the last book I ever read (Death with Interruptions by José Saramago, excerpt ten)

from Death with Interruptions by José Saramago (Margaret Jull Costa, Translator):

According to the wisdom of the nations, there is an exception to every rule, even rules that would normally be considered utterly inviolable, as for example, those regarding the sovereignty of death, to which, by definition, there never could be an exception, however absurd, and yet it really must be true because, as it happened, one violet-colored letter was returned to sender. Some will object that such a thing is impossible, that death, being ubiquitous, cannot therefore be in any one particular place, from which one can deduce the impossibility, both material and metaphysical, of locating and defining what we normally understand by the word sender, or, in the meaning intended here, the place from which the letter came. Others will also object, albeit less speculatively, that, since a thousand policemen have been looking for death for weeks on end, scouring the entire country, house by house, with a fine-tooth comb, as if in search of an elusive louse highly skilled in evasive tactics, and have still found neither hide nor hair of her, it is as clear as day that if no explanation has yet been given as to how death’s letters reach the mail, we are certainly not going to be told by what mysterious channels the returned letter has managed to reach her hands. We humbly recognize that our explanations about this and much more have been sadly lacking, we confess that we are unable to provide explanations that will satisfy those demanding them, unless, taking advantage of the reader’s credulity and leaping over the respect owed to the logic of events, we were to add further unrealities to the congenital unreality of this fable, now we realize that such faults seriously undermine our story’s credibility, however, none of this, we repeat, none of this means that the violet-colored letter to which we referred was not returned to its sender. Facts are facts, and this fact, whether you like it or not, is of the irrefutable kind. There can be no better proof of this than the image of death before us now, sitting on a chair while wrapped in her sheet, and with a look of blank amazement on the orography of her bony face. She eyes the violet envelope suspiciously, studies it to see if it bears any of the comments postmen usually write on envelopes in such cases, for example, returned, not known at this address, addressee gone away leaving no forwarding address or date of return, or simply, dead, How stupid of me, she muttered, how could he have died if the letter that should have killed him came back unopened. She had thought these last words without giving them much importance, but she immediately summoned them up again and repeated them out loud, in a dreamy tone of voice, Came back unopened. You don’t need to be a postman to know that coming back is not the same thing as being sent back, that coming back could merely mean that the violet-colored letter failed to reach its destination, that at some point along the way something happened to make it retrace its steps and return whence it had come. Letters can only go where they’re taken, they don’t have legs or wings, and, as far as we know, they’re not endowed with their own initiative, if they were, we’re sure that they would refuse to carry the terrible news of which they’re so often the bearers. Like this news of mine, thought death impartially, telling someone that they’re going to die on a particular date is the worst possible news, it’s like spending long years on death row and then having the jailer come up to you and say, Here’s the letter, prepare yourself. The odd thing is that all the other letters from the last batch were safely delivered to their addressees, and if this one wasn’t, it can only have been because of some chance event, for just as there have been cases of a love letter, god alone knows with what consequences, taking five years to reach an addressee who lived only two blocks and less than a quarter of an hour’s walk away, it could be that this letter passed from one conveyor belt to another without anyone noticing and then returned to its point of departure like someone who, lost in the desert, has nothing more to go on than the trail he left behind him. The solution would be to send it again, said death to the scythe that was next to her, leaning against the white wall. One wouldn’t expect a scythe to respond, and this one proved no exception. Death went on, If I’d sent you, with your taste for expeditious methods, the matter would have been resolved, but times have changed a lot lately, and one has to update the means and the systems one uses, to keep up with the new technologies, by using e-mail, for example, I’ve heard tell that it’s the most hygienic way, one that does away with inkblots and fingerprints, besides which it’s fast, you just open up outlook express on microsoft and it’s gone, the difficulty would be having to work with two separate archives, one for those who use computers and another for those who don’t, anyway, we’ve got plenty of time to think about it, they’re always coming out with new models and new designs, with new improved technologies, perhaps I’ll try it some day, but until then, I’ll continue to write with pen, paper and ink, it has the charm of tradition, and tradition counts for a lot when it comes to dying. Death stared hard at the violet-colored envelope, made a gesture with her right hand, and the letter vanished. So now we know that, contrary to what so many thought, death does not take her letters to the post office.

