philosophical and religious authorities who have pronounced on the subject, has, indirectly and by different and sometimes contradictory routes, had a paradoxical effect on human beings, and has produced in them an intellectual sublimation of their natural fear of dying. But, returning to the matter at hand, no one could ever accuse death of having left behind in the world some forgotten old man of no particular merit and for no apparent reason merely for him to grow ever older. We all know that, however long old people may last, their hour will always come. Not a day passes without the clerks' having to take down files from the shelves of the living in order to carry them to the shelves at the rear, not a day passes without their having to push towards the end of the shelves those that remain, although sometimes, by some ironic caprice of enigmatic fate, only until the following day. According to the so-called natural order of things, reaching the farthest end of the shelf means that fate has grown weary, that there is not much more road to be travelled. The end of the shelf is, in every sense, the beginning of the fell. However, there are files which, for some unknown reason, hover on the very edge of the void, impervious to that final vertigo, for years and years beyond what is conventionally deemed to be a sensible length for a human life. At first those files excite the professional curiosity of the clerks, but soon a feeling of impatience begins to stir in them, as if the shameless obstinacy of these Methuselahs were reducing, eating and devouring their own life prospects. These superstitious clerks are not entirely wrong, if we bear in mind the many cases of employees at every level whose files had to be prematurely withdrawn from the archive of the living, while the covers of the files of those obstinate survivors grew yellower and yellower, until they became dark, inaesthetic stains at the end of a shelf, an offence to the public eye. That is when the Registrar says to one of the clerks, Senhor Jose, replace those covers for me, will you. '
...
Apart from his first name, Jose, Senhor Jose also has surnames, very ordinary ones, nothing extravagant, one from his father's side, another from his mother's, as is normal, names legitimately transmitted, as we could confirm in the Register of Births in the Central Registry if the matter justified our interest and if the results of that inquiry repaid the labour of merely confirming what we already know. However, for some unknown reason, assuming it is not simply a response to the very insignificance of the person, when people ask Senhor Jose what his name is, or when circumstances require him to introduce himself, I'm so-and-so, giving his full name has never got him anywhere, since the people he is talking to only ever retain the first part, Jose, to which they will later add, or not, depending on the degree of formality or politeness, a courteous or familiar form of address. For, and let us make this quite clear, the 'Senhor' is not worth quite what it might at first seem to promise, at least not here in the Central Registry, where the fact that everyone addresses everyone else in the same way, from the Registrar down to the most recently recruited clerk, does not necessarily have the same meaning when applied to the different relationships within the hierarchy, for, in the varying ways that this one short word is spoken, and according to rank or to the mood of the moment, one can observe a whole range of modulations: condescension, irritation, irony, disdain, humility, flattery, a clear demonstration of the extent of expressive potentiality of two brief vocal emissions which, at first glance, in that particular combination, appeared to be saying only one thing. More or less the same happens with the two syllables of Jose, plus the two syllables of Senhor, when these precede the name. When someone addresses the above-named person either inside the Central Registry or outside it, one will always be able to detect a tone of disdain, irony, irritation or condescension. The caressing, melodious tones of humility and flattery never sang in the ears of the clerk Senhor Jose, these have never had a place in the chromatic scale of feelings normally shown to him. One should point out, however, that some of these feelings are far more complex than those listed above, which are rather basic and obvious, one-dimensional. When, for example, the Registrar gave the order, Senhor Jose, change those covers for me, will you, an attentive, finely tuned ear would have recognised in his voice something which, allowing for the apparent contradiction in terms, could be described as authoritarian indifference, that is, a power so sure of itself that it not only completely ignored the person it was speaking to, not even looking at him, but also made absolutely clear that it would not subsequently lower itself to ascertain that the order had been carried out. To reach the topmost shelves, the ones at ceiling height, Senhor Jose had to use an extremely long ladder and, because, unfortunately for him, he suffered from that troubling nervous imbalance which we commonly call fear of heights, and in order to avoid crashing to the ground, he had no option but to tie himself to the rungs with a strong belt. Down below, it did not occur to any of his colleagues of the same rank, much less his superiors, to look up and see if he was getting on all right. Assuming that he was all right was merely another way of justifying their indifference.
