José Saramago - Double

After all the doubts as to the most prudent way to tell his mother about the thorny problem of his absolute twin, or to use a more popular and somewhat vulgar expression, his spitting image, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso was now reasonably convinced that he had managed to get around the difficulty without leaving behind him too many anxieties. He had been unable to prevent the subject of Maria da Paz from resurfacing, but he was surprised when he remembered something that had happened during the conversation, at the point where he had said that it would be best to finish the relationship once and for all, for, precisely at that moment, when he had uttered that apparently irremissible sentence, he had felt a kind of inner lassitude, a half-conscious longing for abdication, as if a voice in his head were trying to make him see that his obstinacy was nothing but the last redoubt behind which he was still struggling with a repressed desire to raise the white flag of unconditional surrender. If that's true, he thought, I'm under a strict obligation to reflect seriously on the matter, to analyze this fear and indecision that is probably just left over from my first marriage, and to resolve once and for all, for my own sake, what it means to care about a person so much that you want to live with her, because the truth is I didn't even think about it when I got married, and the same truth requires me to confess that, deep down, what frightens me is the possibility of failing again. These praiseworthy resolutions occupied Tertuliano Máximo Afonso's journey, alternating with fleeting images of António Claro, whom his thoughts, oddly enough, refused to represent as being as identical as he actually was, as if, against all the evidence of the facts, they were refusing to accept his existence. He also remembered fragments of the conversations he had had with him, especially the conversation in the house in the country, but with a strange sense of distance and indifference, as if none of it had anything to do with him, as if it were a story he had read once in a book of which all that remained were a few loose pages. He had promised his mother he would never meet António Claro again and so it would be, no one would be able to accuse him tomorrow of having taken a single step in that direction. His life is going to change. He will phone Maria da Paz as soon as he gets home. I should have called her while I was away, an unforgivable lack of consideration on my part, even if only to find out how her mother was, that was the very least I could have done, especially when she might well be about to become my mother-in-law. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso smiled at a prospect that, only twenty-four hours before, would have set his nerves jangling, the holiday has clearly been good for mind and body, it has clarified his ideas, he's a new man. He arrived in the late afternoon, parked the car outside the door of the apartment building, and then, nimble, lithe, and in the best of moods, as if he had not just driven more than four hundred kilometers nonstop, he walked up the stairs as lightly as an adolescent, not even noticing the weight of his suitcase, which, as is only natural, was heavier returning than it had been going, and he very nearly danced into his apartment. In accordance with the traditional conventions of the literary genre known in Portuguese as the romance, or novel, and which will continue to be called thus until someone comes up with a term more in keeping with its current configuration, this cheery description, organized as a simple sequence of narrative events in which, quite deliberately, not a single negative note was struck, would be cunningly placed there in preparation for a complete contrast, which, depending on the writer's intentions, could be dramatic, brutal, or terrifying, for example, a murder victim lying on the floor in a pool of blood, a convention of souls from the next world, a swarm of furious drones in heat who mistake the history teacher for the queen bee, or, worse still, all of this combined into a single nightmare, for, as has been demonstrated ad nauseam, the imagination of the Western novelist knows no limits, or, rather, it hasn't since the days of the aforementioned Homer, who, when one thinks about it, was the very first novelist. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso's apartment opened its arms to him like a second mother, and with the voice of the air it murmured, Come, my son, here I am waiting for you, I am your castle and your fortress, no power can prevail over me, because I am yours even when you are absent, and even if I lay in ruins, I would still be the place that once was yours. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso put his suitcase down on the floor and turned on the overhead light. The living room was tidy, there wasn't a speck of dust on the furniture, it is a great and solemn truth that men, even those who live alone, never manage to separate themselves entirely from women, and we are not thinking now of Maria da Paz, who, for her own personal and dubious reasons would, despite everything, agree, but the upstairs neighbor, who spent all morning yesterday here cleaning, with as much care and attention as if the apartment were hers, or with more care, probably. The light on the answering machine is blinking. