The History of the Siege of Lisbon

Having changed his clothes, and more or less dried off, Raimundo Silva set about preparing lunch, he boiled some potatoes to accompany the tinned tuna for which he had opted after considering the few alternatives available, and, supplementing this frugal meal with the usual plate of soup, he felt more cheerful, his energy restored. As he ate, he had a curious feeling of alienation, as if, a purely imaginary experience, he had just arrived after a lengthy, drawn-out journey through distant lands where he encountered other civilisations. Obviously, in an existence so little given to adventures, any novelty, however insignificant for others, can seem like a revolution, even if, to cite only this recent example, his memorable desecration of the almost sacred text of The History of the Siege of Lisbon

had not affected him in the slightest, but now he has the impression that his home belongs to someone else, and that he himself is the stranger, the very smell is different, and the furniture seems out of place or distorted by means of a perspective governed by other laws. He prepared a piping hot coffee, as usual, and with the cup and saucer in his hand, taking tiny sips, he went round the apartment to see if he could familiarise himself with it once more, he began with the bathroom, where there were still vestiges of the dyeing operation he had carried out, never imagining that it would later cause him embarrassment, then the sitting-room which he rarely used, with the television, a low table, a divan, a tiny sofa and a bookcase with glass-panelled doors, and then the study which brought him back into contact with things he had seen and touched a thousand times, and finally the bedroom with its bed made of old mahogany, a matching wardrobe, and the bedside table, furniture designed for a larger room and unsuited to this confined space. On top of the bed, where he had thrown it down on entering the apartment, lies the book, the last Iroquois of that decimated tribe, taking refuge in the Rua do Milagre de Santo Antonio because of the inexplicable deference of Dr Maria Sara, inexplicable, say we, because it is not sufficient to have proposed, Write a book, only out of irony, for any connivance, with all the intimacy that word implies, makes no sense here, or could it be that Dr Maria Sara simply wants to see how far he is capable of going down the path of madness, since he himself spoke of mental disturbance. Raimundo Silva put the cup and saucer on the bedside table, Who knows, perhaps one of the symptoms is this impression of alienation, as if this were not my home and this place and these things meant nothing to me, the question remained in suspense, unanswered, like all questions that begin with the words, Who knows. He picked up the book, the cover illustration had actually been copied from an old manuscript, French or German, and at that moment, obliterating everything, he was invaded by a sense of fulfilment, of strength, he was holding something that was exclusively his, admittedly despised by others, but for that very reason, Who knows, prized all the more, after all this book is loved by nobody else, and this man has no one to love except this book.

As everyone knows, we spend a third of our short lives sleeping, and we can confirm this from our own experience, between going to bed and getting up, counting is easy, allowing for the wakeful hours of those who suffer from insomnia and, in general, the time devoted to the nightly sessions of the art of loving, still enjoyed and practised as a rule at dead of night, despite the increasing popularity of more flexible timetables which, in this and other particulars, appear to be guiding us towards the fulfilment of the golden dreams of anarchy, namely, that desired age in which each one of us can do as we please, provided we do not prejudice or restrict what pleases others. Yes, there is nothing simpler, but the fact that up to the present we have not succeeded in even identifying our neighbours amidst a multitude of strangers with any lasting certainty, goes to prove, were such proof necessary, what tradition has taught us, that the difficulty of achieving the simple is infinitely more complicated than any other task or skill, that is to say, it is less difficult to conceive, create, construct and manipulate an electronic brain than to find in our own the wherewithal to be happy, but, in the words of Jesus, one age succeeds another, and hope is the last thing to be lost, Alas, we might start losing it right away, because the time it will take to achieve universal happiness has to be counted in astronomical measurements, and this generation does not aim to live that long, disheartened as it clearly is.