José Saramago - The Stone Raft

They are seated, fortunately in the shade of some trees, and he has asked her, What brought you to Lisbon, then, why did you come to look for us, and she told him, Because it must be true that you and your friends have something to do with what is happening, Happening, to whom, You know very well what I'm referring to, the peninsula, the breaking up of the Pyrenees, this voyage, the like of which has never been seen before. Sometimes I think the same, that we're to blame, at other times I think we must all be mad, A planet that goes around a star, turning and turning, one minute day, the next night, one minute cold, the next hot, and an almost empty space where there are gigantic things that have no names other than the ones we give them, and a thing we call time that no one can really fathom, all this must also be crazy, Are you an astronomer, José Anaiço asked her, suddenly remembering Maria Dolores, the anthropologist from Granada, I'm neither an astronomer nor a fool, Forgive my rudeness, we're all rather nervous, words don't express what they're meant to, we talk either too much or too little, do forgive me, You're forgiven, I probably strike you as being rather skeptical because nothing has ever happened to me except the starlings, although, Although, Not so long ago, in the hotel, when I saw you in the lounge, I felt as if I were on a ship at sea for the first time, And I saw you as if you were coming from a distance, And yet you were only three or four paces away.

Appearing from everywhere on the horizon, the starlings suddenly alit on the trees in the park. From the nearby streets, people came running, looking upward, pointing, They're back again, José Anaiço sighed impatiently, and worst of all, we won't be able to speak with all these people around. At this moment, the starlings all took flight together, they covered the park with a great fluttering, a black cloud, people were shouting, some with annoyance, others with excitement, yet others with fear, Joana Carda and José Anaiço stared unable to grasp what was happening, then the huge flock dwindled away to form a wedge, a wing, an arrow, and after circling rapidly three times, the starlings disappeared in a southerly direction, crossed the river, vanished into the distance, over the horizon. The assembled crowd, both curious and frightened, let out cries of amazement, of disappointment too, within minutes the park was deserted, the heat was back, on the bench sat a man and a woman all alone, they had an elm branch and a suitcase. José Anaiçon't think they'll ever come back, and Joana Carda replied, Let me tell you what happened to me.

Once the seriousness of the facts related had been established, prudence decreed that Joana Carda should not lodge in that famous hotel where nets had been spread out on the roof, in the vain hope that the starlings would settle there. It was a wise decision on her part, and at least forestalled any further modification of the proverb about killing two birds with one stone, in other words, it prevented this woman well versed in metaphysical skirmishing from falling into the same trap as the three suspects, if they have not already been found guilty. Putting what has been written into somewhat less baroque language and using less convoluted syntax, Joana Carda installed herself further up the street in the Hotel Borges, right in the heart of the Chiado, with her suitcase and her elm branch, which unfortunately is neither telescoping nor easily packed away, so that people stare in amazement when she passes, and the receptionist at the desk, jesting to disguise his genuine curiosity, but without being impolite, makes a discreet reference to wands that are not walking sticks, Joana Carda responded with silence, after all, there is no law to prohibit guests from taking even a branch of holm oak into their room, much less a thin little stick, not even two meters long, which fits easily into the elevator and can be neatly stored away out of sight in a corner.

José Anaiço and Joana Carda carried on their conversation until well after sunset, can you imagine, they discussed the matter from every possible angle, and invariably came to the same conclusion, since it was all so unnatural, things were happening sis if a new state of normality had taken the place of what once passed for normal, but without any convulsions, shocks, or changes of color, not that these, if they were to occur, would explain anything. The mistake is entirely ours, with this taste for drama and tragedy, this need for the sublime and the theatrical, we marvel, for example, at the sight of a birth, all the moaning and groaning and shouting, the body opening up like a ripe fig to expel another body, and this is undoubtedly marvelous, but no more marvelous than what we cannot perceive, the burning discharge inside the woman, the fatal marathon, and then the protracted formation of a human being by itself, albeit with some assistance, who will that become, let us stay where we are, the one who is now writing this, inevitably ignorant of what happened to him then, and, let us be frank, not very clear about what is happening to him now. Joana Carda neither knows nor is able to say any more, The stick was lying thère on the ground, I drew a line with it, if these things are happening because of what I did, who am I to swear it, you must go there and see for yourself. They went on debating and discussing and darkness was falling when they went their separate ways, she to the Hotel Borges up the street, he to the Hotel Bragança further down, and José Anaiço is smitten with remorse, he did not have the courage to try and find out what happened to his friends, what a jerk, a woman has only to appear and tell him some fairy tale or other for him to spend nearly the entire afternoon listening to her, You should go there and see for yourself, she repeated, slightly modifying the phrase, perhaps to convince him once and for all, repeating oneself in different words is often the only solution. At the entrance to his hotel José Anaiço raises his eyes, no sign of any starlings, that winged shadow that passed, fleeting and gentle as a discreet caress, was only a bat chasing mosquitoes and moths. The little nobleman on the banister has his lamp lit, he is there to welcome guests, but José Anaiço does not even give him so much as a weary glance, he is certainly in for a bad night if Pedro Orce and Joaquim Sassa have not returned.

They have returned. They are waiting in the hotel lounge, seated in the same chairs in which Joana Carda and José Anaiço had sat, and to think that there are people who do not believe in coincidences, when one is constantly discovering coincidences in the world and is beginning to wonder if coincidences are not the very logic of this world. José Anaiço pauses in the doorway of the lounge, it's as if everything were about to be repeated, but no, not just yet, the wooden floor has remained firm, the distance of four paces is no more than a distance of four paces, there is no interstellar void, no leap of death or life, legs moved by themselves, then mouths spoke to say what one might expect, Were you out looking for us, Joaquim Sassa asked, but José Anaiço cannot give a simple answer to such a simple question, Yes, No, both answers would be true, both would be false, he would need a great deal of time to explain, so he replied with a question of his own, as reasonable and natural as the other, Where the hell have you two been all this time. One can see that Pedro Orce is tired, and little wonder, the years, whatever people might say to the contrary, take their toll, but even a young and vigorous man would have come away a wreck from the hands of the doctors, one examination after another, analyses, X rays, questionnaires, tiny hammerblows on the tendons, hearing tests, eye tests, electroencephalograms, no wonder his eyelids feel as heavy as lead, I must lie down, he says, these Portuguese specialists have almost killed me off. It was decided there and then that Pedro Orce should retire to his room until dinnertime, when he could come down and have some broth and breast of chicken despite his poor appetite, he felt as if his stomach were still full of X-ray pap, But you didn't have your stomach X-rayed, Joaquim Sassa reminded him, That's true, but I feel as if I had, Pedro Orce replied, his smile as wan as a withered rose. Have a good rest, José Anaiço suggested, Joaquim and I will eat at some restaurant nearby, we'll talk things over, and when we come back we'll knock on your door and see how you're feeling, Don't knock, I'll almost certainly be asleep, all I want right now is to sleep with no interruptions until tomorrow morning, and off he went shuffling his feet. Poor fellow, what a nice mess we've got him into, this comment was made by José Anaiço, They tormented me as well, with their cross-examining and their endless questions, but that's nothing compared to what they did to him, shall I tell you what this reminds me of, a story I read years ago entitled At the Mercy of the Quacks, Do you mean the story by Rodrigues Miguéis, That's the one.