Death with Interruptions by José Saramago Read Free Book Online

tears and sobs, the child was handed down and placed beside his grandfather, but he looked wrong there, a small, insignificant bundle, an unimportant life, left to one side as if he didn't belong to the family. Then the man bent over, picked up the child, lay him face down on his grandfather's chest, and arranged the grandfather's arms so that they were holding the tiny body, now they're comfortable, ready for their rest, we can start covering them with earth, careful now, just a little at a time, that way they can say their goodbyes to us, listen to what they're saying, goodbye my daughters, goodbye my son-in-law, goodbye my aunts and uncles, goodbye my mother. When the grave was filled, the man trod the earth down and smoothed it to make sure that no chance passer-by would notice that anyone was buried there. He placed a stone at the head and a smaller stone at the foot, then with the hoe he scattered over the grave the weeds he removed earlier, other living plants would soon take the place of th ose withered, dry, dead weeds, which would gradually enter the food cycle of the same earth from which they had sprung. The man paced out the distance between tree and grave, twelve paces, then he put the spade and hoe on his shoulder and said, Let's go. The moon had disappeared, the sky had once more clouded over. Just as they had finished hitching the mule to the cart, it started to rain.

 
     
     
     
     
    THE PROTAGONISTS OF THESE DRAMATIC EVENTS, DESCRIBED in unusually detailed fashion in a story which has, so far, preferred to offer the curious reader, if we may put it so, a panoramic view of the facts, were, when they unexpectedly entered the scene, given the social classification of poor country folk. This mistake, the result of an overhasty judgment on the part of the narrator, based on an assessment which was, at best, superficial, should, out of respect for the truth, be rectified at once. A family of poor country folk, if they were truly poor, would not be the owners of a cart nor would they have money enough to feed an animal with the large appetite of a mule. They were, in fact, a family of smallholders, reasonably well-off in the modest world they lived in, well-brought-up people with sufficient schooling to be able to hold conversations which were not only grammatically correct, but which also had what some, for lack of a better word, call content, others substance, and others, perhaps more vulgarly, meat. Were that not the case, the maiden aunt would never have been able to come out with the lovely sentence we commented on before, What will the neighbors say when they notice the absence of these two people who were at death's door, but couldn't die. Hurriedly filling in that gap, and with truth restored to its rightful place, let us now hear what the neighbors did say. Despite all the family's precautions, someone had seen the cart and puzzled over why those three people would be going out at that late hour. This was precisely the question the vigilant neighbor asked himself, Where are those three off to at this hour, a question repeated the following morning, with only slight modification, to the old farmer's son-in-law, Where were you three off to at that hour of the night. The son-in-law replied that they'd had some business to attend to, but the neighbor was not convinced, Business to attend to at midnight, with the cart, and your wife and your sister-in-law, that's a bit odd, isn't it, he said, It might be odd, but that's how it was, And where were you coming from when the sky was just beginning to grow light, That's hardly your affair, You're right, I'm sorry, it really isn't my affair, but I assume you won't mind my asking after your father-in-law, Much the same, And your little nephew, He's much the same too, Well, I hope they both get better, Thank you, Goodbye, Goodbye. The neighbor walked away, stopped and turned back, It seemed to me that you were carrying something in the cart, it seemed to me that