Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis

recommendation but written evidence of good and loyal service, just like the one the Hotel Branganca will give to Lydia if she ever decides to leave for another job or to marry. He put on his white coat and called in the first patient. In the waiting room there are five more patients to be examined, he will not have time now to cure them, happily their conditions are not so serious that they will die on his hands in the next twelve days, before the month expires, just as well.

No sign of Lydia. This is not her day off, true, but knowing that his trip to Fatima was simply a matter of going and coming straight back, and knowing that he could have met Marcenda there, she might at least have come to see if there was any news of her friend and confidante, to find out if Marcenda was well, if her arm had been cured. In half an hour Lydia could come to the Alto de Santa Catarina and go back, or she could call at his office, which is even closer and quicker. But she has not come, she has not asked. It was a mistake for him to have kissed her without taking her to bed, perhaps she thought that he was buying her with that kiss, if such thoughts occur to people of humble background. Alone in his apartment, Ricardo Reis leaves only to work and to dine, from his window he watches the river and the distant slopes of Montijo, the rock of Adamastor, the punctual old men, the palm trees. Occasionally he goes down to the park and reads a few pages of some book. He retires early, thinks about Fernando Pessoa, who is dead now, and about Alberto Caeiro, who disappeared in his prime and for whom there had been such high hopes, and about Alvaro de Campos, who went to Glasgow, at least that is what he said in his telegram, he will probably settle there, building ships to the end of his days or until he is pensioned off. Occasionally Ricardo Reis goes to the movies and sees Our Daily Bread directed by King Vidor, or The Thirty-Nine Steps with Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll, and he could not resist going to the Sao Luis to see Audioscopes, a 3-D film. As a souvenir he brought home the celluloid spectacles one has to wear, green on one side, red on the other, these spectacles are a poetic instrument to see things for which normal vision is not enough.

They say time stops for no man, that time marches on, commonplaces that are still repeated, yet there are people who chafe at the slowness with which it passes. Twenty-four hours to make a day, and at the end of the day you discover that it was not worthwhile, and the following day is the same all over again, if only we could leap over all the futile weeks in order to live one hour of fulfillment, one moment of splendor, if splendor can last that long. Ricardo Reis starts toying with the idea of returning to Brazil. The death of Fernando Pessoa, apparently, was a valid reason for crossing the Atlantic after an absence of sixteen years, for staying in Portugal, resuming his practice, writing a poem now and then, growing old, taking the place, after a fashion, of the poet who died, even if no one noticed the substitution. But now he wonders. This is not his country, if, in fact, it is anyone's. Portugal belongs only to God and Our Blessed Lady, it is a dreary, two-dimensional sketch with no relief in sight, not even with the special spectacles of Audioscopes. Fernando Pessoa, whether shadow or ghost, appears from time to time in order to make some ironic comment, to smile benevolently, then disappear. Ricardo Reis need not have bothered returning because of him. And Marcenda has ceased to exist, she lives in Coimbra on an unknown street, her days pass, one by one, without a cure. She may have hidden his letters in some corner of the attic, in the padding of a chair, or in a secret drawer used by her mother before her, or, even more cleverly, in the trunk of a housemaid who cannot read and is trustworthy, perhaps Marcenda reads them over and over, like one who recites a dream lest he forgets it, in vain, because in the end our dreams and what we remember of them have nothing in common. Lydia will come tomorrow because she always comes on her day off, but Lydia is the nursemaid of Anna Karenina, she is useful for keeping the house clean and for certain other needs, she cannot fill, with the little she has to offer, the emptiness of Ricardo Reis, not even the universe would suffice, if we accept his image of himself. As of the first of June he will be unemployed, he will have to go forth once more in search of a vacancy, a locum tenens position to make the days pass more quickly. Fortunately he still has a large wad of English pound notes he has not touched, and there is the money still deposited in a Brazilian bank, these various sums would be more than enough to rent an office and build a general-medicine practice of his own, for general medicine is all most patients require. No need to dabble in diseases of the heart and lungs. He might even employ Lydia to attend the patients, intelligent and easygoing Lydia would soon learn how, with a little guidance she could improve her spelling and escape the drudgery of life as a chambermaid. But this is only the daydream of one who is passing the time in idle thought. Ricardo Reis will not seek work, no, the best thing for him to do is take The Highland Brigade back to Brazil when she makes her next voyage. He will discreetly return The God of the Labyrinth to its owner, and O'Brien will never discover how the missing book suddenly reappeared.

