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  As a possible pilferer of those forms, there was no reason why he should be considered any more suspicious than his other colleagues of the same rank, since only the clerks filled in the cards and the file covers, but all day Senhor José's fragüe nerves made him fearful that the tremors of his guilty conscience might be seen and noticed from the outside. Despite this, he acquitted himself very well in the interrogation to which he was submitted. Adjusting his face and voice to suit the situation, he stated that he was always most scrupulous in his use of the forms, in the first place, because that was the way he was by nature, but above all, because he was conscious, at every moment, that the paper used in the Central Registry was paid for by public taxes, paid for over and over with the hard-earned money of taxpayers, and that he, as a responsible civil servant, had a strict duty to respect that and to make their money last. His declaration was well received by his superiors both for its form and for its content, so much so that the colleagues who were subsequently called for questioning repeated it with only minimal modifications of style, but it was thanks to the universal, tacit belief, inculcated in the staff over time by their chief's own peculiar personality, that, whatever happened, nothing in the Central Registry could be allowed to go against the interests of work, that no one even noticed that Senhor José had never uttered so many words consecutively since he had first started work there many years before. Had the deputy been versed in the investigatory methods of applied psychology, before you could say boo, Senhor José's deceitful speech would have collapsed around him, like a house of cards in which the king of spades had lost his footing, or like a vertigo sufferer on a ladder when that ladder is shaken. Fearful that, on reflection, the deputy in charge of the inquiry might suspect there was something fishy going on, Senhor José decided that to avoid further trouble he would stay home that night. He would not move from his corner, he would not go into the Central Registry, not even if someone were to promise him the extraordinary good fortune of discovering the document everyone has been looking for since the world began, nothing more nor less than the birth certificate of God. The wise man is only wise insofar as he is prudent, they say, and it must be acknowledged that Senhor José, despite recent irregularities in his conduct, did possess a kind of involuntary wisdom, albeit sadly lacking in precision and definition, the kind of wisdom that appears to have entered the body via the respiratory tract or from too much sun on the head, which is why it is not considered worthy of any particular applause. If prudence now counselled him to withdraw, he, wisely, would listen to the voice of prudence. A one- or two-week stoppage in his investigations would help erase from his face any vestige of fear or anxiety it might otherwise have borne.

  After a meagre supper, as was his custom and as dictated by necessity, Senhor José found himself with a whole evening before him and with nothing to do. He managed to pass half an hour leafing through some of the more famous lives in his collection, even adding a few recent clippings, but his thoughts were elsewhere. They were wandering through the darkness of the Central Registry, like a black dog on the trail of the ultimate secret. He began to think that there would be no harm in simply using up the forms he had in reserve, even if there were only three or four of them, just to occupy some of the night and to be able to sleep peacefully afterwards. Prudence tried to hold him back, to grip him by the sleeve, but, as everyone knows, or should know, prudence is only of any use when it is trying to conserve something in which we are no longer interested, for what harm could it do to open the door, quickly search out three or four record cards, all right, five, a nice round number, but he would leave the files for another occasion and that way he wouldn't have to use the ladder. That was the idea that finally decided him. With the flashlight held in his trembling hand to light his path, he entered the vast cavern of the Central Registry and went over to the card index. He was more nervous than he had thought and kept turning his head this way and that as if afraid he was being observed by thousands of eyes hidden in the darkness of the aisles between the shelves. He had still not got over that morning's shock. As quickly as his anxious fingers would allow, he started opening and closing drawers, looking under the different letters of the alphabet for the cards he needed, making mistake after mistake, until he finally managed to gather together the five most famous people in the second category. Feeling really frightened now, he scurried back home, his heart pounding, like a child who has gone to steal a cake from the pantry and who leaves it pursued by all the monsters of the dark. He slammed the door in their faces and turned the key twice, he didn't even want to think about the fact that he would have to return that same night in order to replace those wretched cards. In an attempt to calm himself down, he took a sip of the brandy he kept for special occasions, both good and bad. In his haste and because he was unused to drinking given that even good and bad had until then, been rare occurrences in his insignificant life, the brandy went down the wrong way, he coughed coughed again almost choked, a poor clerk clutching five record cards, at least he thought there were five, he coughed so hard that he dropped them, and there weren't five, but six, scattered on the floor, as anyone could see and count, one, two, three, four, five, six, one sip of brandy didn't usually have that effect.

