Raised from the Ground

dribs and drabs, but there are days, rare, it’s true, when they all come out, and who could keep them in their graves on a day like this, when the tractors are thundering across the latifundio and there are no words that need go unspoken, Mantas and Pedra Grande, Vale da Canseira, Monte da Areia, Fonte Pouca, little water and much hunger, Serralha, home of the sow thistle, and so on over hill and vale, and here, at this turn in the road, stands João Mau-Tempo, smiling, he’s probably waiting for someone, or he can’t stir from the spot, perhaps because when he died he couldn’t move his legs, we take with us to our death all our ills, including the final ones, but no, we’re quite wrong, João Mau-Tempo has had his youthful legs restored to him, and he’s leaping about, he’s a dancer in full flight, and he’s going to sit down beside a very old deaf lady, Faustina, my wife, you and I ate bread and sausage one winter’s night and you got your skirt wet, ah, those were the days.

João Mau-Tempo puts his arm of invisible smoke about Faustina’s shoulders, and although she hears and feels nothing, she begins, hesitantly at first, to sing the chorus of an old song, she remembers the days when she used to dance with her husband João, who died three years ago, may he rest in peace, an unnecessary wish on Faustina’s part, but how is she to know. And when we look farther off, higher up, as high up as a red kite, we can see Augusto Pintéu, the one who died along with his mules on a stormy night, and behind him, almost hanging on to him, his wife Cipriana, and the guard José Calmedo, coming from other parts and dressed in civilian clothes, and others whose names we may not know, although we know about their lives. Here they all are, the living and the dead. And ahead of them, bounding along as a hunting dog should, goes Constante, how could he not be here, on this unique and new-risen day.

Translator’s Acknowledgments

The translator would like to thank Tânia Ganho, João Magueijo, Rhian Atkin, David Frier, and Ben Sherriff for all their help and advice.

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1

Through the swaying veils filling his sleep came the clatter of crockery, and Silvestre could almost swear that light was beginning to filter through the loose weft of those veils. Just as he was starting to feel slightly irritated, he realized suddenly that he was waking up. He blinked several times, yawned, then lay quite still, as he felt sleep slowly moving off. Then he quickly sat up in bed and stretched, making the joints in his arms crack. Beneath his vest, the muscles in his back rolled and rippled. He had a powerful chest, solid, sturdy arms and sinewy shoulder blades. He needed those muscles for his work as a cobbler. His hands were as hard as stone and the skin on his palms so thick that he could pass a threaded needle through it without drawing blood.

Then, more slowly, he swung his legs out of bed. Silvestre was always deeply grieved and saddened by the sight of his scrawny thighs and his kneecaps worn white and hairless by constant friction with his trousers. He was proud of his chest, but hated his legs, so puny they looked as if they belonged to someone else.

Gazing glumly down at his bare feet on the rug, Silvestre scratched his graying head of hair. Then he ran one hand over his face, feeling his bones and his beard. Finally, reluctantly, he got up and took a few steps across the room. Standing there, in vest and underpants, perched on those long, stilt-like legs, he bore a faint resemblance to Don Quixote, with that tuft of salt-and-pepper hair crowning his head, his large, beaked nose and the powerful trunk that his legs seemed barely able to sustain.

He looked for his trousers and, failing to find them, peered around the door and shouted:

“Mariana! Where are my trousers?”

From another room, a voice called:

“Hang on!”

Given the slow pace of the approaching footsteps, one sensed that Mariana was fairly plump and could not walk any faster. Silvestre had to wait some time, but he did so patiently. At last she appeared at the door.

“Here you are.”

The trousers were folded over her right arm, which was considerably stouter than one of Silvestre’s legs. She said:

“I don’t know what you do with the buttons on your trousers to make them disappear every week. I’m going to have to start sewing them on with wire . . .”

Mariana’s voice was as plump as its owner and as kindly and frank as her eyes. She certainly hadn’t intended her remark as a joke, but her husband beamed at her, revealing every line on his face as well as his few remaining teeth. He took the trousers from her and, under his wife’s benign gaze, put them on, pleased with the way his clothes restored proportion and regularity to his body. Silvestre was as vain about his body as Mariana was indifferent to the one Nature had given her. Neither of them had any illusions about the other, and both were more than aware that the fire of youth had long since burned out, but they loved each other dearly, as much today as they had thirty years ago, when they got married. Indeed, their love was perhaps even greater now, because it was no longer fueled by real or imagined perfections.

Silvestre followed his wife into the kitchen. Then he slipped into the bathroom and returned ten minutes later, having washed. He was still not particularly kempt, however, because it was impossible to tame the tuft of hair that dominated his head (and “dominate” is the right word)—his “cockscomb,” as Mariana called it.

Two steaming bowls of coffee stood on the table,