the last book I ever read (Death with Interruptions by José Saramago, excerpt nine)

from Death with Interruptions by José Saramago (Margaret Jull Costa, Translator):

Finally, last but not least, the catholic apostolic church of rome had many reasons to feel pleased with itself. Convinced from the start that the abolition of death could only be the work of the devil and that to help god fight the demon’s works there is nothing more powerful than perseverance in prayer, they had set aside the virtue of modesty which, with no small effort and sacrifice, they usually cultivated, to congratulate themselves unreservedly on the success of the national campaign of prayer whose objective, remember, had been to ask the lord god to bring about the return of death as quickly as possible so as to save poor humanity from the worst horrors, end of quote. The prayers had taken nearly eight months to reach heaven, but when you think that it takes six months to reach the planet mars, then heaven, as you can imagine, must be much farther off, three thousand million light-years from earth, in round numbers. A black cloud, therefore, hung over the church’s legitimate satisfaction. The theologians argued and failed to reach agreement on the reasons that had led god to order death’s sudden return, without at least allowing time for the last rites to be given to the sixty-two thousand dying, who, deprived of the grace of the last sacrament, had expired in less time than it takes to say so. Worrying thoughts as to whether god had authority over death or if, on the contrary, death was above god in the hierarchy quietly gnawed away at the hearts and minds of that holy institution, where the bold affirmation that god and death were two sides of the same coin had come to be considered not so much heresy as an abominable sacrilege. At least that was what was really going on beneath the surface, whereas to others it seemed that the church’s main preoccupation was their participation in the queen mother’s funeral. Now that the sixty-two thousand ordinary dead were safely in their final resting place and no longer holding up the traffic in the city, it was time to bear the venerable lady, suitably enclosed in her lead coffin, to the royal pantheon. As the newspapers all agreed, it was the end of an era.

the last book I ever read (Death with Interruptions by José Saramago, excerpt eight)

from Death with Interruptions by José Saramago (Margaret Jull Costa, Translator):