  When he finally managed to catch his breath, he bent down to pick up the cards, one, two, three, four, five, there was no doubt about it, six, and as he picked them up he read the names on them, all of them famous, apart from one. In his haste and nervous agitation the intrusive card had got stuck to the one in front, the cards were so thin you barely noticed the difference in thickness. Now however much care and trouble you take over your handwriting, copying out five brief summaries of birth and life is not a long job. After half an hour, Senhor José could bring the evening to a close and again open the door. Reluctantly, he gathered together the six cards and got up from his chair. He did not feel at all like going back into the Central Registry, but there was no alternative, the following morning, the card index had to be complete and in its proper order. If anyone had to consult one of those cards and it was not in its place, the situation could become serious. Suspicion would lead to suspicion, investigation to investigation, and someone would inevitably remark that Senhor José lived right next door to the Central Registry, which, as we all know, does not even enjoy the elementary protection of a night watchman, someone might think to ask what had happened to the key that had never been handed in. What must be, will be, and there's nothing you can do about it, thought Senhor José rather unoriginally, and went over to the door. Halfway there, he suddenly stopped, It's odd, but I can't remember if the extra card belonged to a man or a woman. He turned back, he sat down again, he would thus delay a little longer before obeying the force of what must be. The card belongs to a woman of thirty-six, born in that very city, and there are two entries, one for marriage, the other for divorce. There must be hundreds, if not thousands of such cards in the index system, so it's hard to understand why Senhor José should be looking at it so strangely, in a way which, at first sight, seems intent, but which is also vague and troubled, perhaps this is the look of someone who, without making any conscious choice, is gradually losing his grip on something and has yet to find another handhold. Doubtless some will point out supposed, inadmissible contradictions in terms such as "troubled," "vague" and "intent," but they are people who take life as it comes, people who have never been brought face-to-face with destiny. Senhor José looks and looks again at what is written on the card, the handwriting, needless to say, is not his, it's in an old-fashioned hand, thirty-six years ago another clerk wrote the words you can read here, the name of the baby girl, the names of her parents and godparents, the date and hour of her birth, the street and the number of the apartment where she first saw the light of day and first felt pain, the same beginning as everyone else, the differences, great and small, come later, some of those who are born become entries in encyclopedias, in history books, in biographies, in catalogues, in manuals, in collections of ne
wspaper clippings, the others, roughly speaking, are like a cloud that passes without leaving behind it any trace of its passing, and if rain fell from that cloud it did not even wet the earth. Like me, thought Senhor José. He had a cupboard full of men and women about whom the newspapers wrote almost every day, on the table was the birth certificate of an unknown person, and. it was as if he had placed them both in the pans of a scale, a hundred this side one the other and was surprised to discover that all of them together weighed no more than this one that one hundred equalled one, that one was worth as much as hundred. If someone had gone into his house at that moment and out of the blue asked him My dear sir do you really believe that the one that you are is' also worth the same as a hundred, that the hundred people in your cupboard to be precise are worth the same as you, he would have replied without hesitation, My dear sir, I'm just a clerk, just an ordinary fifty-year-old clerk, who has never even been promoted to senior clerk, if I thought that I was worth the same as even one of the people in there, or worth the same as any one of the five less famous people, I would never have started my collection, Then why is it that you keep staring at the card of that unknown woman, as if she were suddenly more important than all the others, Precisely, my dear sir, because she is unknown, Oh, come on, the card index in the Central Registry is full of unknown people, But they're in the card index, they're not here, What do you mean, I don't quite know, In that case, forget all these metaphysical thoughts for which your brain doesn't seem particularly well suited, go and put the card back in its place and get a good night's sleep, That's what I hope to do, as I do every night, the tone of his reply was conciliatory, but Senhor José had one more thing to add, As for the metaphysical thoughts, my dear sir, allow me to say that any brain is capable of producing them, it's just that we cannot always find the words.

  Contrary to his desire, Senhor José did not have his customary, relatively peaceful night's sleep. He was pursuing through the confused labyrinth of his unmetaphysical head the trail of motives that had led him to copy out the details from the unknown woman's card, and he could not find a single one that could consciously have determined that unexpected action. He could only remember the movement of his left hand picking up a blank card, then his right hand writing, his eyes going from one card to the other, as if, in reality, they were the ones carrying the words from there to here. He also remembered how, to his surprise, he had walked calmly into the Central Registry, the flashlight grasped firmly in his hand, feeling not the least bit nervous or anxious, how he had put the six cards back in their places, how the last had been that of the unknown woman, lit until the last moment by the flashlight beam, then sliding down, disappearing, vanishing between the card bearing the previous letter and the card bearing the subsequent letter, a name on a card, that's all. In the middle of the night, worn out from not sleeping, he turned on the light. Then he got up, put his raincoat on over his underclothes and went and sat at the table. He fell asleep much later, his head resting on his right forearm and his left hand on the copy he had made of the record card.

  ...

