The Collected Novels of José Saramago (205 page)

D
URING THESE LAST FEW DAYS
, had the muezzin been sleeping heavily, no doubt he would have been roused, if not altogether prevented from sleeping, by the tumult of an entire city living in a state of alert, with armed men up on the turrets and battlements, while the people are all excited, gathered in the streets and marketplaces, asking if the Franks and Galicians are about to attack. They naturally fear for their lives and possessions, but even more distressed are those who have been forced to abandon their homes outside the wall, for the moment being defended by the soldiers, but where the first battles will inevitably be fought, if this should be the will of Allah, praised be his name, and, even if Lisbon should overcome the invaders, this prosperous and thriving suburb will be reduced to ruins. High on the minaret of the largest mosque, the muezzin raised the same shrill cry as he did each day, knowing that he will no longer awaken anyone, at most the innocent children will still be asleep, and contrary to custom, when the final echo of the call to prayer is still hovering in the air, the murmurings of a city at prayer can already be heard, truly there was no need for anyone who had barely dozed off to come out of his sleep. The sky displayed all the beauty of a July morning, the breeze was soft and gentle, and, if experience is anything to go by, we are going to have a warm day. Having finished his prayer, the muezzin prepares to descend, when suddenly from down below comes the most dreadful and alarming uproar that the blind man is panic-stricken and for one moment thinks that the tower is collapsing, the
next that those accursed Christians are storming the walls, only to realise in the end that they are cries of jubilation coming from everywhere and setting the city ablaze, the muezzin can now say that he knows what is meant by light, if it has the same effect on the eyes of those who can see as these joyful sounds have on his hearing. But what could be the cause for this rejoicing. Perhaps Allah, moved by the fervent prayers of the people might have sent the angels from his tomb, Munkar and Nakir, to exterminate the Christians, perhaps he might have dropped the inextinguishable flames of heaven on to the armada of the crusaders, perhaps, out of earthly humanity, the King of Evora, warned of the dangers threatening his brothers in Lisbon, has sent word by messenger, Let the villains stew there, for my soldiers from the Alentejo are already on their way, that is how we refer to people who come from beyond the Tagus, pointing out in passing, that the inhabitants of Alentejo existed before the Portuguese. At the risk of bruising his fragile bones on the steps, the muezzin descends the narrow spiral stairway in haste, and when he reaches the bottom, he is overcome by vertigo, he is a poor old man who gives the impression of wanting to bury himself underground, an illusion of ours based on past examples, now he can be seen struggling, to get to his feet, while questioning the darkness all around him, What happened, tell me what happened. Next moment arms reach out to lift him up, and a strong, young voice is almost shouting, The crusaders are leaving, the crusaders are withdrawing. The muezzin fell to his knees with fervour and emotion, but everything in its own good time, Allah will not be offended if the thanks due to him are a little slow in coming, first the faithful must give vent to their feelings of joy. The Good Samaritan lifted the old man off the ground and set him firmly on his feet, straightened his turban which had been knocked sideways in the heat of his descent and collapse, and he told him, Don’t worry about your turban, let’s go to the rampart and watch the infidels scatter, now these words, spoken without any conscious malice, can only be attributed to the fact that the muezzin’s blindness is caused by amaurosis, look, he is watching us, that is to say, he has his eyes fixed in our direction yet cannot see us, how sad, it is difficult to believe that such transparency and clearness are, in the final analysis, the outer surface of absolute opacity. The muezzin raises his hands and touches his eyes, But I cannot see, at this moment the man recognises him, Ah, you’re the muezzin, and makes as if to move away, but quickly changes his mind, Never mind, Come with me to the rampart, I’ll explain what’s happening, kindly acts such as these we used to refer to as Christian charity, which goes to show once more to what extent words become ideologically disoriented.

