with his foot in order not to get his pyjamas dirty. There was a great damp stain left on the floor which would take several hours to disappear completely, if someone came in before then and asked questions, he would say that he had knocked some water over or that there had been a stain on the floor and he had tried to get rid of it. From the moment he got up, Senhor Jose's stomach had been begging him for the charity of a cup of coffee with milk, a biscuit, a slice of bread and butter, anything to pacify his suddenly awoken appetite, now that his worries about the immediate fate of his clothes had disappeared. The bread was dry and hard, only a scraping of butter was left, he was out of milk, all he had was some rather mediocre coffee, as we know, a man who had never found a woman who would love him enough to agree to join him in this hovel, such a man, apart from rare exceptions which have no place in this story, will never be more than a poor devil, it's odd that we always say poor devil and never poor god, especially when he was unfortunate enough to turn out as disastrously as this one, we are referring, by the way, to the man not the god. Despite the meagre and unconsoling food, Senhor Jose felt well enough to have a shave, after which he judged he was looking considerably better, so much so that he ended up saying to the mirror, My fever seems to have subsided. This reflection led him to wonder whether it would be a good, prudent policy to turn up for work anyway, it was only a few steps away, he would say, The work of the Central Registry comes first, and the Registrar, bearing in mind how cold it was outside, would forgive him for not having taken the long way around as was the rule, and might even record such clear proof of esprit de corps and dedication to work in Senior Jose's file. He thought about it, but decided against it. His whole body ached, as if someone had knocked him down, beaten him and shaken him, his muscles ached, his joints ached, and it wasn't because of the physical effort of climbing and breaking in, anyone could see that these aches and pains were different, This is flu, he concluded.
He had just got into bed when he heard someone knock on the door that opened into the Central Registry, it must be some charitable colleague, taking seriously the Christian precept of visiting the sick and the imprisoned, no, it couldn't be a colleague, it was still hours until lunchtime, and good works could only be done out of hours, Come in, he said, it's only on the latch, the door opened and the deputy whom he had told about his illness appeared in the doorway, The Registrar asked me to find out if you're taking anything while you're waiting for the doctor to come, No, sir, I haven't got anything suitable in the house, Then have these pills, Thank you very much, I'll pay you later if you don't mind, just so that I don't have to get up, how much do I owe you, It was an order from the Registrar, you don't ask the Registrar how much you owe him, I realise that, I'm sorry, You'd better take a pill now, and the deputy came in without waiting for an answer, All right, thank you, that's very kind of you, Senhor Jose could not stop him from coming in, he could not say Halt, you cannot come in here, sir, this is a private house, in the first place, because you don't speak like that to a superior, in the second place, because there was no memory in the oral tradition of the Central Registry nor any record in the written annals of a Registrar's ever having taken such an interest in the health of a clerk to the point of sending someone to bring him some pills. The deputy himself was perplexed with the novelty of it all, he would never have done it on his own initiative, however, he did not allow himself to be distracted, he behaved like someone who knew perfectly well what he was about and was familiar with every corner of the house, which is not to be wondered at, before the town planners went to work on the neighbourhood, he too had lived in a house like this. The first thing he noticed was the large damp stain on the floor, What's that from, a leak, he asked, Senhor Jose was tempted to say yes, simply in order not to give any further explanations, but he preferred to put it down to an accident of his own making, as he had at first thought, he didn't want the plumber coming to the house and then writing a report to the Registrar saying that the pipes, although old, were in no way responsible for the appearance of that damp stain on the floor. The deputy approached bearing a glass of water and a pill, his mission as designated nurse had softened his normally authoritarian features, but that look soon returned, accentuated by something that could be described as wounded surprise, when, as he approached the bed, he noticed the unknown girl's school records lying on the bedside table. Senhor Jose noticed the other man's surprise as soon as it happened and it was as if his whole world collapsed about him. His brain instantaneously sent an order to the arm muscles on that side, Get that off there, you idiot, but immediately, with the same speed, electrical impulse after electrical impulse, it changed its mind, if I may put it that way, like someone who has just recognised