José Saramago - Baltasar and Blimunda

In São Sebastião da Pedreira, Baltasar and Blimunda are anxious to know what the future holds for them, the retainers of the Duke of Aveiro have wasted no time in taking charge of the estate, Perhaps we should go back to Mafra. But the priest disagrees, he promises to speak to the King within the next few days, the flying machine will be launched soon, and if all goes according to plan, the three of them will reap glory and profit, news of the Portuguese achievement will spread throughout the universe, and fame will bring them wealth, Any profits I may accrue will be shared by the three of us, for without your eyes, Blimunda, and without your right hand and patience, Baltasar, there would be no Passarola. Yet the priest feels uneasy, one might almost say that he has little confidence in what he is saying, or that what he is saying has so little value that it cannot quell his other anxieties, therefore Blimunda asks in a low voice, It is night, the forge has been extinguished, the machine is still there yet seems absent, Padre Bartolomeu Lourenço, what are you afraid of, and this direct question causes him to tremble, he rises nervously to his feet, goes to the door, and peers outside before replying in a whisper, Of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Baltasar and Blimunda look at each other and Baltasar says, Surely it is not a sin or heresy to want to fly, fifteen years ago a balloon flew over the Palace and no evil came of it, a balloon is harmless, the priest tells him, If the machine were to fly now, the Holy Office might decide that there is some Satanic power behind this flight, and if they were to investigate which parts of the invention cause the machine to fly, I should find it impossible to reveal that there are human wills inside the globes, in the eyes of the Inquisition there are no wills, only souls, they will accuse us of imprisoning Christian souls and of preventing them from going up to paradise, you are well aware that if the Holy Office of the Inquisition so decrees, all good reasons become bad ones, and all bad ones become good, and in the absence of both good and bad reasons they use the torments of stake, rack, and pulley to invent reasons at their own discretion, But since the King is our ally, surely the Inquisition will not act contrary to the wishes and desires of His Majesty, Confronted with such a dilemma, the King will only do what the Holy Office of the Inquisition tells him to do.

Blimunda questioned him further, What do you fear most, Padre Bartolomeu Lourenço, what will happen, or what is happening, What are you trying to say, That the Inquisition might be already hounding us, just as it hounded my mother, I know the signs all too well, it's like an aura that encircles those who attract the attention of the Inquisitors, they have no idea what accusations are about to be made, yet they already behave as if they were guilty, I know what I shall be accused of when my hour comes, they will say that I have been converted from Judaism, and it's true, they will say that I devote myself to sorcery, and that's also true, if this Passarola is sorcery and all those other arts I am forever studying, and with these confidences I put myself in your hands, and I shall be lost if you denounce me. Baltasar says, May I lose my other hand were I to do such a thing. Blimunda says, Were I to do such a thing, may I never again be able to close my eyes, and may they always see as if I were constantly fasting.

Confined to the estate, Baltasar and Blimunda watch the days go by. August is over, September is well under way, the spiders are already weaving their webs over the Passarola, raising their own sails, adding wings, Signor Scarlet's harpsichord stands in silence with no one to play it, and there can be no sadder place in the wide world than São Sebastião da Pedreira. The weather has become much cooler, the sun hides for hours on end, How can the machine possibly be tried out with the sky so overcast, perhaps Padre Bartolomeu Lourenço has forgotten that without sunshine the machine will not rise from the ground, and if he should turn up with the King, it will be so embarrassing that I shall turn crimson with shame. But the King did not come, nor did the priest appear, the sky cleared again, the sun shone, and Blimunda and Baltasar returned to the same anxious waiting. Then the priest arrived. They heard the mule's hoofs stamping impatiently outside the gate, a strange event, since the mule is an animal that rarely loses its temper, there must be news, perhaps the King is coming after all to witness the maiden flight of the Passarola, but incognito, without any warning or advance party of footmen from the Palace to inspect the place, set up tents, and ensure that His Majesty will be comfortable, no, this must be something else. It was something else. Padre Bartolomeu Lourenço came rushing into the coach-house looking pale, livid, ashen, like someone resuscitated from the grave whose body was already rotting away, We must escape, the Holy Office of the Inquisition has issued a warrant for my arrest, they want to imprison me, where are the phials. Blimunda opened the chest and removed some cloths, They are in here, and Baltasar asked, What shall we do. The priest was shaking from head to foot and could scarcely stand up, Blimunda went to his assistance, What shall we do, Baltasar insisted, and the priest cried out, Let's escape in the machine, then suddenly, as if gripped by some new terror, he murmured almost inaudibly, pointing at the Passarola, Let's escape, But where, I don't know, but we must get away from here. Baltasar and Blimunda looked at each other, It was ordained, he said, Let's go, she said.

