Raised from the Ground by José Saramago Read Free Book Online Page B

too much, he would prod him with a metal-tipped stick, and the more his nephew screamed and wept, the more the heartless wretch would laugh. These things really happened, which is why they’re hard to believe when set down as fiction. In the meantime, Sara da Conceição gave birth to another daughter, who died eight days later.
    There were rumors in Monte Lavre that a war was being waged in Europe, a place that few people in the village knew much about. They had their own wars to wage, and not small ones either, working all day, when there was work, and feeling sick with hunger all day, whether there was work or not. Not quite so many people died though, and generally speaking, any corpses entered the grave in one piece. However, as previously announced, the time had come for one of them to die.
    When Sara da Conceição heard that her husband had been seen in Cortiçadas, she gathered together the children who lived with her and, putting little trust in her father’s ability to protect João, she picked him up en route and sought shelter in the house of some relatives, the Picanços, who were millers in a place called Ponte Cava, about half a league away, the place taking its name from the bridge that crossed the river there. The bridge in question, however, was now nothing but a crumbling arch and some large boulders on the riverbed, but João Mau-Tempo and the other children would bathe naked there, and when João lay on his back staring up at the sky, all he could see was sky and water. It was there in Ponte Cava that the family chose to hide, fearful of the threats emanating from Cortiçadas via the mouths of well-known tattletales. Domingos Mau-Tempo might never have come to Monte Lavre if the messenger, on his return journey, had not told him that his family had fled in terror. One day, he slung a saddlebag over his shoulder and, blinded by fate, set off along cart tracks and across plains, and when he reached the mill, he stood outside, demanding satisfaction and the return of his family. José Picanço came out to speak to him while, in the depths of the house, his wife kept guard over the refugees. Domingos Mau-Tempo says, Good morning, Picanço, And José Picanço says, Good morning, Mau-Tempo, what do you want. And Domingos Mau-Tempo says, I’ve come for my family, who, it seems, have run away from me, and someone told me that they’re living in your house. And José Picanço says, Whoever told you that was quite right, they are living in my house. And Domingos Mau-Tempo says, Then send them out to me, because my wandering days are done. And José Picanço says, Who are you trying to fool, Mau-Tempo, you certainly can’t fool me, I know you too well. And Domingos Mau-Tempo says, They’re my family, not yours. And José Picanço says, Well, they’re certainly in far better hands here, anyway, no one is coming out, because no one wants to go with you. And Domingos Mau-Tempo says, I’m the father and the husband. And José Picanço says, Get out of here, I saw how you treated your honest, hard-working wife when we were neighbors, and your poor children, and the misery you put them through, in fact, if it hadn’t been for me and a few others, they would have died of hunger, and there would be no need for you to be here now, because they would all be dead. And Domingos Mau-Tempo says, Yes, but I’m still the father and the husband. And José Picanço says, Like I said before, get out of here and go where no one can hear or see or speak to you, because you’re a hopeless case, a lost cause.
    It’s a beautiful day. A sunny morning after rain, because we’re in autumn now, you see. Domingos Mau-Tempo draws a line on the ground with his stick, an apparent challenge, a sign that he is ready to fight, at least that is how Picanço interprets it, and so he, too, picks up a stick. These are not his problems, but often a man cannot choose, he simply happens to find himself in the right place at the right time. At