Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis

archway, on that side the bedroom, which once upon a time would have been described as an alcove, and on this side the sitting room, living quarters as satisfactory as in any apartment, with dark furniture in polished mahogany, drapes over the windows, and lampshades. The traveler heard the harsh screeching of a tram going up the street. The taxi driver was right. It seemed ages since the traveler had left the taxi waiting, and he smiled inwardly at his fear of being robbed. Do you like the room, the manager asked with the voice and authority of his profession but ever courteous, as befits someone negotiating a rental. It's fine, I'll take it, How long are you staying, I can't tell you, much depends on the time it takes to settle my affairs. It is the usual dialogue, the exchange one expects in such situations, but on this occasion there is an element of falsehood, because the traveler has no affairs to settle in Lisbon, no affairs worthy of the name, he has told a lie, he who once declared that he despised inaccuracy.

They descended to the first floor and the manager summoned an employee, a messenger and luggage porter, whom he sent to fetch the gentleman's suitcases. The taxi was waiting in front of the cafe and the traveler went down with him to pay the fare, an expression that harks back to the days of the horse-drawn cab, and also to check that there was nothing missing, but his mistrust is misguided, undeserved, the driver is an honest fellow and wishes only to be paid what is on the meter plus the customary tip. He will not share the good fortune of the baggage handler at the docks, there will be no further distribution of silver coins, for the traveler by now has changed some of his money at the reception desk, not that we disapprove of generosity, but enough is enough, too much ostentation is an insult to the poor. The suitcase weighs a great deal more than money, and when it reaches the landing, the manager is waiting to supervise its transportation. He moves forward to help by placing his hand underneath, a symbolic action, like someone laying the first stone, for the load is carried up on the errand boy's shoulders. A boy by profession rather than age, and he is beginning to feel his years as he carries up the heavy suitcase, supported on either side by futile gestures of assistance, for those made by the guest are not much help as he looks on in distress at the man's exertions, One more flight to go and you are there. It is room two hundred and one, Pimenta. This time Pimenta is in luck, he does not have to climb to the upper floors.

Meanwhile the guest returns to the reception desk, somewhat out of breath after all that effort. He takes the pen and enters the essential details about himself in the register of arrivals, so that it might be known who he claims to be, in the appropriate box on the lined page. Name, Ricardo Reis, age, forty-eight, place of birth, Oporto, marital status, bachelor, profession, doctor, last place of residence, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, whence he has arrived aboard the Highland Brigade. It reads like the beginning of a confession, an intimate autobiography, all that is hidden is contained in these handwritten lines, the only problem is to interpret them. And the manager, who has been craning his neck to follow the linking of words and decipher their meaning at the same time, thinks he knows more or less everything. He introduces himself, beginning, Doctor. This is not intended as flattery but rather as a sign of respect, the acknowledgment of a right, a merit, a quality, which warrants immediate recognition even when not made known in writing. My name is Salvador, I am in charge of this hotel, should you require anything, Doctor, you need only tell me. At what time is dinner served. Dinner is at eight, Doctor, I hope you will find our cuisine satisfactory, we also serve French dishes. Doctor Ricardo Reis concedes with a nod that he shares that hope, retrieves his raincoat and hat from a chair, and withdraws.

The porter was waiting for him in the open doorway of his room. Ricardo Reis saw him there as he entered the corridor and knew that the man would hold out a hand, servile yet nonetheless imperious, demanding according to the weight of the luggage. As he proceeded, he noticed something he had failed to observe before, there were doors only on one side of the corridor, on the other side was the wall that formed the well of the staircase. He thought about this as if it were an important matter that must be borne in mind, really feeling very tired. The man hefted the tip rather than look at it, from long experience, and was satisfied, so much so that he said, Many thanks, Doctor. We cannot explain how he knew, for he had not seen the register of arrivals. The fact is that the lower orders are every bit as shrewd and perceptive as those who have been educated and lead a privileged existence. All that bothered Pimenta was the wing of his shoulder blade, for one of the straps reinforcing the suitcase had not been adjusted right. One would think that he did not know how to carry luggage.