It was this violent attack by the republicans, but, more important, the article’s worrying prediction that, very soon, the aforementioned state coffers would be unable, with no end in sight, to continue paying old age and disability pensions, that prompted the king to let the prime minister know that they needed to have a frank conversation, alone, without tape recorders or witnesses of any kind. The prime minister duly arrived, inquired after the royal health, in particular after that of the queen mother, who, at new year, had been on the point of dying, but who nonetheless, like so very many others, still continued to breathe thirteen times a minute, even though her prostrate body beneath the canopy covering her bed showed few other signs of life. His majesty thanked him and said that the queen mother was bearing her sufferings with the dignity proper to the blood that still ran in her veins, and then turned to the matters on the agenda, the first of which was the republicans’ declaration of war. I just don’t understand what these people can be thinking of, he said, here’s the country plunged in the worst crisis of its entire history, and there they are talking about regime change, Oh, I wouldn’t worry, sir, all they’re doing is taking advantage of the situation to spread what they call their plans for government, deep down, they’re nothing but poor anglers fishing in some very murky waters, And, let it be said, showing a lamentable lack of patriotism. Indeed, sir, the republicans have ideas about the nation that only they can understand, if, that is, they do understand them, Their ideas don’t interest me in the least, what I want to hear from you is if there’s any chance they might force a change of regime, They don’t even have any representation in parliament, sir, What I’m referring to is a coup d’etat, a revolution, Absolutely not, sir, the people are solidly behind their king, and the armed forces are loyal to the legitimate government, So I can rest easy, Completely, sir. The king made a cross in his diary next to the word republicans, and said, Good, then he asked, And what’s all this about pensions not being paid, We are paying them, sir, but prospects do look pretty bleak, So I must have misread it, I thought there had been, shall we say, a suspension of payments, No, sir, but, as I say, the future is very worrying indeed, Worrying in what respect, In every respect, sir, the state could simply collapse like a house of cards, Are we the only country that finds itself in this situation, asked the king, No, sir, in the long term, the problem will affect everyone, but what counts is the difference between dying and not dying, a fundamental difference, if you’ll forgive me stating the obvious, Sorry, but I don’t quite understand, In other countries, it’s normal for people to die, but here, sir, in our country, no one dies, think only of the queen mother, it seemed certain she was dying, but, no, she’s still here, happily for us, of course, but really, I’m not exaggerating, the noose is well and truly around our necks, And yet I’ve heard rumors that some people are dying, That’s true, sir, but it’s merely a drop in the ocean, not all families can bring themselves to take that step, What step, Handing over their dying to the organization in charge of the suicides, But I don’t understand, what’s the point of them committing suicide if they can’t die, Oh, they can, sir, And how do they manage it, It’s a complicated story, sir, Well, tell it to me, we’re alone, On the other side of the frontier, sir, people are still dying, You mean that this organization takes them there, Exactly, Is it a charitable organization, It helps us a little to slow down the mounting numbers of the terminally dying, but, as I said before, it’s a drop in the ocean, And what is this organization. The prime minister took a deep breath and said, The maphia, sir, The maphia, Yes, sir, the maphia, sometimes the state has no alternative but to find someone else to do its dirty work, You’ve never said anything to me about this before, No, sir, I wanted to keep you out of a situation for which I take full responsibility, And the troops who were on the frontier, They had a job to do, What job was that, Of appearing to be an obstacle to the transportation of suicides, but not, in fact, being an obstacle at all, But I thought they were there to prevent an invasion, There never was such a danger, and, besides, we’ve made agreements with the governments of those other countries, and everything’s under control, Apart from the matter of pensions, Apart from the matter of death, sir, if we don’t start dying again, we have no future. The king made a cross beside the word pensions and said, Something needs to happen, Indeed, sir, something needs to happen.

the last book I ever read (Death with Interruptions by José Saramago, excerpt seven)

from Death with Interruptions by José Saramago (Margaret Jull Costa, Translator):

