All The Names - Jose Saramago

feeble old woman, cretin, nincompoop, and like someone who can find no better way of overcoming some
sudden, violent shock, he was almost on the point of saying to her, Well, try this on for size, your
goddaughter, the one in the picture, has kicked the bucket. The woman asked, Are you feeling ill, Senhor
José, would you like a glass of water, No, I'm fine, don't worry, he replied, ashamed of that wicked
impulse, I'm going to make you some tea, There's no need, really, I don't want to be any bother, at that
moment, Senhor José was feeling as base and humble as the dust in the street, the woman had left the
room, he heard her rattling cups in the kitchen, a few minutes passed, first you have to boil the water,
Senhor José remembers having read somewhere, probably in one of the magazines where he gets his
clippings of famous people, tea should be made with water that has just boiled but is not actually boiling,
he would have been quite happy with a glass of cold water, but the tea would do him far more good,
everyone knows that there's nothing like a nice cup of tea for lifting the spirits, all the manuals say so,
both in the East and the West. The lady of the house appeared with a tray, she had also brought a plate of
biscuits, as well as the teapot, cups and the sugar bowl. I didn't even ask if you liked tea, it only just
occurred to me that perhaps you would prefer coffee, she said, No, I like tea, I really do, Do you take
sugar, No, I don't, suddenly he went pale and started sweating, he thought he should explain, It must be the
remains of the flu I caught, So if I'd phoned, you probably wouldn't even have been there, and I really
would have had to tell your boss what had happened. This time the sweat only dampened Senhor José's
palms, but even so it was lucky that his cup was on the table, had he been holding it at that moment it
would have fallen to the floor, or spilled scalding tea all over the wretched clerk's legs, with inevitable
consequences, first the burn, then the return of his trousers to the laundry. Senhor José took a biscuit from
the plate, nibbled at it slowly, listlessly and, disguising with chewing the difficulty he was having in
formulating any words, he managed to ask the long-delayed question, And what was this information you
had to give me. The woman took a sip of tea, reached a hesitant hand out to the plate of biscuits, but did
not complete the gesture. She said, You remember that I suggested to you, at the end of your visit, just
when you were leaving, that you should look up my goddaughter's name in the phone book, Yes I do, but I
decided not to follow your advice, Why, It's rather difficult to explain, Well, you probably had your
reasons, It's easy enough to give reasons for what we do or don't do, when we see that we haven't got a
reason or not enough of a reason, then we try to invent one, in the case of your goddaughter, for example, I
could now say that I preferred to take the longest, most complicated route, And is that one of the real
reasons or one of the invented ones, Let's just say there's as much truth in it as there is falsehood, And
which bit is the falsehood, Me pretending that the reason I gave to you should be taken as the whole truth,
And it isn't, No, because I've left out the reason why I preferred that route and not another more direct
one, You're bored with the routine of your job, That could be another reason, How are your investigations
going, Tell me first what happened, let's pretend that I was at the Central Registry when you first thought
of phoning me and that the boss doesn't mind us getting phone calls. The woman raised the cup to her Hps
again, replaced it on the saucer without making the slightest noise and said, as her hands returned to her
lap, again her right hand covering her left, I did what I told you to do, You phoned her, Yes, You spoke to
her, Yes, When was that, A few days after you came here, I couldn't cope with all the memories, I couldn't
sleep, And what happened, We talked, She must have been surprised, She didn't seem to be, But that
would be the normal reaction after so many years of separation and silence, You obviously don't know
much about women, especially when they're unhappy, So she was unhappy, It didn't take long before we
were both crying, as if we were bound to each other by a thread of tears, What happened next, What do
you mean, Did she tell you anything about her life, Very little, just that she'd been married, but was now
divorced, We know that already, it's on her card, We left it that she would come and visit me as soon as
she had time, Did she come, No, not as yet, What do you mean, Just that she hasn't come, And she hasn't
phoned either, No, she hasn't, How long ago was this, About two weeks, More or less, Less I think, yes,
less, And what did you do, At first, I thought she'd changed her mind, that she didn't want to renew old