wrong, he asked, trembling, A number is a number, a number is never wrong, replied the shepherd, if you took this one from here and put it somewhere else, even if it was at the very ends of the earth, it would still continue to be the number it is, I don't understand, You will, Please, I'm all confused, None of the bodies buried here corresponds to the names you see on the marble stones, I don't believe it, Well, it's true, And what about the numbers, They've all been swapped around, Why, Because someone changes them before the stones with the names on them are brought and put in place, Who, Me, But that's a crime, protested Senhor Jose indignantly, There's no law against it, I'm going to report you right now to the cemetery officials, You swore on your honour, I withdraw the oath, this situation in validates it, You can replace a bad word with a good word, but neither one nor the other can be withdrawn, your word is your word, an oath is an oath, Death is sacred, It's life that's sacred, Mr. Clerk, at least so they say, But in the name of decency, you should have a minimum of respect for the person who died, people come here to remember their relatives and friends, to meditate or pray, to place flowers or to weep before a beloved name, and now it seems, because of one mischievous shepherd, the person lying there has another name entirely, these venerable mortal remains don't belong to the person they were thought to belong to, that way, you make death a farce, Personally, I don't believe one can show greater respect than to weep for a stranger, But death, What, Death should be respected, And what in your opinion does respecting death involve, Not profaning it for a start, Death itself cannot be profaned, You know very well that it's the dead I'm talking about, not death itself, And can you see the slightest sign of profanation here, Swapping the names around is hardly a minor profanation, Well, I can understand a clerk in the Central Registry having ideas like that about names. The shepherd stopped, made a sign to the dog to go and fetch a sheep that had wandered off, then went on, I haven't yet told you the reason why I began changing the numbers on the graves, I doubt it's of any interest to me, I'm sure it will be, Go on then, If, as I believe, it's true that people who commit suicide do so because they don't want to be found, these people here, thanks to what you called a mischievous shepherd, are now free forever from importunate visitors, in truth, not even I, even if I wanted to, would be able to remember where the numbers should be, all I know is what I think when I pass by these marble stones complete with the person's name and the correct dates of birth and death, What do you think, That it's possible not to see a lie even when it's right in front of us. The mist had vanished a long time ago, you could now see how large the flock of sheep was. The shepherd made a movement above his head with the crook, it was an order for the dog to gather the sheep together. The shepherd said, It's time for me to take the sheep away, the guides might find me here, I can already see the lights of two cars, but they're not coming this way, I'm going to stay for a while longer, said Senhor Jose, Are you really going to report me, asked the shepherd, I'm a man of my word, what is sworn is sworn, They'd probably tell you to keep your mouth shut anyway, Why, Imagine the work involved in disinterring all these people and identifying them, many of them are nothing more than dust now anyway. The sheep were all gathered together, apart from the occasional straggler which came leaping nimbly over the graves to escape the dog and join its sisters. The shepherd asked, Were you a friend or a relative of the person you came to visit, I didn't even know her, And despite that you came looking for her, It was precisely because I didn't know her that I came looking for her, You see I was right when I said that one can show no greater respect than to weep for a stranger, Goodbye, We might see each other again sometime, I doubt it, You never know, Who are you, I'm the shepherd of these sheep, And that's all, That's all. A light flickered in the distance, That one's coming over here, said Senhor Jose, It looks like it, said the shepherd. With the dog at their head, the flock began to move towards the bridge. Before disappearing behind the trees on the other side, the shepherd turned around and waved. Senhor Jose waved back. He could see the intermittent light on the guides' car more clearly now. It disappeared occasionally into a hollow or was momentarily concealed from view by one of the motley structures in the cemetery, the towers, the obelisks, the pyramids, then it reappeared, brighter, nearer, and it was coming fast, a clear sign that there were not many people accompanying it. When he had said to the shepherd, I'm going to stay for a while longer, Senhor Jose's intention had been merely to remain alone for a few minutes before setting off again. He just wanted to ponder his own feelings a little, to judge the real depths of his disappointment, to accept it, to put his spirit to rest, to say once more, It's over, but now he had another idea. He went across to one of the graves and adopted the pose of someone meditating deeply on the irremediable precariousness of existence, on the vacuity of all dreams and all hopes, on the absolute fragility of worldly and divine glories. He was so deep in thought that he didn't even appear to notice the arrival of the guides and the half dozen or so people, slightly more, accompanying the coffin. He did not move during the whole time that it took to open the grave, lower the coffin, fill in the hole, make the usual mound with the surplus earth. He did not move when one of the guides placed at the head of the mound the black metal tag marked in white with the number of the grave. He did not move when the guides' car and the hearse moved off, he did not move during the bare two minutes that the people lingered by the grave uttering useless words and wiping away the odd tear, he did not move when the two cars they had arrived in drove off across the bridge, he did not move until he was alone again. He took the number corresponding to the unknown woman and placed it on the new grave. Then he took the number from that one and placed it on the other grave. The exchange was made, the truth had become a lie. Besides, it might well be that the shepherd, finding a new grave there tomorrow, would unwittingly move the false number on it back to the unknown woman's grave, an ironic possibility in which the lie, apparendy repeating itself, would become true again. The workings of chance are infinite. Senhor Jose headed for home. On the way, he went into a cafe, where he ordered coffee and toast. He couldn't stave off hunger a moment longer.
