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  “Perhaps because I’m not yet as old as Dona Lídia?”

  Maria Cláudia was quick on the uptake when it came to these female skirmishes. This was her very first bout and, although she had already scored two hits and was herself as yet untouched, she was a little frightened: she feared she might not have breath enough or the right weapons to survive the rest of the duel. Fortunately for her, Paulino intervened. He took out a gold cigarette case and offered both women a cigarette. Lídia accepted.

  “Don’t you smoke?” Paulino asked Maria Cláudia.

  She blushed. She had smoked on several occasions in secret, but felt she should not accept. It might look bad and, besides, she was sure she would never be able to compete with Lídia when it came to holding the cigarette and raising it to her lips in a sufficiently elegant manner. She said:

  “No, I don’t, Senhor Morais.”

  “Very sensible.” He paused to inhale the smoke from his cigarillo, then went on: “Anyway, I don’t think it’s very nice of you two to talk about age when I’m old enough to be the father of you both.”

  This remark had a soothing effect and established a truce. However, Claudinha immediately took the initiative, and with what Anselmo would have termed a charming smile, she remarked:

  “You’re making yourself out to be much older than you really are.”

  “All right, then, how old do you think I am?”

  “About forty-five, perhaps . . .”

  “Come now!” Paulino laughed out loud, and when he laughed his belly shook. “A little bit more than that.”

  “Fifty?”

  “No, fifty-six. So old enough to be your grandfather.”

  “Well, you don’t look it!”

  She said this with real sincerity and spontaneity, as Paulino was quick to notice. Lídia stood up. She went over to her lover and tried to lead the conversation back to the real reason for Maria Cláudia’s visit.

  “Don’t forget that Claudinha is more interested in your decision than in your age. It’s getting late, and she probably needs to go to bed. Besides . . .” She paused and looked at Paulino with an expressive smile, then said in a soft voice, heavy with implied meanings: “Besides, I need to talk to you alone.”

  Maria Cláudia gave in at this point. She could not do battle on that terrain. She saw that she was an intruder, that they were both—or at least Lídia was—eager to see the back of her. She felt like crying.

  “Of course, yes, you’re quite right!” Paulino seemed to remember for the first time that he had a position to maintain, his respectability to safeguard, and that the frivolous nature of the conversation could compromise both. “So you want a job, do you?”

  “Oh, I have a job already, Senhor Morais, but my parents don’t think I earn enough, and Dona Lídia was kind enough to take an interest and . . .”

  “What can you do?”

  “I can type.”

  “Is that all? You don’t know shorthand?”

  “No, Senhor Morais.”

  “In the current climate, knowing how to type really isn’t enough. How much do you earn?”

  “Five hundred escudos.”

  “Hm, so you don’t know shorthand?”

  “No, sir . . .”

  Maria Cláudia’s voice tailed off. Lídia was beaming. Paulino looked thoughtful. An awkward silence ensued.

  “But I could always learn,” said Claudinha.

  “Hm.”

  Paulino was drawing on his cigarillo and looking at the girl. Lídia chipped in:

  “Listen, darling, I’d really like it if you could find Claudinha a job, but if it’s just not possible . . . Claudinha’s a bright girl. She’ll understand.”

  Maria Cláudia no longer had strength enough to fight back. All she wanted was to be out of there as quickly as possible. She made as if to get up.

  “No, wait,” said Paulino. “I’m going to give you a chance. My current shorthand-typist is getting married in three months’ time and then she’s going to leave. You can come and work at my company and, during those three months, I’ll pay you the same as you’re being paid now, but meanwhile I want you to learn shorthand. Then we’ll see. If you do well, I can promise you that your salary will go up by leaps and bounds! Agreed?”

  “Oh, yes, Senhor Morais. Thank you so much!” Maria Cláudia’s face was like a spring dawn.

  “Don’t you think you should speak to your parents first?”

