All The Names - Jose Saramago

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... He went there the following morning, but he decided not to go up and ask the present occupants of the apartment and the buildings other tenants if they had known the girl in the photograph. It was more than likely that they would tell him they hadn't, that they had been living there only a short time, or that they didn't remember, You know how it is, people come and go, I really can't remember anything about the family, it's not worth puzzling your head about, and if someone did say yes and did seem to have a vague recollection, they would probably only go on to add that their relationship had been the usual one among the polite classes, So you never saw them again, Senhor José would ask, No, never, after they moved out, I never saw them again, That's a shame, I've told you everything I know, I'm sorry not to be of more use to the Central Registry. <strong>The</strong> good fortune of immediately finding the lady in the ground-floor apartment, so well informed, so close to the original sources, could not possibly happen twice, but only much later, when none of what is being related here was of any importance anymore, did Senhor José discover that here too the same good fortune had acted prodigiously in his favour, saving him from the most disastrous of consequences. Unbeknownst to him, by some diabolical coincidence, one of the deputies at the Central Registry lived in that building, you can imagine the terrible scene, our trusting Senhor José knocking at the door, showing the index card, possibly even the forged letter of authority, and the woman who came to the door saying treacherously, Come back later when my husbands at home, he always deals with matters like this, and Senhor José would go back, his heart full of hope, and would come face-to-face with a furious deputy, who would arrest him on the spot, literally not figuratively, for the Central Registry's regulations permit of neither precipitate actions nor improvisation, the worst thing being that we don't even know what all the regulations are. Having resolved this time, as if his guardian angel had been whispering the advice urgently in his ear, to turn his attention to the shops in the area, Senhor José had unwittingly saved himself from the worst disgrace in his long career as a civil servant. He contented himself, then, with looking up at the windows of the apartment where the unknown woman had lived when she was young, and in order to get properly inside the skin of a real investigator, he imagined her leaving for school, carrying her satchel, walking to the bus stop and waiting there, it wasn't worth following her, Senhor José knew perfectly well where she was going, he had the relevant proof hidden between the mattress and the base of his bed. A quarter of an hour later, her father left, he sets off in the opposite direction, that's why he doesn't leave with his daughter when she goes to school, unless it's simply that father and daughter don't like to walk along together and give this as an excuse or give no excuse at all, but there will be some kind of tacit agreement between the two, so that the neighbours won't notice their mutual indifference. Now Senhor José needs to be patient for a little while longer, until the mother goes out shopping, as usually happens in families, that way he will know where he should make his inquiries, the nearest commercial establishment three buildings along is that chemist's shop but Senhor José immediately doubts that he will obtain any useful information there, the assistant is a young man young in age and young as an employee, he himself says so, I don't know, I've only been here two years. But Senhor José won't be discouraged by that, he has read more than enough newspapers and magazines, not to mention the lessons life has been teaching him, to know that these investigations, carried out in the old way, take a lot of work, involve a lot of walking, pounding streets and pavements, going up stairs, knocking at doors, coming down stairs, the same questions asked a thousand times, identical replies, almost always in a reserved tone of voice, I don't know, I've never heard of such a person, only very rarely does it happen that from the back room there emerges an older pharmacist who has heard the conversation and is, by nature, extremely inquisitive, Can I help you, he asked, I'm looking for someone, replied Senhor José, at the same time raising his hand to his inside jacket pocket in order to show the letter of authority. He did not
complete the movement, a sudden feeling of unease stopped him, this time it wasn't the work of any guardian angel, what made him slowly withdraw his hand was the look in the pharmacist's eye, a look that was more like a dagger, a perforating drill, no one would think it, with his lined face and his white hair, but the effect of that look is to put even the most ingenuous of creatures immediately on guard, which is probably why the pharmacist's curiosity is never satisfied, the more he wants to know the less people tell him. That is what happened with Senhor José. He did not even show him the letter of authority, he did not say that he had come on behalf of the Central Registry, he merely took from his other pocket the girl's most recent school record card, which, fortunately, he had remembered to bring with him, Our school needs to find this lady in order to give her a diploma that she failed to pick up from the secretary's office, Senhor José felt a pang of pleasure, almost enthusiasm, at the exercise of inventive abilities he had imagined he had, so sure of himself that he remained unperturbed by the pharmacist's question, And you're only looking for her now, all these years later, It's quite possible she won't be interested, he replied, but the school is under an obligation to do all it can to make sure the diploma is delivered, And you've waited all this time for her to appear, To tell you the truth, we didn't even notice, it was a lamentable lack of attention on our part, a bureaucratic error, if you like, but it's never too late to right a wrong, It will definitely be too late if the lady's already dead, We have reason to believe that she's