  Senhor José's decision appeared two days later. Generally speaking, we don't talk about a decision appearing to us, people jealously guard both their identity, however vague it might be, and their authority, what little they may have, and prefer to give the impression that they reflected deeply before taking the final step, that they pondered the pros and cons, that they weighed up the possibilities and the alternatives, and that, after intense mental effort, they finally made a decision It has to be said that things never happen like that. Obviously it would not enter anyone's head to eat without feeling hungry, and hunger does not depend on our will, it comes into being of its own accord, the result of objective bodily needs, it is a physical and chemical problem whose solution, in a more or less satisfactory way, will be found in the contents of a plate. Even such a simple act as going down into the street to buy a newspaper presupposes not only a desire to receive news, which, since it is a desire, is necessarily an appetite, the effect of specific physico-chemical activities in the body, albeit of a different nature, that routine act also presupposes, for example, the unconscious certainty, belief or hope that the delivery van was not late or that the newspaper stand is not closed due to illness or to the voluntary absence of the proprietor. Moreover, if we persist in stating that we are the ones who make our decisions, then we would have to begin to explain, to discern, to distin guish, who it is in us who made the decision and who subsequently carried it out, impossible operations by anyone's standards. Strictly speaking, we do not make decisions, decisions make us. The proof can be found in the fact that, though life leads us to carry out the most diverse actions one after the other, we do not prelude each one with a period of reflection, evaluation and calculation, and only then declare ourselves able to decide if we will go out to lunch or buy a newspaper or look for the unknown woman.

  It is for these reasons that, even if we were to submit him to the closest of cross-questionings, Senhor José would be at a loss to explain how and why the decision made him, let's hear the explanation he would give, All I know is that it was Wednesday night and I was at home, feeling so tired I couldn't even face having any supper, my head still spinning after all day spent at the top of that wretched ladder, my boss should realise I'm too old for such acrobatics, that I'm not a slip of a boy anymore, not to mention my problem, What problem, I suffer from giddiness, vertigo, fear of falling, whatever you want to call it, You've never complained about it, No, I don't like to complain, That's very considerate of you, go on, Well, I was considering getting into bed, no, I tell a lie, I'd just taken off my shoes, when suddenly I made a decision, If you made a decision, do you know why you made it, I don't think I did make it, the decision made me, Normal people make decisions, they're not made by their decisions, Until that Wednesday night that's what I thought too, What happened on that Wednesday night, What I'm telling you now, I had the unknown woman's record card on my bedside table and I started looking at it as if for the first time, But you'd looked at it before, At home I'd done little else since Monday, So you were mulling over the decision, Or it was mulling over me, Now don't start that again, Anyway, I put my shoes back on, pulled on my jacket and my raincoat and I went out, I didn't even remember to put on a tie, What time was it, About half past ten, Where did you go, To the street where the unknown woman was born, With what intention, I wanted to see the place, the building, the house, So you're finally ready to admit that there was a decision and that it was, as it should have been, made by you, No, sir, I merely became aware of it, For a mere clerk you certainly know how to argue, Generally speaking, clerks go unnoticed, people underestimate them, Go on, There was the building, there was a light on in the windows, You mean the house where the woman was born, Yes, What did you do next, I stayed there for a few minutes, Looking, Yes, sir, looking, Just looking, Yes, sir, just looking, And then, Then, nothing, You didn't knock on the door, you didn't go up, you didn't ask questions, Certainly not, it didn't even occur to me to do so at that hour of the night, What time was it, By then, it must have been about half past eleven, You walked there, Yes, sir, And how did you come back, I walked, You mean, there were no witnesses, What witnesses, The person who would have opened the door if you'd gone up, or the driver of a tram or a bus, for example, And what would they have been witnesses to, To the fact that you really did go to the street of the unknown woman, And what use would those witnesses be, They could prove that all this wasn't just a dream, I've told you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I'm under oath, my word should be enough, It should be, perhaps, if it wasn't for one very telling detail, incongruous if you like, What detail, The tie, What's my tie got to do with it, A clerk from the Central Registry never goes anywhere without his tie on, it's impossible, it's against nature, As I've already told you, I wasn't myself, I was in the grip of a decision, That's just further proof that it was a dream, I don't see why, The choice is simple if you admit that
you made a decision, just like everyone else, then I'm prepared to believe that you went to the street of the unknown woman without a tie on, a disgraceful deviation from professional conduct which I choose not to examine just now, or else you continue to say that you were made by the decision, and that that, as well as the unavoidable matter of the tie, could only possibly occur in a dream state, I say again that I did not make a decision, I looked at the card, I put on my shoes and I went out, So you dreamed it, No, I didn't dream it, You lay down, went to sleep and dreamed that you went to the street of the unknown woman, I can describe the street to you, You would have to prove to me that you had never been there before, I can tell you what the building's like, Come now, all buildings are grey in the dark, They usually say that about cats, It's the same with buildings, So you don't believe me, No, Why, if you don't mind my asking, Because what you say you did doesn't fit with my reality and what doesn't fit with my reality doesn't exist, The body that dreams is real, therefore, unless there's some higher authority on the subject, the dream the body is dreaming must be real too, A dream only has reality as a dream, You mean my only reality was a dream, Yes, that was the only reality experienced by you, Can I go back to work now, You can, but prepare yourself, because we still have to deal with the matter of the tie.