Read Online The Lives of Things by José Saramago - Free Book Online

lorry-drivers might be able to eat and sleep, car parks for the larger vehicles, some distractions to relieve the pressures of mind and body, telephone lines, the installations for emergencies and first-aid, workshops for electrical and mechanical repairs, garages for petrol, oil, diesel, tyres, spare parts, etc. And this in turn clearly boosted other industries in a cycle of mutual regeneration, producing wealth to the extent of maximum output and full employment. As was only to be expected, this revival was followed by a depression, and no one was surprised because it had been foreseen by the economic pundits. The negative effect of this depression was generously compensated, as the social psychologists had forecast, because of the irrepressible desire for respite which began to manifest itself among the people once their output had reached the point of saturation. They were embarking on a new phase of normality.
    In the geometrical centre of the country, open to the four winds, stands the cemetery. Much less than a quarter of its hundred square kilometres was occupied by transferred corpses, and this prompted a group of mathematicians to try and demonstrate, with the figures to hand, that the land needed for these reburials would have to be much bigger, taking into consideration the likely number of deaths since the country was first populated and the average amount of space needed for each corpse, even discounting those who, reduced to dust and ashes, were beyond recovery. The enigma, if it could be called that, was to exercise the minds of future generations, like the squaring of the circle or the duplication of the cube, because the wise devotees of disciplines related to biology proved in the presence of the King that not a single corpse worthy of the name remained to be disinterred throughout the entire country. After some deep reflection, the King, torn between trust and scepticism, passed a decree which declared the matter closed; the decisive argument for him was the sense of relief he experienced when he returned from his travels and visits; if he no longer saw death it was because death had finally withdrawn.
    The occupation of the cemetery, although the initial plan conformed to more rational criteria, went from the periphery to the centre. First near the gates and up against the walls, then following a curve which began almost perfectly radial and gradually became cycloid, this, too, being a transitional phase whose future plays no part in our story. But this internal moulding, as it were, undulating along the walls and isolated by them, was reflected almost symmetrically, even during the removal, in a form that matched faithfully on the outside. No one had suspected that this might happen, but there were those who asserted that only a fool could have failed to foresee the outcome.
    The first sign, like the tiniest of spores about to sprout into a plant, then into a tuft, then into a thick cluster, and finally impenetrable scrub, was an improvised stall for the sale of soft drinks and spirits beside one of the secondary gates on the south wall. Even though revived for the journey, the transport workers felt they would find even greater refreshment there. Then other tiny shops sprang up nearby at the other gates, and began selling identical or similar goods, and those who ran them soon felt the need to set up house there, primitive huts on stilts to begin with, then using more durable materials, such as bricks, stones and tiles. It is worth observing in passing that from the moment these first buildings appeared, one could distinguish a) almost imperceptibly, b) from the evidence before one’s eyes, the social status, as it were, of the four sides of the square. As with all countries, this one, too, was not uniformly populated, nor, despite His Majesty’s extraordinary complacency, were his subjects socially equal: some were rich and others poor, and the distribution of the former and the latter conformed to