Lovers of concision, laconicism and economy of language will doubtless be asking, if the idea is such a simple one, why did we need all this waffle to arrive, at last, at the critical point. The answer is equally simple, and we will give it using a current and very trendy term, that will, we hope, make up for the archaisms with which, in the likely opinion of some, we have spattered this account as if with mold, and that term is context. Now everyone knows what we mean by context, but there could have been doubts had we rather dully used that dreadful archaism background, which is, moreover, not entirely faithful to the truth, given that the context gives not only the background, but all the innumerable other grounds that exist between the subject observed and the line of the horizon. It would be better then if we called it a framework. Yes, a framework, and now that we finally have it well and truly framed, the moment has come to reveal the nature of the trick that the maphia thought up to avoid any chance of a conflict that might prejudice their interests. As we have said, a child could have come up with the idea. It was this, to take the sufferer across the frontier, and, once he or she had died, to bring him or her back to be buried in the maternal bosom of his country of origin. A perfect checkmate in the most rigorous, exact and precise meaning of the word. As we have seen, the problem was resolved without discredit to any of the parties, and the four armies, who now had no reason to remain at the frontier on a war footing, could withdraw peacefully, since the maphia proposed simply to enter and then leave again, for, as we have said before, the dying expired the moment they were transported to the other side, and now there will be no need for them to linger even for a minute, merely the time it takes to die, and that, which has always been the briefest of moments, just a sigh, that’s all, so you can imagine how it would be in this case, a candle that suddenly burns itself out without anyone even having to blow. Not even the gentlest of euthanasias could be as easy or as sweet. The most interesting aspect of the new situation is that the justice system of the country in which people do not die finds itself without any legal basis on which to take action against the buriers, always supposing they really wanted to, and not just because of the gentlemen’s agreement that the government was forced to make with the maphia. It can’t accuse them of homicide because, technically speaking, no homicide takes place, and also because the reprehensible act, and if anyone can find a better way of describing it, then please do, takes place abroad, and they can’t even accuse them of burying the dead, since that is the natural fate of the dead, and they should be grateful that there is someone prepared to take on a task which, however you look at it, is a painful one, both from the physical and the psychological viewpoint. They could, at most, allege that no doctor was present to record the death, that the burial did not fulfill the regulations set down for a correct interment and that, as if such a thing were quite unheard of, the grave is not only unmarked, but will certainly be lost from view once the first heavy rains come and the plants push up, tender and joyful, through the fertile soil. Having considered all the difficulties, and concerned that it might be plunged into the swamp of appeals in which, the maphia’s clever lawyers, inveterate intriguers, would mercilessly drown them, the law decided to wait patiently to see how things turned out. This was, without a shadow of a doubt, the most prudent attitude to take. The country is in an unparalleled state of unrest, the powers-that-be are confused, authority undermined, moral values are rapidly being turned on their head, and a loss of any sense of civic respect is sweeping all sectors of society, probably even god has no idea where he’s taking us. There is a rumor that the maphia is negotiating another gentlemen’s agreement with the funeral industry in the hope of rationalizing their efforts and spreading the workload, which means, in ordinary, everyday language, that they will supply the dead, and the undertakers will contribute the means and the technical expertise for burying them. It is also said that the maphia’s proposal was welcomed with open arms by the undertakers, weary of wasting their millennia of knowledge, their experience, their know-how, and their choirs of professional mourners, on arranging funerals for dogs, cats and canaries, as well as the occasional cockatoo, a catatonic tortoise, a tame squirrel and a pet lizard whose owner used to carry it around on his shoulder. We have never sunk so low, they said. Now the future looked bright and cheerful, hopes bloomed like flowerbeds, indeed, one might even say, at the risk of the obvious paradox, that the funeral industry was reborn. And all thanks to the good offices and inexhaustible money vaults of the maphia. It provided subsidies to businesses in the capital and in other cities round the country for them to set up new branches, and the maphia was, of course, duly recompensed, in localities near the frontiers, it made arrangements for a doctor to be present when the dead person was brought back across the border and someone was required to declare them dead, and agreements were reached with local councils that the burials in the maphia’s charge should have absolute priority, regardless of the hour of day or night when it chose to carry these out. Naturally, all of this cost a lot of money, but now that the extras and the supplementary services accounted for most of the bill, the business continued to be profitable. Then, without warning, the tap from which had flowed a constant, generous supply of the terminally dying was turned off. It seemed that families, suffering an attack of conscience, had passed the word from one to the other that they were no longer going to send their loved ones far away to die, that if, in the figurative sense, we had eaten of their flesh, then now we would have to gnaw on their bones as well, that we are not here just for the good times, when our loved ones had strength and health intact, we are here, too, for the bad times and the worst, when they have become little more than a stinking rag that there is no point in washing. The undertakers went from euphoria to despair, were thrown back into ruin and the humiliation of burying canaries and cats, dogs and the rest of the menagerie, the turtle, the cockatoo, the squirrel, but not the lizard because that had been the only one that let its owner carry it about on his shoulder. The maphia remained calm, kept their nerve, and immediately set out to investigate what was going on. It was quite simple. The families told them, although not always in so many words, that acting in secret had been one thing, with their loved ones carried off at dead of night, and when there was no way the neighbors could know if they were still lying racked on their bed of pain or had simply evaporated. It was easy to lie, to say sadly, Still here, poor thing, when you met your next-door neighbor on the landing and she asked, So how’s grandpa these days. Now everything would be different, there would be a death certificate, there would be plaques in the cemeteries engraved with names and surnames, in a matter of hours the whole envious, slanderous neighborhood would know that grandpa had died in the only way he could die, which meant, quite simply, that his own cruel, ungrateful family had dispatched him to the frontier. It makes us feel ashamed, they confessed. The maphia listened and listened and said they would think about it. This took no more than twenty-four hours. Following the example of the old gentleman on page thirty-three, the dead had wanted to die and their deaths would, therefore, be recorded on death certificates as suicides. The tap was turned on again.

