José Saramago: Seeing

The impressive serenity of the voters in the streets and in the polling stations was not mirrored by an identical state of mind in ministerial offices and at party headquarters. The question that most worries them all is what the abstention rate will be this time, as if therein lay the way to salvation out of the tricky social and political situation in which the country has been plunged for over a week now. A reasonably high abstention rate, or even above the maximum recorded in the previous elections, as long as it wasn't too high, would signify a return to normality, to the known routine of those voters who had never seen the point of voting and are noticeable by virtue of their persistent absence, or those others who preferred to make the most of the good weather and go and spend the day at the beach or in the country with their family, or those who, for no other reason than invincible idleness, stayed at home. If the crowds outside the polling stations, which were as large as they had been for the previous election, showed, without any room for doubt, that the percentage of abstentions was going to be extremely low, possibly non-existent, what most confused the authorities, and was nearly driving them crazy, was the fact that the voters, with very few exceptions, responded with impenetrable silence to the questions asked by the people running exit polls on how they had voted, It's just for statistical purposes, you don't have to identify yourself, you don't have to give your name, they insisted, but even that did not convince the distrustful voters. A week earlier, journalists had at least managed to get answers out of them, although it's true that these had been given in impatient or ironic or scornful tones and were really another way of saying nothing at all, but at least there had been an exchange of words, one side had asked the question and the other had pretended to give an answer, but it was nothing like this dense wall of silence, as if it were built around a mystery shared by everyone and which everyone had sworn to defend. To many people it will seem astonishing, not to say impossible, this coincidence of behavior amongst so many thousands of people who do not know each other, who do not think the same, who belong to different social classes or strata, who, in short, despite being politically to the right or in the middle or to the left, or, indeed, nowhere at all, resolved individually to keep their mouth shut until the votes were counted, thus leaving the unveiling of the secret until later. This, with great hopes of being right, was what the interior minister wanted to tell the prime minister, this was what the prime minister hastened to pass on to the president, who, being older, more experienced and more case-hardened, who had, in brief, seen more of life, merely replied sardonically, If they're not prepared to talk now, give me one good reason why they should talk later. The only reason this bucket of cold water from the nation's supreme arbiter did not cause the prime minister or the interior minister to lose all hope and to fall into the grip of despair was because they had nothing else to cling to, even if only for a short time. The interior minister had preferred not to mention that, fearing possible irregularities in the electoral process, a concern which the facts themselves, meanwhile, proved to be entirely unfounded, he had ordered the posting at all polling stations of two plain-clothes policemen, each from a different police department, both being authorized to oversee the count, and each of whom was charged also with keeping an eye on his or her colleague, just in case there should be any kind of complicity between them, be it honorably political in nature or a deal struck at the market of petty treacheries. In this way, what with spies and vigilantes, recording devices and video cameras, they appeared to have everything under control, safe from any malign interference that might sully the purity of the electoral process, and now that the game was over, all that remained for them to do was to wait, arms folded, for the final verdict of the ballot boxes. When the presiding officer of polling station number fourteen, to whose workings we had the great pleasure of devoting, in homage to those dedicated citizens, an entire chapter, even down to the personal problems of certain of its members, and when the presiding officers of all the other polling stations, from number one to number thirteen, from number fifteen to number forty-four, at last emptied out the votes onto the long rows of benches that had served them as tables, the impetuous rumble of an avalanche was heard all over the city. It was a foreshadowing of the political earthquake that would soon follow. In homes, in cafés, in pubs and in bars, in all the public places where there was a television or a radio, the capital's inhabitants, some more calmly than others, awaited the final result of the count. No one confided in their nearest and dearest as to how they had voted, the closest of friends kept silent on the matter, and even the most talkative people seemed to have forgotten their words. Finally, at ten o'clock that night, the prime minister appeared on television. His face looked drawn, he had dark circles under his eyes, the result of a whole week of sleepless nights, and beneath the healthy glow of make-up he was pale. He was holding a piece of paper in his hand, but he didn't really read from it, he just glanced at it from time to time so as not to lose the thread of his speech, Dear fellow citizens, he said, the result of the elections carried out today in our country's capital was as follows, the party on the right, eight percent, the party in the middle, eight percent, the party on the left, one percent, abstentions, none, spoiled votes, none, blank votes, eighty-three percent. He paused to take a sip from the glass of water beside him, then went on, While we realize that today's vote is both a confirmation and an exacerbation of the trend established last Sunday and while we are in unanimous agreement as to the need for a serious investigation into the first and last causes of these troubling results, the government considers, after due consultation with his excellency the president, that its legitimacy in office was not called into question, not only because the election just held was merely a local election, but also because it declares and believes that its pressing and urgent duty is to carry out an in-depth investigation into the anomalous events of the last seven days, events in which we have all been both astonished witnesses and bold participants, and it is with profound sorrow that I say this, for those blank votes which have struck a brutal blow against the democratic normality of our personal and collective lives did not fall from the skies or rise up from the bowels of the earth, they were in the pockets of eighty-three out of every one hundred voters in this city, who placed them in the ballot boxes with their own unpatriotic hands. Another sip of water, this time more necessary, for his mouth had suddenly gone dry, There is still time to rectify this mistake, not by means of another election, which, given the current state of affairs, might prove not only useless but counter-productive, but through a rigorous examination of conscience, which, from this public platform, I urge on all the inhabitants of the capital, some so that they may better protect themselves from the terrible threat hanging over their heads, others, be they guilty or innocent in their intentions, so that they can either turn from the evil into which they have been dragged by who knows who or else risk becoming the direct target of the sanctions foreseen under the state of emergency whose declaration the government will be seeking from his excellency the president, after, of course, initial consultation with parliament, which has been convened tomorrow in extraordinary session, and from whom we expect to obtain unanimous approval. A change of tone, arms slightly spread, hands raised to shoulder height, The nation's government feels sure that in coming here, like a loving father, to remind that section of the capital's population who strayed from the straight and narrow of the sublime lesson to be learned from the parable of the prodigal son and by saying to them that there is no fault that cannot be forgiven a heart that is truly contrite and wholly repentant, the goverment is merely giving expression to the fraternal will of the rest of the country, of all those citizens who, with praiseworthy civic feeling, properly fulfilled their electoral duties. The prime minister's final flourish, Honor your country, for the eyes of the country are upon you, complete with drumrolls and bugle blasts, unearthed from the attics of the mustiest of nationalistic rhetoric, was ruined by a Good night that rang entirely false, but then that is the great thing about ordinary words, they are incapable of deceit.