José Saramago - Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis

Ricardo Reis has seen the bombardment of Urea and Praia Vermelha, but at such a distance that they might well have been mistaken for training maneuvers similar to this one, except that the next day the newspapers reported real deaths. He decides to go and take a look at the scene and the actors from the Santa Justa footbridge, keeping far enough from the center of operations to preserve the illusion of reality. But others had thought of it before him, and when Ricardo Reis arrived, there was no room on the bridge, so he started to walk down the Calçada do Carmo and found himself taking part in a pilgrimage. Had the pavement been broken and dusty, he would have thought himself on the road to Fatima, for these are all things of the spirit, airplanes,- airships, and visions. He was reminded, for some reason, of the flying machine, the giant bird of Padre Bartolomeu de Gusmão, perhaps by some association of ideas, going from today's mock exercise to the air raids on Praia Vermelha and Urea, and from them, since that was Brazil, to the flying priest and the Passarola that immortalized his name, even though Padre Bartolomeu himself never flew it, whatever people may have said or will say to the contrary. At the top of the steps that descend in two flights to the Rua do Primeiro de Dezembro, Ricardo Reis sees that a crowd has gathered in the Rossio. Surprised that the public is allowed to get so close to the bombs, he nevertheless allows himself to be swept along with the stream of avid spectators who press toward the theater of war. Entering the square, he finds that the crowd is much larger than it seemed before, and too packed for anyone to pass. But he has had time to master the wiles practiced in these parts, and says as he goes, Excuse me, please, I'm a doctor. Thanks to this strategy, a lie though it is the truth, he succeeds in reaching the front lines, where he can see everything. So far no airplanes have been sighted, but the police are nervous, in the cleared areas in front of the theater and the railroad station the commanding officers issue orders, an official State automobile passes, inside are the Minister of the Interior and members of his family, including women. Other members of the entourage follow in the car behind. They will watch the exercise from the windows of the Hotel Avenida Palace. Suddenly the warning shot is fired, the anguished sirens wail, the pigeons in the Rossio soar in a flock, flapping. Something has gone wrong with the plan, excessive haste, perhaps, on the part of novices, the enemy plane was supposed to drop a smoke signal first, then the sirens were to begin their mournful chorus and the antiaircraft guns their firing. What does it matter, the day will come when bombs fall ten thousand kilometers away and we know exactly what the future holds for us. Finally the plane appears, the multitude sways, they raise their arms, There she is, there she is. A cavernous roar, an explosion, and a dense cloud of smoke rises into the sky, there is great excitement, anxiety makes people's voices hoarse, the doctors put their stethoscopes to their ears, the nurses prepare their syringes, the stretcher bearers, in their impatience, drag the stretchers on the ground. In the distance now you can hear the hum of the engines of the flying fortresses. As the moment approaches, the more timid of the spectators begin to wonder if this is not in earnest after all, some hurriedly retreat and huddle in doorways to avoid being hit by shrapnel, but the majority stay put, and once it has been confirmed that the bombs are harmless, the crowd doubles. Shells explode, the soldiers slip on their gas masks, there are not enough masks for everyone, but the important thing is to give an impression of real warfare, we know immediately who will die and who will be saved from this attack with chemical weapons, because the time has not yet come for all to perish. There is smoke everywhere, the spectators cough and sneeze, behind the Teatro Nacional erupts a turbulent black volcano, the theater itself seems to be on fire. But it is difficult to take any of this seriously. The police drive back the people in front, they are in the way of the rescue teams, while the wounded, on stretchers, forget the dramatic role assigned them and giggle like idiots, perhaps the gas they inhaled was laughing gas. Even the stretcher bearers have to stop to wipe away tears of laughter. To cap it all, just as the imaginary peril reaches its climax, a municipal road sweeper arrives on the scene with his pushcart and broom and starts sweeping up the bits of paper strewn along the gutter. He lifts the litter with his shovel, empties it into his trash can, and moves on. Oblivious of the uproar, of the people running in every direction, he enters clouds of smoke and reemerges unscathed, he does not even look up to see the Spanish planes. Once is usually enough, twice is often too much, but history is indifferent to the fine points of literary composition, which explains why she now causes a postman to appear with his bag of mail, tranquilly crossing the square. How many people must be anxiously awaiting his arrival, a letter from Coimbra may come today, a message saying, Tomorrow I shall be in your arms. This postman, aware of his responsibilities, is not one to waste time on spectacles in the street. Ricardo Reis is the only man of learning in the crowd, the only one who can see a Lisbon road sweeper and a postman and think of that famous youth in Paris who sold his cakes in the street while the enraged mob stormed the Bastille. There is really no difference between us Portuguese and the civilized world, we too have our alienated heroes, self-absorbed poets, road sweepers who tirelessly sweep, and postmen who cross the square without remembering that the letter from Coimbra should be delivered to that gentleman over there. But there's no letter from Coimbra, he says as the road sweeper sweeps and the pastry seller cries out, Cheesecakes from Sintra.