the last book I ever read (Death with Interruptions by José Saramago, excerpt six)

from Death with Interruptions by José Saramago (Margaret Jull Costa, Translator):

For two weeks, the plan worked more or less perfectly, but, after that, some of the vigilantes started complaining that they were receiving threatening phone calls, warning them that, if they wanted to live a nice quiet life, they had better turn a blind eye to the clandestine traffic of the terminally ill, and even close their eyes completely if they didn’t want to add their own corpse to the number of people with whose surveillance they had been charged. These were not empty threats, as became clear when the families of four vigilantes were told by anonymous callers that they should pick their loved ones up at such and such a place. And there they were, not dead, but not alive either. Given the gravity of the situation, the interior minister decided to show his power to the unknown enemy, on the one hand, by ordering his spies to intensify their investigations, and, on the other, by cancelling the drip-drip system of letting this one through, but not that one, which had been applied in accordance with the prime minister’s tactics. The response was immediate, four more vigilantes suffered the same sad fate as the previous four, but, in this case, there was only one telephone call, intended for the interior minister himself, which could be interpreted as a provocation, but also as an action determined by pure logic, like someone saying, We exist. The message, however, did not stop there, it brought with it a constructive proposal, Let’s come to a gentlemen’s agreement, said the voice on the other end, you order your vigilantes to withdraw and we’ll take charge of discreetly transporting the dying to the border, Who are you, asked the department head who answered the call, Just a group of people who care about order and discipline, all of us highly competent in our field, people who hate confusion and always keep our promises, in short, we’re honest folk, And does this group have a name, asked the civil servant, Some call us the maphia, with a ph, Why the ph, To distinguish us from the original mafia, The state doesn’t make agreements with mafias, Not on documents signed by a notary, no, Nor on any others, What position do you hold, Department head, That is, someone who knows nothing about real life, But I know my responsibilities, All that interests us at the moment is that you present our proposal to the person in authority, to the minister, if you have access to him, No, I don’t have access to the minister, but this conversation will be passed on immediately to my superiors, The government will have forty-eight hours to study the proposal, not a minute more, but warn your superiors that if we don’t get the answer we want, there will be more vigilantes in a state of coma, Right, I’ll do that, So I’ll phone again the day after tomorrow at the same time to find out what their decision is, Fine, I’ll make a note, It’s been a pleasure talking to you, If only I could say the same, Oh, I’m sure you’ll change your tune when you hear that the vigilantes have returned home safe and sound, and if you haven’t yet forgotten your childhood prayers, start praying now that they do just that, I understand, I knew you would, Right then, Forty-eight hours and not a minute more, But I certainly won’t be the person who speaks to you, Oh, I’m certain you will be, Why’s that, Because the minister won’t want to speak to me directly, besides, if things go wrong, you’ll be the one to take the rap, after all, what we’re proposing is a gentlemen’s agreement, Yes, sir, Goodbye, Goodbye. The department head removed the tape from the tape recorder and went to speak to his immediate superior.

the last book I ever read (Death with Interruptions by José Saramago, excerpt five)

from Death with Interruptions by José Saramago (Margaret Jull Costa, Translator):

