nurse bring him food, as well as visiting him in his house at least once, and during office hours too, in front of everyone, who knows, he may well have visited him again. It is easy, therefore, to imagine the suppressed outrage, in every rank, when the Registrar, even before going to his own desk, stopped beside Senhor Jose and asked him if he was now completely recovered from his illness. The outrage was all the greater because this was the second time it had happened, they could all remember that other occasion, not so long ago, when the boss had asked Senhor Jose if his insomnia had improved, as if Senhor Jose's insomnia was, as far as the normal running of the Central Registry was concerned, a matter of life or death. Hardly able to credit what they were hearing, the staff witnessed a conversation between equals, utterly absurd however you looked at it, with Senhor Jose thanking the Registrar for his kindness, even referring openly to the food, which, in the strict atmosphere of the Central Registry, had. all the force of a profanity an obscenity and the Registrar explaining that he couldn't possibly have abandoned him to the wretched fate of those who live alone without having anyone to give him a bowl of soup and smooth his sheets. Loneliness, Senhor Jose, declared the Registrar solemnly never made for good company all the great sadnesses, great temptations and great mistakes are almost always the result of being alone in life without a prudent friend to advise us when we are troubled by something more serious than our normal everyday problems, Well I don't know that I would say I was actually sad, sir, replied Senhor Jose, perhaps I am rather melancholy by nature, but that's hardly a defect, and as for temptations, well, I have to say that I am little inclined to them either by my age or my circumstances, I mean, I don't seek them out and they don't seek me, And what about mistakes, Are you referring to mistakes at work, sir, No, I'm referring to mistakes in general, mistakes at work are departmental mistakes which the department ultimately resolves, All I can say is that I've never harmed anyone, at least not knowingly, And what about mistakes committed against yourself, I must have made many of those, perhaps that's why I'm alone, In order to make more mistakes, Only those born of loneliness, sir. Senhor Jose, who, as was his duty, had got to his feet as the Registrar approached, suddenly felt his legs buckle and a wave of sweat sweep over his body. He went pale, his hands anxiously sought the support of his desk, but that support was not enough, Senhor Jose had to sit down on his chair, murmuring, Excuse me, sir, excuse me. The Registrar regarded him for some seconds with an impenetrable look on his face and went to his desk. He called over the deputy responsible for Senhor Jose's section and gave him a muttered order, adding, more audibly, There's no need to go through the official channels, which meant that the instructions the deputy had just received, intended for a clerk, should, against all the rules, customs and traditions, be carried out by himself. The hierarchical chain had been subverted once before, when the Registrar had ordered this same deputy to take Senhor Jose the pills, but that infraction could be justified by the suspicion that the senior clerk responsible would prove incapable of satisfactorily carrying out the mission which consisted not so much in taking a few anti-flu tablets to a sick man as having a look around the house and reporting back. A senior clerk would find the damp stain on the floor perfectly acceptable that is unremarkable and easily explained by the wintry weather they had been having at the time, and would probably not even have noticed the record cards on the bedside table, he would return to the Central Registry in the happy belief that he had done his duty, declaring to the Registrar, Nothing unusual to report, sir. It must be said, however, that the two deputies, and this one in particular, more direcdy involved in the process by his active participation in it, realised that the Registrar's behaviour was determined by an objective, a strategy, a central idea. They couldn't imagine what that idea or objective might be, but all their experience and knowledge of their boss told them that, in this affair, every word and every deed must inevitably point to one end, and that Senhor Jose, placed by his own actions or by a chance circumstance on the path towards that end, either was merely an unwittingly useful instrument or was himself its unexpected and entirely surprising cause. Such opposing arguments, such contradictory feelings, meant that the order, from the tone in which it was subsequently communicated to Senhor Jose, sounded far more like a favour the Registrar had ordered to be asked of him than the clear, categorical instruction that had effectively been issued, Senhor Jose, said the deputy, the Registrar is of the opinion that, given your fainting fit of a moment ago, your health is not suffciently recovered for you to come to work, It wasn't a fainting fit, I didn't lose consciousness, it was just a momentary weakness, Well, weakness or fainting fit, momentary or lasting, what the Central Registry wants is for you to make a complete recovery, I'll work sitting down as much as I can, in a few days' time I'll be right as rain, The Registrar thinks it would be best if you took a short holiday, not your whole twenty days, of course, perhaps ten, ten days to rest and regain your strength, take it easy, go for