Read Online Manual of Painting and Calligraphy by José Saramago - Free Book Online Page B

dressed and I calmly helped her into her blouse, an old married couple for whom there are no more surprises. But when I caught her looking at S.’s portrait, when I saw that mocking smile, I asked her abruptly if she had been S.’s mistress. I was taken aback by my own question, but she was certainly expecting me to ask her sooner or later, for she simply turned and replied, “Of course,” starting to speak while still gazing at the painted face of S. and finishing as she looked at me, or perhaps not looking at me, not looking at this face already lined with wrinkles, at this vague blotch that often passes for a face, not looking at me at all, but at some endless desert stretching behind or inside me. And this secretary Olga, whose importance consists of being a secretary and having an exceptionally generous orgasm, allowed a breach to open in her defenses for one brief moment so that I might experience once again my former vertigo when confronted with what I choose to call the fundamental freedom of woman. By mutual consent, she was taking her revenge on me.
    Within minutes, she resumed her subordinate role. Smiling flirtatiously, she came up to me, put her arms around my neck and pressed cool lips to mine. We were playing a different game and clearly with marked cards, but this was our only possibility of appearing natural. This was why we could ask each other in jest, “How did this happen?” and I could ask, as was expected of me, “When can we get together again?” to which she naturally replied, “Who knows, I really can’t say, this was utter madness.” We made playful gestures with our hands, trying not to appear distracted, and kissed each other deliberately but without too much insistence. In both of us the tide was ebbing like life taking its farewell. She gave me another kiss as we said goodbye on the landing, a kiss which gathered up what little passion remained. She did not cast so much as another glance at S.’s portrait.
    I slowly closed the door, returned to the studio, feeling physically tired, mentally distracted, torn between the modest triumph of easy conquest and the irony of having to confess to myself that I had made no conquest whatsoever. Of the two of us, she alone had got what she wanted, she alone had been free. As for me, I had passively played an active role (a contradictory and redundant statement) in a farce, the silent servant who delivers the letter whereby the plot unfolds. I shook my Saint Antony by the hand (the position of the right arm allows for this) and stroked his friar’s tonsure. No one can dissuade me from believing that the pitchers this saint shattered were a subtle disguise for the hymens he penetrated. But Saint Antony was so conciliatory toward the world, so friendly toward women, that the pitchers were miraculously restored, but not those virginities, and just as well. Repeating these witticisms of a somewhat unimaginative heretic, I went off to run a bath. Waiting for the bath to fill, I stood there watching the hot water gushing from the tap and listening to the hissing of the heater in the kitchen next door. Perhaps I was feeling a little lonely. Night was starting to fall. When I finally turned off the tap, all I could hear at first was total silence, but as I began undressing I could hear the (discreet) sound of singing coming from my neighbor’s radio. I could barely make out the words in French, let alone identify the voice, which might have been that of Leo Ferré or Serge Reggiani. Both middle-aged, one step away from what they do not want, one step away from that last remaining phase which they fear might be all too short: the time it takes to get into a warm bath and lie there, as the building settles down for the night, as the body cools down and the water with it, only the dripping tap persisting as one waits to see if someone will notice before the water overflows and floods the flat below. On an impulse which I made no attempt to restrain, I