José Saramago: The Elephant's Journey

The village was of a kind not to be found anymore, if it were winter, it would have been a pigsty awash with water and asquelch with mud, now, though, it reminds one of something else, the petrified ruins of an ancient civilization, covered in dust, as happens sooner or later to all outdoor museums. They emerged into a square and there was the palace. The old man rang the bell at the service door, and after a minute or so someone opened it and the old man went in. Things were not happening as the commanding officer had imagined, but perhaps it was better that way. The old man would begin negotiations, so to speak, and then it would fall to him to explain precisely why they were there. After a good fifteen minutes, there appeared at the door a fat man sporting a large, droopy mustache resembling nothing so much as a ship's mop. The commanding officer rode over to him and addressed his first words to him from the saddle, just to keep the social demarcations absolutely clear, Are you the count's steward, At your service, sir. The commanding officer then dismounted and, showing unusual astuteness, grasped the words that the steward had presented to him as if on a plate, In that case, serving me and serving the count and his highness the king is all one, If you will be so kind as to explain what you want, sir, and as long as it does not compromise the salvation of my soul or the interests of my master, then I am your man, Neither the interests of your master nor the salvation of your soul will be put at risk by me, I can assure you, but let us get down to the matter that brings me here. He paused, beckoned to the ox-driver to join him and said, I am an officer in the king's cavalry, and the king has charged me with taking to valladolid, in spain, an elephant to be delivered to archduke maximilian of austria, who is currently a guest at the palace of his father-in-law, charles the fifth. The steward's eyes bulged and his mouth dropped open, and the commanding officer made a mental note of both these encouraging signs. Then he went on, We have with us in the convoy an ox-cart to transport bundles of forage for the elephant to eat and a water trough in which he can quench his thirst, now this cart is drawn by a pair of oxen who have, up until now, performed valiantly, but I very much fear that they will not be up to the task when it comes to climbing mountain slopes. The steward nodded, but said nothing. The commanding officer took a deep breath, leaped over a few ornamental phrases he had been lining up in his head and came straight to the point, I need another pair of oxen for the cart and I thought I might find them here, The count is not at home, and only he. The commanding officer interrupted him, You do not seem to have heard what I said, that I am here in the name of the king, it is not I who am asking you for the loan of a pair of oxen for a few days, but his highness the king of portugal, Oh, I heard you, sir, but my master, Is not at home, I know, but his steward is, and he understands his duty to the nation, The nation, sir, Have you never seen it, asked the commanding officer, launching into a lyrical flight of fancy, you see those clouds that know not where they go, they are the nation, you see that sun, which is sometimes there and sometimes not, that is the nation, you see that line of trees, where, with my trousers round my ankles, I first spotted the village this morning, they, too, are the nation, you cannot, therefore, deny me or obstruct my mission, If you say so, sir, My word as a cavalry officer, but enough talk, let us go to the stable and see what oxen you have there. The steward stroked his grubby mustache as if asking its advice, and finally came to a decision, the nation above all else, however, still fearing the consequences of what he was about to do, he asked the officer if he could leave him some kind of guarantee, to which the commanding officer replied, I will leave you a letter written in my own hand in which I will undertake to return the pair of oxen to you as soon as the elephant has been delivered to the archduke of austria, so you will only have to wait for as long as it takes us to travel from here to valladolid and from valladolid to here, Let's go to the stable, then, where we keep the oxen, said the steward, This is my ox-driver, who will come with me, said the commanding officer, for I know more about horses and war, when there is a war. There were eight oxen in the stable. We have another four, said the steward, but they're out in the fields. At a signal from the commanding officer, the ox-driver went over to the animals and examined them closely, one by one, then made two that were lying down stand up, examined them as well, and finally declared, This one and this one, A good choice, they're the best we have, said the steward. The commanding officer felt a wave of pride rise up from his solar plexus to his throat. Every gesture, every step, every decision he made, revealed him to be a strategist of the first water, deserving of the highest recognition and, for a start, swift promotion to the rank of colonel. The steward, who had left the stable, returned with quill and paper, and there the agreement was set down in writing. When the steward received the document, his hands were trembling with excitement, but he calmed down when he heard the ox-driver say, We need harnesses too, They're over there, said the steward. Now, this story has not so far lacked for reflections, of varying degrees of acuity, on human nature, and we have recorded and commented on each one according to their relevance and the mood of the moment. We never expected, however, that one day we would set down such a generous, exalted, sublime thought as that which then passed like lightning through the commanding officer's mind, namely, that to the coat of arms of the count who owned those animals should be added a pair or yoke of oxen, in memory of this event. May that wish be granted. The oxen had been yoked up and the ox-driver was already leading them out of the stable, when the steward asked, And the elephant. Put in this way, as rustic as it was direct, the question could simply have been ignored, but the commanding officer felt that he owed the man a favor, and a feeling akin to gratitude made him say, He's behind those trees, where we spent the night, You know I've never in my life seen an elephant, said the steward sadly, as if his happiness and that of his loved ones depended entirely on him seeing an elephant, Well, we can put that right this minute, come with us, You go on ahead, sir, I'll harness the mule and catch up. The commanding officer returned to the square, where his sergeant was waiting for him, and he said, Right, we've got the oxen, Yes, sir, they passed by here just now, and the ox-driver looked as pleased as a dog with two tails, Come on then, said the commanding officer, mounting his horse, Yes, sir, said the sergeant, following suit. It did not take them long to reach the rest of their men, and there the commanding officer was faced with a serious dilemma, should he gallop into camp and announce this victory to the assembled hosts or ride alongside the oxen and receive the applause in the presence of that living proof of his ingenuity. It took a good one hundred meters of intense reflection to find an answer to this problem, a solution which, anticipating the term by some five centuries, we might call the third way, and this was to send the sergeant on ahead with the news in order to predispose the men to offer him the most enthusiastic of receptions. And so it was. They had not gone very far when they heard the mule approaching with ungainly step, for the creature had never been required to break into a trot before, still less a gallop. Out of politeness, the commanding officer stopped, as did the sergeant, although he did not know why, and only the ox-driver and the oxen, as if they belonged to another world and were ruled by different laws, continued at their usual pace, that is, a very slow one. The commanding officer gave orders for the sergeant to ride on ahead, but soon regretted having done so. His impatience was growing by the minute. It had been a gross error to send the sergeant on ahead. By then, he would already have received the kind of rapturous applause that always greets good news when given at first hand, and any subsequent applause, however loud, always has a taste of yesterday's warmed-up stew about it. He was wrong. When the commanding officer reached the camp, whether accompanied by or accompanying the ox-driver and the oxen it would be hard to say, the men had formed up into two lines, the laborers on one side, the soldiers on the other, and, in the middle, the elephant with the mahout perched on top, and everyone whooping and applauding wildly, and if this were a pirate ship, it would be the moment to say, A double ration of rum all round. Although this does not preclude the possibility of a quart of red wine being served to the whole company later on. When everyone had calmed down, the convoy began to get itself organized. The ox-driver yoked the count's oxen to the cart, because they were stronger and fresher, and the two that had traveled all the way from lisbon went ahead of them, so that they could rest a little. Whatever the steward may have been thinking, mounted on his mule, he kept crossing himself and then crossing himself again, scarcely able to believe what his eyes were seeing, An elephant, so that's an elephant, he murmured, why, he must be at least four ells high, and then there's the trunk and the tusks and the feet, look how big those feet are. When the convoy set off, he followed it as far as the road. He bade farewell to the commanding officer, to whom he wished a good journey and an even better return, and waved furiously as he watched them move off. Well, it isn't every day that an elephant appears in our lives.