spread, not only directly, by word of mouth, but simply because they hang about in the atmospheric currents around us, constituting, you might say, a veritable bath in which one learns things quite without realizing. Given the scarcity of clocks, what counted then was the height of the sun and the length of the shadow it cast on the ground. That is how fritz knew that midday was approaching and, therefore, the moment to lead the elephant to the door of the basilica, and then it would all be up to god. There he goes, riding on suleiman’s back, just as we have seen him do before, but now his hands and heart are trembling, as if he were a mere apprentice mahout. He need not have worried. When he reached the door of the basilica, before a crowd of witnesses who will, forever after, confirm that the miracle occurred, the elephant, obeying a light touch to his right ear, bent his knees, not just one, which would have been enough to satisfy the priest who came with the request, but both, thus bowing to the majesty of god in heaven and to his representatives on earth. Suleiman received in return a generous sprinkling of holy water that even reached the mahout on top, while the watching crowd, as one, fell to their knees, and a shiver of pleasure ran through glorious saint anthony’s mummified corpse where it lay in his tomb.