José Saramago - Baltasar and Blimunda

Álvaro Diogo has already gone off to start laying stones, one on top of another, had he delayed any longer, it would have meant forfeiting a quarter of the day's wage, which would have been a serious loss, now Baltasar has to convince the recruiting officer that an iron hook is as good as a hand made of flesh and blood. The clerk seems doubtful about his chances and, rather than accept the responsibility, goes inside to make some inquiries, a pity that Baltasar cannot produce any documents certifying that he is a builder of airships, or at least that he has fought in the war, if this were to do him some good, for the nation has been at peace for the last fourteen years, and who wants to know about wars, once wars are over, it is as if they had never taken place. The clerk returns looking cheerful, What's your name, and he takes up his duck quill and dips it into the brown ink, so Álvaro Diogo's recommendation has helped after all, or the fact that he has some claim on this land, or that he is still in his prime, thirty-nine years of age despite those first grey hairs, or simply that God might be offended if a man in need of work should be turned away when He has favoured Mafra by allowing the Holy Ghost to fly over the town three days before, What's your name, Baltasar Mateus, nicknamed Sete-Sóis, You can start work next Monday as a porter. Baltasar dutifully thanks the recruiting clerk and leaves the Inspectorate General feeling neither happy nor sad, a man must earn his daily bread by some means somewhere, and if that bread fails to nourish his soul, at least his body will be nourished while his soul suffers.

Baltasar knew that this place was known as the Ilha da Madeira, the Island of Wood, and it was well named, because, apart from a few houses built in stone and mortar, all the others were timber constructions, but built to last. There were also blacksmiths working on the site, and Baltasar could have mentioned his experience at the forge, although he had already forgotten much of what he had learned, not to mention the other skills about which he knew nothing, subsequently there would be coopers, glaziers, painters, and many other craftsmen on the site. Many of the timber houses had upper storeys, on the ground floor were housed the livestock and oxen, and above lodged the personnel of greater and lesser rank, the masters of works, the clerks and other officers of the Inspectorate General, as well as the military officers in charge of the troops. At this hour of the morning, oxen and mules were being led out of the stables, others had been led out even earlier, and the ground was soaked with urine and littered with manure, and as in Lisbon during the Corpus Christi procession, street urchins were running wild amid the crowds and cattle jostling and chasing one another, and one lad who was trying to escape from another slipped and fell under a yoke of oxen but escaped being trampled, because his guardian angel was watching over him, and he escaped without injury, apart from being covered with foul-smelling dung. Baltasar laughed along with the others and there was no doubt that the job had its moments of fun. It also had its own guard. Even now, some twenty foot soldiers were marching past as if on their way to war, they could be on manoeuvres or heading for Ericeira to resist a landing of French pirates, who will make so many attempts to land that they will finally succeed, and one day long after this Babel is over, Junot duc d'Abrantés will enter Mafra, where only some twenty aged friars will be left in the convent to fall off their stools with the shock, and Colonel or Captain Delagarde, his rank is of no importance, heading the vanguard, will try to enter the Palace and find the doors locked, whereupon the custodian, Friar Félix de Santa Maria da Arrâbida, will be summoned, but the poor fellow will not have the keys, because they will be with the Royal Family, which has fled, and then perfidious Delagarde, as one historian will dub him, will deal the poor custodian a mighty blow, who with evangelical humility and divine example will proffer the other cheek, but if Baltasar, when he lost his left hand in Jerez de los Caballeros, had offered his right hand as well, he would now find it impossible to hold the shaft of the hand-cart. And speaking of caballeros, some horsemen have also passed, armed just like the foot soldiers who are even now entering the square. It soon becomes clear that they are arriving for guard duty and there is nothing quite like working with guards standing over you.

The men sleep in large wooden dormitories, each accommodating no fewer than two hundred, and from where he is standing, Baltasar finds it impossible to count all the huts, but he gets up to fifty-seven before losing count, not to mention that his arithmetic has not improved over the years, the best thing would be to take a bucket of limewash and a brush and to paint a sign here and a sign there to avoid repeating the count, as if he were nailing crosses of St Lazarus to the doors to ward off some skin disease. Baltasar would find himself sleeping on a mat or bunk like these men were it not for his father's house in Mafra, and he has a wife to keep him company at night, while most of these poor wretches have come from afar and left their wives behind, they say a man is not made of wood, it is much worse and more difficult to bear when a man's penis is as hard as wood, for the widows of Mafra are certainly not going to satisfy all their demands. Baltasar left the sleeping quarters and went off to look at the military camp, there he felt a lump in his throat, all those pitched tents, it was as if he were stepping back in time for, however unlikely it may seem, there are moments when a former soldier feels nostalgia for war, and it is not the first time this has happened to Baltasar. Álvaro Diogo had already told him that there were many soldiers in Mafra, some having been drafted to help with the excavations and blasting operations, others to supervise the workers and deal with any disturbances and judging from the number of tents, the many soldiers to which Álvaro had referred ran into thousands. Sete-Sóis is dumbfounded, what new Mafra is this, there are some fifty houses down in the village itself, and some five hundred up here on the site, not to mention other notable differences, such as this row of communal refectories, sheds almost as large as the dormitories, with extended tables and benches fixed to the floor and long trestles for serving the food, there is no one around at present, but by mid-morning cauldrons are suspended over the fires for the main meal, and when the mess bugle is sounded, there will be one great stampede to see who can get there first, the men come off the site dirty from work, and the uproar is deafening, friends call to friends, Sit here, Keep my place for me, but carpenters sit with carpenters, builders with builders, and the hordes of unskilled labourers sit at the bottom, each man with his own kind, thank goodness Baltasar can go home to eat, otherwise he would be at a loss for company, for he knows nothing about handcarts, just as he is the only person there who knows anything about flying machines.

Álvaro Diogo can say what he likes in his own defence and that of his fellow workers, but the project is clearly making little progress. Baltasar has examined everything with the scrupulous eye of someone inspecting a house he hopes to occupy, there go the men with handcarts, whilst others mount the scaffolding, some carrying the lime and sand, others in pairs, easing the stone slabs up gentle ramps with poles and ropes, and the master-masons supervise operations with truncheon in hand, while the overseers check the diligence of each labourer and the standard of his work. The height of the walls is no more than three times that of Baltasar, and they do not embrace the entire perimeter of the basilica, but they are as thick as those of any fortress, and thicker than those of the surviving walls of the castle at Mafra, but those were of another age, before artillery came into use, only the width of the stone walls of the future convent can justify the slowness with which they are being raised. Baltasar comes across a handcart lying on its side and decides to have a go at holding the shaft, it is not too difficult, and once he has cut out a semicircle in the lower part of the left-hand shaft, he is ready to compete with any pair of hands.