A few days later, Ricardo Reis narrated what he had seen, described the airplanes, the smoke, the deafening noise of the antiaircraft artillery, the volleys of the machine guns, and Lydia listened attentively, sorry to have missed the fun. She laughed, Oh how funny, the business with the road sweeper, when suddenly she remembered that she also had something to tell, Do you know who escaped. She did not wait for Ricardo Reis to answer but went on, Manuel Guedes, the sailor I mentioned the other day, do you remember. Yes, I remember, but where did he escape. As he was being taken before the tribunal, and Lydia laughed with gusto. Ricardo Reis simply smiled. This country is going to the dogs, ships that launch themselves prematurely, prisoners who escape, and road sweepers, but what can one expect from a road sweeper. But Lydia was very pleased that Manuel Guedes had managed to escape.

Invisible, the cicadas sing in the palm trees on the Alto de Santa Catarina. Adamastor is deafened by their strident chorus, which scarcely merits the sweet name of music, but the question of music depends a great deal on who is listening. The enamored giant would not have heard them as he paced the shore waiting for the procuress Doris to arrive and arrange the much desired encounter, for the sea was singing then and the beloved voice of Thetis hovered over the waters, as is usually said of the spirit of God. But it is the male cicada that sings, rubbing his wings furiously to produce this obsessive, relentless sound, like a marble cutter's screech upon striking some harder vein inside the stone. It is stifling hot. In Fatima the sun had been a burning ember, but then for days the sky was overcast, it even drizzled. In the lowlands, the flood has finally subsided, all that remains of that vast inland sea are small pools of scummy water which the sun is gradually drying up. In the morning, when the air is still fresh, the old men bring their umbrellas, but the heat now has grown oppressive, so the umbrellas serve as parasols, which leads us to conclude that the usefulness of an object is more important than the names we give it, yet in the final analysis, like it or not, we always come back to words. The ships enter and leave with their flags, smokestacks, antlike sailors, deafening sirens. A sailor, after hearing that din so often during storms at sea, ends up learning to speak on equal terms with the deity of the deep. These two old men have never been to sea, but their blood does not chill when they hear that mighty roar, mighty though muffled by distance, it is deeper down that they quake, as if there were ships sailing through the channels of their veins, ships lost in the darkness of their bodies, amid the gigantic bones of the world. As the heat becomes sultry, the old men retrace their steps, it is time for lunch and those time-honored hours of siesta in the shade of their own homes. When the heat abates, they will return to the Alto to sit on the same bench, but with their umbrellas open, because the protection of the trees, as we know, is unreliable, the sun only has to descend a little and the shade of the palm trees is gone. These old men will die without learning that palm trees are not trees, incredible, that people can be so ignorant. But, as in the case of umbrella and parasol, it is of no importance that a palm tree is not a tree, what matters is the shade it gives, and if we were to ask that gentleman, the doctor who comes here every afternoon, whether a palm tree is a tree or not, he would have to go home to consult his encyclopedia of botany, unless he left it behind in Brazil. Most likely all he knows about the vegetable world is the skimp imagery with which he adorns his poems, flowers in general, a few laurels because they date from mythological times, some trees bearing no name but tree, vines and sunflowers, the rushes that tremble in the current, the ivy of oblivion, the lilies, and the roses, the roses. The old men converse freely with Ricardo Reis, but when he leaves his apartment it does not cross his mind to ask them, Did you know that a palm tree is not a tree. And because they are so sure of what they think they know, it will never occur to them to ask him, Doctor, is the palm tree a tree. One day they will go their separate ways and the fundamental question of whether the palm tree is a tree because it resembles a tree, or whether this passing shadow we cast on the ground is life because it resembles life, will remain unanswered.