All The Names - Jose Saramago

...
Respect for the facts, and a simple moral obligation not to offend the credulity of anyone prepared to
accept as plausible and coherent the difficulties of such an extraordinary exploit, demand immediate
clarification of that last statement: Senhor José did not drop as lightly from the windowsill as a leaf
falling from a bough. On the contrary, he fell very heavily, the way an entire tree would fall, when he
could perfectly easily have lowered himself gradually down from his temporary seat until his feet touched
the ground. The fall, given the thud with which he hit the ground and the subsequent succession of painful
collisions, revealed to him, before bis eyes could confirm the fact, that the place he had landed in was
like a prolongation of the porch outside, since both places were used as a storage space for things no
longer needed, although it had probably happened the other way around, this place came first and, only
later, when there was no more room here, did they resort to the porch outside. Senhor José sat there for a
few moments, waiting for his breathing to return to normal and for his arms and legs to stop shaking. Then
he turned on the flashlight, being careful to shine it only on the floor in front of him, and he saw that,
between the piled-up furniture on either side, there was a path that led to the door. It troubled him to think
that the door might be locked, in which case he would have to break it down despite having none of the
necessary imple ments and despite the ensuing noise. Outside it was still raining, everyone must be
asleep, but we can't be sure, there are people who sleep so lightly that even the whine of a mosquito is
enough to wake them, then they get up, go to the kitchen for a glass of water, look casually out of the
window and see a black rectangular hole in the wall of the school, and perhaps think, They're awfully
careless at that school, imagine leaving a window open in weather like this, or, If I remember rightly, that
window was closed, it must have been blown open by the wind, no one is going to think there's a thief
inside, besides, they'd be quite wrong, because Senhor José, may we remind you once again, has not come
here to steal. It has just occurred to him that he should close the window so that no one outside will notice
the breakin, but then he has doubts, he wonders if it wouldn't be better to leave it as it is, They'll think it
was the wind or carelessness on the part of some employee, if I close it they'll immediately notice that
there's no glass in it, especially since the glass is opaque, almost white. Convinced that the rest of the
world follows the same deductive paths as he does, he decided to leave the window open and then began
to crawl past the furniture to the door. It wasn't locked. He gave a sigh of relief, from then on, there should
be no further obstacles. Now what he needed was a comfortable chair, or, even better, a sofa, to spend
what remained of the night resting, if his nerves would let him sleep. As an experienced chess player, he
had calculated the moves, indeed, when you're reasonably sure of the immediate objective causes, it's not
that difficult to think through the range of probable and possible effects and their transformation into
causes, all in turn generating effects causes effects and causes effects causes, and so on into infinity, but
we know that Senhor José has no need to go quite that far. To prudent people it will seem foolish for the
clerk to have walked straight into the lion's den, and then, as if that were not audacious enough, to remain
there calmly for what remained of the night and all of tomorrow, with the risk of being caught in flagrante
by someone with far greater deductive powers than his in the matter of open windows. It must be
recognised, however, that it would have been even less sensible to have gone walking from room to room
putting on lights. The combination of an open window and a light, when everyone knows that the
legitimate users of a house or a school are absent, is a mental leap that anyone can make, however trusting
they may be, they usually call the police.
Senhor José ached all over, he had skinned his knees, which were possibly bleeding, the discomfort
caused by his trousers rubbing against them could mean nothing else, apart from that, he was soaked to the
skin and dirty from head to foot. He removed his dripping raincoat and thought, If there was an inner room