Death with Interruptions by José Saramago Read Free Book Online Page B

merely saw it as a clean, efficient way, although radical might be a better word, of freeing themselves from the genuine dead-weights that their dying relatives had become to them at home. The media who, earlier, had energetically denounced the daughters and son-in-law of the old man buried along with his grandson, including in their vituperations the maiden aunt, accusing her of complicity and connivance, now stigmatized the cruelty and lack of patriotism of apparently decent folk who, at this time of grave national crisis, had let slip the hypocritical mask that concealed their true natures. Under pressure from the governments of the three neighboring countries and from the opposition parties, the prime minister condemned these inhumane activities, citing the need to respect human life and announcing that the armed forces would immediately take up positions along the frontier to prevent any citizen in a state of terminal physical decline from crossing over, whether on their own initiative or due to some arbitrary decision taken by relatives. Deep down, of course, although the prime minister dared not say this out loud, the government was not entirely opposed to an exodus which would, in the final analysis, serve the interests of the country by helping to lower the demographic pressure that had been building continuously over the last three months, although it was still far from reaching truly worrying levels. The prime minister also neglected to say that he'd had a discreet meeting with the interior minister that very day, the aim of which was to set up a nationwide network of vigilantes, or spies, in cities, towns and villages, whose mission would be to inform the authorities of any suspicious moves made by people with close relatives in a state of suspended death. The decision to intervene or not would be made on a case-by-case basis, since it was not the government's intention to put a complete stop to this new kind of migratory urge, but, rather, to satisfy, at least in part, the concerns of the governments of countries with whom they shared a border, enough, at least, to silence their complaints for a time. We're not here just to do what they want us to do, said the prime minister firmly, The plan will still exclude small hamlets, large estates and isolated houses, remarked the interior minister, We'll leave them to their own devices, they can do what they like, for as you know from experience, my friend, it's impossible to have one policeman per person.
    For two weeks, the plan worked more or less perfectly, but, after that, some of the vigilantes started complaining that they were receiving threatening phone calls, warning them that, if they wanted to live a nice quiet life, they had better turn a blind eye to the clandestine traffic of the terminally ill, and even close their eyes completely if they didn't want to add their own corpse to the number of people with whose surveillance they had been charged. These were not empty threats, as became clear when the families of four vigilantes were told by anonymous callers that they should pick their loved ones up at such and such a place. And there they were, not dead, but not alive either. Given the gravity of the situation, the interior minister decided to show his power to the unknown enemy, on the one hand, by ordering his spies to intensify their investigations, and, on the other, by cancelling the drip-drip system of letting this one through, but not that one, which had been applied in accordance with the prime minister's tactics. The response was immediate, four more vigilantes suffered the same sad fate as the previous four, but, in this case, there was only one telephone call, intended for the interior minister himself, which could be interpreted as a provocation, but also as an action determined by pure logic, like someone saying, We exist. The message, however, did not stop there, it brought with it a constructive proposal, Let's come to a gentlemen's agreement,