All The Names - Jose Saramago

a woman who looked about sixty or so, younger than the woman in the ground-floor apartment, with whom
her husband had deceived her thirty years before, I'm the person who phoned from the Central Registry,
said Senhor José, Come in, we were expecting you, I'm sorry I couldn't come at once, but I had to handle
another very urgent matter, That's all right, come this way. The house had a sombre air, there were
curtains covering the windows and the doors, the furniture was heavy, the walls were hung with ominous
paintings of landscapes that had probably never existed. The lady of the house ushered Senhor José into
what appeared to be a study, where a man, quite a bit older than she, was waiting, It's the gentleman from
the Central Registry, said the woman, Sit down, said the man, pointing to a chair. Senhor José took the
letter from his pocket, holding it in his hand as he said, I'm terribly sorry to bother you at this sad time, but
that's what my job demands, this document will tell you the exact nature of my mission. He handed the
piece of paper to the man, who read it, holding it very close to his eyes, saying when he had done so, Your
mission must be extremely important to justify a document written in these terms, It's the usual Central
Registry style, even when it's a simple thing like this, an investigation into the causes of a suicide, That's
hardly unimportant, No, don't misunderstand me, what I meant was that whatever mission they charge us
with and for which a letter of authority is deemed necessary, it's always written in the same style, The
rhetoric of authority, You could call it that. The woman intervened to ask, And what does the Central
Registry want to know, First, the immediate cause of the suicide, And second, asked the man, The
antecedents, the circumstances, the signs, anything that can help us towards a better understanding of what
happened, Isn't it enough for the Central Registry to know that my daughter killed herself, When I said I
needed to talk to you about a statistical question, I was simplifying matters, Now's your chance to explain,
It's no longer enough for us to be content with numbers, what we're trying to do now is to find out as much
as possible about the psychological background against which the suicidal process takes place, Why,
asked the woman, that won't bring my daughter back to life, The idea is to set up parameters for
intervention, I don't understand, said the man, Senhor José was sweating, it was proving far more
complicated than he had thought, It's terribly hot, isn't it, he said, Would you like a glass of water, asked
the woman, If it's not too much trouble, Of course not, the woman got up and went out, in a minute she was
back. While he was drinking the water, Senhor José decided to change tactics. He placed the glass on the
tray the woman was holding and said, Imagine that your daughter had not yet committed suicide, imagine
that the investigation which the Central Registry is currently undertaking had managed to draw up certain
guidelines and recommendations, capable eventually, if applied in time, of halting what I earlier referred
to as the suicidal process, That was what you meant by parameters for intervention, asked the man,
Exactly, said Senhor José, and without leaving room for any further remarks, he delivered the first thrust,
We may not have been able to stop your daughter from committing suicide, but perhaps we can, with your
collaboration and with that of other people in the same situation, avoid a great deal of grief and many
tears. The woman was crying, murmuring, My dear daughter, while the man was roughly wiping away his
tears with the back of bis hand. Senhor José hoped he would not be forced to resort to his final expedient,
which would, he thought, be a reading of the letter of authority in a loud, severe voice, word by word,
like doors being closed one after the other, until they left only one possible way out for the person
listening, to do as they were asked and to speak. If this failed, he would have no option but to come up
with some excuse to withdraw as gracefully as possible. And just pray that it would not occur to the
unknown woman's stubborn father to phone the Central Registry demanding an explanation for that visit by
a member of their staff called Senhor José something or other, I can't remember the rest of his name. It
wasn't necessary. The man folded up the letter and gave it back. Then he said, What can we do for you.
Senhor José gave a sigh of relief, the way was now open for him to get down to business, Did your
daughter leave a letter, No letter, no word, Do you mean she committed suicide just like that, It wouldn't
have happened just like that, she obviously had her reasons, but we don't know what they were, My
daughter was unhappy, said the woman, No one happy commits suicide, said her impatient husband, And