In the beginning, a beginning that went back many centuries, the employees actually lived in the Central Registry. Not inside it, exactly, in corporate promiscuity, but in some simple, rustic dwellings built outside, along the side walls, like small defenceless chapels clinging to the robust body of the cathedral. The houses had two doors, a normal door that opened onto the street and an additional door, discreet, almost invisible, that opened onto the great nave of the archives, an arrangement which, in those days and indeed for many years, was held to be highly beneficial to the proper functioning of the service, since employees did not have to waste time travelling across the city, nor could they blame the traffic when they signed in late. Apart from these logistical advantages, it was extremely easy to send in the inspectors to find out if they really were ill when they called in sick. Unfortunately, a change in municipal thinking as regards the urban development of the area where the Central Registry was located, meant that these interesting little houses were all pulled down, apart from one, which the proper authorities had decided to preserve as an example of the architecture of a particular period and as a reminder of a system of labour relations which, however much it may pain the fickle judgements of the modern age, also had its good side. It is in this house that Senhor Jose lives. This was not deliberate, they did not choose him to be the residual repository of a bygone age it may have been a matter of the location of the house, in an out-of the-way corner that would not disrupt the new plans, so it was neither punishment nor prize, for Senhor Jose deserved neither one nor the other he was simply allowed to continue living in the house. Anyway, as a sign that the times had changed and to avoid a situation that could easily be interpreted as a privilege the door that opened into the Central Registry was kept permanently closed that is they ordered Senhor Jose to lock it and told him that he could never go through it again That is why each day even if the most furious of storms is lashing the city, Senhor Jose has to enter and leave by the main door of the Central Registry just like anyone else. It must be said, however, that his having to obey that principle of equality is a relief to his methodical nature, despite the fact that, in this case, the principle works against him, even though, to tell the truth, he wishes he was not always the one who had to climb the ladder in order to change the covers on the old files, especially since, as we have already mentioned, he suffers from a fear of heights. Senhor Jose has the laudable modesty of those who do not go around complaining about their various nervous and psychological disorders, real or imagined, and he has probably never mentioned his fear to his colleagues, for if he had, they would spend all their time gazing fearfully up at him when he was perched high on the ladder, afraid that, despite his safety belt, he might lose his footing on the rungs and plummet down on top of them. When Senhor Jose returns to earth, still feeling somewhat dizzy, but disguising as best he can the last remnants of his vertigo, none of the other officials, neither his immediate colleagues nor his superiors, has any idea of the danger they have been in.
The moment has arrived to explain that, even though he had to go the long way round in order to enter the Central Registry and to return home, Senhor Jose felt only satisfaction and relief when the communicating door was finally closed. He had never been one for receiving visits from his colleagues in the lunch hour, and on the few occasions when he had been ill enough to stay in bed, he, on his own initiative, had gone into work and presented himself before the deputy he worked under so that there would be no doubt about his honesty as an employee and so that they would not have to send the medical officer to his bedside. Now that the use of the door was forbidden to him, there was even less likelihood of an unexpected invasion of his domestic privacy, when, for example, he had accidentally left open on the table the project over which he had been labouring for many a long year, namely, his extensive col lection of news items about those people in his country who, for good reasons and bad, had become famous. He was not interested in foreigners, however great their renown, for their papers were filed in far-off central registries, assuming that is what they call them there, and would be written in languages he would be unable to decipher, approved by laws he did not know, and he could never reach them, not even by using the longest of ladders. There are people like Senhor Jos? everywhere, who fill their time, or what they believe to be their spare time, by collecting stamps, coins, medals, vases, postcards, matchboxes, books, clocks, sport shirts,
