Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis

by a dog. The plague was almost certainly bubonic, the animal hardly of the same breed as the bitch Ugolina that knows only how to tear and devour. Inside this famous church you will find the chapel of Sao Joao Baptista, its decorations entrusted to Italian artists by Dom Joao V, king, mason, and architect par excellence, who won such renown during his reign. Take a look at the convent of Mafra and also the aqueduct of Aguas Livres, of which the full history has yet to be written. Here too, on the diagonal of the two kiosks that sell tobacco, lottery tickets, and spirits, stands the monument in marble erected by the Italian colony to commemorate the marriage of King Dom Luis, the translator of Shakespeare, and Dona Maria Pia di Savoia, the daughter of Verdi, that is to say, of Vittorio Emmanuele, King of Italy, the only monument in the entire city of Lisbon which resembles a chastising rod or carpet beater with its five eyelets. At least that is what it suggests to the little girls from the orphanages, with their startled eyes, or if blind, they are so informed by their seeing companions, who from time to time pass this way dressed in little smocks and walking in formation, getting rid of the stench of the dormitory, their hands still smarting from the latest caning. This is a traditional neighborhood, exalted in name and location, but low in its way of life, for the laurel branches on the doors of the taverns alternate with women of easy virtue, al though, because it is still morning and the roads have been washed by the recent rain, you can sense a freshness, an innocence in the air, an almost virginal breeze. Who would have thought this possible in such a disreputable place, but the canaries affirm it with their song, their cages hanging out on the balconies or at the entrances to the taverns, they warble as if demented. One has to take advantage of the fine weather, especially when it is not expected to last, for once the rain starts up again their singing will die away, their feathers will ruffle. One little bird, more prescient than the others, buries its head under its wing and pretends to be asleep, its mistress is coming to fetch it indoors, and now only rain can be heard, also the strumming of a guitar nearby, where it is coming from Ricardo Reis cannot tell. He has taken shelter in this doorway at the beginning of the Travessa da Agua da Flor. It's often said that the sun is here then gone again, the clouds that let it through cover it quickly, but showers, too, come and go, the rain pours down, passes, the eaves and verandahs trickle water, the wash on the clotheslines is dripping, then a cloudburst so sudden there is no time for the women to do anything, to shout, as is their wont, It's raiiiiining, passing the word from one to another like soldiers in their sentry boxes at night. But the canary's mistress is on the alert and manages, in the nick of time, to retrieve it. Just as well that its frail little body has been protected, see how its heart is beating, Jesus, such violence, such speed. Was it the fright, no, it is always like this, a heart that lives for a short time beats fast, in compensation. Ricardo Reis crosses the park to take a look at the city, the castle with its walls in ruins, the terraced houses collapsing along the slopes, the whitish sun beating on the wet rooftops. Silence descends on the city, every sound is muffled, Lisbon seems made of absorbent cotton, soaked, dripping. Below, on a platform, are several busts of gallant patriots, some box shrubs, a few Roman heads out of place, so remote from the skies of Latium, as if one of Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro's native rustics had been set up to make a rude gesture to the Apollo Belvedere. The entire terrace is a belvedere as we contemplate Apollo, then a voice joins the guitar and they sing a fado. The rain appears to have finally disappeared.

When one idea is drawn from another, we say that there has been an association. Some are even of the opinion that the whole human mental process derives from this succession of stimuli, sometimes unconscious, sometimes only pretending to be unconscious, which achieves original combinations, new relationships of thoughts interlinked by the species and together forming what might be called a commerce, an industry of ideas, because man, apart from all the other things he is, has been, or will be, performs an industrial and commercial function, first as producer, then as retailer, and finally as consumer, but even this order can be shuffled and rearranged. I am speaking only of ideas and nothing else. So, then, we can consider ideas as corporate entities, independent or in partnership, perhaps publicly held, but never with limited liability, never anonymous, for a name is something we all possess. The logical connection between this economic theory and the stroll Ricardo Reis is taking, which we already know to be instructive, will become apparent when he arrives at the entrance of the former convent of Sao Pedro de Alcantara, nowadays a refuge for little girls pedagogically chastised with the rod. In the vestibule he comes face to face with the tiled mural depicting Saint Francis of Assisi, il poverello, freely translated as poor devil, kneeling in ecstasy and receiving the stigmata, which in this symbolic representation reach him by means of five cords of blood that descend from on high, from Christ crucified, who hovers in the heavens like a star, or like a kite launched by urchins in the open countryside where there is no lack of space and where people still remember a time when men could be seen flying. With his hands and feet bleeding, his side a gaping wound, Saint Francis holds on to Christ's cross to prevent Him from disappearing into the cloistered heights. There the Father calls to His Son, Come, come, your time for being a man is at an end. That is why we see Saint Francis twitching in saintly fashion as he struggles to hold on, as he murmurs what some believe to be a prayer, I won't let you go, I won't let you go. From these events, which are only now being revealed, you can see just how urgent it is to dismiss orthodox theology and forge a new theology totally opposed to traditional beliefs. Here is an association of ideas for you, then, to illustrate, because first there were Roman heads on the terrace, which was a belvedere, then Ricardo Reis remem bered the obscene gesture of the Portuguese rustic, and now, at the entrance to an old convent in Lisbon, not in Wittenberg, he discovers how and why the common people call that gesture the heraldic arms of Saint Francis, for it is the gesture the desperate saint makes to God when He tries to take away his star. There will be no lack of skeptics and conservatives who reject this hypothesis, but that need not surprise us, it is, after all, what always happens to new ideas, ideas born by association.