Lydia arrived, said good afternoon, but seemed a little cold, withdrawn, she asked no questions and he was forced to speak first, I went to Fatima. She asked, Oh, how did you like it. How should Ricardo Reis reply, as a nonbeliever he is not likely to have experienced spiritual ecstasy, on the other hand he did not go purely out of curiosity, therefore he confines himself to generalities, Lots of people, dust everywhere, I had to sleep in the open, as you warned me, fortunately the night was warm. Doctor, you are not the sort of person to be roughing it on pilgrimages. I went to see what it was like. Lydia stays in the kitchen, is now running the hot water to wash the dishes, without saying much she has made it clear that there will be no carnal pleasures today. Could the reason for this embargo be the familiar problem of menstruation, or is it some lingering resentment, or the combination of both blood and tears, two insurmountable rivers making an impassable, murky sea. He sat on a bench in the kitchen watching her as she worked, not something he was in the habit of doing, it was a gesture of goodwill, a white flag waving over the fortifications to test the mood of the enemy general. I didn't come across Doctor Sampaio and his daughter after all, which was only to be expected with such a crowd, these words are spoken casually, they hover in midair, waiting for someone to pay attention. But what kind of attention, he could be telling the truth, he could be telling a lie, such is the inadequacy, the built-in duplicity of words. A word lies, with the same word one can speak the truth, we are not what we say, we are true only if others believe us. Lydia's belief is unknown, for she simply asks, Were there any miracles. If there were, I didn't see them, and no miracles were reported in the newspapers. Poor Senhorita Marcenda, if she went there in the hope of being cured, how disappointed she must have been. She had little hope, How do you know. Lydia fixed her gaze on Ricardo Reis as quick as a startled bird. Trying to catch me, he thought to himself as he replied, When I was still staying at the hotel, Marcenda and her father were already planning a visit to Fatima. Oh, really. These are the little duels with which people wear themselves out and grow old. Better to change the subject, and this is where newspapers become useful, they store facts in one's memory and help keep conversations going, both for the old men on the Alto de Santa Catarina and for Ricardo Reis and Lydia, because some silences are not preferable to words. What news about your brother, this is just an opening. My brother is fine, why do you ask. I was reminded of him because of something I read in the paper, a speech by a certain engineer named Nobre Guedes, I still have the paper here. I've never heard of the gentleman. Given what he has to say about sailors, I doubt that your brother would call him a gentleman. What does he say. Wait, I'll get the paper. Ricardo Reis left the kitchen, went into the study, returned with O Seculo, the text of the speech took up almost an entire page, This is the speech Nobre Guedes made on the National Radio condemning Communism, and at one point he refers to sailors. Does he say anything about my brother. He doesn't mention your brother by name, but to give you an example, he had this to say, There is in circulation an execrable leaflet known as The Red Sailor. What does execrable mean. Execrable means that something is evil, wretched, very bad. It means you want to curse it. Exactly, to execrate is to curse. I've seen The Red Sailor and it didn't make me feel like cursing. Did your brother show it to you. Yes, it was Daniel. Then your brother is a Communist. I'm not sure about that, but he's certainly in favor of Communism. What's the difference. To me he doesn't look different from other people. Do you think that if he were a Communist he would look different. I don't know, I can't explain. Well, this engineer Guedes also says that the sailors of Portugal are not red or white or blue, they are Portuguese. What, he thinks Portuguese is a color. That's very witty, anyone looking at you would say you couldn't break a plate, yet every so often you pull down a whole cupboard of plates. My hand is steady, I'm not in the habit of breaking plates, take a look, here I am washing your dishes and nothing slips from my hands. You're an extraordinary girl. This extraordinary girl is only a hotel chambermaid, but tell me, did this fellow Guedes have anything else to say about the sailors. About the sailors, no. I now remember that Daniel did mention a sailor, also Guedes, but his first name was Manuel, Manuel Guedes, and he is waiting to be sentenced, there are forty men altogether who are facing trial. Many have the name Guedes. Well, this one is Manuel. The dishes are washed and left to drain, Lydia has other chores to do, she must change the sheets, make the bed, open the window to air the room, clean the bathroom, put out fresh towels. This done, she returns to the kitchen and is drying the dishes when suddenly Ricardo Reis steals up from behind and puts his arm around her waist. She tries to avoid him, but he kisses her on the neck, causing the plate to slip from her