  “No, there’s no need, Senhor Morais. They’re sure to say yes.”

  She said this with such certainty that Paulino eyed her with some curiosity. At the same moment, Lídia remarked:

  “And if at the end of those three months you’re not satisfied with her or she isn’t good enough at shorthand, you’ll have to dismiss her, won’t you?”

  Maria Cláudia fixed Paulino with anxious eyes.

  “Well, I don’t know if it will come to that . . .”

  “Then you’ll be the loser . . .”

  “I’ll learn, Senhor Morais,” Maria Cláudia said, breaking in. “And I do very much hope you will be satisfied with me . . .”

  “So do I,” said Paulino, smiling.

  “When should I start?”

  “Well, the sooner the better. When can you leave your present job?”

  “Now if you want.”

  Paulino thought for a moment, then said:

  “It’s the twenty-sixth now. How about the first of the month? Would that be possible?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. But wait, I won’t be in Lisbon that day. It doesn’t matter, though. I’ll write you a note to give to the office manager, just in case I forget to warn him beforehand. Not that I will, of course, but . . .”

  He took a business card out of his wallet. He looked for his glasses, but failed to find them.

  “Where did I leave my glasses?”

  “They’re in the bedroom,” answered Lídia.

  “Go and fetch them for me, will you?”

  Lídia left the room. Paulino, still holding his wallet, was gazing distractedly at Maria Cláudia. She had been sitting with eyes lowered, but then she raised her head and looked straight at him. There was something in his gaze that she understood at once. Neither of them looked away. Maria Cláudia took a deep breath, making her chest swell. Paulino felt the muscles in his back slowly stretch. From the corridor came the sound of Lídia’s returning footsteps.

  When she entered the room, Paulino was studiously rummaging around in his wallet, and Maria Cláudia was staring down at the carpet.

  21

  Lying in bed, his feet resting on a newspaper so as not to dirty the bedspread, Abel was enjoying a cigarette. He had eaten well. Mariana was a good cook and an excellent housewife. You could see this in the way the apartment was furnished, in the small details. His room was further proof. The furniture was poor but clean and had a dignified air about it. There is no doubt that just as pets—well, cats and dogs at least—reflect the temperament and character of their owners, the furniture and even the most insignificant household objects reflect something of the lives of their owners too. They give off coldness or warmth, friendliness or reserve. They are witnesses constantly recounting, in a silent language, what they have seen and what they know. The difficulty lies in finding the best, most private moment, the most propitious light, in which to hear their confession.

  Following the seductive movement of the smoke as it rose into the air, Abel was listening to the stories being told to him by the chest of drawers and the table, by the chairs and the mirror, as well as by the curtains. They were not stories with a beginning, a middle and an end, but a gentle flow of images, the language of shapes and colors that leave behind them an impression of peace and serenity.

  Doubtless Abel’s satisfied stomach had an important part to play in that feeling of plenitude. He had spent many months deprived of simple homey fare, of the particular taste food has when prepared by the hands and palate of a contented housewife. He had grown use
d to eating whatever insipid dish of the day cheap restaurants served up and the kind of fried fish that, in exchange for a few escudos, gives those with little money the illusion that they have eaten. Perhaps Mariana suspected as much; how else to explain her invitation to join them in a meal when they had only known each other such a short time? Or perhaps Silvestre and Mariana were different, different from all the other people he had met so far. Simpler, more human and more open. What was it that gave to the poverty of his hosts the ring of pure gold? (This, by some obscure association of ideas, was how Abel experienced the atmosphere in their apartment.) “Happiness? That doesn’t seem enough. Happiness is like a snail; it withdraws into its shell when you touch it.” But if it wasn’t happiness, what was it then? “Understanding, perhaps, but understanding is just a word. No one can understand another person unless he is that other person. And no one can be simultaneously himself and someone else.”

