Read Online Death with Interruptions by José Saramago - Free Book Online Page A

proposals we make will only serve to make the situation worse, In that case, In that case, and if we don't want to have on our conscience four vigilantes a day battered to within an inch of their lives and left at death's door, all we can do is to accept their conditions, We could order a lightning strike by the police, a surprise attack, and arrest dozens of maphiosi, that might make them take a step back, The only way to kill the dragon is by cutting off its head, clipping its nails will have no effect at all, It might help, Four vigilantes a day, minister, remember that, four vigilantes a day, it's best if we recognize that we're tied hand and foot, The opposition will have a field day, they'll accuse us of selling the country to the maphia, They won't say country, they'll say nation, Even worse, Let's just hope the church is willing to help, after all, I imagine they'll be receptive to the argument that, as well as providing them with a few useful deaths, the reason we made this decision was to save lives, You can't talk about saving lives any more, prime minister, that was before, You're right, we'll have to come up with some other expression. There was a silence. Then the prime minister said, Enough of this, give the necessary instructions to your department head and start work on the deactivation plan, we also need to know the maphia's thinking on how to distribute the twenty-five percent of vigilantes who will make up the numerus clausus, Thirty-five percent, prime minister, Please don't remind me that our defeat has been even worse than we at first thought, It's a sad day, If the families of the next four vigilantes knew what was going on here, they wouldn't say so, And to think that those four vigilantes might be working for the maphia tomorrow, That's life, my dear head of the ministry of communicating vessels, Ministry of the interior, prime minister, of the interior, Oh, that's just the tube that connects all the other tubes together.

 
     
     
     
     
    YOU MIGHT THINK THAT AFTER ALL THE SHAMEFUL CAPITULATIONS made by the government during the ups and downs of their negotiations with the maphia, going so far as to allow humble, honest public servants to begin working full-time for that criminal organization, you might think that, morally speaking, they could sink no lower. Alas, when one advances blindly across the boggy ground of realpolitik, when pragmatism takes up the baton and conducts the orchestra, ignoring what is written in the score, you can be pretty sure that, as the imperative logic of dishonor will show, there are still, after all, a few more steps to descend. Through the relevant ministry, that of defense, known, in more honest times, as the ministry of war, orders were issued to the troops positioned along the frontier to limit themselves to guarding only the a-roads, especially those that led into the neighboring countries, leaving all b- and c-roads to wallow in bucolic peace, along with, and this for very good reasons, the complex network of local roads, lanes, footpaths, tracks and shortcuts. This, inevitably, meant a return to barracks for most of the troops, which, while it gladdened the hearts of the rank and file, including corporals and quartermasters, who were all thoroughly fed up with guard duty and patrols day and night, caused, on the other hand, great feelings of discontent among the sergeants, apparently more aware than the others of the importance of the values of military honor and service to the nation. Now if the capillary movement of that displeasure reached as far as the second lieutenants and lost some of its impetus when it got to the first lieutenants, the truth is that it redoubled in strength when it reached the level of the captains. Naturally, none of them would dare to pronounce out loud the dangerous word maphia, but, when they talked about it among themselves, they could not help but recall how in the days prior to their return to barracks they had intercepted a