A terrible threat is endangering the survival of our industry, declared the president of the federation of insurance companies to the media, referring to the many thousands of letters which, all couched in more or less identical terms, as if they had been copied from a single draft, had, in the last few days, been flooding their offices, all calling for the immediate cancellation of the life insurance policies of the undersigned. These letters stated that, given the well-known fact that death had put an end to itself, it would be absurd, not to say downright stupid, to continue paying exorbitant premiums which would only serve to make the companies still richer, with no kind of balancing recompense for them. I’m not pouring money down the drain, said one particularly disgruntled policy-holder in a postscript. Some went further, demanding the return of sums already paid, but in these cases, it was clear that they were just making a stab in the dark, trying their luck. In answer to the inevitable question from journalists about how the insurance companies intended to fend off this sudden salvo of heavy artillery, the president of the federation said that, while their legal advisors were, at that very moment, carefully studying the small print of policies for some kind of interpretative loophole that would allow them, always keeping strictly to the letter of the law, of course, to impose on these heretical policy-holders, even if it were against their wishes, the obligation to continue paying premiums for as long as they remained alive, that is, for all eternity, the more likely option would be to reach some form of consensus, a gentlemen’s agreement, which would consist in the addition to policies of a brief addendum, with one eye on rectifying the current situation and with the other on the future, and which would set eighty as the age of obligatory death, in a purely figurative sense of course, the president was quick to add, smiling benevolently. In this way, the companies would receive the premiums, as normal, until the date when the happy policy-holder celebrated his eightieth birthday, at which time, now that he had become someone who was, virtually speaking, dead, he would promptly be paid the full sum stipulated in the policy. He should also add, and this would be of no small interest, that, if they so desired, customers could renew their contract for another eighty years, at the end of which, they would, to all intents and purposes, register a second death, and the earlier procedure would then be repeated, and so on and so forth. Among the journalists who knew their actuarial calculus, there were some admiring murmurs and a brief flutter of applause which the president acknowledged with a brief nod. Strategically and tactically, the move had been perfect, so much so that the following day letters started pouring in again to the insurance companies declaring the previous letters null and void. All the policy-holders declared themselves ready to accept the proposed gentlemen’s agreement, and indeed one might say, without exaggeration, that this was one of those very rare occasions when no one lost and everyone gained. Especially the insurance companies, which had been saved from catastrophe by the skin of their teeth. It is assumed that at the next election, the president of the federation will be re-elected to the post he fills so very brilliantly.

the last book I ever read (Death with Interruptions by José Saramago, excerpt four)

from Death with Interruptions by José Saramago (Margaret Jull Costa, Translator):

The directors and administrators of hospitals, both state-run and private, were soon beating on the door of the minister in question, the minister for health, to express, along with the other relevant public services, their worries and anxieties, which, strange though it may seem, always highlighted logistical rather than health matters. They stated that the usual rotational process of patients coming in, getting better or dying had suffered, if we may put it like this, a short-circuit or, if you prefer a less technical term, a bottleneck, the reason being the indefinite stay of an ever larger number of patients who, given the seriousness of their illnesses or of the accidents of which they had been victims, would, in the normal course of events, have passed over into the next life. The situation is extremely grave, they argued, we have already started putting patients out in the corridors, even more frequently than we usually do, and everything indicates that in less than a week’s time, it will not only be the lack of beds we have to deal with, for with every corridor and every ward full, and given the lack of space and the difficulties of maneuvering, we will have to face the fact that we have no idea where to put any beds that are available. There is a way of solving the problem, concluded the people in charge of the hospitals, however it does, very slightly, infringe on the hippocratic oath, and the decision, were it to be taken, would have to be neither medical nor administrative, but political. Since a word to the wise is always enough, the minister for health, having consulted the prime minister, sent the following dispatch, With regard to the unavoidable overcrowding which is already beginning to have a seriously prejudicial effect on the hitherto excellent working of our hospital system and which is a direct consequence of the growing number of people being admitted in a state of suspended life and who will remain so indefinitely with no possibility of a cure or even of any improvement, at least not until medical research reaches the new goals it has set itself, the government advises and recommends hospital boards and administrations that, following a rigorous analysis, on a case-by-case basis, of the clinical situation of patients who find themselves in this position, and once the irreversibility of those morbid processes has been confirmed, the patients should be handed over to the care of their families, with hospitals taking full responsibility for ensuring that patients receive all the treatments and examinations their GPs deem to be either necessary or advisable. The government’s decision is based on a hypothesis within the grasp of everyone, namely that a patient in such a state, that is, permanently on the brink of a death which is permanently being denied to him, must, even during any brief moments of lucidity, be pretty much indifferent to where he is, whether in the loving bosom of his family or in a crowded hospital ward, given that, in neither place, will he manage to die or be restored to health. The government would like to take this opportunity to inform the population that investigations are continuing apace and these will, as we hope and trust, lead to a satisfactory understanding of the still mysterious causes of the disappearance of death. We would also like to say that a large interdisciplinary commission, including representatives from the various religions and philosophers from a variety of different schools of thought, who always have something to say about such matters, has been charged with the delicate task of reflecting on what a future without death will be like, at the same time trying to make a reasonable forecast of the new problems society will have to face, the principle of which some might summarize with this cruel question, What are we going to do with all the old people if death is not there to cut short any ambitions they may have to live an excessively long life.