  The smoke continued to drift up from his forgotten cigarette. “Is it simply in the nature of certain people, that capacity to give off some life-transforming energy? Something . . . something that could be everything or almost nothing. But what is it? That’s the question. So let’s ask that question.”

  Abel thought and thought again, but only came up with more questions. He was stuck, at a dead end. “What kind of people are they? What is that capacity of theirs? In what way do they transform life? Are those even the right words to describe it? Does the mere need to use words make it impossible to find an answer? But then how do we find the answer?”

  Oblivious to Abel’s speculative efforts, his cigarette had burned down as far as the fingers holding it. Taking great care not to drop the long piece of ash, he stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray. He was about to pick up the thread of his reasoning again when he heard two light taps at the door. He got to his feet:

  “Come in.”

  Mariana appeared, carrying a shirt:

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Senhor Abel, but I’m not sure if this shirt can be mended . . .”

  Abel took the shirt from her, looked at it and smiled:

  “What do you think, Senhora Mariana?”

  She smiled too and said:

  “I’m not sure. It’s certainly seen better days . . .”

  “Do what you can, then. You know, sometimes I have more need of an old shirt than I do of a new one. Does that seem odd to you?”

  “I’m sure you have your reasons, Senhor Abel.” And she turned the shirt this way and that as if trying to make it clear to him how very decrepit it was. Then she said: “My Silvestre had a shirt a bit like this. I think I still have some scraps, enough at least for the collar . . .”

  “That’s an awful lot of work, do you think perhaps . . .”

  He stopped. He saw in Mariana’s eyes how sad it would make her if he did not allow her to mend his shirt:

  “Thank you, Senhora Mariana. I’m sure you can save it.”

  Mariana left the room. She was so fat as to be comical, so kind as to make one weep.

  “It’s kindness,” thought Abel, “but that doesn’t seem enough either. There’s something here that eludes me. I can see that they’re happy. They’re very understanding and kind, I can see that too, but there’s something I can’t put my finger on, possibly the most important thing, which might be the cause of that happiness, understanding and kindness. Or perhaps—yes, that’s it—perhaps it’s simultaneously the cause and the consequence of that kindness, understanding and happiness.”

  Abel could not, for the moment, find a way out of this labyrinth. That evening’s satisfying, comforting meal may have had a role in dulling his reasoning powers. He thought he might read a little before going to sleep. It was still early, just after half past ten, so he had plenty of time ahead of him. But he didn’t really feel like reading either, or going out, even though it was a warm, clear night. He knew what he would see in the street: people idling by or hurrying along, either curious or indifferent. Gloomy houses and brightly lit ones. The egotistical flow of life: greed, fear, longing, hope, hunger, vice, being approached by some woman of the streets—and, of course, the night itself, which removes all masks and shows man’s true face.

  He made up his mind to go and talk to Silvestre, his friend Silvestre. He knew it wasn’t a good time, that the cobbler was busy on an urgent task, but if he couldn’t speak to him, at least he could sit near him, watch his skillful hands at work, feel his calm gaze. “Calmness is such a strange thing,” he thought.

  Seeing him come out onto the enclosed balcony, Silvestre smiled and said:

  “No game of checkers tonight, I’m afraid!”

  Abel sat down opposite him. The low lamp lit up Silvestre’s hands and the child’s shoe he was working on.

  “Well, that’s what happens when you have no fixed working hours.”

  “I used to, but now that I’m an entrepreneur . . .”

  He said this last word in a way that stripped it of all meaning. Mariana, sitting with her back against the sink and mending Abel’s shirt, joked:

  “Yes, an entrepreneur with no money.”

  Abel took out a pack of cigarettes.

  “Would you like one?”

  “Yes, please.”

  However, Silvestre was too busy with his hands to take the proffered cigarette. So Abel took it from the pack, put it between Silvestre’s lips and lit it. All this was done in silence. No one mentioned the word “contentment,” but that is what they all felt. Abel’s keener sensibility noted the beauty of the moment. A pure beauty. “Virginal,” he thought.

