The Lives of Things by José Saramago Read Free Book Online

She persisted and tried to get in but he shouted that she must not, that it was dangerous, and he explained what was happening as she leaned over, getting all the rain on her back and bare head, her whole face twitching with horror. And she watched her husband in that warm and misted cocoon isolating him from the world, writhing in his seat as he struggled unsuccessfully to get out of the car. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled in disbelief, unable to budge him an inch. And since it was all too horrible to contemplate, they remained there staring at each other in silence until she thought her husband must be mad and was pretending not to be able to get out. She must go and fetch someone to help him, to take him wherever such mental disorders are treated. In soothing tones she told her husband to be patient while she went to fetch someone to help her release him, she would not be long, they would even be able to lunch together and he could ring the office and say he had flu. And therefore he would not need to go to work that afternoon. He must remain calm, there was nothing to worry about, it would not be long now until he was free.
    But when she disappeared upstairs, he once more imagined himself surrounded by onlookers, his photograph in the papers, the mortification of having peed down his legs, and he waited a few more minutes. And while his wife was upstairs making telephone calls everywhere, to the police, to the hospital, trying to persuade them to believe her and not to be taken in by the natural tone of voice in which she gave her name and that of her husband, the colour of the vehicle, the make and registration number, he could no longer bear to wait and switched on the engine. When his wife came back downstairs, the car had gone and the rat had finally slipped off the edge of the pavement and was rolling down the sloping road, carried off by the water running from the gutters. The woman called out, but it was some time before anyone appeared, and how was she to explain what had happened?
    Until darkness fell the man drove around the city, passing empty petrol-pumps, finding himself in queues quite unintentionally, worried because his money was running out and he did not like to think what would happen once he had no money left and the car stopped in front of a petrol-pump to fill up with more petrol. But no such thing happened for the simple reason that nearly all the pumps were closing and any remaining queues were waiting for them to re-open next morning, and so the best solution was to avoid any pump that might still be working so as not to have to stop. On a long, broad avenue with very little traffic, a police car accelerated and overtook him, and as it passed him, the policeman waved him down. But once again he lost his nerve and drove on. He could hear the police siren behind him and also saw, coming from who knows where, a motorcyclist in uniform who was almost on his tail. But the car, his car, sped away with one almighty roar and headed for the access to the motorway. The police followed him at a distance, ever further away, and by nightfall there was no longer any sign of them and his car was speeding along another road.
    He was feeling hungry. He had peed again, much too humiliated to feel any shame. And he was a little delirious: humiliated, homiliated. He went on declining, altering the consonants and syllables in an unconscious and obsessive exercise which shielded him from reality. He did not stop because he did not know what he should stop for. But in the early hours of morning he parked the car on several occasions at the side of the road and tried to ease himself out ever so slowly, as if in the meantime he and the car had made a truce and this was the moment to put their goodwill to the test. Twice he spoke in a low voice when the seat held on to him, twice he tried to coax the car to release him, twice in that freezing and nocturnal wilderness, where the rain never ceased, he broke down,