Journey to Portugal by Jose Saramago

Author:Jose Saramago
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448112920
Publisher: Random House

9

The Ghost of José Júnior

NIGHT IS COLD in this hollow where Fundão lies. But that wasn’t the only reason why the traveller slept badly. In this region – not close by, but close enough for his presence to be felt – walks the ghost of José Júnior. The only ghost the traveller believes in. Because of him, the traveller will visit São Jorge da Beira, a village high in the fastnesses of the Serra da Estrela. He did not know José Júnior, had never even seen his face, but once, many years earlier, he had written about him. He did this in response to a newspaper article about a tragedy that unfortunately is not uncommon in Portugal, about a man who fell victim to that strange sort of ferocity seemingly reserved for village idiots or drunks, those unfortunates who cannot defend themselves.

In those days, the traveller wrote for a newspaper which in fact is published in this very town of Fundão. So, moved more by passion than by reason, he wrote an article or chronicle that was finally published. In it he began by evoking a verse by the Brazilian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade, then turned to some moral considerations about the fate of many Josés in this world, of those who “have reached the limit of their endurance, are cowering at bay from the pack, lacking the strength for one last – though mortal – charge”. And he went on: “Another José appears in front of the desk I am writing at. He doesn’t have a face, only a vague shape, one that shakes as if in non-stop pain. I don’t know any more about his family or his name than that he is called José Júnior, and that he lives in São Jorge da Beira. He’s young, gets drunk, and is treated as if he were stupid. A few people make fun of him, and some children play tricks on him, throw stones at him from afar. Or if they did not do that, they surrounded him with that sudden cruelty children are capable of, and José Júnior, blind drunk, fell and broke his leg – or perhaps not – and ended up in hospital.” And the article went on: “I’m writing these lines many miles away; I have no idea who José Júnior is, and would find it hard to place São Jorge da Beira on a map. But these names are merely one instance of a general phenomenon: our disdain if not hatred for our fellow man, this kind of epidemic madness that here, there and everywhere prefers easy victims. I’m writing these lines in an afternoon where there are clouds in the sky the colour of morning; out of my window I can glimpse the Tagus, where slow boats are taking people and goods back and forth. All this seems as peaceful and harmonious as two turtle doves perched on a railing cooing at each other. Oh, how this precious life always slips from

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