not be enough just to say that, he would have to give a reason that was both administratively sound and bureaucratically logical, the senior clerk would be bound to ask, What do you want it for, and Senhor Jose could hardly reply, To be quite sure that she's really dead, what would happen to the Central Registry if everyone started satisfying the same or similar curiosities, which were not only morbid but unproductive too. The worst that could come of Senhor Jose's nocturnal expedition would be that he would be unable to find the unknown woman's papers in the chaos that is the archive of the dead. Of course, at first, since we're dealing with a recent death, the papers should be at what was commonly termed the entrance, which is immediately problematic because of the impossibility of knowing exactly where the entrance to the archive of the dead is. It would be too simple to say, as do some stubborn optimists, that the space designated for the dead obviously begins where the space for the living ends, and vice versa, perhaps adding that, in the outside world, things are arranged in a similar fashion, given that, apart from exceptional events, albeit not that exceptional, such as natural disasters or wars, you don't normally see the dead mingling in the street with the living. Now, for both structural and non-structural reasons, this can in fact happen in the Central Registry. It and it does. As we have already explained from time to time when the congestion caused by the continual and irresistible accumulation of the dead begins to block the path of staff along the corridors and consequently to obstruct any documentary research they have no option but to demolish the wall at the rear and rebuild it a few yards farther back However through an involuntary oversight on our part we failed to mention the two perverse effects of this congestion. First while the wall is being built it is inevitable that for lack of a space of their own at the back of the building the cards and files of the recently dead come dangerously close to, and, on the near side, even touch the files of the living, which are to be found on the far end of their respective shelves, giving rise to an embarrassing fringe of confusion between those who are still living and those who are now dead. Second, once the wall has been built and the roof extended, and the filing away of the dead can at last return to normality, that same border conflict, as it were, will prevent, or, at the very least, prove extremely prejudicial to, the transport into the outer darkness of the dead intruders, if you'll pardon the expression. Added to these far from minor inconveniences is the fact that, without the knowledge of the Registrar or their colleagues, the two youngest clerks have no qualms, either because they have not been properly trained or because of a grave deficiency in their personal ethics, about simply sticking a dead person anywhere, without going to the trouble of seeing if there might be space inside the archive of the dead. If luck were not on Senhor Jose's side this time, if chance did not favour him, the adventure of breaking into the school, however risky, will have been child's play compared to what awaits him here.
One might ask why Senhor Jose needs a hundred-yard-long piece of string if the length of the Central Registry, despite successive extensions, is no more than eighty. That is the question of a person who imagines that one can do everything in life simply by following a straight line, that it is always possible to proceed from one place to another by the shortest route, perhaps some people in the outside world believe that they have done so, but here, where the living and the dead share the same space, sometimes, in order to find one of them, you have to make a lot of twists and turns, you have to skirt round mountains of bundles, columns of files, piles of cards, thickets of ancient remains, you have to walk down dark gulleys, between walls of grubby paper which, up above, actually touch, yards and yards of string will have to be unravelled, left behind, like a sinuous, subtle trail traced in the dust, there is no other way of knowing where you have to go next, there is no other way of finding your way back. Senhor Jose tied one end of the string to the leg of the Registrar's desk, not out of any lack of respect, but merely to gain a few yards, then tied the other end to his ankle, and, placing on the floor the ball of string, which unravelled with each step he took, he set off along one of the central corridors filled by the files of the living. His plan is to start his search at the far end, where the unknown woman's file and card should be, even though, for reasons already explained, it is highly unlikely that they will have been filed away correctly. As Senhor Jose is a civil servant from another age, trained in the old methods and disciplines, his strict character would be repelled by any collusion with the irresponsible habits of the new generation, by beginning the search in a place where a dead person would have been deposited only by a deliberate and scandalous infraction of basic archivistic rules. He knows that the main difficulty he is going to have to do battle with is the lack of light. Apart from the Registrar's desk, above which hangs the inevitable lamp giving off