television someone will telephone from the town where 1 live just to say that they know me, that I'm the local schoolmaster, and that they've been suspicious for some time, some people thirst for glory, this is what Jose Anaico had to say, and he added, It's better for us to stick together, we just won't say very much and they'll get tired pretty quickly.
As predicted, there was a full report on the final news bulletin on television, they showed the starlings in flight, the facade of the hotel, the manager making statements we know to be false, as will soon become clear, These events are without precedent in the history of this hotel, and the three prodigies, Pedro, Jose, and Joaquim, answering questions.
As always when it is thought necessary to have the additional backing of some reliable authority, there was an expert in the studio, in this instance a specialist in the modern discipline of psychodynamics, who, among other speculations about the nature of the matter at hand, declared that there was always the possibility that one was dealing with out-and-out charlatans. It's well known, he declared, in moments of crisis such as this, you can always rely on some impostor or other to turn up, tellers of tall tales who are out to take advantage of the gullible masses, often intent upon destabilizing the political scene or furthering plots for an eventual coup d'etat. If people believe him, we've had it, Joaquim Sassa observed, And what about the starlings, what's your opinion about the starlings, the announcer wanted to know, This is indeed a fascinating enigma, either the person the birds are following is carrying some irresistible bait, or it's a question of collective hypnosis, It can't be easy to hypnotize birds, On the contrary, a hen can be hypnotized with a simple piece of chalk, even a child can do it, But here we have two or three thousand starlings all at once, how could they fly if they were hypnotized, Observe that for each bird that forms part of it the flock is already a hypnotic agent, agent and result simultaneously, Allow me to remind you that some of our viewers will have difficulty in following such technical jargon, Well, to put it more simply, I'd say that the entire group tends to constitute itself in homogeneous hypnosis, I doubt whether that will be any easier to understand, but I'd like to thank you just the same for coming to the studio, there are sure to be further developments and we'll have another opportunity to discuss the matter in greater depth, I'm at your disposal, the expert smirked. The one person who was not amused was Joaquim Sassa, who muttered, The man's a fool, He certainly looks like one, but there are times when even fools must be heeded, Jose Anaico replied, and Pedro Orce confided, I didn't understand a word, this was the first time the Portuguese tongue had left him completely baffled, if we take the meaning of his words literally, what a splendid conversation there must have been between those ancient Portuguese warriors, Viriato and Nuno Alvares Pereira, heroes of the same fatherland, as we're led to believe. While these grave matters were being discussed in the hotel lounge, in his private office the manager was receiving a delegation of restaurateurs from the vicinity who had come to offer him a deal. How much would you charge us to set up some nets on the roof, sooner or later the starlings will come back and settle there again, we don't want to put nets on the trees, within everyone's reach, that would be just like getting other men's wives pregnant, these are the kind of men who believe that the only innnermost meaning of things is that they have no innnermost meaning, the manager wavers, he's afraid he might damage the roof tiles, but he finally agrees, suggests a figure, That's a lot of money, the others say, and start haggling over the price.
