José Saramago - The History of the Siege of Lisbon

Raimundo Silva has risen from his desk, he paces up and down the tiny space left in his study, moves into the corridor to rid himself as quickly as possible of another kind of tension that is getting a grip on him, and thinks aloud, This is not the problem, even though it may have provoked the conflict between the crusaders and the king, it is much more likely that all those disagreements, insults and feelings of mistrust, should we help, should we not help, stemmed from the question of payment for services, the king wants to make savings, the crusaders want rewards, but the problem I have to solve is different, when I wrote Not the crusaders went away, therefore my looking for an answer to the question is pointless, Why, in this history accepted as being true, must I myself invent another history so that it might be false and false so that it may be different. He got tired of pacing up and down the corridor, returned to his study, but did not sit down, scanned with nervous irritation the few lines that had survived the damage, six pages, one after the other had been torn up, and as for the amendments, they were like scars still waiting to heal. He realised that until he overcame the problem he would make no progress, and was surprised, accustomed as he was to books in which everything seemed fluent and spontaneous, almost essential, not because it was effectively true, but because any piece of writing, good or bad, always ends up appearing like a predetermined crystallisation, although no one can ever say how or when or why or by whom, he was surprised, as we said, for the following idea had never occurred to him, an idea which should have stemmed naturally from the previous idea, but, on the contrary, refused to emerge, or perhaps not even that, it simply was not there, did not exist even as a possibility. The seventh page was also torn up, the desk once more was clear, smooth, a tabula twice rasa, a desert, not a single idea. Raimundo Silva reached out for the proofs of the book of poems, he wavered for several more minutes between that nothing and this something, then, little by little, he began to concentrate on his work, time passed, before lunch the proofs had been revised and given another reading, ready for the publishers. Throughout the morning, the telephone had not rung, the postman scarcely ever calls at this address, and the calm in the street was rarely disturbed by the cautious passing of a car, tourist buses never come through this way, they turn into the Largo dos Lóios, and with all the rain there has been recently, few must have ventured all the way up here where there has been nothing to see except overcast skies. Raimundo Silva got to his feet, time to eat, but first he went to the bedroom window, the sky has finally cleared, it is no longer raining, and amidst the fleeting clouds patches of blue sky appear and disappear, a blue as intense as it must have been on that day, despite the difference in the time of year. For a moment, Raimundo Silva could not bring himself to go into the kitchen, heat up that eternal soup, forage amongst the tins of tuna and sardines, play about with a frying-pan or saucepan, not because he fancied eating something more elaborate, but simply, as it were, because of a sudden bout of mental apathy. But neither did he feel like going out to find a restaurant To have to study the menu, to choose between a dish and the price, to sit amongst total strangers, to handle a knife and fork, all these actions, so easy, so commonplace, struck him as being intolerable. He remembered the nearby Café Graciosa where they serve toasted sandwiches with a cheese and ham filling, acceptable even for palates more discriminating than his, and with a glass of wine and coffee to finish off, his appetite will certainly be satisfied.

Having made up his mind, he left. His coat was still damp after the drenching of the previous evening, putting it on caused him to shiver, as if he were slipping into the skin of a dead animal, and the cufís and collar were particularly uncomfortable, he ought to keep some dry clothes in reserve for such occasions, a necessity rather than a luxury, then he tried to recall whether Dr Maria Sara was wearing a long jacket or a coat when she stepped out of the elevator with the Editorial Director, but he could no longer remember, there had been no time to notice as he made his escape. This was not the first time he had thought about Dr Maria Sara throughout the morning, but before she had acted as a kind of vigilante, lodged somewhere in his mind, keeping an eye on him. Now she was someone who was moving, who was coming out of the elevator and engaged in conversation, under her coat or jacket she was wearing a tweed skirt belted at the waist, and a blouse or chemise, the name is not important since both words are of French origin, in a colour impossible to define, no, not impossible, because Raimundo Silva has already come up with the exact shade, the off-white of the sky at dawn, a colour that does not really exist in nature, since one morning can be so different from another, but that anyone who so wishes, can invent to his own liking and taste, even the blind muezzin unless he was conceived blind in his Moorish mother's womb.

In the Café Graciosa they did not serve wine by the glass. Raimundo had to wash down his buttered toast with a beer, not very appetising in this cold weather, yet somehow ended up by producing a similar effect in his body, a comforting sense of lassitude. An elderly man with white hair and the look of a retired officer was reading a newspaper at the next table. He did not appear to be in any hurry, he had almost certainly lunched at home and then installed himself here to have a coffee and read the newspaper which the owner of the Café, upholding an old tradition in Lisbon, provided for his customers. But what caught Raimundo Silva's attention was that white hair, how would he describe this shade of white, the crepuscular white of evening in contrast to the off-white of dawn, bearing in mind the man's advanced years, but that would be much too obvious, invention is all very well but it has to be justified. It has to be said, meanwhile, that Raimundo Silva was not simply preoccupied with the colour of the old man's hair, what worried him was the sudden thought that he could not really tell how many white hairs he himself might have, a fair amount or even a lot, when he had more than ten white hairs he started dyeing them, pursuing them with ferocious tenacity as if born for this one great battle. Disconcerted, stupefied, he foolishly began to wish that the time would pass quickly so that he might know his real face, the one that would appear like a new arrival, that would slowly approach, beneath hair that to begin with would be two grotesque strands, the artificial one ever more faded and short-lived, the natural one inexorably gaining ground at the roots, After all, mused Raimundo Silva, you could say that time inclines towards whiteness, and letting his imagination take over, he saw the world coming to an end, life extinguished like a huge white head swept away by the wind, leaving nothing behind except wind and whiteness. The retired officer took a mouthful of coffee, slurping as he drank, and then downed half of the brandy from the liqueur glass sitting in front of him, Aha, he exclaimed, then went on reading. Raimundo Silva felt secretly annoyed with this old fellow, almost envious of his apparent tranquillity, his ingenuous faith in the stability of the universe, it is true that the comforting effect of brandy is infinitely superior to that of beer, and note how in practice, brandy, as alcohol goes, is perfectly acceptable down to the very last drop while this beer is already going flat at the bottom of the glass, only fit for pouring down the sink like rancid water. He quickly ordered a coffee, No thanks, I don't need a digestive liqueur, the adjective used by waiters in restaurants here to describe a wide variety of cognacs and other fortified spirits, and many swear by their medicinal properties. In one gulp, the retired officer drank the rest of his brandy, Aha, and tapping the glass with the tip of his forefinger, he signalled to the waiter to pour him a refill. Raimundo Silva paid his bill and left, observing in passing that there were thin, yellowish strands in the old man's hair, perhaps the remains of dye, perhaps the definitive sign of senility, like old ivory that darkens and starts to split.