its usual dull light, the whole of the Central Registry is plunged in darkness, in dense shadows. Turning on other fights in the building, however dim they might be, would be too risky, a keen policeman doing his rounds of the area, or a good citizen, the sort who is concerned about the safety of the community, might spot the diffuse light through the high windows and immediately sound the alarm. Senhor Jose will, therefore, have only the feeble circle of light, which wavers before him in time to the rhythm of his steps, but also because the hand holding the flashlight is trembling. There is an enormous difference between visiting the archive of the dead in normal working hours, with the presence behind you of your colleagues who although not particularly supportive as we have seen, would always come running
Senhor Jose has gone as far as the end of the shelves of the living, he is now looking for a passage along which he can reach the far end of the Central Registry, in theory, and in accordance with the way the space was laid out, it should follow the Dissecting longitudinal line on the plan, the imaginary Une that divides the rectangular design of the building into two equal parts, but the avalanches of files, which are always happening however firmly the masses of paper are held in place, have made something that was intended to provide direct, rapid access into a complex network of passages and paths, where you are constandy confronted by obstacles and cul-de-sacs. During the day and with all the lights on, it is still relatively easy for the researcher to keep a straight course, you just have to pay attention, be vigilant, take care to Mow the least dusty roads, a sign that they are the most frequented, and up until now, apart from a few scares and some worrying delays, there has not been a single instance of a staff member failing to return from an expedition. But the light from a pocket flashlight does not fill one with confidence, it seems to create its own shadows, what Senhor Jose should have done, since he did not dare to use the Registrar's flashlight, was to have bought one of those really powerful modern ones, the sort that can light everything to the farthest ends of the earth. It's true that the fear of getting lost doesn't trouble him too much, to a certain extent the constant tension of the string tied round his ankle comforts him, but if he starts wandering about, going in circles, getting caught up in the cocoon, he will eventually be unable to take another step, and will have to go back and start again. He has already had to do so for another reason, when the fine string, too fine really, got caught up among the bundles of paper and snagged on the corners, and then there could be no going backwards or forwards. Given all these problems and entanglements, it is understandable that any progress will be slow, and that Senhor Jose's knowledge of the topography of the place will be of little use to him, especially since a huge pile of files, the height of a man, has just blocked what had every appearance of being a straight path, throwing up a thick cloud of dust, in the midst of which fluttered terrified moths, almost transparent in the beam of the flashlight. Senhor Jose hates these creatures, which, at first sight, one would have said had been placed in the world as ornaments, just as he hates the silverfish that proliferate here too, they are all voracious eaters, blamed for the destruction of so many memories, for so many parentless children, for so many legacies fallen into the eager hands of the State owing to lack of legal proof, however vehemently one swears that the relevant document was eaten, sullied, chewed up and devoured by the beasts that infest the Central Registry, and which, as a matter of common humanity, should be taken into account, no one, alas, can convince the lawyer working for the widows and orphans, who should be on their side but isn't, Either the paper turns up, or there's no legacy. As for the mice, one need hardly mention how destructive they are. Nevertheless, despite the extensive damage they cause, these rodents also have their positive side, if they didn't exist the Central Registry would have burst at the seams, or would be twice the length it is. An unwary observer might be surprised that the colonies of mice have not increased so in numbers that they have devoured every single one of the files, especially considering the obvious impossibility of a hundred-percent-efficient deinfestation programme The explanation although there are those who harbour certain doubts as to its real relevance, must He in the lack of water or the insufficient moisture in the atmosphere, in the dry diet of the creatures who find themselves trapped in the place where they have chosen to live or where ill luck has brought them, which would have resulted in a marked atrophy of the genital musculature with extremely negative consequences for their copulatory performance. Others disagree with this attempt at an explanation and insist that muscles have nothing to do with it, and so the controversy rages on.
Meanwhile, covered in dust, with the heavy tatters of spiders' webs clinging to his hair and shoulders, Senhor Jose finally reached a clearing between the most recent papers to be filed away and the wall at the back, still