The man pushed his way through the crowd huddling together as they tried to force their way up the stairway leading to the battlement, Make way for the muezzin, make way for the muezzin, my brothers, he pleaded, and people moved back and smiled with pure fraternal love, but so that all might not be roses, or because all is not roses, there was one suspicious onlooker who cursed this kind deed, he did not have the courage to show his face, but shouted from one of the back rows, Just look at that crafty old fellow trying to push in front of everyone else, and the muezzin who knew this was not the case, replied in the direction from which the voice came, May Allah punish you for such malice, and Allah must have taken careful note of the muezzin’s words, because the slanderer will be the first man to die in the siege of Lisbon, even before any Christian, which tells us a great deal about the Almighty’s wrath. And so the old man and his protector made it to the top, and by using the same strategy of warning and petition, favourably received by all, they were able to occupy an excellent vantage point, with an open view of the estuary, the wide river, the immense ocean, but it was not this particular splendour that caused the man to exclaim, Ah, such wonder, before saying to the muezzin, If only I could give you my eyes so that you might see what I can see, the fleet of the crusaders sailing down the river, the smooth water glistening as only water can, and all blue, the colour of the sky overhead, the oars move slowly up and down, the ships resembling a flock of birds that drink as they fly close to the surface, two hundred migratory birds named galleys,
long-boats, and cargo-ships, and who knows what else, for I am a man of the earth, not the sea, and how swiftly they go, carried by the oars and the tide they anticipated so that they are now departing, those in front must have already felt the wind, they are about to raise their sails, ah, how wonderful if they should turn out to be white, this is a day for celebration, muezzin, yonder on the other bank, our brothers from Almada are waving, as happy as we are, also saved by the will of Allah, He who reigns supreme, the Merciful One, the Eternal, the Living God, The Comforter, the Merciful, thanks to Whom we have been liberated from the terrifying threat of those dogs sailing out of the straits, crusaders they are and may they be crucified, let the beauty of their departure perish and be forgotten with their demise, and may Malik, the custodian of hell, imprison and castigate them for evermore. Those present applauded this final rebuke, except for the muezzin, not because he disagreed, but because he had already done his duty as a moral vigilante, when he prayed that the suspicious and outspoken mischief-maker should be punished, besides it would scarcely be fitting for someone entrusted with summoning his brothers to prayer to be spreading curses, to invoke punishment once daily is more than enough for a simple human being, and we do not know if God Himself can withstand such enormous responsibility for all eternity. Therefore the muezzin remained silent, besides he was blind and unable to see for himself if there was any real cause for so much rejoicing, Have all of them gone, he asked, and his companion, after pausing long enough to check, replied, The ships, certainly, What exactly do you mean, is there something else apart from the ships, It’s just that they are lying way out on the margin of the estuary and now they’re heading for the Galician encampment, about a hundred men are disembarking, taking arms and baggage with them, it isn’t easy to count them from here, but there can’t be more than a hundred. The muezzin remarked, If these men have stayed behind, they have either definitely made up their mind not to join the crusade, and have exchanged their lands for this one, or, in the event of there being a siege and battle, they will side with Ibn
Arrinque when he attacks us, Do you really believe, muezzin, that with so few men of his own and this small contingent who will join him, that Ibn Arrinque, damn him and his offspring, will lay siege to Lisbon, He once tried with the help of the crusaders and failed, now he’ll be anxious to show that he did not need them, the latter serving as witnesses, The spies report that the Galician has no more than some twelve thousand soldiers, scarcely enough men to surround and subdue a city, Perhaps not, unless they starve us into submission, So the future looks black, muezzin, It does, but then I’m blind. At this point another man who was with them stretched out his arm and pointed, Things are moving in the encampment, the Galicians are leaving, So you were mistaken, after all, said the muezzin’s companion, Only when you can tell me that there is not a single Christian soldier to be seen anywhere, can I be sure that I was mistaken, Don’t worry, I’ll stay here to keep watch and then I’ll come to the mosque to report, You’re a good Moslem, may Allah grant you in this life and for all eternity the rewards you so richly deserve. Let us say here and now, in anticipation, that once again Allah will heed the muezzin’s plea, because, as far as this life is concerned, we know that this man whom we have improperly called the Good Samaritan will be the penultimate Moor to die in the siege, and as for eternal life all we can do is to wait for someone who is better informed to come and tell us, when the time comes, what kind of prize that was and for what. For our part, we are taking this opportunity to show that we