The Collected Novels of José Saramago (369 page)

The celebrations did not last long. It’s true that no one actually got around to going to work, but an awareness of the gravity of the situation soon muted the demonstrations of joy, someone even asked, What have we got to be happy about, when they’ve just put us
in isolation as if we were plague victims in quarantine, with an army out there with their rifles cocked, ready to fire at anyone who tries to leave the city, what possible reason have we got to be happy. And others said, We must organize ourselves, but they didn’t know how or with whom or why. Some suggested that a group should go and talk to the leader of the city council to offer him their loyal support, to explain that the people who cast the blank votes had not done so in order to bring down the system and to take power, they wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway, that they had voted the way they voted because they were disillusioned and could find no other way of making it clear just how disillusioned they were, that they could have staged a revolution, but then many people would undoubtedly have died, something they would never have wanted, that all their lives they had patiently placed their vote in the ballot box, and the results were there for all to see, This isn’t democracy, sir, far from it. Others were of the opinion that they should consider the facts more carefully, that it would be best to let the council have the first word, if we go to them with all these explanations and ideas, they’ll think there’s some political organization behind it, pulling the strings, and we’re the only ones who know that isn’t true, they’re in a tricky situation too, mind, the government has left them holding a real hot potato, and we don’t want to make it any hotter, one newspaper proposed that the council should assume full authority, but what authority, and how, the police have left, there isn’t even anyone to direct the traffic, we certainly can’t expect the councillors to go out into the streets and do the work of the very people they used to give orders to, there’s already talk of the refuse collectors going on strike, if that’s true, and we shouldn’t be surprised if it is, it can only be seen as a provocation, either on the part of the council itself or, more likely, under orders from the government, they’re going to do everything possible to make our lives more difficult, we have to be prepared for anything, including or, perhaps, especially, those things that now seem impossible to us, after all, they’re holding the whole deck of cards, not to mention the cards up their sleeves. Others, of a pessimistic and fearful bent, felt that there was no way out of the situation, that they were doomed to failure, it’ll all pan out the way it always does, with every man for himself and to hell with the others, the moral imperfection of the human race, as we have often said before, is hardly a novelty, it’s historical fact, as old as the hills, it might seem now that we’re all very supportive of each other, but tomorrow the bickering will start, and the next stage will be open war, discord, confrontation, while they sit back and enjoy it from their ringside seats, laying bets on how long we’ll hold out, it’ll be fine while it lasts, my friend, but defeat is certain and guaranteed, I mean, let’s be reasonable, who could possibly have thought that something like this would get us what we wanted, people en masse casting blank votes and completely unprompted, it’s madness, the government hasn’t quite got over its surprise yet and is still trying to catch its breath, but the first victory has gone to them, they’ve turned their backs on us and told us we’re nothing but a pile of shit, which, in their opinion, is what we are, and then there’s the pressure from abroad to consider too, I bet you anything you like that right now governments and political parties all around the world are thinking of nothing else, they’re not stupid, they can see how easily this could become a fuse, light it here and wait for the explosion over there, but then, if all we are to them is a pile of shit, then let’s be shit all the way, shoulder to shoulder, because they’re bound to get splattered with some of the shit that we supposedly are.

