The History of the Siege of Lisbon

Maria Sara went up to the table. For several seconds she remained there without moving, as if waiting for the guide to follow on with a detailed description, he might say, for example, Look at the flowers, and she would have to avert her eyes, show some interest in the roses, the matching pair of those others in her apartment, and then she would make an understanding allusion, a discreet expression perhaps of loving sentiments, Our roses, accentuating the pronoun, but he remains silent and she does nothing except look at the half-written page, she does not need to be told that these are the signs of the siege, still indecipherable in the dim light despite the chronicler's neat handwriting. She realises that Raimundo will not speak, much as she would wish and at the same time does not wish that he should say something, that anything should break this uncanny silence, but that something should happen to prevent another world from irrupting into the one in which we find ourselves, perhaps death itself, the only other world, in fact, which, poised between the Martian and the terrestrial, will always have something in common with life. At just the right moment, she drew back the chair a little and sat down, with her left hand she switches on the lamp, the light covers the table and casts a halo of faint and impalpable mist over the entire room. Raimundo Silva has not moved, he tries to analyse the vague impression that with her gesture Maria Sara has just taken material possession of something previously possessed in her mind, and he suddenly thinks that, however long he may live, he will never experience another moment such as this, no matter how often she might return to this apartment and this room, even if, an absurd idea, they were to spend the rest of their lives here. Maria Sara has made no attempt to touch the paper, her hands are folded in her lap, and she reads from the first line, ignorant of what has been written on the previous page, and on the pages before that, where the history begins, she reads as if these ten lines embraced everything she had to know about life, a final judgment, one last summary, or, on the contrary, sealed orders where she will find instructions about the new route to be navigated. She finished reading, and, without turning round, asks, Who is this Ouroana, and this Mogueime, who is he, their names were written there and little else, as we know. Raimundo Silva took two short steps in the direction of the table and came to a halt, I'm still not sure, he said and fell silent, after all, he should have guessed that Maria Sara's first words would be to inquire who these two were, these, those, whosoever else, in a word, us. Maria Sara seemed satisfied with the reply, she was an experienced enough reader to know that the author only knows what his characters have been, even then not everything, and very little of what they will become. Raimundo Silva said, as if he were replying to an observation made aloud, I doubt whether they could be called characters, People in books are characters, objected Maria Sara, As I see them they belong somewhere in between, free in a different way, so that it would not make sense to talk either about the character's logic or about the contingent necessity of the person, If you can't tell me who they are, at least tell me what they do, He's a soldier who took part in the conquest of Santarém, she was picked up in Galicia to become a crusader's concubine, So there's a love intrigue, If you can call it that, Why the uncertainty, It's just that I don't know how people loved at that time, that's to say, I'm capable of imagining their feelings, but I have no idea or any certain knowledge of how the common man and woman expressed their feelings in those days, language, in this case, would not have been an obstacle, both of them spoke Galician, Invent a love story without any amorous words, sans mots d'amour, assuming such a thing is possible, From what I've seen and read, I very much doubt it, at least in real life, And what about this Ouroana, as the concubine of a crusader who was presumably a nobleman, how does she come to end up with Mogueime, Life takes many twists and turns, we humans even more so, and the last of them is death, crusader Heinrich, as he is called, will soon meet his death, Oh, so this crusader of yours is the same character mentioned in that other History of the Siege of Lisbon, Precisely, Then you'll also narrate the miracles he worked after his death, Too good an opportunity to miss, The miracle of the two mutes, Yes, but with a slight modification, and Raimundo Silva's reply was accompanied by a smile. Maria Sara rested her hand on the small pile of paper, May I look, she asked, Surely you don't want to read this right now, besides I've a long way to go yet, the history is incomplete, I shouldn't have the patience to wait, besides there aren't all that many sheets, Please, not today, But I'm curious to know how you solved the problem of the crusaders' refusal, Tomorrow, I'll make some photocopies and bring them to your office, Fine, that's settled, since I cannot persuade you otherwise. She got up, Raimundo Silva was very close, It's getting late, said Maria Sara, looking towards the window, Could you open it, she asked, Don't worry, said Raimundo Silva, I won't do you any harm, bearing in mind that you're paying me á visit and nothing more, You might also bear in mind that you're talking nonsense, I want some air and would like to see the view of the city from here, that's all.