...
Determined to catch up on his lost sleep, Senhor Jose got into bed as soon as he arrived home, but only two hours later, he was awake again. He had had a strange, enigmatic dream in which he saw himself in the middle of the cemetery, amid a multitude of sheep so numerous that he could barely see the mounds of the graves, and each sheep had a number on its head that kept changing continually, but, because the sheep were all the same, you couldn't tell if it was the sheep that were changing numbers or if the numbers were changing sheep. He heard a voice shouting, I'm here, I'm here, it couldn't come from the sheep because they stopped talking a long time ago, nor could it be the graves because there is no record of a grave ever having spoken, and yet the voice kept calling insistently, I'm here, I'm here, Senhor Jose looked in that direction and saw only the raised snouts of the animals, then the same words rang out behind him, or to the right, or to the left, I'm here, I'm here, and he would turn swiftly, but he couldn't tell where it was coming from. Senhor Jose began to grow desperate, he wanted to wake up and he couldn't, the dream was continuing, now the shepherd was there with his dog, and Senhor Jose thought, There's nothing this shepherd doesn't know, he'll tell me whose voice it is, but the shepherd didn't speak, he just made a gesture with his crook above his head, the dog went to round up the sheep, herding them towards a bridge which was crossed by silent cars with signs made of lightbulbs that flickered on and off, saying Follow me, Follow me, Follow me, in a moment the flock disappeared, the dog disappeared, the shepherd disappeared, all that remained was the cemetery floor strewn with numbers, the ones that before had been on the heads of the sheep, but, because they were now all together, all attached end to end in an uninterrupted spiral of which he himself was the centre, he couldn't tell where one began and the other finished. Anxious, drenched in sweat, Senhor Jose woke up saying, I'm here. His eyes were closed, he was half-conscious, but he said, I'm here, I'm here, twice out loud, then opened his eyes to the mean little space where he had lived for so many years, he saw the low ceiling, the cracked plaster, the floor with its warped floorboards, the table and the two chairs in the middle of the living room, if such a term has meaning in a place like this, the cupboard where he kept the clippings and photos of his celebrities, the corner beyond which lay the kitchen, the narrow recess that served as a bathroom, that was when he said, I must find a way of freeing myself from this madness, he meant, obviously, the woman who would now forever be unknown, the house, poor thing, was not to blame, it was just a sad house. Fearful that the dream would return, Senhor Jose did not attempt to fall asleep again. He was lying on his back, looking up at the ceiling, waiting for it to ask him, Why are you looking at me, but the ceiling ignored him, it merely observed him, expressionless. Senhor Jose gave up any hope of help coming from there, he would have to resolve the problem on his own, and the best way would still be to persuade himself that there was no problem, When the beast dies, the poison dies with it, was the rather disrespectful proverb that came to his lips, calling the unknown woman a poisonous beast, forgetting for a moment there are poisons so slow-acting that they produce an effect only when we have long since forgotten their origin. Then the penny dropped, he muttered, Careful, death is often a slow poison, then he wondered, When and why did she begin to die. It was at that point that the ceiling, without there being any
