all to see, This isn't democracy, sir, far from it. Others were of the opinion that they should consider the facts more carefully, that it would be best to let the council have the first word, if we go to them with all these explanations and ideas, they'll think there's some political organization behind it, pulling the strings, and we're the only ones who know that isn't true, they're in a tricky situation too, mind, the government has left them holding a real hot potato, and we don't want to make it any hotter, one newspaper proposed that the council should assume full authority, but what authority, and how, the police have left, there isn't even anyone to direct the traffic, we certainly can't expect the councillors to go out into the streets and do the work of the very people they used to give orders to, there's already talk of the refuse collectors going on strike, if that's true, and we shouldn't be surprised if it is, it can only be seen as a provocation, either on the part of the council itself or, more likely, under orders from the government, they're going to do everything possible to make our lives more difficult, we have to be prepared for anything, including or, perhaps, especially, those things that now seem impossible to us, after all, they're holding the whole deck of cards, not to mention the cards up their sleeves. Others, of a pessimistic and fearful bent, felt that there was no way out of the situation, that they were doomed to failure, it'll all pan out the way it always does, with every man for himself and to hell with the others, the moral imperfection of the human race, as we have often said before, is hardly a novelty, it's historical fact, as old as the hills, it might seem now that we're all very supportive of each other, but tomorrow the bickering will start, and the next stage will be open war, discord, confrontation, while they sit back and enjoy it from their ringside seats, laying bets on how long we'll hold out, it'll be fine while it lasts, my friend, but defeat is certain and guaranteed, I mean, let's be reasonable, who could possibly have thought that something like this would get us what we wanted, people en masse casting blank votes and completely unprompted, it's madness, the government hasn't quite got over its surprise yet and is still trying to catch its breath, but the first victory has gone to them, they've turned their backs on us and told us we're nothing but a pile of shit, which, in their opinion, is what we are, and then there's the pressure from abroad to consider too, I bet you anything you like that right now governments and political parties all around the world are thinking of nothing else, they're not stupid, they can see how easily this could become a fuse, light it here and wait for the explosion over there, but then, if all we are to them is a pile of shit, then let's be shit all the way, shoulder to shoulder, because they're bound to get splattered with some of the shit that we supposedly are.
The next day, the rumor was confirmed, the refuse trucks did not go out onto the streets, the refuse collectors had announced an all-out strike and had made public a demand for more pay which a council spokesperson had immediately pronounced completely unacceptable, still less at a time like this, he said, when our city is grappling with an entirely unprecedented crisis from which it is difficult to see a way out. In the same alarmist vein, a newspaper which, from its inception, had specialized in acting as an amplifier of all governmental strategies and tactics, regardless of the government's party colors, whether from the middle, the right or any shade in between, published an editorial signed by the editor himself in which he stated that it was highly likely that the rebellion by the capital's inhabitants would end in a bloodbath if, as everything seemed to indicate, they refused to abandon their stubborn stance. No one, he said, could deny that the government's patience had been stretched to unthinkable limits, no one could expect them to do more, if they did, we would lose, possibly for ever, that harmonious binomial authority-obedience in whose light the happiest of human societies had always bloomed and without which, as history has amply shown, none of them would have been feasible. The editorial was read, extracts were broadcast on the radio, the editor was interviewed on television, and then, at midday exactly, while all this was going on, from every house in the city there emerged women armed with brooms, buckets and dustpans, and, without a word, they started sweeping their own patch of pavement and street, from the front door as far as the middle of the road, where they encountered other women who had emerged from the houses opposite with exactly the same objective and armed with the same weapons. Now, the dictionaries state that someone's patch is an area under their jurisdiction or control, in this case, the area outside somebody's house, and this is quite true, but they also say, or at least some of them do, that to sweep your own patch means to look after your own interests. A great mistake on your part, O absentminded philologists and lexicographers, to sweep your own patch started out meaning precisely what these women in the capital are doing now, just as their mothers and grandmothers before them used to do in their villages, and they, like these women, were not just looking after their own interests, but after the interests of the community as well. It was possibly for this same reason that, on the third day, the refuse collectors also came out onto the street. They were not in uniform, they were wearing their own clothes. It was the uniforms that were on strike, they said, not them.