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso sits down to listen. The first call to leap out at him was from the headmaster, hoping that he was enjoying the holidays and wanting to know how the proposal for the ministry was getting on, Not, of course, that this should in any way affect your legitimate right to a rest after such a hard school year, the second brought him the slow, paternal voice of the mathematics teacher, nothing important, just to ask how his depression was faring and suggesting that a long, leisurely trip around the country, in good company, would perhaps be the best therapy for what ailed him, the third call was the one that António Claro had left the other day, the one that began, Hello, it's António Claro here, I don't suppose you were expecting a call from me, it was enough for his voice to ring out around that previously tranquil living room for it to become clear that the traditional conventions of the novel we mentioned above are not, after all, merely a hackneyed solution used by unimaginative narrators, but a literary resultant of the great cosmic equilibrium, because the universe, which, ever since it began, has been a system entirely lacking any form of organizing intelligence, has, nevertheless, had more than enough time to learn through its own infinitely multiplying experiences, and, as is evident from the endless spectacle of life, has produced an infallible compensatory mechanism that will require only a little more time to prove that any slight delay in the functioning of its gears has not the slightest impact on what really matters, for it makes no odds whether one has to wait a minute or an hour, a year or a century. Let us remember the excellent mood in which Tertuliano Máximo Afonso arrived home, let us remember, again, that in accordance with the traditional conventions of the novel, backed up by the clear existence of that universal compensatory mechanism to which we have just made such well-founded reference, he should have come face-to-face with something that would simultaneously destroy his happiness and plunge him into the depths of despair, pain, fear, of everything that we know one can meet when turning a corner or putting a key in a door. The monstrous terrors we described earlier were mere examples, it could have been those terrors or it could have been something far worse, and yet it was none of them, the apartment opened its maternal arms to the owner, said a few pleasing words, of the kind all houses are capable of saying, but which, mostly, their inhabitants do not know how to hear, in short, let us waste no more words, it seemed that nothing could spoil Tertuliano Máximo Afonso's happy return home. Pure illusion, pure confusion, pure fantasy. The wheels of the cosmic machinery had been transported into the electronic workings of the answering machine, waiting for a finger to come and press the button that would open the door of the cage of the last and most terrible of monsters, not the bloody corpse on the floor, not the incorporeal convention of ghosts, not the buzzing, libidinous cloud of drones, but the studied, persuasive voice of António Claro, his urgent entreaties, please, can we meet again, please, we have lots of things to say to each other, when we, here, on this side, are witnesses to the fact that, only yesterday, at this very hour, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso was promising his mother never to have anything to do with the man, either by meeting him in person or by phoning him to tell him that what's done is done and asking him, please, to leave him in peace and quiet. We energetically applauded that decision, but let us for a moment, and to do so we have only to put ourselves in his shoes, let us feel compassion for the nervous state in which the phone message has left poor Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, his forehead once more bathed in sweat, his hands again shaking, and the entirely new feeling that the roof is about to fall in on him at any moment. The light on the answering machine is still blinking, a sign that there are still one or two more messages inside. Reeling from the shock of hearing António Claro's message, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso had stopped the tape and now trembles to know what other messages there might be, possibly that same voice, scornfully taking his agreement as read, arranging the day, hour, and place of another meeting. He got up from the chair, and from the dejected state into which he had fallen, he went into the bedroom to get some fresh clothes but then changed his mind, what he most needs is a cold shower that will shake him up and reinvigorate him, that will wash away down the drain the black clouds hanging over his head and so dimming his reason that it has not even occurred to him until now that the next message, or at least one of them, might be from Maria da Paz. The idea has just now occurred to him, and it was as if a long-delayed blessing had just descended from the shower, as if another purifying shower, not the one enjoyed by those three naked women on the balcony, but the one enjoyed by this man, shut up alone in the precarious safety of his apartment, were, with the flow of water and soap, compassionately freeing his body from grime and his soul from fear. He thought about Maria da Paz with a kind of nostalgic serenity, as a ship might think of its last port of call before it set out on its voyage around the world. Washed and dried, refreshed and dressed in clean clothes, he returned to the living room to hear the remaining messages. He began by erasing those left by the headmaster and the mathematics teacher, which were not worth preserving, then, frowning, he listened again to António Claro's, which he also removed with a sharp tap on the appropriate button, and, finally, he settled down to listen to what might follow. The fourth call was made by someone who chose not to speak, it lasted an eternity of thirty seconds, but from the other end came not a whisper, no music played in the background, there was not even the slightest inadvertent exhalation, far less any deliberate, heavy breathing, as deployed in the cinema to raise audience anxiety levels. Don't tell me it's that same guy again, thought Tertuliano Máximo Afonso angrily, while he waited for the person to hang up. It wasn't him, it couldn't be, anyone who had just left such a prolix message would clearly not make another, totally silent call. The fifth and final message was from Maria da Paz, It's me, she said, as if there were no other person in the world who could say, It's me, knowing they would be recognized, I assume you'll be coming home about now, I hope you've had a good rest, I did think you might phone me from your mother's house, but I should have known better than to expect such things from you, anyway, it doesn't matter, I just wanted to leave you a few friendly words of welcome, give me a call when you feel like it, whenever you want to, but not because you feel obliged to, that would be bad for you and for me, sometimes, I imagine how wonderful it would be if you were to phone me just because you felt like it, like someone who suddenly feels thirsty and goes and drinks a glass of water, but I know that would be asking too much of you, never pretend a thirst you don't feel, sorry, I didn't mean to say all this, I just wanted to say that I hoped you'd got home safely and were in good health, oh, and while we're on the subject, my mother is much better, she's started going to Mass again and does her own shopping, in a few days, she should be as good as new, I send you a kiss, and an other, and another. