All The Names - Jose Saramago

and fears what he desires, that is what his whole life has been like. Now, to gain time, to postpone what
he knows to be inevitable, he has decided that first, he will have to have lunch, in a cheap restaurant, as
his modest pocket dictates, but above all somewhere far from here, he doesn't want some curious
neighbour to suspect the intentions of a man who has already passed by twice. Although there's nothing
about his appearance to distinguish him from other supposedly honest people, the truth is that there are
never any solid guarantees about what you see, appearances are very deceptive, that's why they're called
appearances, although in the case in point, taking into account his age and fragüe physical constitution, no
one would think, for example, that Senhor José made his living breaking into houses at night. He took as
long as he could over the frugal lunch, got up from the table long after three o'clock and, unhurriedly, as if
he were dragging his feet, he went back to the street where the unknown woman had lived. Before turning
the last corner, he stopped and took a deep breath, I'm not a coward, he thought to give himself courage,
but as so often happens with so many brave people, he was valiant about some things, cowardly about
others, the fact that he spent a night in the cemetery won't stop his legs shaking now. He put his hand into
his jacket pocket, felt the keys, one, small and narrow, was for the postbox, and so was naturally
excluded, the remaining two were almost the same, but one was the street door, the other the door to the
apartment, he hoped he got it right the first time, if the building has a concierge and she's the sort who
pokes her nose out at the slightest noise, what explanation would he give, he could say he was there with
the authorisation of the parents of the woman who committed suicide, that he's come to make an inventory
of her possessions, I work for the Central Registry, madam, here's my card, and as you see, they've given
me the keys to the apartment. Senhor José chose the right key on the first try, the guardian of the door, if
the building had one, did not appear and ask him, Excuse me, where are you going, there's a lot of truth in
the saying that fear of the guard is the best guard against theft, so he tells himself to begin by conquering
his fear, then see if the guard appears. It's an old building but it has a lift, which is just as well, because
Senhor José's legs are so heavy now that he would never have made it to the sixth floor, where the
mathematics teacher lived. The door creaked as it opened, startling the visitor, who suddenly doubted the
efficacy of the excuse he had thought he would give to the concierge should she intervene. He slipped
quickly into the apartment, very carefully closed the door, and found himself in the midst of a dense,
almost pitch-black darkness. He felt the wall next to the door frame, found a switch, but prudently didn't
turn it on, it might be dangerous to put on the lights. Gradually, Senhor José's eyes became used to the
shadows, you might say that in a similar situation the same would happen with anyone, but it is not
generally known that, after a certain time, the clerks in the Central Registry, given their obligatory regular
visits to the archive of the dead, acquire a remarkable talent for optical adaptation. They would all have
cat's eyes if they didn't reach retirement age first.
Although the floor was carpeted, Senhor José thought it best to take off his shoes to avoid any shock
or vibration that might betray his presence to the tenants on the floor below. With enormous care he slid
back the bolts on the inner shutters of one of the windows that opened onto the street, but only enough to
let in a little light. He was in a bedroom. There was a dressing table, a wardrobe, a bedside table. A
narrow bed, a single, as they are called. The furniture had light, simple lines, the opposite of the dull,
heavy furniture in her parents' house. Senhor José walked through the other rooms in the apartment, which
comprised a living room furnished with the usual sofas and a bookshelf that took up the whole of one
wall, a much smaller room that served as a study, a tiny kitchen and a rnini mal bathroom. Here lived a
woman who committed suicide for unknown reasons, who had been married and got divorced, who could
have gone to live with her parents after the divorce, but had preferred to live alone, a woman who, like
aU women, was once a child and a girl, but who even then, in a certain indefinable way, was already the
woman she was going to be, a mathematics teacher whose name while she was alive was in the Central
Registry, along with the names of aU the people alive in this city, a woman whose dead name returned to
the living world because Senhor José went to rescue her from the dead world, just her name, not her, a