Raised from the Ground by José Saramago

Author:José Saramago
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780547840444
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2012-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

SOME PEOPLE SLEEP very heavily, some lightly, some, when they fall asleep, detach themselves from the world, some have to sleep in a particular position in order to dream. We would say that Joana Canastra belongs to the latter category. If she’s left to sleep peacefully, which is the case when she’s ill, and if she’s not in too much pain, she lies there just as she did in the cradle, or so someone who knew her then would say, resting her dark, weary cheek on her open palm and immersed in a long, deep sleep. But if she has things to do, things that have to be done at a particular time, then fifteen minutes before the designated hour, she abruptly opens her eyes, as if in obedience to an internal clock, and says, Get up, Sigismundo. Now, if this story were being told by the person who lived it, you would see that already dastardly changes have been made, some involuntary, some premeditated and in accordance with certain rules, because what Joana Canastra really said was, Get up, Sismundo, and one can see how little such minor errors matter when both parties know what they’re talking about, the proof being that Sigismundo Canastro, who has his own doubts about how his name should be spoken or spelled, throws off the blanket, jumps out of bed in his long johns, walks over to open the shutters and peers out. It’s still black night, and only a very sharp eye, which Sigismundo no longer has, or millennia of experience, which he has in abundance, could distinguish the imponderable change taking place in the east, perhaps it is the fact, and who can comprehend such natural mysteries, that the stars are shining more brightly, when you would expect quite the opposite to be the case. It’s a cold night, which is hardly surprising, November is a good month for cold, but the sky is clear and will remain so, for November is also a good month for clear skies. Joana Canastra gets up, lights the fire, puts the blackened coffeepot on to heat up the coffee, the name that continues to be given to this blend of barley and chicory or ground toasted lupine seeds, for even they are not always sure what they are drinking, then goes over to the bread bin to fetch half a loaf and three fried sardines, leaving little if anything behind, and places them on the table, saying, Coffee’s ready, come and eat. These may seem trivial words, the poor talk of people with little imagination, who have never learned to enlarge life’s small actions with superlatives, compare, for example, the words of farewell spoken by Romeo and Juliet on the balcony of the room in which she has just become a woman, and the words spoken by the blue-eyed German to the no less maidenly, albeit plebeian girl who became a woman against her will after being raped amid the bracken, and, of course, the words she said to him.

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