All The Names - Jose Saramago

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, There 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