Ricardo Reis sat on a chair and looked around him. This is where he will live who knows for how many days, perhaps he will rent a house and open consulting rooms, or he might decide to return to Brazil. But for the moment the hotel will do nicely, a neutral place requiring no commitment. He is in transit, his life is suspended. Beyond the smooth drapes the windows have suddenly become luminous, an effect created by the street lamps. Already so late, this day has ended, what remains hovers in the remote distance over the sea and is fast escaping. Yet only a few hours ago, Ricardo Reis was still sailing those waters. Now the horizon is within arm's reach, embodied by walls, pieces of furniture that reflect the light as a black mirror, and instead of the deep vibration of the steamer's engines he can hear the whispering, the murmuring of the city, six hundred thousand people sighing, calling in the distance. Then cautious footsteps in the corridor, a woman's voice saying, I'm coming at once. These words, this voice, it must be the maid. He opened one of the windows and looked outside. The rain had stopped. The fresh air, damp with the wind that was sweeping over the river, pervaded the room and cleared away the musty smell, the smell of dirty linen forgotten in some drawer. He reminded himself that a hotel is not a home, smells of one kind or another linger, the perspiration of insomnia or of a night of love, a drenched overcoat, mud brushed from shoes at the hour of departure, the maids who enter to change the beds and sweep the rooms, the odor peculiar to women, unavoidable smells, the signs of our humanity.

He left the window open and went to open another. In his shirt sleeves, refreshed, his vigor suddenly restored, he began to unpack his suitcases. Within half an hour he had emptied them and transferred his clothes to the chest of drawers, his shoes to the shoe rack, his suits to the hangers in the closet, his black suitcase with the medical instruments to a dark recess of a cupboard. The few books he had brought with him were placed on a shelf, some Latin classics which he had got out of the habit of reading, some well-thumbed editions of his favorite English poets, three or four Brazilian authors, less than a dozen Portuguese authors. Among them he found one from the library of the Highland Brigade, a book he had forgotten to return. If the Irish librarian notices the book is missing, grave and grievous accusations will be made against the Lusitanian nation, a land of slaves and brigands, as Byron once quipped, and O'Brien will concur. Insignificant local transgressions often give rise to resounding and universal consequences. But I am innocent, I swear it was merely forgetfulness on my part and nothing more. He placed the book on his bedside table, intending to finish it one of these days, The God of the Labyrinth by Herbert Quain, also Irish, by no unusual coincidence. But the name itself is certainly most unusual, for without any great variation in the pronunciation one might read Quain as the Portuguese for Who. Take note, Quain, Quem, a writer who is no longer unknown because someone discovered him on the Highland Brigade. And if that was the only copy, and even it is now missing, all the more reason for asking ourselves Who. The tedium of the voyage and the book's evocative title had attracted him. A labyrinth with a god, what god might that be, which labyrinth, what labyrinthine god. In the end it turned out to be a simple detective story, an ordinary tale of death and investigation, the murderer, the victim, and finally the detective, all three accomplices to the crime. In my honest opinion, the reader of a mystery is the only real survivor of the story he is reading, unless it is as the one real survivor that every reader reads every story.

There are also documents to be stored away, handwritten sheets of verse, the oldest of them dated the twelfth of June, nineteen fourteen. War was about to break out, the Great War, as they were later to call it, until they experienced one even greater. Maestro, placid are the hours we lose, if in losing them, as in a vase, we place flowers. And then it finished, Tranquil, we depart this life, feeling no remorse at having lived. The most recent sheet of all is dated the thirteenth of November, nineteen thirty-five, six weeks have passed since he wrote it. Still fresh, the lines read, Innumerable people live within us. If I think and feel, I know not who is thinking and feeling, I am only the place where there is thinking and feeling, and, though they do not end here, it is as if everything ends, for beyond thinking and feeling there is nothing. If I am this, muses Ricardo Reis as he stops reading, who will be thinking at this moment what I am thinking, or think that I am thinking in the place where I am, because of thinking. Who will be feeling what I am feeling, or feel that I am feeling in the place where I am, because of feeling. Who is using me in order to think and feel, and among the innumerable people who live within me, who I am, Who, Quem, Quain, what thoughts and feelings are the ones I do not share because they are mine alone. Who am I that others are not nor have been nor will come to be. He gathered together the sheets of paper and put them into a drawer of the little writing desk, closed the windows, and went to run the hot water for a bath. It was after seven.

As the last stroke of eight echoed on the pendulum clock that adorned the wall above the reception desk, Ricardo Reis descended punctually to the dining room. The manager, Salvador, smiled, raising his mustache above his teeth, which looked none too clean, as he hurried forward to open the double doors. Their glass panels,