José Saramago - The History of the Siege of Lisbon

Raimundo Silva turned the corner leading into the Rua do Milagre de Santo Antonio and passing in front of his house, perhaps because he was only semi-consciously listening to the sounds around him, had the fleeting impression that he could hear a telephone ringing, Could it be mine, he wondered, but the sound was coming from nearby, it might have been in the barber's shop on the other side of the street, and just then another possibility comes to mind, how careless of him, how utterly stupid to imagine that Costa would necessarily use the telephone, Who knows, he might be about to arrive at any minute, and his imagination, ever obliging, conjured up the scene, Costa at the wheel of his car, driving at full speed up the Rua do Limoeiro, the screeching of his tyres still hovering in the air as he takes the bend round the cathedral, unless Raimundo Silva gets out of the way, Costa will loom into sight with his engine roaring, braking abruptly at the entrance to his apartment and say breathlessly, Get in, get in, we must have a chat, no, I can't discuss these matters here, for despite everything Costa is well-mannered, incapable of creating a scene in public. The proof-reader waits no longer, he rapidly descends the Escadinhas de'São Crispim and only pauses for breath after turning the bend where he is concealed from Costa's searching eyes. He sits on a step to recover from his fright, shoos away a dog that has come up to him, its nose outstretched to catch his scent, and removes from his inside pocket the four pages he has extracted from the bundle of proofs, he unfolds them and smooths them out on his lap.

The idea, which came to him as he watched the roof-tops descending like steps as far as the river, is to follow the lay-out of the Moorish fortifications according to the scant and rather dubious information provided by the historian, as he himself had the good grace to acknowledge. But here, right before Raimundo Silva's eyes is a fragment, if not of the indestructible rampart itself, at least of a wall occupying the same space where the other stood, and descending all the way down the steps beneath a row of broad windows surmounted by tall gables. Raimundo Silva, therefore, is on the outer side of the city, he belongs to the besieging army, and it would only take one of those windows to open for a Moorish girl to appear and start singing, This is proud Lisbon, Impregnable, Here the Christian will meet his perdition, and on finishing her song, she taps disdainfully on the window, but unless the proof-reader's eyes are deceiving him, the muslin curtain has been drawn back ever so discreetly, and this simple gesture was enough to mitigate any threat in those words, if we take them literally, for it might well be that Lisbon, contrary to all appearances, was not a city but a woman, and the perdition simply amorous, assuming that the restrictive adverb has some meaning here, and that this is not the only blissful perdition. The dog drew near once more, now Raimundo Silva looks at it nervously, who knows it might have rabies, for he once read, he no longer remembers where, that one of the signs of the dreaded disease is a drooping tail, and this one looks rather limp, probably because it has been ill-treated, for the animal's ribs are sticking out, another sign, but this one decisive, is that unsightly saliva trickling down the fauces and fangs, but this mongrel, is only drooling because of the smell of food being cooked here on the Escadinhas de'São Crispim. The dog, let us rest assured, does not have rabies, perhaps if we were living in the time of the Moors, but nowadays, in a city like this, modern, hygienic, organised, even the sight of a stray dog comes as a surprise, it has probably escaped the net because of its preference for this remote, uphill route, which calls for nimble feet and the vigour of youth, blessings which do not necessarily coincide in dog-catchers.

Raimundo Silva goes on consulting the pages, mentally following the itinerary, and a stealthy glance at the dog suddenly reminds him of the historian's description of the horrors of famine endured by the beleaguered for months on end, neither dog nor cat survived, even the rats disappeared, but if this was so, then surely the man was right who said that a dog barked that serene dawn when the muezzin climbed the minaret to summon the faithful to morning prayers, and the man was mistaken who argued that because the dog was unclean, the Moors could not bear to have the animal in their sight, now let us concede that they banned dogs from their houses and deprived them of caresses and feeding-bowls, but never from vast Islam, for truly, if we are capable of living in harmony with our own impurities, why should we so vehemently reject the impurities of others, in this case, of the canine species, therefore, much more innocent than those of humans, who so thoroughly abuse the term dog, an insult hurled right and left at enemies, by Christians abusing Moslems, by Moslems abusing Christians, and by both parties abusing the Jews. Not to mention those whom we know best, those Portuguese noblemen coming yonder, so preoccupied and besotted with their hounds and mastiffs that they are given to sleeping with them, with as much or even greater pleasure than with their concubines, and yet, as you will see, the worst name they can call their most implacable enemy is Dog, there would appear to be no greater insult, except for Son of a Bitch. And all this has come about through the arbitrary criteria of men, they are the ones who create words, the animals, poor things, are unaware of these semantic subtleties as they listen to the quarrelling, Dog, says the Moor, You're the dog, retorts the Christian, and next minute they are fighting with lance, sword and dagger, while the hounds and mastiffs say to each other, We are the dogs, nor does it bother them in the least.