Early the next morning, another delegation of solemn-faced gentlemen, neatly turned out, extremely formal, came to ask Joaquim Sassa and Pedro Orce if they would be so good as to accompany them, they were acting on government orders, among the officials there was also a counselor from the Spanish Embassy who greeted Pedro Orce, but with such manifest hauteur as could only stem from outraged patriotism. They wished to carry out a brief investigation, they explained, all very straightforward, the time it takes for a routine inquiry, which will be added to the already voluminous dossier on the ruptur ing of the peninsula, to all appearances irremediable, if we take into account its continuous displacement, fatal, in other words. They ignored Jose Anaico, probably doubting that he could be endowed with powers of attraction and enticement comparable only to those of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, besides, the starlings are nowhere to be seen, they are flying back and forth, together, getting to know the city, inside the nets that had treacherously been set up on the roof only four stray sparrows lay trapped awaiting their fate, but now destiny decreed a different end to their life, Which fate, asks an ironic voice, and thanks to this unexpected intervention we learn that there is more than one fate, contrary to what we are told, in
Jose Anaico stayed in the hotel, quietly awaiting the return of his companions, he ordered some newspapers, the interviews made all the front pages, with explosive photographs and dramatic headlines, Enigmas Baffle Science, The Unknown Forces of the Mind, Three Dangerous Men, The Mystery of the Hotel Braganca, we had been careful not to specify the name, only to find it published by some treacherous reporter, Will Spaniard Be Extradited, question mark, We're up the creek, this is not a headline but what Jose Anaico was thinking. The hours passed, it was time for lunch, there was no news from Joaquim Sassa and Pedro Orce, no message, have they been arrested, thrown into prison, a man loses his appetite with so much worry. I don't even know where they were taking them, how stupid of me, I should have asked, what am I talking about, what I should have done was to go with them, not to leave them on their own, calm down, even if I'd wanted to go, they probably wouldn't have let me, but how can one be sure, I was quite happy to be left out of it, cowardice is worse than an octopus, an octopus can both contract and extend its arms, cowardice can only contract them, from these barbed words one can see just how annoyed Jose Anaico is with himself, but who can tell where sincerity lies in these contradictory impulses and thoughts, best to wait, as in all human affairs, to see what he does. First he went to ask the manager whether he had heard any revealing remark, an address, a name, but the manager replied, Nothing at all, sir, I didn't know any of the gentlemen, I was seeing them for the first time, and that goes for the two Portuguese as well as the Spaniard, suddenly Jose Anaico had a brainstorm, and about time too, he would go to the Spanish Embassy, the Embassy is bound to know, and then he had another brainstorm, these never came singly, the press, of course, he need only turn to one of those newspapers and within a few hours all the sleuths of the press, be they named Argos, Holmes, or Lupin, would be on the trail of the missing men, necessity is indeed the mother of invention, in this instance the father is called caution, but not always.
Wasting no time, Jose Anaico his room, he wanted to change his shoes, to brush his teeth, these mundane things are not incompatible with a resolute spirit, take Othello, for example, who, suffering from a cold and without realizing what he was doing foolishly blew his nose before killing Desdemona, who, for her part, notwithstanding her dark premonitions, didn't lock her door, for a wife never refuses her husband even if she knows he is about to strangle her, and besides, Desdemona knew very well that the room had only three walls, in the present drama, then, Jose Anaico is cleaning his teeth with a brush and rinsing out his mouth when he hears someone knocking, Who is it, he asked, although it doesn't sound like his voice the tone is one of happy anticipation, Joaquim Sassa is about to reply, We're back, but the deception was short-lived, May I come in, so it's the maid after all, One moment, he finished rinsing his mouth, wiped his hands and his mouth, dried them, and finally went to open the door. The maid is an ordinary hotel employee with such individual traits and so specific a role that this is the only moment in her life in which she will impinge, ever so superficially, and only for as long as it takes to deliver a simple message, on the existence of Jose Anaico and his companions, both present and future, this often happens in the theater and in life, we need someone to come and knock on our door simply to tell us, There is a lady downstairs looking for you, sir. Jose Anaicows his surprise, Looking for me, and the maid adds what she had felt would be necessary, The lady asked to speak to all three of you, but since the others aren't here, She must be a journalist, Jose Anaico thought to himself before replying, I'll be down at once. The maid retreated like someone withdrawing from life, we won't need her any more, there's no reason why we should remember her, even with indifference. She came, knocked on the door, delivered the message, which for some strange reason wasn't given over the telephone, perhaps life enjoys cultivating from time to time this sense of the dramatic, if the telephone rings we think, What can it be, if someone's knocking at our door, we think to ourselves, Who can it be, and we give voice to our thoughts by asking, Who is it. We already know it was the maid, but the question was only half answered, perhaps not even that, which is why Jose Anaico can it be, he has forgotten his suspicion that it might be a journalist, some of our thoughts are like this, they serve only to occupy, as if in anticipation, the place of others that would give us much more food for thought.
The hotel is so very peaceful, like an empty house bereft of restless activity, but it has not yet aged from neglect, there are still the echoes of footsteps and voices, a sob, a whispered farewell that lingers on the upper landing. The manager is on his feet, behind the counter hangs the key rack with its pigeonholes for messages, letters, and bills, he is writing in a ledger or copying figures from it onto a sheet of paper, the type of man who keeps himself busy even when there is not much work to be done. As Jose Anaico is about to pass, the manager
