José Saramago - The Stone Raft

They went to look for Deux Chevaux, but while they are searching and having some difficulty finding the car, this is the moment to mention that many thousands of people who achieved neither voice nor vote in this story, who have not made even a brief appearance at the edges of the scene, thousands of people who have not budged for the last ten days and nights, who ate from the provisions they had brought along, who then, when they ran out on the second day, went to buy whatever they could find locally, and cooked in the open air, on great bonfires that were like pyres from another age, and not even those who had run out of money went hungry, where there was food for one there was food for all, we are enjoying a revival of fraternity, if such a thing has ever been humanly possible or is likely to return. Pedro Orce, José Anaiço, and Joaquim Sassa are not about to experience this admirable fraternity, they have turned their backs on the sea, and now it is their turn to be looked at suspiciously by those hordes of people who are still descending.

Meantime darkness has fallen, the first lights go on. Let's go, said José Anaiço Orce will remain silent, sitting on the back seat, looking sad, his eyes closed, it has to be now or never, we shall never have a better opportunity to recall the Portuguese refrain, Where are you going, I'm off to the party, Where have you come from, I've come from the party, even without the help of exclamation points and pauses, one can readily see the difference between the joyful anticipation of the first reply and the disillusioned weariness of the second, they only look alike on the page on which they're written. During the entire journey, only six words were spoken, You must have dinner with me, they came from the lips of Pedro Orce, he feels obliged to be hospitable. José Anaiço and Joaquim Sassa did not feel it necessary to make any reply, some might think they were being impolite by remaining silent, but such people know very little about human nature, those better informed would testify that the three men had become close friends.

They reach Orce in the dead of night. The roads at this hour are a desert of shadows and silence, Deux Chevaux can be left at the door of the pharmacy, and it is no bad thing that they should give it a rest, tomorrow the car will be back on the road carrying the three men, a matter about to be decided indoors as they sit round the table enjoying a simple meal, for Pedro Orce also lives alone and there is not time enough to prepare anything elaborate. They switched on the television, the news is broadcast hourly, and they saw Gibraltar, not simply separated from Spain, but already at a considerable distance, like an island abandoned in the middle of the ocean, transformed, poor thing, into a peak, a sugarloaf, a reef, with its thousand cannon out of action. Even if they should insist on opening new loopholes on the northern side, perhaps to gratify imperial pride, they would be throwing their money into the sea, in both the literal and the figurative senses. Those scenes undoubtedly made an impression, but were nothing when compared to the shock produced by a series of satellite pictures showing the progressive widening of the canal between the peninsula and France, flesh froze and hair bristled at the sight of this great catastrophe, beyond human powers, for this was no longer a canal but open sea, where ships sailed at will, over water that had truly never been sailed before. Obviously, the displacement could not be observed, at this altitude a speed of seven hundred and fifty meters per hour cannot be captured by the naked eye, but for one observing it was as if the great mass of stone were shifting in his head, sensitive people almost fainted, others complained of feeling dizzy. And there were pictures that had been taken from aboard the indefatigable helicopters, the gigantic Pyrenean escarpment, cut vertically, and the minute swarm of ants heading south, like a sudden migration, just to see Gibraltar adrift, an optical illusion, for it is we who are being carried off with the current, and also, to add a colorful detail, an entry worthy of a diary, a flock of starlings, thousands of them, like a cloud obscuring one's field of vision, darkening the sky. Even the birds are responding to the crowd's excitement, that was the verb the announcer used, responding, when we know from natural history that birds have their own good reasons for going whithersoever they choose or must, they act neither for me nor for you, at most for José Anaiço, who ungratefully confesses, I'd forgotten about them.

There were also shots of Portugal, taken on the Atlantic coast, showing the waves beating on the rocks or swirling over the sands, and lots of people watching the horizon, all with the tragic expression of someone who for centuries has been prepared for the unknown and fears that it may not come after all, or may turn out to be no different from the common, banal experiences of everyday life. There they are now, as Unamuno described them, his swarthy face cupped in the palms of his hands, Fix your eyes where the lonely sun sets in the immense sea, all nations with the sea to the west do the same, this race is swarthy, there is no other particularity, and it has sailed the seas. Lyrical, ecstatic, the Spanish announcer declaims, Look at the Portuguese, all along their golden beaches, once but no longer the prow of Europe, for we have left the European quayside to sail once more the Atlantic waves, what admiral will guide us, what port awaits us, the closing shot showed a young lad throwing a pebble into the sea, practicing the art of ricochet, one that requires no training, and Joaquim Sassa said, He has the strength of his years, the stone couldn't possibly go any farther, but the peninsula, or whatever it might be, appeared to be advancing with even greater vigor over the deep sea, so different from what it normally is in the summer. The final item of news was given by the announcer, in passing, as if he did not consider it very important, Some volatility has been observed among the population, lots of people are leaving their homes, not only in Andalusia, there we know the reason, but, bearing in mind that most of them are heading for the sea, we may assume that they are driven by natural curiosity, in any case we can assure our viewers that there is nothing to see on the coast, as we have just confirmed, all those Portuguese who were staring at the sea, stared and saw nothing, let us not make the same mistake. Then Pedro Orce said, If you have room for me, I'm coming with you.

Joaquim Sassa and José Anaiço remained silent, they could not understand why such a sensible Spaniard should want to visit the regions and beaches of Portugal. The question was worth raising, and as the owner of Deux Chevaux, it was up to Joaquim Sassa to ask, and Pedro Orce replied, I don't want to stay here, with the earth shaking under my feet all the time, and people telling me that I'm only imagining things, You might well feel the earth shaking in Portugal too, and very likely people there will say much the same thing, José Anaiço told him, and we have our jobs waiting for us. I won't be a burden to you, just take me with you and leave me in Lisbon, where I've never been, I'll come back here one day, And what about your family and your pharmacy, You must have gathered by now that I have no family, I'm the last survivor, the pharmacy will be all right, I have an assistant who will look after things. There was nothing more to be said, no reason for refusing, We'll be glad of your company, was the phrase Joaquim Sassa used, The worst thing would be if they were to detain you at the frontier, José Anaiço reminded him, I'll tell them I've been touring Spain, so I couldn't possibly have known that anyone was looking for me, and that I'm just about to present myself to the authorities, but it's unlikely there will be any need for explanations, they're sure to be paying more attention to those who are leaving than to those who are entering, Let's cross over at some other frontier post, I'm worried about the starlings, José Anaiço reminded them, and, having spoken, he spread out on the table a map of the whole Iberian peninsula, drawn and colored at a time when everything was terra firma and the ossified callus of the Pyrenees discouraged any temptation to venture beyond, in silence the three men stood looking at the flat area representing this part of the world as if they failed to recognize it, Strabo used to say that the peninsula is formed like the hide of an ox, Pedro Orce muttered these words earnestly, and despite the warm night Joaquim Sassa and José Anaiço broke out in goose pimples, as if suddenly confronted by the Cyclopean beast that was about to be sacrificed and skinned in order to burden the continent of Europe with yet another carcass that would go on bleeding until the end of time.