Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis

telephone in this apartment, and even if there were one, he could hardly call the hotel and say, Good evening, Senhor Salvador, this is Doctor Ricardo Reis speaking, do you remember me, we haven't spoken to each other in ages, I say, those were extremely happy weeks I spent in your hotel, no, no, I don't need a room, I simply wanted to speak to Lydia, could you ask her to come around to my apartment, excellent, how very kind of you to let her off for a couple of hours, I am feeling very lonely, no, it isn't for that, all I need is a little company. He gets up from the bed, gathers together the pages of the newspaper lying all over the floor and on the bedspread, and runs his eye down the list of entertainments, but nothing stirs his interest. For a moment he wishes he were blind, deaf, and dumb, thrice the cripple Fernando Pessoa says we all are, then among the news items from Spain he notices a photograph that had escaped him previously, army tanks bearing the Sacred Heart of Jesus. If this is the coat of arms they are using, then there can be no doubt that this will be a war waged without mercy. He remembers that Lydia is pregnant, with a baby boy, as she constantly tells him, and this baby boy will grow up and go to the wars that are now in the making. One war leads to another, let us do some calculations, the baby comes into the world in March of next year, if the average age when youths go to war is twenty-three or twenty-four, what war will we have in nineteen sixty-one, and where, and why, and over what wasteland. With the eyes of imagination Ricardo Reis sees the boy riddled with bullets, dark and pale like his father but only his mother's son, for his father will not acknowledge him.

Badajoz has surrendered. Spurred by the rousing telegram from the veteran Portuguese legionnaires, the Spanish Foreign Legion achieved miraculous victories, whether at a distance or in hand-to-hand combat, and singled out for special honor were the brave Portuguese legionnaires of the new generation who were anxious to prove themselves worthy of their predecessors, one should add that it always helps to feel that one's native land is not far away. Badajoz has surrendered. Reduced to ruins by continuous bombardment, swords broken, scythes blunted, clubs and hatchets smashed, the city has surrendered. General Mola declared, The hour has come to settle accounts, and the bull ring opened its gates to receive the militiamen taken captive, then closed them, the fiesta is under way, machine guns shout ole, ole, ole, the noise is deafening in the bull ring of Badajoz, and the minotaurs dressed in cheap cotton fall on top of one another, mingling their blood in mutual transfusion. When not a single monster is left standing, the matadors will liquidate with their pistols those who were simply wounded, and if any escape this mercy, it is only to be buried alive. All that Ricardo Reis knew about this event was what he read in the Portuguese newspapers, but one newspaper accompanied its report with a photograph of the bull ring in which bodies could be seen scattered here and there, a wagon looked completely out of place, was it meant for deliveries or removals, for bulls or minotaurs. Ricardo Reis learned the rest from Lydia, who had been told by her brother, who had been told by who knows whom, perhaps it was a message from the future when all will finally be resolved. No longer crying, Lydia tells him, Two thousand lost their lives, her lips are trembling, her cheeks flushed. Ricardo Reis tries to console her, takes her by the arm, but she pulls away, not out of any rancor but simply because today she cannot bear it. Later, in the kitchen, as she is washing the dirty dishes that have accumulated, she begins to cry again, and for the first time she asks herself why she comes to this apartment. Is she the doctor's maid, his cleaner, she is certainly not his lover, because that word implies equality, no matter whether male or female, and they are not equal. Then she does not know if she is crying for the dead of Badajoz or for her own death, which is the death of feeling that she is nobody. Sitting in his study, Ricardo Reis has no idea what is going on. To take his mind off the two thousand dead, a truly incredible number, if Lydia was telling the truth, he reopened The God of the Labyrinth, to continue where he had left off, but could get no meaning from the words. He realized that he had forgotten the narrative, so he went back once more to the beginning, The body, discovered by the first chess player, occupied with its outstretched arms the squares of the King and Queen's pawns as well as the next two squares in the direction of the enemy camp. Reaching this point, Ricardo Reis again lost the thread, seeing the chessboard as a desert and the sprawled corpse as a young man who was no longer a young man, then he saw a circle inscribed in that huge square, an arena strewn with bodies crucified on their native soil, and Sacred Hearts of Jesus went from one to the other making sure that there were no survivors. When Lydia walked into the study, done with her chores, Ricardo Reis was sitting with the book closed in his lap, he appeared to be sleeping and looked, caught unawares like this, almost old. She stared at him as if he were a stranger, then left without making a sound. She begins to think, I won't come back here, but she cannot be certain.