still alive, Why, We began by consulting the records, Senhor José was careful not to mention the words Central Registry, that was what saved him, because, at least at that moment, it meant that the pharmacist did not suddenly recall that a deputy registrar from the said Central Registry was one of his customers and lived three buildings down. For the second time, Senhor José had escaped the ultimate punishment. It's true that the deputy only rarely went into the chemist's, such purchases, and indeed all other purchases, apart from condoms, which the deputy was morally scrupulous enough to go and buy elsewhere, were made by his wife, so it's not that easy to imagine a conversation between the pharmacist and him, although one can't exclude the possibility of another conversation, the pharmacist saying to the deputy's wife, <strong>The</strong>re was some school administrator in here looking for someone who used to live in the building where you live, at one point he mentioned consulting the records it was only after he'd gone that I thought it strange that he should have said records rather than Central Registry, it seemed to me that he had something to hide, there was even a moment when he raised his hand to his inside jacket pocket as if he were about to show me something, but he had second thoughts and instead took a school record card from his other pocket, I've been racking my brains to think what it could all be about, I think you should talk to your husband, you never know, there are some funny people about, Perhaps it's the same man I noticed the day before yesterday, standing on the pavement looking up at our windows, A middle-aged chap, a bit younger than me, who looked as if he'd only recently recovered from an illness, That's the one, You know I've got an instinct for these things, it never fails, there aren't many people can pull the wool over my eyes, It's a shame he didn't knock at my door, I'd have told him to come back in the afternoon, when my husband was home, then we'd know who he was and what he wanted, I'm going to keep an eye out in case he shows up again, And I'll make a point of mentioning it to my husband. Which she did, but she didn't tell the whole story, she unwittingly left out the most important detail, perhaps the most important of all, she did not say that the man who had been hanging around the building looked as if he had only recendy recovered from an illness. Accustomed to making links between causes and effects, since that is essentially what underpins the system of forces which, from the beginning of time, has ruled in the Central Registry, where everything was, is and will continue to be forever linked to everything, what is still alive to what is already dead, what is dying to what is being born, all beings to all other beings, all things to all other things, even when the only thing they seem to have in common, both beings and things, is what at first sight appears to separate them, the wise deputy would immediately have thought of Senhor José, the clerk who, with the inexplicably benevolent compliance of the Registrar, had been behaving very strangely lately. Finding the end of the thread and then untangling the whole skein would be only a step. That will not happen, though, Senhor
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ALL THE NAMES
Page 5 and 6:
You know the name you were given, y
Page 7 and 8:
eing born, are far less pressing, a
Page 9 and 10:
... Apart from his first name, Jos
Page 11 and 12: Now, since Senhor José's obsession
Page 13 and 14: ... Fortunately, there are not that
Page 15 and 16: and that he, as a responsible civil
Page 17 and 18: night's sleep, That's what I hope t
Page 19 and 20: hour of the night, What time was it
Page 21 and 22: ack to sleep, If she is the woman o
Page 23 and 24: and I've heard people say that she'
Page 25 and 26: inside jacket pocket, Senhor José
Page 27 and 28: love each other, you. love each oth
Page 29 and 30: ... Such was the force of this blow
Page 31 and 32: it, Oh, enough of your hypocrisy, w
Page 33 and 34: ... Contrary to what people might t
Page 35 and 36: his jacket pocket, he had been walk
Page 37 and 38: José was breathing hard, amazed at
Page 39 and 40: ... Respect for the facts, and a si
Page 41 and 42: Senhor José's heart leapt to see t
Page 43 and 44: left the first-aid room, and althou
Page 45 and 46: himself up that staircase like a li
Page 47 and 48: ... The next morning, almost as soo
Page 49 and 50: were a gift, carrying a photo of so
Page 51 and 52: noticed the other man's surprise as
Page 53 and 54: firm steps approached the bed, then
Page 55 and 56: emained lying down for a few more m
Page 57 and 58: of which the deputy's key was merel
Page 59 and 60: sitting, he wasn't expecting him to
Page 61: thirteen small cardboard rectangles
Page 65 and 66: ed, hid the letter in the wardrobe,
Page 67 and 68: ... That night, Senhor José return
Page 69 and 70: to create its own shadows, what Sen
Page 71 and 72: prison, and over there, at the far
Page 73 and 74: ... The fact that psychological tim
Page 75 and 76: hold-up in the traffic was preventi
Page 77 and 78: feeble old woman, cretin, nincompoo
Page 79 and 80: the battles begin between heirs, th
Page 81 and 82: esponse, and she was perfectly righ
Page 83 and 84: aware of society's need for a conti
Page 85 and 86: ages, return to the world from whic
Page 87 and 88: to sell off strips of land, at othe
Page 89 and 90: Since he was known to the people th
Page 91 and 92: tombstones and forced up into the s
Page 93 and 94: question was in which direction. Se
Page 95 and 96: of earth which will soon be overgro
Page 97 and 98: that's sacred, Mr. Clerk, at least
Page 99 and 100: ... Determined to catch up on his l
Page 101 and 102: carefully, Go on, In order to clear
Page 103 and 104: a woman who looked about sixty or s
Page 105 and 106: ... Senhor José slept like a log.
Page 107 and 108: the headmaster, I didn't know that
Page 109 and 110: clerk can only do so much. With the
Page 111 and 112: driver announced, Here we are, Senh
Page 114 and 115:
Reading Group Guide 1. How do the C
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All The Names - Jose Saramago

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