José Saramago - The History of the Siege of Lisbon

No woman lives in this house. Twice weekly a woman comes from outside, but do not imagine that the empty side of the bed has anything to do with these visits, they meet other needs, and let it be said here and now, that in order to satisfy more pressing urges, the proof-reader goes down to the city, hires a woman, relieves himself and pays, he has always had to pay, no other solution, even when he did not get any satisfaction, for that word has more than one meaning contrary to popular belief. The woman who does not live in is what we might call a daily help, she does his washing, tidies up and does the essential chores, prepares a large pot of soup, always the same, white beans with greens, which will last for several days, not because the proof-reader does not like other food, but this was catered for by going to restaurants, which he frequents from time to time, without making a habit of it. So there is no woman in this house, nor has there ever been. The proof-reader Raimundo Benvindo Silva is a bachelor and has no intention of getting married, I'm in my fifties, he says, who is going to love me at my age, or who am I going to love, although, as everyone knows, it is easier to love than be loved, and this last comment, which sounds like the echo of some past sorrow, now transformed into a precept for the benefit of the presumptuous, this comment, as well as the preceding question, he addresses to himself, for he is much too reserved a man to go around pouring out his heart to those friends and acquaintances he is bound to have, although there will probably be no need to bring them into the story, judging from thè way it is going. He has no brothers or sisters, his parents had died in due course, his relatives, if there are any left, have dispersed, and whenever he receives any news of them, it scarcely brings any reassurance, happiness has gone, there is little point in mourning, and the only thing really close to him are the proofs he is reading, for so long as they might last, the error he must ferret out, and also the odd problem that might arise, although best to let the authors cope since they are the ones who take all the credit, such as this nagging doubt about deadly slings which has come back to haunt him and refuses to go away. Raimundo Silva finally got up, searched for his babouches with his feet, Slippers, slippers, which is the proper term, and he moved into his study while pulling his dressing-gown over his pyjamas. From time to time, the charlady makes some solemn declaration about the need to remove the dust from his books, especially on the upper shelves, where he has placed the ones he rarely consults, the dust is more like an alluvial deposit that has accumulated throughout the centuries, a dust as black as ashes that has come from who knows where, it cannot have been caused by tobacco smoke, because the proof-reader gave up smoking ages ago, it is the dust of time, and there is nothing more to be said. Yet for some reason which remains unclear, the task is always being postponed, one suspects to the satisfaction of his charlady who, absolved ill her own eyes by good intentions, never fails to remind him, You can't blame me.

Raimundo searches in the dictionaries and encyclopaedias, he consults Weapons, The Middle Ages, he consults War Machines, and finds the common terms for the primitive arms of the time, suffice it to say that in those days you could not kill the man you were aiming at if he were two hundred paces away, a serious loss, beyond comparison, and when it came to hunting, unless he possessed a bow or crossbow, the hunter had to grapple bare-handed with a bear or the antlers of a stag or the tusks of a wild boar, the only sport involving such dangerous risks nowadays is bullfighting and the toreadors are the last of those ancient warriors. No explanation is to be found anywhere in these weighty volumes, no drawing provides even the vaguest idea of what this deadly weapon looked like that so terrified the Moors, but this lack of information is nothing new for Raimundo Silva, what he now wants to know is why the sling was called balear à funda, and he goes from book to book, searches over and over again, loses his patience, until finally, the precious and inestimable Bouillet informs him that the inhabitants of the Balearic Islands were considered in ancient times to be the best archers in the world, that was the obvious explanation, and this is how these islands came to get their name, for the Greek word meaning to shoot is ballô, nothing could be clearer, any run-of-the-mill proof-reader is capable of spotting the direct etymological link between ballô and Balearic, the mistake in the Portuguese, Sir, having been to describe the sling as balear when balearica would have been more correct. But Raimundo Silva will not amend it, old habits die hard, usage sometimes becomes law, if not always, and the first of the ten commandments observed by a proof-reader aspiring to sanctity is that you must always try to avoid upsetting the author. He put the book back in its place, opened the window, and at that moment felt the mist on his face, thick, really dense, and if instead of the towers of the cathedral the minaret of the great mosque was still standing, he certainly would not be able to see it, the minaret was so slender, ethereal, almost immaterial, and then, if this were the hour, the muezzin's voice would come down from the white sky, directly from Allah, for once singing his own praises, something we cannot entirely censure him for, being who He is, He must surely know Himself.

It was mid-morning when the telephone rang. A call from the publisher who wanted to know how the proofs were coming along, the first to speak was Monica from the Production department, who, like everyone else working in this section, has a tendency to speak in the following high-faluting terms, Senhor Silva, she said, Production wishes to inquire, it is almost as if we were hearing, Your Royal Highness should know, and she repeats as court heralds used to repeat, Production wishes to inquire about the proofs, how soon do you expect to deliver them, but despite all the years they have known each other, Monica has not yet realised that Raimundo Silva hates being addressed simply as Silva, not because he finds the name as common as that of Santo or Sousa, but because he feels the absence of that Raimundo, therefore he replied curtly, unfairly offending Monica, sensitive creature that she is, Tell them the work will be ready tomorrow, I shall tell them, Senhor Silva, I shall tell them, and before she could say another word the telephone was snatched from her hand by someone else, Costa speaking, Raimundo Silva here, the proof-reader managed to reply, Yes, I know, the point is that I need the proofs today, my schedule is getting out of hand, and unless I get the book to the printers by tomorrow morning all hell will be let loose, and just because you're late with the proofs, Given the type of book, content, and number of pages, the proof-reading has taken no longer than you might expect, Don't you tell me what I should expect, I want the work finished, Costa had raised his voice, a sign that one of the bosses must be within hearing, a director, perhaps even the owner himself. Raimundo Silva took a deep breath and pointed out, Proofs corrected in a hurry invariably leads to mistakes, And books that come out late prejudice sales, clearly, the owner must be listening in on the conversation, but Costa goes on to say, Let me tell you that it's preferable to let a couple of misprints pass than to lose a day's business, no, the owner is not present, nor the director, nor the boss, otherwise Costa would not so readily have approved of misprints for the sake of getting the book out quickly. It's a question of criteria, replied Raimundo Silva, but the implacable Costa warned him, Don't talk to me about criteria, I know all too well what your criteria are, and as for mine, they are quite simple, I need those proofs without fail by tomorrow, so it's up to you, the ball is in your court, I've already explained to Monica that the work will be ready by tomorrow, It must be at the press by tomorrow, It'll be there, you can send someone to collect it at eight o'clock, That's much too early, at that hour the press is still closed, Then send for them whenever you like, I have no more time to waste, and he rang off. Raimundo is accustomed to Costa's insolence which he does not take to heart, rudeness without malice in the case of poor Costa, who never stops talking about the Production, one has to keep to a strict schedule in Production, yes, Sir, says he, there may be authors, translators and proof-readers and jacket designers involved, but if it weren't for our little Production team, I'd like to see what all their skills would achieve, a publishing house is like a football team, some showy moves on the forward line up front, lots of passes, much dribbling, lots of headers, but if the goalkeeper turns out to be paralysed or rheumaticky, all is lost, farewell championship, and Costa sums it up, this time with algebraic precision, In publishing, the Production department is like the goalkeeper of a football team. Costa is right.