The next day, the rumor was confirmed, the refuse trucks did not go out onto the streets, the refuse collectors had announced an all-out strike and had made public a demand for more pay which a council spokesperson had immediately pronounced completely unacceptable, still less at a time like this, he said, when our city is grappling
with an entirely unprecedented crisis from which it is difficult to see a way out. In the same alarmist vein, a newspaper which, from its inception, had specialized in acting as an amplifier of all governmental strategies and tactics, regardless of the government’s party colors, whether from the middle, the right or any shade in between, published an editorial signed by the editor himself in which he stated that it was highly likely that the rebellion by the capital’s inhabitants would end in a bloodbath if, as everything seemed to indicate, they refused to abandon their stubborn stance. No one, he said, could deny that the government’s patience had been stretched to unthinkable limits, no one could expect them to do more, if they did, we would lose, possibly for ever, that harmonious binomial authority-obedience in whose light the happiest of human societies had always bloomed and without which, as history has amply shown, none of them would have been feasible. The editorial was read, extracts were broadcast on the radio, the editor was interviewed on television, and then, at midday exactly, while all this was going on, from every house in the city there emerged women armed with brooms, buckets and dustpans, and, without a word, they started sweeping their own patch of pavement and street, from the front door as far as the middle of the road, where they encountered other women who had emerged from the houses opposite with exactly the same objective and armed with the same weapons. Now, the dictionaries state that someone’s patch is an area under their jurisdiction or control, in this case, the area outside somebody’s house, and this is quite true, but they also say, or at least some of them do, that to sweep your own patch means to look after your own interests. A great mistake on your part, O absentminded philologists and lexicographers, to sweep your own patch started out meaning precisely what these women in the capital are doing now, just as their mothers and grandmothers before them used to do in their villages, and they, like these women, were not just looking after their own interests, but after the interests of the community as well. It was possibly for this same reason that, on the third day, the refuse collectors also came out onto the street. They were not in uniform, they were wearing their own clothes. It was the uniforms that were on strike, they said, not them.

THE INTERIOR MINISTER, WHOSE IDEA THE STRIKE HAD BEEN, WAS NOT
at all pleased to learn of the refuse collectors’ spontaneous return to work, a stance which, in his ministerial understanding of the matter, was not a demonstration of solidarity with the admirable women who had made cleaning their streets a question of honor, a fact unhesitatingly recognized by any impartial observer, but bordered, rather, on criminal complicity. As soon as he received the bad news, he phoned the leader of the city council and commanded him to bring to book those responsible for disregarding orders and to force them to obey, which, in plain language, meant going back on strike, under penalty, if their insubordination continued, of all the punitive consequences foreseen by the laws and regulations, from suspension without pay to outright dismissal. The council leader replied that problems always seem much easier to resolve when seen from a distance, but the person on the ground, the person who actually has to deal with the workers, must listen to them closely before making any decisions, For example, minister, just imagine that I was to give that order to the men, I’m not going to imagine anything, I’m telling you to do it, Yes, minister, of course, but at least allow me to imagine it, for example, I can imagine giving them the order to go back on strike and them telling me to go and take a running jump, what would you do in that case, if you were in my position, how would you force them to do their duty, In the first place, no one would tell me to take a running jump, in the second place, I am not and never will be in your position, I am a
minister, not a council leader, and while I’m on the subject, I would just like to say that I would expect from a council leader not only the official and institutional collaboration to which he is, by law, committed and which is my natural due, but also an esprit de corps which, it seems to me, is currently conspicuous by its absence, You can always count on my official and institutional collaboration, minister, I know my obligations, but as for esprit de corps, perhaps we’d better not talk about that just now, let’s see how much of it is left when this crisis is over, You’re running away from the problem, council leader, No, I’m not, minister, I simply need you to tell me how I am supposed to force the workers to go back on strike, That’s your problem, not mine, Now it’s my esteemed party colleague who is trying to run away from the problem, Never in my entire political career have I run away from a problem, Well, you’re running away from this one, you’re trying to run away from the obvious fact that I have no means at my disposal by which to carry out your order, unless you want me to call in the police, but, in that case, I would remind you that the police are not here, they left the city along with the army, both of them carried off by the government, besides, I’m sure we would agree that it would be a gross abnormality to use the police to persuade workers to go on strike, when, in the past, they have always been deployed to break strikes up, by infiltration or other less subtle means, Well, I’m astonished to hear a member of the party on the right talking like that, Minister, in a few hours’ time it will be dark, and I will have to say that it is night, I would have to be either stupid or blind to say then that it is day, What has that got to do with the strike, Whether you like it or not, minister, it is night now, pitch-black night, we know that something is happening that goes far beyond our understanding, that exceeds our meagre experience, but we are behaving as if it were the same old bread, made with the usual flour and cooked in the usual oven, but it’s simply not true, You know, I will seriously
