The History of the Siege of Lisbon

The proof-reader asks himself whether he is troubled or not, and cannot come up with an answer. What he does find intolerable is to be obliged to wait until four o'clock in order to know what the editors have in mind for this irresponsible proof-reader, how they will punish his insolent disregard for sound historical facts which ought to be permanently reinforced and defended from any meddling, otherwise we shall lose any sense of our actuality and seriously undermine the concepts and beliefs derived therefrom, on which we rely for guidance. Now that the error has been discovered, it is pointless to speculate on the future consequences of the presence of that Not

in

The History of the Siege of Lisbon,

whether fate had permitted a slower incubation, page against page, unobserved by the readers but invisibly burrowing a path like woodworms who leave a hollow shell where we expected to find a solid piece of furniture. He pushed the proofs he was revising to one side, not those of the novel Costa had left him on that famous day, this is a slim little volume of poems, and, resting his weary head in his hands, he remembered a story whose tide and author escaped him, although he had an idea it was something like Tarzan and the Lost Kingdom, and where there was a city with ancient Romans and the first Christians, all hidden away in the African jungle, truly, the imagination of novelists has no limits, and this one, if all the rest tallies, can only be Edgar Rice Burroughs. There was an amphitheatre and the Christians were thrown to wild beasts, that is to say, to the lions, all the more feasible since Africa is where lions belong, and the novelist wrote, although without providing any proof or citing his sources, that the more nervous of those unfortunate creatures did not wait for the lions to attack, but actually ran, in a manner of speaking, into the arms of death, not in order to be the first to enter paradise, but simply because they did not have the strength of mind to bear this waiting for the inevitable. These reminiscences of books he had read in his youth made Raimundo Silva think, along the familiar paths pursued by one's thoughts, that it was within his power to precipitate the course of history, to accelerate time, to go immediately to the publisher, on some pretext or other, such as, At four o'clock I have a medical appointment, so don't beat about the bush and tell me what you want, this is the tone he would adopt in speaking to Costa, but needless to say, he did not go to any meeting with Production as the director's secretary called it, his case would be dealt with at the highest level and, ironically, this certainty pandered to his vanity, I must be mad, he muttered, repeating the same words he had spoken three days ago. If only I could find, amidst this confusion, some feeling that might prevail over all others, so that if he were subsequently asked, How did you feel in that terrible situation, he would reply, I felt worried, or indifferent, or amused, or troubled, or fearful, or ashamed, frankly, he does not know what he feels, he only wishes it were already four o'clock and time for that fatal encounter with the lion awaiting him with gaping jaws while the Romans applaud, the minutes are like this, although they usually step back in order to let us pass after brushing against our skin, but there will always be one ready to devour us. All metaphors about time and fate are tragic and at the same time futile, mused Raimundo Silva, perhaps not in these precise words, but since what really counts is the meaning, this is how he jotted it down, pleased to have thought of it. Yet he scarcely felt like eating any lunch, he had a lump in his throat, a familiar sensation, and a knot in his stomach, which is most uncommon, but conveys the seriousness of the situation. The charlady, this being her day, thought he looked odd and asked him straight out, Are you unwell, words which unexpectedly had a stimulating effect, for if his behaviour were giving strangers the impression that he was sick, then it was time to get a grip on himself, to overcome this malaise that was destroying him, so he replied, I feel fine, and at that moment it was true.