his own stupidity, Please, don't touch them, pretend you haven't noticed. That is why, with an agility totally unexpected in someone in the grip of the physical and mental depression which is the first known consequence of flu, Senhor Jose sat on the edge of the bed pretending he wanted to help the deputy in his charitable efforts, he reached out a hand to receive the pill, which he put in his mouth, as well as the water to help it down his tight, anxious throat, at the same time, taking advantage of the fact that the mattress on which he was lying was at the same height as the bedside table, he covered the cards with the elbow of his other arm, dropping his forearm forwards, with the palm of his hand imperatively open, as if he were say ing to the deputy Stop right there. What saved him was the photograph stuck to the record card, that is the most notable difference between school records and those of birth and life, it would be impossible for the Central Registry to receive a new picture every year of all those whose names were inscribed in the archive of the living, and it wouldn't be every year, it would be every month, every week, every day, a photograph per hour, my God, how time passes, and the work it would generate, how many clerks would they have to recruit, a photograph a minute, a second, the amount of glue, the wear and tear on scissors, the care in the selection of staff, so as to exclude dreamers who might sit staring eternally at one picture, letting their minds wander, like idiots watching the clouds drift by. The deputy's face now bore the expression he wore on his worst days, when papers were piling up on all the desks and the Registrar called him over to ask if he was really quite sure he was doing his job properly. Thanks to the photograph, he did not think that the record cards on top of his subordinate's bedside table belonged to the Central Registry, but the speed with which Senhor Jose had covered them up made him suspicious, especially since Senhor Jose had done so as if by chance or distractedly. The damp stain on the floor had already aroused his distrust, now it was some record cards of an unknown nature with a photograph attached, a photograph of a child, as he could just make out. He couldn't count the cards, since they were placed one on top of the other, but from the thickness, there must have been at least ten of them, Ten record cards with photos of children on them, how odd, what can they be doing there, he thought, intrigued, and he would have been even more intrigued if he had known that the cards, in fact, all belonged to the same person and that the pictures on the last two were of an adolescent girl, with a grave but pleasant face. The deputy placed the packet of pills on the bedside table and withdrew. As he was leaving, he looked back and saw Senhor Jose still there with his elbow covering the cards, I'd better talk to the chief, he said to himself. As soon as the door had closed, Senhor Jose, with a brusque movement, as if afraid of being caught out, thrust the record cards under the mattress. There was no one there to tell him it was too late, and, besides, that was something he preferred not to think about.
...
It's flu, said the doctor, you'd better start by taking three days' sick leave. Head swimming, legs weak, Senhor Jose had got out of bed to open the door, Forgive me for keeping you waiting outside, Doctor, that's what happens when you live alone, the doctor came in grumbling, Terrible weather, closed his dripping umbrella and left it in the hall, What seems to be the problem, he asked when Senhor Jose, teeth chattering, had just got back between the sheets, and then, without waiting for him to reply, he said, It's flu. He took his pulse, told him to open his mouth, briskly applied his stethoscope to his chest and back, It's flu, he said again, you're very lucky, it could easily have turned into pneumonia, but it's flu, you'd better start by taking three days' sick leave, and then we'll see. He had just sat down at the table to write a prescription when the communicating door opened, it was only on the latch, and the Registrar appeared, Good afternoon, Doctor, You mean bad afternoon, don't you, sir, it would be a good afternoon if I were sitting nice and cosy in my consulting rooms rather than wandering the streets in this ghastly weather, How's our patient, asked the Registrar, and the doctor replied, I've given him three days' sick leave, it's just a bout of flu. At that moment, it wasn't just a bout of flu. With the bedclothes up to his nose, Senhor Jose was trembling as if he were suffering from malaria, so much so that the iron bedstead on which he was lying shook, however, that irrepressible trembling was not the result of fever, but of sheer panic, a complete disorientation of the mind, The Registrar, here, he was thinking, the Registrar in my house, the Registrar asking him, How are you feeling, Better, sir, Did you take the pills I sent you, Yes, sir, Did they help at all, Yes, sir, Well, now you can stop taking those and take the medicine the doctor has prescribed, Yes, sir, Unless they're the same ones, let me see now, yes, they are, plus a couple of injections, I'll take care of this. Senhor Jose could hardly
