José Saramago - The Stone Raft

Joaquim Sassa watched her from the other side of the fire and saw that the flames as they danced kept on changing her expression, one moment making her cheeks look sunken, the next moment smoothing away the shadows, but the gleam in her dark eyes did not change, perhaps a suspended tear had been transformed into a membrane of pure light. She isn't pretty, he thought, nor is she ugly, her hands are rough and worn, quite unlike mine, the smooth hands of an office clerk enjoying paid leave, which reminds me that tomorrow, unless I'm mistaken, is the last day of the month, the day after tomorrow I'm due back at work, but no, how can I, how can I possibly leave José and Joana, Pedro and the Dog, they've no reason for wanting to come with me, and if I take Deux Chevaux they're going to find it extremely difficult to get back to their respective homes, but they probably don't want to go back, the only real thing that exists at this moment on earth is our being here together, Joana Carda and José Anaiço conversing in whispers, perhaps about their own life, perhaps about each other's life, Pedro Orce with his hand on Pilot's head, no doubt measuring vibrations and tremors no one else can feel, while I watch and go on watching Maria Guavaira who has a way of looking that isn't exactly looking but rather a way of showing her eyes, she is dressed in black, a widow whom time has consoled but whom custom and tradition restrict to wearing black, fortunately her eyes shine, and there is the blue cloud that doesn't seem to belong to this house, her hair is brown, and she has a rounded chin and full lips, and her teeth, I caught a glimpse of them a moment ago, are white, thank God, this woman is pretty after all and I didn't even notice, I was tied to her and didn't realize, I must decide whether to return home or remain here, even if I get back to work a few days late I'll be excused, with all this upheaval in the peninsula who's going to pay any attention to employees who are a few days late in returning to work, one can always say there was no transportation. One minute she looked common, the next quite pretty, and now, right now, standing beside Maria Guavaira, Joana Carda looks terrible, My woman is much more attractive, Senhor José Anaiço, how can you compare your lady from the city, and her affectations, to this wild creature who clearly tastes of the salty air the breeze carries over the mountains and whose body must be white underneath that black dress, If 1 could, Pedro Orce, I'd tell you something, What would you tell me, That I now know whom I should love, Congratulations, there are people who have taken much longer, or have never come to know, Do you know any such person, Take me, for example, and with this reply, Pedro Orce then said out loud, I'm going to take the dog for a walk.

Darkness has not yet fallen, but it is cold. In the direction of the mountain that hides the sea there is a path that begins to wend its way up the slope ahead in one bend after another, left and right like a winding thread until it disappears from sight. Soon the valley will be plunged into darkness, as on the night of the blackout, although it would be more accurate to say that in the valley where Maria Guavaira lives every night is like a blackout, so there was no need for all the electric cables of civilized and cultured Europe to break down. Pedro Orce left the house because he wasn't needed there. He walks on without looking back, at first as quickly as his strength permits, then, beginning to tire, he slows down. He does not feel the least bit nervous in this silence amid the great walls formed by the mountains, he's a man who was born and bred in a desert, in a land of dust and stones, where one is never surprised to find a horse's skull, a hoof with the metal shoe still attached, there are some who say not even the horsemen of the Apocalypse could survive there, the warhorse died in war, the infected horse died of infection, the starved horse of starvation, death is the supreme raison d'être of all things and their infallible conclusion, what deceives us is this line of the living along which we find ourselves, which advances toward what we call the future, simply because we had to give it a name, where we are constantly gathering in new beings while constantly leaving old ones behind, we are obliged to refer to these as the dead lest they emerge from the past.

Pedro Orce's heart is already starting to grow old and weary. He now has to rest more often and for longer, but he does not give up, the dog's presence consoles him. They exchange signs with each other, like a code that even though undeciphered is enough, for the simple fact of existing is enough, the animal rubs its back against the man's thigh, the man's hand strokes the soft skin inside the dog's ear, the world is filled with the sound of footsteps, breathing, friction, and now the muffled clamor of the sea can unmistakably be heard behind the summit of the mountain, growing louder, louder, getting clearer and clearer, until the immense surface looms up before one's eyes, vaguely sparkling beneath the night sky that is bereft of moonlight and has few stars, and below, like the living line separating night and death, the dazzling whiteness of spume constantly dissolving and renewing itself. The rocks are blacker where the waves are lashing, as if the stone there had greater density or had been soaked in water since the beginning of time. The wind comes in from the sea, on the one hand it is blowing normally, on the other it can scarcely be felt, this must be due to the peninsula's displacement on the water, it is no more than a breeze, as we well know, and yet there has never been such a typhoon since the world began.

Pedro Orce measures the dimension of the ocean and at that moment finds it small, because on taking a deep breath he feels his lungs expand so much that all the chasms of liquid could rush in and still leave space for the raft that with its stone battering rams is forcing its way through the waves. Pedro does not know if he is man or fish. He goes down to the sea, the dog goes ahead to sniff out and choose the path, and this prudent and astute guide was much needed, for without daylight, Pedro Orce on his own could not have found entrance or exit in this labyrinth of stones. At last they reached the great slabs of rock that descend to the sea, there the roar of waves breaking is deafening. Beneath this pitch-black sky and the cries of the sea, should the moon now appear, a man could die of rapture, while believing himself to be dying of anguish, of fear and solitude. Pedro Orce no longer felt cold. The night became clearer, more stars appeared, and the dog, which had been gone for a moment, came running back, it had not been trained to tug its master's trousers, but we know it well enough to be certain that it is perfectly capable of making its wishes known, and now Pedro Orce must accompany it to examine its discovery, a castaway swept up on the shore, a treasure chest, some vestige of Atlantis, the wreckage of the Flying Dutchman, an obsessive memory, and when he arrived he saw that it was nothing but stones, but since this was a dog not easily fooled, there had to be something unusual there, that was when he noticed that he was actually standing on it, the thing, an enormous stone, roughly in the form of a boat, and there was another one, long and narrow like a mast, and yet another, this must be the helm with its tiller, although it was broken. Thinking that the dim light was deceiving him, he started walking around the stones, touching and probing them, and then he was no longer in any doubt, this side, tall and pointed, is the prow, this other flat one is the stern, the mast is unmistakable, and the helm, for example, could only be made for a giant, were it not for the fact that this is definitely a stone ship standing here. A geological phenomenon, to be sure. What Pedro Orce knows about chemistry is more than enough to explain the discovery, an ancient wooden vessel brought here by the waves or abandoned by mariners, stranded on these rocks since time immemorial, then the fragments were covered by earth, their organic material petrified, once more the earth has retreated, thousands of years will be needed, until today, to blunt the edges and reduce these volumes, wind, rain, the erosion of cold and heat, the day will come when one stone will be indistinguishable from another. Pedro Orce sat right inside the boat, from where he's sitting he can see nothing but sky and the distant sea, if this ship were to pitch ever so slightly he would imagine himself to be sailing, and then, which shows you what the imagination can do, he absurdly began to imagine that this petrified ship was indeed sailing and towing the peninsula, one cannot trust these flights of fantasy, obviously it is not impossible, one has witnessed even more difficult feats, but as it happens the ship's stern is facing out to sea as if ironically, no reputable vessel would ever sail backward. Pedro Orce stood up, he now feels cold, and the dog has jumped onto the parapet, Time we were going home, master, you're rather old for these late nights, if you didn't go in for them when you were young, it's too late now.