All The Names - Jose Saramago

ecord card and then his personal file. There was a small flashlight in the drawer where he had put the
key. He went to get it and then, as if having a light to carry had filled him with new courage, he advanced
almost resolutely between the desks to the counter, below which was the extensive card index pertaining
to the living. He quickly found the bishop's card and, luckily, the shelf where the bishop's file was kept
was within arm's reach. He therefore had no need to use the ladder, but he wondered fearfully what his
life would be like when he had to ascend to the upper regions of the shelves, up there where the black sky
began. He opened the cabinet containing the forms, took one of each sort and went back to his house,
leaving the communicating door open. Then he sat down and, his hand still shaking, began to copy the
identifying data about the bishop onto the blank forms, his name in full, with not a single family name or
particular omitted, the date and place of birth, the names of his parents, the names of his godparents, the
name of the priest who baptised him, the name of the employee at the Central Registry who had registered
his birth, all the names. By the time he had completed this brief task, he was exhausted, his hands were
sweating and shudders were running up and down his spine, he knew all too well that he had committed a
sin against the esprit de corps of the civil service, indeed nothing so tires a person as having to struggle,
not with himself, but with an abstraction. By plundering those papers, he had committed an offence against
discipline and ethics, perhaps even against the law. Not because the information contained in them was
confidential or secret, they were not, since anyone could go to the Central Registry and ask for copies or
certificates of the bishop's documents without explaining why or for what purpose, but because he had
broken the hierarchical chain by proceeding without the necessary order or authorisation from a superior.
He considered turning back and correcting the irregularity by tearing up or destroying these impertinent
copies, handing over the key to the Registrar, Sir, I would not want to be held responsible if anything
should go missing from the Central Registry, and, having done that, forget what can only be described as
the sublime moments he had just lived through. However, what prevailed was the pride and satisfaction
he felt at now knowing everything, that was the word he used, Everything, about the bishop's life. He
looked at the cupboard where he kept the boxes with his collections of clippings and smiled with inner
delight, thinking of the work that lay ahead of him, the nighttime sallies, the orderly gathering of record
cards and files, the copies made in his best handwriting, he felt so happy that he was not even cowed by
the thought that he would have to climb the ladder. He returned to the Central Registry and restored the
bishop's papers to their rightful places. Then, with a feeling of confidence that he had never before
experienced in his entire life, he shone the flashlight around him, as if finally taking possession of
something that had always belonged to him but that he had only now been able to recognise as his. He
stopped for a moment to look at the Registrar's desk, haloed by the wan light falling from above, yes, that
was what he should do, he should go and sit in that chair, and from now on, he would be the true master of
the archives, and only he, if he wanted to, forced as he was to spend his days here, could also choose to
spend his nights here, the sun and the moon turning tirelessly around the Central Registry both the world
and the centre of the world When we announce the beginning of something, we always speak of the first
day, when one should really speak of the first night, the night is a condition of the day, night would be
eternal if there were no night. Senhor José is sitting in the Registrar's chair and he will stay there until
dawn, listening to the faint rustle of the papers of the living above the compact silence of the dead When
the street lamps went off and the five windows above the main door turned the colour of dark ash, he got
up from the chair and went into his house, closing the communicating door behind him. He washed,
shaved, had some breakfast, filed away the bishop's papers, put on his best suit, and when it was time, he
went out through the other door, the street door, walked around the building and went into the Central
Registry. None of his colleagues noticed who had arrived, they responded to his greeting as they always
did, Good morning, Senhor José, they said and they did not know to whom they were speaking.