The Lives of Things. José Saramago

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СКАЧАТЬ which none of us is likely to stop, for it is already inevitable, we can turn it back like the river Guadiana, not in fear but in bliss, which is a heavenly way of rejoicing, and once more undoubtedly deserved. With the assistance of St Teresa of Avila and the dictionary, we must try to understand that this bliss is that supernatural happiness which produces grace in the souls of the just. As we watch the chair fall, we cannot help receiving this grace, for as we stand there watching, we do nothing and will continue to do nothing to stop it from falling. Thus proving the existence of the soul because we could not possibly experience any such reaction without a soul. So let the chair go back to an upright position and recommence its fall while we get back to what we were saying.

      Behold Anobium, whose name has been chosen for whatever trace of nobility it might contain, an avenger from beyond the prairie, mounted on his horse White-face, and taking his time to arrive so that all the credits can be screened and we are left in no doubt, just in case some of us missed seeing the posters in the cinema foyer about the team who made the film. Behold Anobium, now in close-up, with his coleopteral face, eaten away in its turn by the wind and the hot sun, which, as we all know, burn out the open galleries in the leg of the chair that has just broken and, thanks to which, the aforesaid chair is beginning to fall for the third time. This Anobium, as has already been stated in a form more appropriate for the banalities of genetics and reproduction, had predecessors in this act of revenge: they were called Fred, Tom Mix and Buck Jones, but these are names immortalised in the epic history of the Far West and they should not allow us to forget the anonymous coleoptera who had the much less glorious, not to say ridiculous task, of perishing while crossing the desert, or of slowly crawling through a swamp where they slipped and fell into the mire giving off the most awful stench, to hoots of laughter and catcalls from the stalls and gallery. Not one of them had settled his final account when the train gave three whistles, holsters were greased inside so that pistols could be drawn at once, with the index finger on the trigger and the thumb poised to pull back the hammer. Not one of them received the prize waiting on Mary’s lips, nor was White Flash there to come from behind and push the shy cowboy into the girl’s expectant arms. All pyramids have stones underneath, and the same is true of monuments. The conquering Anobium is the last in this line of anonymous heroes who preceded him, at any rate no less fortunate, for they lived, worked and died, everything in its own good time, and this Anobium, as we know, completes the cycle, and, like the male bee, he will die in the act of impregnation. The beginning of death.

      Marvellous music which no one had heard for months or years, incessant, uninterrupted by day and by night, at the glorious, dazzling hour of sunrise and at this no less amazing moment when we bid the light farewell until morning, this continuous gnawing, as persistent as the endless repetition of the same note, harping on, eating away at one fibre after another and everyone entering and leaving, distractedly, absorbed in their own affairs, unaware that at the appointed hour Anobium will appear, pistol at the ready, marking out the enemy or target, taking aim which means hitting dead centre, at least that is what it means from now on, for someone had to be the first. Marvellous music, composed and played by generations of coleoptera for their pleasure and our profit, as was the destiny of the Bach family, both before and after Johann Sebastian. Music unheard, and if heard, what could it do for the person seated in this chair who will fall with it and, in fear or surprise, emit this articulated sound which may not even be a cry or shriek, much less a word. Music that will fall silent, that has fallen silent this very instant: Buck Jones sees his rival fall inexorably to the ground, beneath the harsh glare of the Texas sun, he puts his pistols away in their holsters and removes his wide-brimmed Stetson to wipe his forehead, and also because Mary, in a white dress, is running towards him, now that any danger has passed.

      It would be something of an exaggeration, however, to assert that man’s entire destiny is to be found inscribed in the oral chewing apparatus of the coleoptera. Were this so, we should all be living in houses made of glass and iron, and therefore be protected against Anobium, but not completely protected, because for some reason or other there is this mysterious illness which we potential victims of cancer refer to as glass cancer, and this all too common rust which, and solve who can these other mysteries, does not attack ironwood, yet literally destroys anything made simply of iron. Not only are we humans fragile, but we are even obliged to assist our own death. Perhaps it is a question of personal honour: not to be so helpless and submissive, to give something of ourselves, otherwise what is the point of being in this world? The blade of the guillotine cuts, but who offers his neck? The condemned man. The rifle-shot hits its target, but who bares his chest? The man who gets shot. Death has this strange beauty of being as lucid as a mathematical demonstration, as straightforward as drawing a line between two points, so long as it does not exceed the length of the ruler. Tom Mix fires his two pistols, but there has to be enough gunpowder pressed into the cartridges to ensure sufficient power for the bullet to cover the distance in its slightly curved trajectory (no need for a rule here), and once having met the requirements of ballistics, it has to pierce the man’s cloth collar at a good height, then his shirt, which might be made of flannel, then the woollen vest that keeps him warm in winter and absorbs his sweat in summer, and finally his soft, elastic skin which initially yields, supposing, if skin supposes rather than simply suppurates, that the force of the missile will stop there and the bullets fall to the ground, into the dust on the road, and let the criminal off the hook until the next time. However, things turned out otherwise. Buck Jones is already holding Mary in his arms and the word END is coming from his mouth and about to fill the screen. Time for the spectators to rise slowly from their seats and proceed up the aisle in the direction of the harsh light coming from the exit, for they have been to the matinée, struggling to return to this humdrum reality, feeling a little sad, a little courageous, and so indifferent to the life awaiting them in the shooting gallery, that some even remain seated for the second session: once upon a time.

      And now this old man is seated, having come out of one room and crossed another, then going along a passageway which could be the aisle of a cinema, but it is not, it is part of the house, not necessarily his, but simply the house in which he lives or is living, therefore not all of it is his, but in his care. The chair still has not fallen. It is condemned like a prostrate man who has not quite reached the limits of exhaustion: he can still bear his own weight. Looking at the chair from a distance, it does not appear to have been transformed by Anobium, cowboy and miner, in Arizona and Jales, in a labyrinthine network of galleries likely to make anyone lose their mind. The old man sees the chair from afar and as he gets closer, he sees, if in fact he can see the chair, that notwithstanding the thousands of times he has sat in it, he has never looked closely, and that is his mistake, now as before, never to pay attention to the chairs in which he sits because he assumes they are all capable of what only he is capable. St George would have seen the dragon there, but this old fellow is a false devotee in a skull-cap who made common cause with the cardinal patriarchs, and united, he and they, in hoc signo vinces. Even as he reaches the chair with a smile of innocent satisfaction, he fails to see it or notice how effectively Anobium is destroying the remaining fibres in the last gallery and is tightening the holster belt around his hips. The old man thinks he will perhaps rest for half an hour, that he might even doze a little in this pleasant autumnal weather, and that he most certainly will not have the patience to read the papers he is holding in his hand. No cause for surprise. This is not a horror film; splendid comic films have exploited and will continue to exploit similar falls, we all remember the slapstick scenes played by Chaplin or by Pat and Patachon, and there are sweets for those who can give me the titles. But let us not be hasty even though we know the chair is about to break: but not just yet, first the man has to sit down slowly, we old men are usually unsteady on our feet, we have to rest our hands or grip with force the arms or wings of the chair, to prevent our wrinkled buttocks and the seat of our pants from suddenly collapsing into the chair which has had to put up with everything, and we need not elaborate, for we are all human and know these things. We are talking about his intestines, let it be said, because this old man has many different reasons which have caused him to doubt his humanity for some considerable time. Meanwhile, he is seated like a man.

      So far he has not leaned back. His weight, give or take a gramme, is equally distributed on the seat of the chair. Unless he moves, he might well sit there safely until sunset when Anobium normally recovers his strength СКАЧАТЬ