Now that General Milan d'Astray has finally arrived, another proclamation is issued from Tetuan, war without mercy, war without truce, war unto death against the Marxist vermin while observing humanitarian principles, As one can gather from the words spoken by General Franco, I have not yet occupied Madrid because I do not wish to sacrifice innocent citizens. Now here is a considerate fellow, someone who would never order the massacre of innocents as Herod did, no, he will wait until they grow up rather than have such a burden on his conscience and overcrowd heaven with angels. It is inconceivable that these fair winds from Spain should not produce similar events in Portugal. The bids have been made, the cards placed on the table and dealt, the time has come to know who is for us and who is against us, let us make the enemy show his face, betray himself by his own duplicity, and let us count as ours all who out of cowardice or greed or fear of losing the little they have seek refuge in the shade of our flag. Therefore the national unions have decided to stage a rally opposing Communism, and as soon as this news is announced, the furor that accompanies all great moments in history grips the entire community. Petitions are signed by patriotic associations, women, either individually or in various committees, demand representation, and in order to put their members into the right frame of mind, some unions hold special meetings, the union of shop assistants, for example, or master bakers, or hotel workers, and in the photographs those present can be seen saluting with stiff raised arms, each rehearsing his role as he awaits the opening ceremony. During these meetings, the manifesto of the national unions is read out and applauded, it is an impassioned declaration of their political allegiance and their confidence in the nation's destiny, as becomes clear from the following excerpts taken at random, There can be no doubt but that the national-corporative workers are Portuguese through and through and staunch Roman Catholics, The national unions call upon Salazar for drastic remedies to great evils, The national unions acknowledge private enterprise and the individual's right to acquire property as the only foundation for every social, economic, and political organization, and for social justice. Since they are struggling for the same cause and fighting the same enemy, members of the Spanish Falange speak to the entire nation on the Portuguese Radio Club, applauding Portugal for wholeheartedly joining this crusade, which actually is historically inaccurate, because everyone knows that we Portuguese have been fighting this crusade for years. But that is typical of the Spaniards, they are always ready to take over, and have to be constantly watched.

Ricardo Reis was never at a political rally in his life, an omission that must be attributed to the peculiarities of his temperament, to his upbringing, to his love of the classics, and also to a certain personal shyness, which should not surprise anyone familiar with his verse. But this national outcry, the civil war in neighboring Spain, perhaps too the unusual venue as demonstrators begin to assemble here in the bull ring of Campo Pequeno, ignite in him a tiny flame of curiosity. What will it be like watching thousands of people gathered together to listen to speeches. What phrases will they applaud and why, how much sincerity will there be on the part of those who speak and those who listen, what will the expressions be on their faces, what gestures will be used. For one who is by nature so incurious, this is an interesting change. Ricardo Reis set out early in order to be sure to get a seat, taking a taxi to arrive more quickly. The night is warm as August draws to a close. Special trams go by, packed to overflowing, the passengers chat amiably, while a few on foot, more inflamed with Nationalist zeal, cry out, Long live the New State. There are union flags, which in the absence of any breeze the standard bearers wave vigorously to display their colors and emblems, here is a heraldic corporative still contaminated with republican traditions, there a guild, to use the word for an artisan association in an earlier age. Entering the arena, Ricardo Reis is swept along by this great torrent of humanity and finds himself among bank employees all wearing a blue armband inscribed with a crucifix and the initials SNB. It is indeed true that the virtue of patriotism pardons all sins and reconciles all contradictions, including this one, because the bankers have taken as their emblem the Cross of Christ, who in His time drove the merchants and money changers, the first branches of this tree, the first flowers of this fruit, from the temple. Just as well for them that Christ was not like the wolf in the fable, because the wolf slaughtered the gentle lambs instead of waiting for them to turn into obstinate sheep. Before, it was all much simpler, now we spend our time asking ourselves if the waters were muddy at their source or became polluted en route.

The arena is practically full, but Ricardo Reis has succeeded in finding a good spot on a bench in the sun, not that it matters today, for all is shadow and darkness. The good thing about his seat is that it is close enough to the platform to see the speakers' faces yet not so close as to prevent him from having a good view of the whole arena.