José Saramago - All the Names

Back at home, Senhor José's prime concern was for the clothes kept in the niche that he used as a wardrobe. They had been dirty before, but now were transformed into pure filth, exuding a sour smell mingled with a whiff of mould, there was even mildew growing in the cuffs of his pants, imagine it, a dank bundle, jacket, shirt, trousers, socks, underwear, all wrapped in a raincoat, which, at the time, had been dripping wet, what condition would you expect to find it in after a whole week. He stuffed the clothes into a large plastic bag, made sure that the record cards and the notebook were still safely tucked away between the mattress and the base of the bed, the notebook at the head, the record cards at the foot, he checked that the communicating door with the Central Registry was locked, and finally, weary, but with his mind at rest, he set off for a nearby laundry of which he was a customer, although hardly one of the most frequent. The woman there could not or did not care to conceal a reproving look when she emptied out the contents of the bag onto the counter, I'm sorry but anyone would think these clothes had been dragged through the mud, You're not far wrong, since Senhor José had to He, he decided to do so within the bounds of possibility, Two weeks ago, when I was bringing you these clothes to be cleaned, the bag suddenly burst and all the clothes fell into a big muddy puddle caused by the road-work they were doing at the time, you remember how much it rained then, And why didn't you bring the clothes in at once, I was confined to bed with the flu, I couldn't risk leaving the house, I could have caught pneumonia, It's going to cost you quite a bit more, it'll have to go in the machine twice, and even then, Never mind, And these trousers, have you seen the state these trousers are in, is it really worth having them cleaned, I mean the knees are all worn, it looks as if you'd been rubbing against a wall in them. Senhor José had not noticed the terrible state in which the climb had left his poor trousers, almost worn through at the knees, with a small tear on one of the legs, a serious matter for a person like him, so ill provided with clothes. Is there nothing you can do about it, he asked, Oh, I can do something about it, but they'll have to be sent to an invisible mender, I don't know of any, Oh, we can deal with that for you, but it's not going to be cheap, these invisible menders charge quite a bit, It'll be better than being without a pair of trousers, Or else we could patch them, If they were patched, I'd only be able to use them at home, I'd never be able to wear them to work, No, of course not, You see I work for the Central Registry, Ah, you work for the Central Registry, said the woman with a new tone of respect in her voice that Senhor José thought it best to ignore, regretting having been so indiscreet as to admit for the first time where he worked, a truly professional burglar would not go around scattering clues like that, what if the woman in the laundry were married to the man in the hardware store where Senhor José went to buy the glass cutter or the butcher's where he bought the lard, and then that night, during one of those banal conversations with which husbands and wives pass the evening, one of them were suddenly to mention these small episodes from daily commercial life, other criminals, convinced that they were above all suspicion, have gone to prison for far less. Anyway, there didn't seem to be much danger there, not unless the woman was concealing some abject, treacherous intention behind the words she was saying to him now, with a kind smile, that this time they'd give him a special price, with the laundry paying for the invisible mender, Seeing that the gentleman works for the Central Registry, she explained. Senhor José thanked her politely but uneffusively and left. He felt unhappy. He was leaving too many trails about the city, talking with too many people, this was not the kind of investigation he had imagined, to tell the truth he hadn't actually imagined anything, the idea had just occurred to him now, the idea of looking for and finding the unknown woman with no one knowing anything about his activities, as if it were a question of one invisible being seeking out another. Instead of that closed secret, that absolute mystery, there were already two people, the wife with the jealous husband and the elderly lady in the ground-floor apartment, who knew what he was up to, and that, in itself, was already a danger, for example, let us suppose that either of them, with the praiseworthy aim of helping him in his search, as befits a good citizen, should appear at the Central Registry during his absence, I'd like to speak to Senhor José, Senhor José isn't here, he's on holiday, Oh, that's a shame, I've got some important information for him about the person he was looking for, What information, what person, Senhor José didn't even want to think about what would follow, the rest of the conversation between the woman with the jealous husband and the senior clerk, I found a journal underneath a loose floorboard in my room, You mean a magazine, No, sir, a journal, a diary, the kind of thing some people like to keep, I used to keep one before I got married, And what's that got to do with us, here at the Central Registry we're only interested in knowing who's born and who dies, Perhaps the diary I found belongs to some relative of the person that Senhor José has been looking for, I didn't know Senhor José was looking for anyone, besides, it's not a matter that affects the Central Registry the Central Registry does not get involved in the private lives of its staff, It's not private, Senhor José told me he was acting on behalf of the Central Registry, Wait there and I'll call the deputy, but when the deputy came over to the counter, the elderly lady from the ground-floor apartment was already leaving, life had taught her that the best way to protect your own secrets is to respect other people's, When Senhor José gets back from his holidays, would you mind telling him that the old lady from the ground-floor apartment was here, Don't you want to leave your name, It's not necessary, he'll know who I am. Senhor José could breathe easily, the lady in the ground-floor apartment was discretion itself, she would never tell the deputy that she had just received a letter from her goddaughter, The flu has addled my brains, he thought, these are just fantasies, there aren't any diaries hidden beneath floorboards, and, after a silence of so many years, she wouldn't suddenly think to write a letter to her godmother, just as well the old lady had the good sense not to give her name, the Central Registry would only have to get hold of that one loose thread to find out everything, the copying of the record cards, the forging of the letter, it would be as easy for them as putting together a jigsaw puzzle while looking at the picture on the lid of the box. Senhor José went back home, on that first day he preferred not to follow the advice the deputy had given him, to go for walks, go to a garden and feel the good sun on his pale convalescent's face, in a word, to recover the strength that the fever had drained from him. He needed to decide what steps he should take from then on, but he needed above all to quell an anxiety. He had left his small house there at the mercy of the Central Registry, clinging to the monstrous wall as if it were about to be swallowed up by it. There must have been some remnant of fever lingering in his brain for that idea to occur to him, that this was what had happened to the other staff houses, all devoured by the Central Registry so that it could extend its walls. Senhor José quickened his step, if, when he got there, the house had disappeared, and the record cards and the notebook along with it, he didn't even want to imagine such a misfortune, the efforts of weeks all reduced to nothing, the dangers he had gone through all in vain. Curious people would be there asking him if he had lost anything of value in the disaster, and he would say yes, Some papers, and they would ask again, Shares, Bonds, Credits, that's the first thing that would occur to ordinary people, people with no spiritual horizons, their thoughts are all concerned with material interests and gains, he would say yes, mentally giving different meanings to those words, they would be his share in other people's lives, the bonds he had begun to form, the credit he had gained.