José Saramago - The Stone Raft

The journey was uneventful, that's what novelists in a hurry always say when they think that, in the ten minutes or ten hours they are about to eliminate, nothing has taken place that would warrant any special mention. Strictly speaking, it would be much more correct and honest to put it like this, As in all journeys, whatever their duration and length, there have been a thousand incidents, words and thoughts, and for a thousand you could read ten thousand, but the narrative is dragging, so I'm allowing myself to abbreviate, using three lines to cover two hundred kilometers, bearing in mind that the four people inside the car have traveled in silence, with neither thought nor gesture, pretending that by the end of the journey they will have nothing to relate. In our case, for example, it would be impossible not to derive some meaning from the fact that Joana Carda had quite naturally accompanied José Anaiço when he took over from Joaquim Sassa, who wanted a rest from driving, and that she had managed, God knows how, to squeeze the elm branch into the front, without hampering the driver or blocking his vision. And needless to say, when José Anaiço returned to the back seat, Joana Carda went with him, and so wherever José happened to be Joana was there too, although neither of them could yet say for what reason or purpose, or they knew but cannot bring themselves to say it, each moment has its own flavor and the flavor of this moment has not yet been lost.

There were few abandoned cars on the roads, and those they saw invariably had parts missing, having been stripped of their wheels, headlights, rearview mirrors, windshields, a door, sometimes all the doors, the seats, some cars were even reduced to a bare shell like crabshells with no meat left inside. But the gasoline shortage meant that traffic was thin and there were long intervals between one passing car and the next. Certain incongruities also hit one in the eye, like a cart being drawn by a donkey along the highway, or a squadron of cyclists who even at full speed were far below the minimum speed the signs foolishly continued to impose, indifferent to the force of reality. And there were also people traveling on foot, usually with a knapsack on their back, or, in rustic fashion, with two sacks loosely tied together at the top and strung over one shoulder like a saddlebag, the women with baskets on their heads. Many people were alone, but there were also families, to all appearances entire families with old and young and babes in arms. When Deux Chevaux had to leave the highway farther ahead, the number of pedestrians diminished only in proportion to the relative importance of the road. Three times Joaquim Sassa tried to ask people where they were going, and they all gave him the same answer, We're on our way to see the world. They must have known that the world, the immediate world, strictly speaking, was now much smaller than before, perhaps for this very reason their dream of knowing all of it had become much more feasible, and when José Anaiço asked, But what about your home and your job, they calmly replied, Our home will be waiting for us and work we can always find, those are the priorities of the past and they must not be allowed to hinder the future. And perhaps it was just as well that people did not ask him the same question, whether too discreet or simply too absorbed in their own affairs, otherwise he would have been forced to explain, We're accompanying this woman to examine the line she drew on the ground with this stick, and as far as their jobs were concerned they would have made a poor impression, perhaps Pedro Orce would have confessed, I've left my patients to look after themselves, and Joaquim Sassa argued, Let's face it, office clerks are a dime a dozen, I won't be missed, besides I'm enjoying a well-deserved vacation, and José Anaiço, I'm in the same situation, if I were to go back to school now I wouldn't find any pupils, until October my time is my own, and Joana Carda, I've nothing to tell you about myself, if I've revealed nothing so far to these men with whom I'm traveling, there's no reason why I should confide in strangers.

They had passed the town of Pombal when Joana Carda informed them, Just ahead there is a road to Soure, that's the one we have to follow, since leaving Lisbon this was the first indication she had given of a specific destination, until now they had felt as if they were traveling through mist, or, adapting this particular situation to general circumstances, they were ancient and ingenuous mariners, We are being carried along by the sea, where will she carry us. They would soon find out. They did not stop in Soure, they went through narrow roads that crossed and forked into two or three branches, and sometimes they seemed to be going around in circles, until they finally reached a village that had a signpost at the limits bearing the name Ereira, and Joana Carda announced, It's here.

Taken by surprise, José Anaiço, who was driving Deux Chevaux at that moment, put his foot down sharply on the brake, as if the line were right there in the middle of the road and he were about to run over it, not that there was any danger of destroying this prodigious bit of evidence, which Joana Carda had described as indestructible, but because of that holy terror that strikes even the most skeptical of men when routine is broken like the thread that broke as we ran it through our hand, confident and with no responsibility but that of preserving, strengthening, and prolonging this thread, and our hand too, as far as possible. Joaquim Sassa looked outside, he saw houses with trees above the rooftops and low-lying fields, the marshes and rice paddies are visible, it's the gentle Mondego, better that than arid rock. Had this been what Pedro Orce was thinking, then Don Quixote of the sad countenance would inevitably come into the story, the one he possessed and the one he presented, when, stark naked, he began jumping up and down like a madman amid the peaks of the Sierra Morena, it would be absurd to draw a comparison with such episodes of knight-errantry, therefore Pedro Orce, on getting out of the car and putting his feet on the ground, simply confirms that the earth is still shaking. José Anaiço walked round Deux Chevaux, went, perfect gentleman that he is, to open the door on the other side, he pretends not to notice the ironic, patronizing smile of Joaquim Sassa, and taking the elm branch from Joana Carda, he extends his hand to help her out, she gives him hers, they clasp hands for longer than is necessary in order to guarantee firm support, but this is not the first time, the first and only other time so far was on the back seat, an impulse, but they did not utter a word either then or now, in a louder or softer tone of voice that might embrace the word spoken by the other with equal force.

This is indeed the hour for explanations, but Joaquim Sassa's question demands others, like the ship's captain who opens sealed orders suspecting that he may find nothing except a blank page, Now where do we go, Now we take this road, Joana Carda replied, and on the way I'll tell you the rest of my story, not that it has anything to do with our coming here, but there's little point in continuing to act like strangers when we've traveled all this way together, You could have told us sooner, either in Lisbon or during the journey, José Anaiço remarked, I don't see why, either you came with me because you were convinced by a single word, or many more words would have been needed to convince you, and then it wouldn't have done much good, As a reward for having believed in you, It's for me to decide your reward and when it should be given, José Anaiço refrained from answering, he played for time, started looking at a row of poplars in the distance, but she heard Joaquim Sassa murmur, What a girl, Joana Carda smiled, I'm no girl, and I'm not the bitch you think I am, I don't think you're a bitch, Domineering, stubborn, conceited, affected, Good heavens, what a list, why not say mysterious and leave it at that, Well, there is a mystery, and I wouldn't have brought anyone here who didn't believe without seeing, not even you in whom no one believes, They're beginning to believe in us now, But I was more fortunate and only needed to say one word, Let's hope many more won't be necessary now. This dialogue was conducted entirely between Joana Carda and Joaquim Sassa, given Pedro Orce's difficulty in understanding and the obvious impatience of José Anaiço, who had been excluded from the conversation through his own fault. But observe how this curious situation, with the differences that always distinguish situations, simply repeats what happened in Granada, when Maria Dolores conversed with one Portuguese but would have preferred to be conversing with another, in this particular case, however, there will be time to explain everything, the man who is really thirsty will have his thirst quenched.