And so when someone asks, How much are we going to be paid, the overseer will say only Whatever the others pay, thus closing the circular conversation of I asked and you didn’t answer with a nonresponse, You’ll find out when you go to work. The man says more or less the same thing to his wife, I’ll go to work and see what happens, and she thinks, or says out loud, and perhaps she shouldn’t say anything, because such things hurt, Well, at least you’ve got work, and on Monday, the workers are out in the fields doing their duty, and they say to each other, How much do you reckon it will be, and they don’t know, What about them over there, I’ve asked, but they don’t know either, and so we arrive at Saturday, and the foreman comes and says, The wages are this much, and they have worked the whole week not knowing how much their work was worth, and at night their wives will ask, Do you know yet, and the husbands will reply irritably, impatiently, No, I don’t, stop asking me, and she will say, I’m not asking for myself, the baker wanted to know when we could pay off our debt, such wretched conversations, which continue, That’s not much, Well, when the others pay more, so will I. Pure lies, we all know that, but they are lies agreed upon between Ansberto and Angilberto, between Floriberto and Norberto, between Berto and Latifundio, which is another way of saying everything and everybody.
EVERY YEAR, ON CERTAIN dates, the nation summons its sons. That’s a somewhat exaggerated way of putting it, a skillful imitation of some of the proclamations used in time of national need, or by the person speaking, when necessary, on the nation’s behalf, for overt and covert reasons, to show that we are all one big happy family of brothers, with no distinction made between Abel and Cain. The nation summons its sons, can you hear the voice of the nation calling, calling, and you, who up until now were worth nothing, not even the bread you need to satisfy your hunger, nor the medicine for any illness you might have, nor the knowledge to end your ignorance, you, the son of this great mother who has been waiting for you ever since you were born, you see your name on a piece of paper at the door of the town hall, not that you can read it, but someone who can indicates the line where a black worm coils and uncoils, that’s you, you discover that the worm is you and your name, written by the clerk at the local recruitment office, and an officer who doesn’t know you and is interested in you for only this one purpose writes his name under yours, an even more tangled and confusing worm, you can’t make out what the officer’s name is, and from now on, there’s no running away, the nation is staring at you hard, hypnotizing you, to flee would be to offend against the memory of our grandfathers and the Discoveries. Your name is António Mau-Tempo, and since you came into this world, I have been waiting for you, my son, for I am, you see, a devoted mother, and you must forgive me if, during all these years, I haven’t paid you much attention, but there are so many of you, and I can’t possibly keep my eye on everyone, I’ve been preparing my officers who will be in charge of you, one can’t live without officers, how else would you learn to march, one two left right, right turn, halt, or to use a gun, careful when you load the breech, country boy, make sure you don’t get your finger caught, and yet they tell me you can’t read, I’m astonished, didn’t I set up primary schools in all the strategic places, not secondary schools, of course, because you wouldn’t need them for the kind of life you lead, and yet you come and tell me that you can’t read or write or do arithmetic, well, you’re putting me to a lot of trouble, António Mau-Tempo, you’re going to have to learn while you’re in the army, I don’t want illiterate sons bearing my standard, and if, later on, you forget what I’m ordering you to learn, never mind, that won’t be my fault, you’re the one who’s stupid, a bumpkin and a yokel, truth be told, my army is full of bumpkins, but it’s not for long, and once your military service is over, you can go back to your usual job, although if you want another, equally difficult job, that can be arranged too.
If the nations were telling the truth, this is the speech we would hear, give or take a comma or two, but then we would have to suffer the disappointment of ceasing to believe in the sweet fairy tales of yesterday and today, which are sometimes clothed in armor and gauntlets, sometimes in epaulettes and jambeaux, for example,