  His chair was taller than the benches on which Silvestre and Mariana were sitting. He could see their bowed heads, their white hair, Silvestre’s lined forehead, Mariana’s glossy red cheeks and the familiar light surrounding them. Abel’s face lay in shadow, the glow from his cigarette marking the spot where his mouth was.

  Mariana was not one for sitting up late. Besides, her eyesight wasn’t so good at night. To her despair, her head suddenly drooped. She was definitely more lark than owl.

  “You’re nodding off,” said Silvestre.

  “No, I’m not. I was just resting my eyes.”

  It was no good, though. Five minutes later, Mariana got to her feet and apologized to Senhor Abel, but her eyelids were as heavy as lead.

  The two men were left alone.

  “I still haven’t thanked you for supper,” said Abel.

  “Oh, it was nothing.”

  “Well, it meant a lot to me.”

  “It was just poor folks’ food.”

  “Offered to someone even poorer. It’s funny, that’s the first time I’ve ever described myself as poor. I’ve never thought of myself like that.”

  Silvestre did not respond. Abel tapped the ash off his cigarette and went on:

  “But that isn’t why I said it meant a lot to me. It’s just that I’ve never felt so happy as I do today. When I leave, I’m really going to miss you both.”

  “Why do you have to leave?”

  Abel smiled and said:

  “Don’t you remember what I said the other day? As soon as I feel the octopus of life getting a grip, I cut off the tentacle.” After a brief silence that Silvestre made no attempt to interrupt, he added: “I hope you don’t think me ungrateful.”

  “Not at all. If I didn’t know you and know about your life, then I might think that.”

  Abel leaned forward, suddenly filled with curiosity.

  “How is it that you’re so very perceptive?”

  Silvestre looked up, blinking in the light.

  “Do you mean that most cobblers aren’t?”

  “Yes, maybe . . .”

  “And yet I’ve always been a cobbler. You’re a clerk of works and have had some education. No one would think . . .”

  “But I . . .”

  “I know, but you have had an education, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, so have I. I finished primary school, and then I’ve read quite
a lot on my own too. I learned—”

  Silvestre stopped abruptly and bowed his head still lower, as if the shoe required all his attention. The lamp lit up his powerful neck and back.

  “I’m distracting you from your work,” said Abel.

  “No, not at all. I could do this with my eyes closed.”

  He set the shoe aside, picked up three pieces of thread and began waxing them. He did so in long, harmonious movements. Gradually, with each coating of wax, the white thread took on an ever-brighter yellow tone.

  “I only do it with my eyes open out of habit,” he went on. “And of course if I closed my eyes, it would take much longer.”

  “Plus it wouldn’t be very good,” added Abel.

  “Exactly. This only goes to show that even when we could close our eyes, we ought to keep them open.”

  “That sounds rather like a riddle.”

  “Not really. It’s true, isn’t it, that I could do the job with my eyes closed?”

  “Up to a point. You also agreed that, if you did, you wouldn’t do a very good job.”

  “Which is why I keep them open. But isn’t it also true that, at my age, I could easily close my eyes?”

  “You mean die?”

  Silvestre, who had picked up the awl and was piercing the leather with it in order to begin sewing, stopped what he was doing:

  “Die?! What an idea! I’m in no hurry to do that!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Closing your eyes just means not being able to see.”

  “But not being able to see what?”

  Silvestre made a sweeping gesture.

  “All this . . . life . . . people.”

  “The riddle continues. I really don’t know what you mean.”

  “How could you? You don’t know . . .”

  “Now you’re intriguing me. Let’s see if I can work this out. You said that even when we can close our eyes, we should keep them open, right? You also said that you kept them open so as to see life, people . . .”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, we all have our eyes open and can see life and people, but you can do that whether you’re six or sixty . . .”