Having decided the route he must take, Raimundo Silva gets to his feet, shakes the dust from his breeches and begins to descend the steps. The dog has followed him, but keeps his distance, like someone accustomed to being stoned, and the man only has to bend down and pretend he is picking up a stone and the dog takes fright. At the bottom of the steps, the dog hesitated, and appeared to be asking himself, Should I or should I not go any further, but decided to carry on following the proof-reader who is making his way down the Calçada do Correio Velho. Somewhere around here, or a little further on, corresponding to the borders of the district of'Sâo Crispim, the rampart descended on the right, presumably as far as the famous Porta de Ferro, attributed by some to a certain Ferro, but of which no trace remains, perhaps if we were to remove this modern paving in the Largo de Santo Antonio in front of the Cathedral, and dig deep down, we should discover the foundations of the period, the rusted remains of ancient weapons, the stench of a tomb, the entangled skeletons of warriors, not lovers, who shouted in unison, Dog, and then proceeded to kill each other. Cars pass up and down, the trams creak round the bend of the Madalena, they are on the 28 route, particularly esteemed by film directors, and yonder, turning in front of the Cathedral, goes another bus full of tourists, they must be French and imagine they are in Spain. The dog is wary about crossing, the world best known to him are those streets further up the hill, and although he can see the man looking back as he descends the Rua da Padaria, along which the walls of the rampart would have extended, centuries ago, as far as the Rua dos Bacalhoeiros, he does not dare to go on, perhaps the fear he now experiences is too unbearable as he recalls some terrifying event in the past, cats doused with cold water take fright, and dogs as well. The dog returns by the same route, returns to the Escadinhas de'São Crispim, waiting for someone else to turn up.

The proof-reader is taking another look, he enters by the Arco Escuro in order to examine the stairway which the historian claims was one of the points of access to the battlements of the stockade, or rather, this stairway, the steps of which have only been in existence for three generations, is located where the original one stood. Raimundo Silva carefully examines the dark windows, the grimy façades eroded by saltpetre, the tiled insets, this one dated one thousand seven hundred and sixty-four, with St Anne teaching her daughter Mary how to write, and medallions on either side depicting St Martial, who wards off fire, and St Antony who restores earthenware jugs and is something of a wizard when it comes to finding lost objects. The inscription, in the absence of any authentic certificate, is the next best thing, if the date it carries, which we have no reason to doubt, is that of the year when the edifice was built, nine years after the earthquake. The proof-reader studies the information he has gathered and finds it has been much enriched, so when he returns to the Rua dos Bacalhoeiros, he will look with disdain upon those ignorant passers-by, who show no interest in the curiosities of the city and life, and who are quite incapable of making any connection between these two explicit dates. But shortly, when he arrives before the Arco das Portas do Mar, thinking to himself that the ñame deserved some other architectural commemoration, and not the prosaic name-plate of customs officials, reflecting at that moment on the discrepancy between the word and its meaning, he observed himself and disapproved of what he saw, After all, what right do I have to pass judgment on others, I have lived in Lisbon all my life and it has never occurred to me to come and see with my own eyes things described in books, things that I have often looked at time and time again, without actually seeing them, as blind as the muezzin, and were it not for this threat from Costa, I should probably never have thought of checking the lay-out of the wall, the gates, which I now recognise as belonging to the fortress of Dom Fernando, obviously by the time I have finished my stroll I shall know more, but it is also true that I'll know less, in other words, let's see if I can explain myself, this awareness of knowing more, brings me to an awareness of knowing little, besides, one is tempted to ask what it means to know, the historian was right, I ought to have been a philosopher, one of those admirable philosophers who can pick up a skull and spend the rest of their lives probing its importance in this world and wondering if there is any good reason why the world should concern itself with a skull, and now we come, ladies and gentlemen, tourists, travellers, or those of you who are merely curious, says the indispensable guide, to the Arco da Conceiçao, where once stood the celebrated fountain known as the Preguiça, whose refreshing waters have abated the thirst and any desire to work of so many people right up to the present day.