All The Names - Jose Saramago

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It took not three days but a week for Senhor José's fever to subside and for his cough to get better. The
nurse came every day to give him an injection and to bring him some food, the doctor came every other
day, but this extraordinary assiduousness, on the doctor's part that is, should not lead us to any hasty
conclusions about some imagined standard of efficiency among health officials and home visits, since it
was quite simply the consequence of a clear-cut order from the head of the Central Registry, Doctor, treat
that man as if you were treating me, he's important. The doctor did not understand the reasons behind this
evidently favoured treatment that he was being asked to administer, still less the lack of objectivity of the
value judgement expressed, he had occasionally visited the Registrar's own house for professional
reasons, and he had seen his comfortable, civilised way of life, an inner world that bore no resemblance
whatsoever to the rough hovel of this permanently ill-shaven Senhor José who appeared not even to have
a change of sheets. Senhor José did have sheets, he wasn't that poor, but, for reasons known only to him,
he rejected out of hand the nurse's offer to air the mattress for him and replace the sheets, for they stank of
sweat and fever, It'll only take me five minutes and the bed will be like new, No, I'm fine as I am, don't
worry, It's all part of my job you know, Like I said, I'm fine as I am. Senhor José could not reveal to
anyone's eyes that he was hiding between the mattress and the base of the bed the school records of an
unknown woman and a notebook containing the story of his break-in at the school where she had studied
as both a child and a young girl. To put them somewhere else, amid the files he used for his clippings
about famous people, for example, would immediately resolve the difficulty, but the sense of defending a
secret with his own body was too strong, too thrilling even, for Senhor José to give it up. In order not to
have to discuss the matter again with the nurse, or with the doctor, who, although he made no comment,
had already cast a critical glance over the crumpled sheets and visibly wrinkled his nose at the smell,
Senhor José got up one night and, making a supreme effort, he himself changed the sheets. And so as not to
give either the doctor or the nurse the slightest excuse to reopen the matter and, who knows, go and report
the clerks incorrigible lack of hygiene to the Registrar, he went to the bathroom, shaved and washed as
best he could, then took an old but clean pair of pyjamas from a drawer and went back to bed. He felt so
pleased with himself and so restored that, like someone playing a game with himself, he decided to set
down in his notebook an explicit, detailed account of all the hygienic preparations and treatments he had
just put himself through. His health was returning, as the doctor was quick to tell the Registrar The man is
cured in another two days he can go back to work without any danger of a relapse. The Registrar said
only Good but with distracted air as if he "were thinking about something else.
Senhor José was cured, but he had lost a lot of weight, despite the bread and victuals brought
regularly by the nurse, albeit only once a day, but quite sufficient in quantity to maintain an adult body not
subject to any exertions. One has to bear in mind, however, the debilitating effect of fever and prolonged
sweating on the adipose tissues, especially when, as in this case, there wasn't much of them to start with.
Personal remarks were frowned upon in the Central Registry, especially if in any way connected with
people's state of health, which is why Senhor José's frail appearance and extreme thinness were not the
object of any comment on the part of colleagues or superiors, that is, of any spoken comments, for the way
they looked at him was fairly eloquent in their common expression of a kind of scornful commiseration,
which other people, unfamiliar with the customs of the place, would have erroneously interpreted as a
discreet and silent reserve. So that people would see how troubled he was to have been absent from work
for so many days, Senhor José was first in Une at the door of the Central Registry in the morning, awaiting
the arrival of the newest deputy, whose job it was to open the door and to close it at the end of the day.
The original key, a real work of art by an old Baroque engraver, as well as a physical symbol of authority,