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso rewound the tape and replayed the message, at first, with the smug smile of someone listening to praise and flattery which he appears to feel perfectly confident that he deserves, gradually, though, his face grew serious, then thoughtful, then worried, he had suddenly remembered what his mother had said, I just hope she's there when you wake up, and these words are echoing around in his mind now like the last warning of a Cassandra grown weary of being ignored. He looked at his watch, Maria da Paz should be back from the bank. He gave her another fifteen minutes and then rang. Hello, she said, It's me, he said, At last, Yes, I got back less than an hour ago, just time enough to have a shower and to be sure that I'd catch you at home, You heard the message I left you, Yes, Oh, dear, because I have the feeling I said things I shouldn't have said, For example, Well, I can't remember exactly what, but it was as if I were asking you for the n th time just to notice me, and however much I swear it won't happen again, I always end up saying the same humiliating things, Don't use that word, it's really not fair on you or even on me, Call it what you like, but I see clearly now that this situation can't go on, otherwise I'll end up losing the little self-respect I still have, It will go on, What, are you telling me that our misunderstandings will continue as they have until now, that there'll be no end to my pathetic conversations with a wall that doesn't even give back an echo, No, I'm telling you I love you, Look, I've heard you say those words before, especially in bed, before, during, but never afterward, But it's true, I do love you, Please, please, don't torment me anymore, Listen, All right, I'm listening, all I've ever wanted is to listen to you, Our life is going to change, I don't believe you, Believe me, you have to, And you take care what you say to me, don't give me hopes today that you can't or won't want to fulfill tomorrow, Neither of us knows what the future will bring, that's why I'm asking you now, on this particular day, to give me your trust, And why come to me today asking me for something you have already, Because I want to live with you, I want us to live together, It can't be true what I've just heard, I must be dreaming, Well, I'm quite happy to say it again if you want me to, On condition that you use exactly the same words, Because I want to live with you, I want us to live together, This is just not possible, people don't change from one hour to the next, what's been going on in that head and heart of yours for you to be asking me to come and live with you, when up until now your one concern has been to make it absolutely clear that nothing could be further from your thoughts and that I shouldn't get my hopes up, People can change from one hour to the next but still be the same person, So you really do want us to live together, Yes, And you love Maria da Paz enough to want to live with her, Yes, Tell me again, Yes, yes, yes, That's enough, you're making me breathless, I might explode, Be careful, please, I want you in one piece, Do you mind if I tell my mother, she's spent her whole life waiting for this happy moment, Of course I don't mind, although she's not exactly crazy about me, The poor thing had her reasons, you kept stalling, you wouldn't make a decision, she wanted her daughter to be happy, and I didn't show much evidence of that, mothers are all the same, Do you want to know what my mother said yesterday when we were talking about you, What, She said I just hope she's still there when you wake up, Presumably those were the words you needed to hear, They were, You woke up and I was still here, I don't know for how much longer, but I was, Tell your mother she can sleep easy from now on, But I won't be able to sleep a wink, When can we see each other, Tomorrow, as soon as I leave work, I'll take a taxi and come straight there, You will hurry, Yes, right into your arms. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso put down the phone, closed his eyes, and heard Maria da Paz laughing and shouting, Mama, Mama, then saw the two women embracing and instead of shouts there were murmurs, instead of laughter, tears, sometimes we ask ourselves why happiness took so long to arrive, why it didn't come sooner, but appears suddenly, as now, when we've given up hope of it ever arriving, it's likely then that we won't know what to do, and rather than it being a question of choosing between laughter and tears, we will be filled by a secret anxiety to which we might not know how to respond at all. As if returning to forgotten habits, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso went into the kitchen to see if he could find something to eat. The eternal cans, he thought. Stuck to the fridge was a note that said in large letters, in red so that they wouldn't be missed, there's soup in the fridge, it was from his upstairs neighbor, bless her, for once the cans could wait. Exhausted by the journey, worn out by emotion, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso went to bed before eleven o'clock. He tried to read a page about Mesopotamian civilizations, but twice the book fell from his hands, in the end, he turned out the light and settled down to sleep. He was just drifting slowly off when Maria da Paz came and whispered in his ear, How wonderful it would be if you were to phone me just because you felt like it. She would probably have said the rest of the sentence too, but he had already got out of bed, pulled on his dressing gown over his pajamas, and was dialing her number. Maria da Paz asked, Is that you, and he replied, Yes, it's me, I was thirsty and I've come to ask for a glass of water.