a few strolls round the city, there are gardens to visit, parks, and the weather's glorious just now, a proper period of convalescence, we won't even recognise you when you come back. Senhor Jose looked at the deputy in amazement, this really wasn't the kind of conversation a deputy had with a mere clerk, there was something almost indecent about it. Obviously the Registrar wanted him to go on holiday, which was, in itself, intriguing, but, as if that were not enough, he was showing an unusual, indeed disproportionate, interest in his health. None of this corresponded to the usual patterns of behaviour in the Central Registry, where holiday plans were always calculated with meticulous precision in order to achieve, by pondering multiple factors, some of which were known only to the Registrar, a fair distribution of the time set aside for annual leisure. It was unheard of for the Registrar to ignore the plans already made for the current year and simply send a clerk home. Senhor Jose was confused, you could see it in his face. He could sense his colleagues' perplexed eyes on his back, he could feel the deputy's growing impatience with what must seem to him baseless indecision, and he was about to say, Yes, sir, like someone simply obeying an order, when suddenly his face lit up, he had just seen what those ten days of freedom could mean, ten days during which he could carry out his investigations without being tied down to the servitude of work, to a timetable, never mind about parks, gardens or convalescence, God bless whoever invented flu, and so Senhor Jose smiled when he said, Yes, sir, he should have been more discreet in the way he expressed himself, you never know what a deputy might go and tell the boss, In my opinion, he reacted very strangely, first, he seemed upset, or as if he hadn't quite understood what I'd said, then, it was as if he'd won first prize in the lottery, he didn't seem the same person, Do you have any evidence that he's a gambling man, I don't think so, it was just a manner of speaking, Then there must be some other reason. Senhor Jose was already saying to the deputy, It would really suit me to have a few days off, I must thank the Registrar, I'll pass your thanks on to him, Perhaps I should do it personally You know perfectly well that is not the custom Nevertheless, considering the exceptional nature of the matter, and having said those, bureaucratically speaking, most pertinent of words, Senhor Jose turned to where the Registrar was sitting, he wasn't expecting him to be looking in his direction, still less that he would have heard the whole conversation, which was what he doubtless intended to indicate with that abrupt gesture of the hand, at once bored and imperious, No ridiculous words of gratitude, please, just fill out the form and leave.
Back at home, Senhor Jose's prime concern was for the clothes kept in the niche that he used as a wardrobe. They had been dirty before, but now were transformed into pure filth, exuding a sour smell mingled with a whiff of mould, there was even mildew growing in the cuffs of his pants, imagine it, a dank bundle, jacket, shirt, trousers, socks, underwear, all wrapped in a raincoat, which, at the time, had been dripping wet, what condition would you expect to find it in after a whole week. He stuffed the clothes into a large plastic bag, made sure that the record cards and the notebook were still safely tucked away between the mattress and the base of the bed, the notebook at the head, the record cards at the foot, he checked that the communicating door with the Central Registry was locked, and finally, weary, but with his mind at rest, he set off for a nearby laundry of which he was a customer, although hardly one of the most frequent. The woman there could not or did not care to conceal a reproving look when she emptied out the contents of the bag onto the counter, I'm sorry but anyone would think these clothes had been dragged through the mud, You're not far wrong, since Senhor Jose had to He, he decided to do so within the bounds of possibility, Two weeks ago, when I was bringing you these clothes to be cleaned, the bag suddenly burst and all the clothes fell into a big muddy puddle caused by the road-work they were doing at the time, you remember how much it rained then, And why didn't you bring the clothes in at once, I was confined to bed with the flu, I couldn't risk leaving the house, I could have caught pneumonia, It's going to cost you quite a bit more, it'll have to go in the machine twice, and even then, Never mind, And these trousers, have you seen the state these trousers are in, is it really worth having them cleaned, I mean the knees are all worn, it looks as if you'd been rubbing against a wall in them. Senhor Jose had not noticed the terrible state in which the climb had left his poor trousers, almost worn through at the knees, with a small tear on one of the legs, a serious matter for a person like him, so ill provided with clothes. Is there nothing you can do about it, he asked, Oh, I can do something about it, but they'll have to be sent to an invisible mender, I don't know of any, Oh, we can deal with that for you, but it's not going to be cheap, these invisible menders charge quite a bit, It'll be better than being without a pair of trousers, Or else we could patch them, If they were patched, I'd only be able to use them at home, I'd never be able to wear them to work, No, of course not, You see I work for the Central Registry, Ah, you work for the Central Registry, said the
