José Saramago: The Stone Raft

The travelers learned of this collective pregnancy from radio reports and newspaper stories, and television programs spoke of nothing else. Journalists had only to catch a woman cm the street and they were shoving a microphone into her face and bombarding her with questions, how and when did it happen, what name was she going to give the baby, poor woman, with the camera devouring her alive, she blushed and stammered, the only thing she did not do was to invoke the constitution because she knew they would not take her seriously. Among the travelers on the wagon there was renewed tension, after all, if all the women of the peninsula are suddenly pregnant, these two women here are not saying a word about their own mishap and one can understand their silence, if they were to confess that they are pregnant, Pedro Orce would include himself on the list of possible fathers and the harmony they restored with such difficulty last time might not survive a second blow. One evening, then, as Joana Carda and Maria Guavaira were serving dinner to the men, they said with a wry smile, Just imagine, all the women in Spain and Portugal are pregnant and here we are with no hope at all. Let us accept this momentary pretense, let us grant that José Anaiço and Joaquim Sassa may disguise their annoyance, the annoyance of the male who sees his sexual potency called into question, and the worst of it is that the women's feigned sarcasm may well have struck a nerve, for if it is true that they are both pregnant, it is also true that nobody knows by whom. With so many unanswered questions, this pretense has certainly not relieved the tension, in the fullness of time it will become clear that Maria Guavaira and Joana Carda were pregnant after all, despite their denial. What explanation will they offer, for the truth always awaits us, the day arrives when it must be faced.

Visibly embarrassed, the Prime Ministers of both countries appeared on television, not that there was any reason to feel awkward when speaking of the demographic explosion that would be evident in the peninsula nine months hence, twelve or fifteen million children born almost at the same hour, crying out in chorus to the light, the peninsula transformed into maternity ward, happy mothers, smiling fathers, at least in those cases where there appears to be sufficient certainty. It is even possible to gain some political advantage from this aspect of the situation by pointing to the population figures, by appealing for austerity for the sake of our children's future, by going on about national cohesion and comparing this fertility with the sterility prevailing in the rest of the western world. One can only rejoice at the thought that the demographic explosion had been preceded by a genetic explosion, since no one can believe that this collective pregnancy is of a supernatural order. The Prime Minister now speaks of the health measures to be taken, of maternity services on a national scale, of the teams of doctors and midwives who will be hired and deployed at the appropriate time, and his face betrays conflicting emotions, the solemnity of his official statement vies with his urge to smile, he appears to be on the point of saying, any minute now, Sons and daughters of Portugal, the benefits we reap will be great and I trust that the pleasure has been just as great, for to bring forth children without indulging the flesh is the worst punishment of all. The men and women listen, exchange smiles and glances, they can read each other's thoughts, recall that night, that day, that hour, when driven by a sudden urge they came together and did what had to be done, beneath a sky that was slowly turning, a demented sun, a demented moon, the stars in turmoil. The first impression is that this might be illusion or dream, but when the women appear with swollen bellies, then it will be clear that we have not been dreaming.

The President of the United States of America also addressed the world. He declared that notwithstanding the peninsula's diversion toward some unknown place lying to the south, the United States would never abdicate its responsibility to civilization, freedom, and peace, although the nations of the peninsula cannot count, now that they are passing through contested spheres of influence, They cannot count, I repeat, on aid equal to what awaited them when it seemed likely that their future would become inseparable from that of the American nation. This was, more or less, his utterance to the wide world. In private, however, in the secrecy of the Oval Office of the White House, ice cubes clinking in his bourbon, the President would have confided to his advisers, If they were to be stranded in the Antarctic our worries would be over, but what will become of us, countries roaming from one place to another, no strategy can cope with it, take the bases we still have on the peninsula, what good will they be except for firing missiles at the penguins. One of his advisers would have then pointed out that if one considered it carefully, the new route was really not all that bad, They are moving down between Africa and Latin America, Mr. President, Yes, this route could be advantageous, but it could also encourage further insubordination in the region. And perhaps because of this annoying thought, the President thumps the table, upsetting the smiling portrait of the First Lady. An elderly adviser jumps with fright, looks around, and says, Do be careful, Mr. President, you can never tell what a thump like that might do.

It is no longer the flayed skin of the bull but a gigantic stone in the shape of one of those flint artifacts used by men in prehistoric times, chipped away patiently, blow by blow, until it becomes a working tool, the upper part compact and rounded to fit into the palm of the hand, the lower part pointed for the tasks of scraping, digging, cutting, marking, and designing, and also, because we have not yet learned to resist the temptation, to wound and kill. The peninsula has stopped rotating and is now falling southward, passing between Africa and Central America, as the President's adviser would have explained, and its form, to the surprise of anyone who might still have in mind or on his map its former position, matches that of the two continents on either side, we see Portugal and Galicia to the north, occupying the entire width from west to east, then the great mass starts becoming narrower, Andalusia and Valencia still jutting out on the left, the Cantabrian coast on the right, and continuing the line, the great wall of the Pyrenees. The tip of the stone, the cutting edge, is the Cape of Croesus, carried from Mediterranean waters to these threatening seas, so far from the native sky of one who was the neighbor of Cerbère, that little French town so often mentioned at the beginning of this narrative.

The peninsula is descending, but descending slowly. The experts, albeit with the utmost caution, predict that the movement is about to stop, trusting in the obvious and universal truth that if the whole, as such, never stops, the constituent parts must stop at some time, this axiom being demonstrated by human life itself, which abounds as we know in potential comparisons. With this scientific statement, the game of the century got under way, with an idea that must have emerged practically at the same time everywhere in the world, and that consisted of establishing a system for placing a double wager, on the time and place in which the suspension of movement would be verified. To take a hypothetical case to clarify the point, at 5:33:49 A.M., local time of the person betting, obviously, and the day, month, and year, and the position, this being limited to the latitude in degrees, minutes and seconds, the aforementioned Cape of Croesus serving as a point of reference. There were trillions of dollars at stake, and if someone were to guess both answers correctly, that is to say, the precise moment and the exact place, which according to the calculation of probabilities was little short of unthinkable, that person endowed with almost divine foresight would find himself in possession of greater wealth than has ever been gathered on this earth, which has seen so many riches. Nor has there ever been a more terrible game than this one, for with each passing moment, with each kilometer covered, the number of gamblers with any chance of winning is grad ually reduced, although one should note that many of those eliminated come back to wager once more, thus increasing the prize money to an astronomical figure. Of course not everyone manages to raise the money for another bet, clearly many of them find no way out of their financial ruin but suicide. The peninsula is falling southward leaving behind a trail of deaths of which it is innocent, while in the wombs of its women are growing millions of children that it innocently engendered.