Ricardo Reis searches his memory for fragments of poems composed some twenty years ago, how time flies, Unhappy God, essential to all, perhaps because He is unique. It is not you, Christ, whom I despise, but do not usurp what belongs to others. Through the gods we men stand united. These are the words he mutters to himself as he walks along the Rua de Dom Pedro V as if looking for fossils or the ruins of an ancient civilization, and for a moment he wonders whether there is any meaning left in the odes from which he has taken these random lines, lines still coherent but weakened by the absence of what comes before and what follows, paradoxically assuming, by that absence, another meaning, one obscure and authoritative, like that of an epigraph to a book. He asks himself if it is possible to define a unity that joins, like a fastener or clip, two things opposed, divergent, such as that saint who went healthy to the mountain and returned oozing blood from five wounds. If only he had succeeded, at the end of the day, in winding up those cords and returning home, weary as any laborer after his toil, carrying under his arm the kite he was able to retrieve only by the skin of his teeth. It would rest by his pillow while he slept. Today he has won, but who can tell if he will win tomorrow. Trying to join these opposites is probably as absurd as trying to empty the sea with a bucket, not because that is so enormous a task, even if one has the time and energy, but because one would first have to find somewhere on land another great cavity for the sea, and this is impossible. There is so much sea, so little land.

Ricardo Reis is also absorbed by the question he posed himself upon arriving at the Praca do Rio de Janeiro, once known as the Praca do Principe Real and which one day may go back to that name, should anyone live to see it. When the weather becomes hot, one longs for the shade of these silver maples, elms, the Roman pine which looks like a refreshing pergola. Not that this poet and doctor is so well versed in botany, but someone must make up for the ignorance and lapses of memory of a man who for the last sixteen years has grown accustomed to the vastly different and more baroque flora and fauna of the tropics. This is not, however, the season for summer pursuits, for the delights of beach and spa, today's temperature must be around ten degrees Centigrade and the park benches are wet. Ricardo Reis pulls his raincoat snugly around his body, shivering, he goes back by other avenues, now descending the Rua do'Seculo, unable to say what made him decide on this route, this street so deserted and melancholy. A few grand residences remain alongside the squat, narrow houses built for the poorer classes, at least the nobility in former days were not all that discriminating, they lived side by side with the common folk. God help us, the way things are going we will see the return of exclusive neighborhoods, nothing but private residences for the barons of industry and commerce, who very soon will swallow up whatever is left of the aristocracy, residences with private garages, gardens in proportion to the size of the property, dogs that bark ferociously. Even among the dogs one notices the difference. In the distant past they attacked both rich and poor.

Showing no haste, Ricardo Reis proceeds down the street, his umbrella serving as a walking stick. He taps the paving stones as he goes, beating time with every other step, the sound precise, distinct, sharp. There is no echo, yet the impact is almost liquid, if the term is not absurd, let us say that it is liquid, for so it seems as the tip of the umbrella strikes the limestone. He is absorbed by these puerile thoughts when suddenly he becomes aware of his own footsteps, almost as if, since leaving the hotel, he has not met a living soul. He would swear to that if called upon to testify, I saw no one on my walk. How is that possible, my good man, in a city one could scarcely regard as being small, where did all the people disappear to. He knows, of course, because common sense, the only