have to consider asking you to tender your resignation, If you do, it will be a weight off my shoulders, and you can count on my profound gratitude. The interior minister did not reply at once, he allowed a few seconds to pass in order to recover his composure, then he asked, So what do you think we should do, Nothing, My dear fellow, in a situation like this, you cannot ask a government to do nothing, Allow me to say that in a situation like this, a government doesn’t govern, it just looks as if it were governing, There I must disagree, we’ve managed to do a few things since this whole thing began, Yes, we’re like a fish on a hook, we thrash about, we shake the line, we tug at it, but we cannot understand how a little piece of bent wire could be capable of catching us and keeping us trapped, we might yet escape, I’m not saying we won’t, but we risk ending up with the hook stuck in our gut, Frankly, I’m confused, There is only one thing to do, What’s that, didn’t you just say there was no point in our doing anything, Just pray that the prime minister’s strategy works, What strategy, Leave them to simmer, he said, but I’m afraid even that could rebound against us, Why, Because they are the ones doing the cooking, So we do nothing, Let’s be serious, minister, would the government be prepared to put an end to this farcical state of siege by ordering the army and the air force in to attack the city, to wound and kill ten or twenty thousand people just to set an example, and then put three or four thousand more in prison, accused of no one quite knows what because no real crime has been committed, This isn’t a civil war, all we want is to make people see reason, to show them the error into which they have fallen or were made to fall, that’s what we need to do, to make them realize that the unfettered use of the blank ballot paper would make the democratic system unworkable, The results so far haven’t, it would seem, been exactly brilliant, It will take time, but people will, in the end, see the light, Why, minister, I had no idea you had mystical tendencies, My dear fellow, when
situations become as complicated and as desperate as this, we tend to grab hold of anything, I’m even convinced that some of my colleagues in government, if they thought it would do any good, wouldn’t be averse to going on a pilgrimage to a shrine, candle in hand, to make a vow, While we’re on the subject, I would appreciate you and your candle visiting a few shrines here of a rather different nature, Meaning, Can you please tell the newspapers and the television and radio people not to pour more petrol on the bonfire, if we don’t act sensibly and intelligently, this whole thing could explode, you must have heard that the editor of the government newspaper was stupid enough to admit the possibility that this could all end in a bloodbath, It’s not a government newspaper, If you’ll allow me to say so, minister, I would have preferred to hear some other comment from you, The little man went too far, he overstepped the mark, it’s what always happens when someone tries to do more than he was asked to do, Minister, Yes, What shall I do about the council refuse collectors, Let them work, that way the city council will look good in the eyes of the populace and that could prove useful to us in the future, besides, the strike was, of course, only one element in the strategy, and certainly not the most important, It wouldn’t be good for the city, now or in the future, if the city council were to be used as a weapon of war against its citizens, In a situation like this, the council can’t afford to remain on the sidelines, the council is, after all, part of this country and no other, But I’m not asking you to let us remain on the sidelines, all I ask is that the government doesn’t put any obstacles in my way when it comes to exercising my responsibilities, that it should, at no point, give the public the impression that the city council is merely a tool, if you’ll forgive the expression, of its repressive policies, firstly, because it isn’t true, and secondly, because it never will be, Um, I’m afraid I don’t quite understand or perhaps I understand all too well, One day, minister, although when I don’t know, this city will once again be the country’s capital, That’s possible, but by no means certain, it depends how far they want to take their rebellion, Be that as it may, it is vital that this council, whether with me as leader or with someone else, should never be seen, however indirectly, to be an accomplice in or a co-author of a bloody repression, the government that orders such a repression will have no alternative but to take the consequences, but the council, this council, belongs to the city, the city does not belong to the council, I hope I have made myself clear, minister, You’ve made yourself so clear that I’m going to ask you a question, Feel free, minister, Did you cast a blank vote, Could you repeat the question, please, I didn’t quite hear, I asked if you cast a blank vote, I asked if the ballot paper you put in the box was blank, Who can say, minister, who can say, When all this is over, I hope we can meet and have a long conversation, As you wish, minister, Goodbye, Goodbye, What I’d really like to do is come over there and give you a clip round the ear, Alas, I’m too old for that, minister, If you ever become interior minister, you will learn that clips round the ear and other such correctives have no age limit, Don’t let the devil hear you, minister, The devil has such good hearing he doesn’t need things to be spoken out loud, Well, god help us then, There’s no point asking him for help either, he was born stone-deaf.