The History of the Siege of Lisbon

He awoke several times in the night with a start, as if someone had shaken him. He kept his eyes closed, trying to ward off insomnia, and soon he passed from uneasy torpor to another restless sleep, but without any dreams. As midnight approached it began to rain, the noise on the verandah roof was always the first sign, however light the rain, and Raimundo Silva's sleep was disturbed by the continuous patter of raindrops falling and reverberating, he slowly opened his eyes to greet the wan light that was just beginning to filter through the chinks of the shutters. As nearly always happens to anyone awakening at this hour, he went back to sleep, this time troubled by dreams, worrying if there would be enough time to dye his hair which badly needed doing, and whether he would be able to do it effectively enough to disguise the fact that it was dyed. It was after nine when he awoke, and immediately thought, I haven't time, then changed his mind. He went into the bathroom and, blinking his eyes, hair uncombed, his face wrinkled, he examined himself under the strong light of the two lamps, one on each side of the mirror. White roots were sadly visible, it would not be enough to ruffle his hair in order to hide them, the solution was really to dye them. He got through his breakfast in a matter of minutes, sacrificing his confirmed appetite for buttered toast, and went back into the bathroom, where he locked himself in to get on with the minting of false coin, in a word, to applying the product, as the instructions on the label described it. He always locked himself in, even though he might be all alone in the apartment when he dyed his hair, he did it in secret, which, as he ought to know, was no secret to anyone, and he would certainly have died of shame were he ever to be discovered carrying out what he himself considered a depressing operation. Like that of Dr Maria Sara, his hair, in more truthful times, was brown, but now it would be impossible to compare their respective hair tones, nature with nature, because that of Raimundo Silva has a uniform colour which bears a striking resemblance to a dowdy, moth-eaten wig, long forgotten then rediscovered in some attic, entangled amongst old pictures, items of furniture, ornaments, knick-knacks, the masks of another age. It was getting on for eleven-thirty before he was ready to leave, already very late, and unless he was fortunate enough to find a taxi right away, the situation would warrant another quotation, this time from an old saying, 111 often comes on the back of worse, a succinct and telling expression which could be transposed as, Out of one ill come many. He was truly fortunate to be living in the Rua do Milagre de Santo Antonio, for only a miracle could have brought an empty taxi into such a deserted street on such a rainy day and it actually stopped when he hailed it without signalling back that it was heading elsewhere. Feeling cheerful, Raimundo Silva arrived at the publishers and made for the editorial department, but later, as he was depositing his umbrella, he realised he was being idiotic, his anxiety was showing in two quite different ways, the fear of going, the desire to arrive, the publishing house for him had become a loathsome place, and, on the other hand, it was not simply to arrive at midday on the dot that he had urged the taxi-driver to go faster, I'm in a hurry, running the risk of making an enemy of someone who had just shown himself to be instrumental in the working of a miracle. Descending into the lower part of the city took some time, to make headway amidst traffic held up by the rain was like thrashing about in treacle, Raimundo Silva perspired with impatience, it was already ten minutes past midday when he walked into the office, panting for breath, and in the worst possible frame of mind for a meeting to discuss new responsibilities and, almost certainly, to reopen the question of his recent fall from grace.