are also capable of exercising kindness, charity and friendship, now that the muezzin has asked, Who’ll help me to go down the stairs. The proof-reader Raimundo Silva is also going to need someone to help him to explain how, after having written that the crusaders did not stay for the siege, some of them appear to have disembarked, about a hundred men, if we are to believe the calculation made by the Moors, from a distance and at a glance. Their presence certainly comes as no surprise, for we already knew ever since that unfortunate episode when Guillaume of the Long Sword spoke so rudely to the king, that several foreign nobles declared there and then that we could count on them, but no one explained the reason for this decision, nor did Dom Afonso Henriques express any desire to know, at least not in public, and, if it was clarified in private, private it remained, nothing has been recorded, nor would it have any bearing on subsequent events. Be that as it may, what Raimundo Silva cannot do is to carry on with his version, in other words, that no crusader was prepared to negotiate with the king, since the Authorised History is there to inform us that, discounting the odd exception of whom we have no details, those gentlemen truly prospered on Portuguese soil, we need only recall, so that no one may think we are speaking in vain or disproving the maxim, Look out for number one, our good king gave Vila Verde to the Frenchman, Dom Alardo, to Dom Jordãno, also French he gave Lourinhã, and to the La Corni brothers, who subsequently changed their name to Correia, was granted Atouguia, but where there is some confusion is with Azambuja, for we have no way of knowing if it was given immediately to Gilles de Rolim or later to one of his sons with the same name, this time it is not a question of there being no records, but the imprecision of those that do exist. Now then, so that these people and others may claim their benefices, it was necessary to begin by making them disembark, and so, there they are, prepared to win them with their arms, thus more or less conciliating the proof-reader’s decisive
Not
with the
Yes,
or
Perhaps
and the
Even So
with which our national history has been written. We will be told that the men gathered there and others who have not been mentioned, will be little more than a half-dozen and that they are greatly outnumbered by the men advancing on the encampment, therefore it is only natural that we should be curious to know who these men are and if they, too, will have their labours rewarded with tides and property. I am aware that this is irrelevant and should be treated with contempt, but it is a sign of sound moral upbringing to be tolerant of blameless ignorance and patient with the reckless, therefore let us make it clear that the majority of these men, apart from a few mercenary conscripts, are servants who came as henchmen to do the loading and unloading, and whatever else might require to be done, without forgetting the three women brought along as concubines or mistresses to serve the particular needs of three nobles, one of them with the expedition from the outset, the others picked up wherever they happened to disembark to replenish their supplies of water, because, frankly speaking, no one has ever discovered better fruit or learned of its existence in unknown territories.

Raimundo Silva put down his biro, rubbed his fingers where the pen had left a crease, then with a slow, weary movement, he leaned back in his chair. He is in the room where he sleeps, seated at a small table which he has placed beside the window, so that by looking to the left he can see the surrounding roof-tops, and here and there, between the gables, the river. He has decided that when proof-reading the work of others he will go on using the study which has no windows, but what he is writing at present, whether it turns out to be the history of the siege of Lisbon or not, he will write in daylight, the natural light falling on to his hands, on to the sheets of paper, on to any words that might appear and remain, for not all words that appear remain, in their turn casting light on our understanding of things, as far as possible, and where, were it not for them, we would never arrive. He jotted down this thought, if it can be called that, on a loose sheet of paper, hoping to use it later, perhaps in some pondered statement about the mystery of writing which will probably culminate, following the definitive lesson of the poet, in the precise and sober declaration that the mystery of writing lies in the absence of any mystery whatsoever, which if accepted, might lead us to the conclusion that if there is no mystery about writing, neither can there be any mystery about the writer. Raimundo Silva amuses himself with this farcical display of profound meditation, his memory as a proof-reader is filled with snatches of verse and prose, the odd line or fragment, and even whole sentences with meaning, hover in his memory like tranquil and resplendent cells coming from other worlds, the sensation is that of being immersed in the cosmos, of grasping the real meaning of everything, without any mystery. If Raimundo Silva could line up in the correct order all the separate words and phrases he has memorised, he would only have to say them, record them on tape, and there he would have, without the tiresome effort of having to write it, the
History of the Siege of Lisbon
he is still pursuing, and, were the order different, the history, too, would be different, and the siege, and Lisbon, and so on and so forth.