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THE INTERIOR MINISTER, WHOSE IDEA THE STRIKE HAD BEEN, WAS NOT at all pleased to learn of the refuse collectors' spontaneous return to work, a stance which, in his ministerial understanding of the matter, was not a demonstration of solidarity with the admirable women who had made cleaning their streets a question of honor, a fact unhesitatingly recognized by any impartial observer, but bordered, rather, on criminal complicity. As soon as he received the bad news, he phoned the leader of the city council and commanded him to bring to book those responsible for disregarding orders and to force them to obey, which, in plain language, meant going back on strike, under penalty, if their insubordination continued, of all the punitive consequences foreseen by the laws and regulations, from suspension without pay to outright dismissal. The council leader replied that problems always seem much easier to resolve when seen from a distance, but the person on the ground, the person who actually has to deal with the workers, must listen to them closely before making any decisions, For example, minister, just imagine that I was to give that order to the men, I'm not going to imagine anything, I'm telling you to do it, Yes, minister, of course, but at least allow me to imagine it, for example, I can imagine giving them the order to go back on strike and them telling me to go and take a running jump, what would you do in that case, if you were in my position, how would you force them to do their duty, In the first place, no one would tell me to take a running jump, in the second place, I am not and never will be in your position, I am a minister, not a council leader, and while I'm on the subject, I would just like to say that I would expect from a council leader not only the official and institutional collaboration to which he is, by law, committed and which is my natural due, but also an esprit de corps which, it seems to me, is currently conspicuous by its absence, You can always count on my official and institutional collaboration, minister, I know my obligations, but as for esprit de corps, perhaps we'd better not talk about that just now, let's see how much of it is left when this crisis is over, You're running away from the problem, council leader, No, I'm not, minister, I simply need you to tell me how I am supposed to force the workers to go back on strike, That's your problem, not mine, Now it's my esteemed party colleague who is trying to run away from the problem, Never in my entire political career have I run away from a problem, Well, you're running away from this one, you're trying to run away from the obvious fact that I have no means at my disposal by which to carry out your order, unless you want me to call in the police, but, in that case, I would remind you that the police are not here, they left the city along with the army, both of them carried off by the government, besides, I'm sure we would agree that it would be a gross abnormality to use the police to persuade workers to go on strike, when, in the past, they have always been deployed to break strikes up, by infiltration or other less subtle means, Well, I'm astonished to hear a member of the party on the right talking like that, Minister, in a few hours' time it will be dark, and I will have to say that it is night, I would have to be either stupid or blind to say then that it is day, What has that got to do with the strike, Whether you like it or not, minister, it is night now, pitch-black night, we know that something is happening that goes far beyond our understanding, that exceeds our meagre experience, but we are behaving as if it were the same old bread, made with the usual flour and cooked in the usual oven, but it's simply not true, You know, I will seriously have to consider asking you to tender your resignation, If you do, it will be a weight off my shoulders, and you can count on my profound gratitude. The interior minister did not reply at once, he allowed a few seconds to pass in order to recover his composure, then he asked, So what do you think we should do, Nothing, My dear fellow, in a situation like this, you cannot ask a government to do nothing, Allow me to say that in a situation like this, a government doesn't govern, it just looks as if it were governing, There I must disagree, we've managed to do a few things since this whole thing began, Yes, we're like a fish on a hook, we thrash about, we shake the line, we tug at it, but we cannot understand how a little piece of bent wire could be capable of catching us and keeping us trapped, we might yet escape, I'm not saying we won't, but we risk ending up with the hook stuck in our gut, Frankly, I'm confused, There is only one thing to do, What's that, didn't you just say there was no point in our doing anything, Just pray that the prime