It is two o'clock in the afternoon and there is much work to be done and not a minute to be lost, the tiles have to be removed, the battens and joists, which cannot be pulled down by hand, have to be sawn, but first of all the amber balls have to be suspended where the wires cross, and the larger sails have to be opened so that the sun does not shine on the machine, two thousand wills have to be transferred into the globes, one thousand on this side and one thousand on the other, so that there is an even pull on both sides and no danger of the machine's capsizing in mid-air, and if such an accident should occur, let it be due to unforeseen circumstances. There is still so much work and so little time. Baltasar is already on the roof, removing the tiles, which he throws to the ground, and all round the coach-house there is the sound of shattering tiles, and Padre Bartolomeu Lourenço has recovered sufficiently to give them a little help by dismantling the thinner battens, but the joints require more strength than he can muster, so they must wait, while Blimunda behaves as if she had been flying all her life, with the utmost calm she examines the sails to make certain that the pitch is spread evenly and reinforces some of the hemming.

And now, Guardian Angel, what will you do, your presence has never been so necessary since you were first entrusted with this role, here you have three people who will shortly go up into the sky, where man has never ventured, and they need your protection, they have done as much as they can on their own, they have collected the necessary materials and wills, they have combined the solid with the evanescent, they have linked everything to their own audaciousness, and they are ready, all that remains to be done now is to demolish the rest of the roof, close the sails and expose the machine to the sun, and farewell, we're off, but if you, Guardian Angel, don't give us at least a little help, you are neither an angel nor anything else, there are of course lots of saints whom one can invoke, but none is as numerate as you, you know the thirteen words, can count from one to thirteen without making a mistake, and since this is a task requiring a sound grasp of all the geometries and mathematics ever devised, you can begin with the first word, which is the House of jerusalem, where Jesus Christ died for all of us we are told, and now the two words, which are the Tables of Moses, where, we are told, Jesus Christ placed His feet, and now the three words, which are the three persons of the Holy Trinity, we are told, and now the four words, which are the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we are told, and now the five words, which are the five wounds of jesus Christ, we are told, and now the six words, which are the six blessed candles Jesus Christ received at birth, we are told, and now the seven words which are the seven sacraments, we are told, and now the eight words, which are the eight Beatitudes, we are told, and now the nine words, which are the nine months when the Virgin Mary carried her beloved Son in her most pure womb, we are told, and now the ten words, which are the Ten Commandments of God's Holy Law, we are told, and now the eleven words, which are the eleven thousand virgins, we are told, and now the twelve words, which are the twelve apostles, we are told, and now the thirteen words, which are the thirteen rays of the moon, and this most certainly does not need to be told, because at least we have Sete-Luas here with us, that woman who is holding the glass phial, protect her, Guardian Angel, for if the phial should break, there will be no journey, and that priest, who is behaving so strangely, will not be able to make his escape, also protect the man working on the roof, his left hand is missing, and you are to blame, for you were inattentive out there on the battlefield when he was wounded, perhaps you still had not mastered your multiplication table.