the last book I ever read (Death with Interruptions by José Saramago, excerpt three)

from Death with Interruptions by José Saramago (Margaret Jull Costa, Translator):

One day, a lady, recently widowed, finding no other way of showing the new joy flooding her being, although not without a slight pang of grief to think that, if she did not die, she would never again see her much-mourned husband, had the idea of hanging the national flag from the flower-bedecked balcony of her dining room. It was, as they say, no sooner said than done. In less than forty-eight hours the hanging out of flags had spread throughout the country, the colors and symbols of the flag took over the landscape, although more obviously so in the cities, of course, there being more balconies and windows in the city than in the country. Such patriotic fervor was impossible to resist, especially when certain worrying, not to say threatening statements, where they came from no one knew, began to be distributed, saying such things as, Anyone who doesn’t hang our nation’s immortal flag from the window of their house doesn’t deserve to live, Anyone not displaying the national flag has sold out to death, Join us, be a patriot, buy a flag, Buy another one, Buy another, Down with the enemies of life, it’s lucky for them that there’s no more death. The streets were a veritable festival of fluttering insignia, flapping in the wind if it was blowing, and if it wasn’t, then a carefully positioned electric fan did the job, and if the fan wasn’t powerful enough to make the standard flap in virile fashion, making those whip-crack noises that so exalt the martially minded, it would at least ensure that the patriotic colors undulated honorably. A small number of people murmured privately that it was completely over-the-top, nonsense, and that sooner or later there would be no alternative but to remove all those flags and pennants, and the sooner the better, because just as too much sugar spoils the palate and harms the digestive process, so our normal and proper respect for patriotic emblems will become a mockery if we allow it to be perverted into this serial affront to modesty, on a par with those unlamented flashers in raincoats. Besides, they said, if the flags are there to celebrate the fact that death no longer kills, then we should do one of two things, either take them down before we get so fed up with them that we start to loathe our own national symbols, or else spend the rest of our lives, that is, eternity, yes, eternity, having to change them every time they start to rot in the rain or get torn to shreds by the wind or faded by the sun. There were very few people who had the courage to put their finger on the problem publicly, and one poor man had to pay for his unpatriotic outburst with a beating which, had death not ceased her operations in this country at the beginning of the year, would have put an end to his miserable life right there and then.

the last book I ever read (Death with Interruptions by José Saramago, excerpt two)

from Death with Interruptions by José Saramago (Margaret Jull Costa, Translator):

In the official communiqué, broadcast late that night, the prime minister confirmed that no deaths had been recorded anywhere in the country since the beginning of the new year, he called for moderation and a sense of responsibility in any evaluations and interpretations of this strange fact, he reminded people that one could not exclude the hypothesis that this was merely a fluke, a freak cosmic change that could not possibly last, an exceptional conjunction of coincidences impinging on the space-time equation, but that, just in case, the government had already begun exploratory talks with the relevant international organizations to enable the government, when necessary, to take efficient, coordinated action. Having uttered this pseudoscientific flim-flam, whose very incomprehensibility was intended to calm the commotion gripping the nation, the prime minister ended by stating that the government was prepared for all humanly imaginable eventualities, and determined to face with courage and with the vital support of the population the complex social, economic, political and moral problems that the definitive extinction of death would inevitably provoke, if, as everything seemed to indicate, this situation was confirmed. We will accept the challenge of the body’s immortality, he exclaimed in exalted tones, if that is the will of god, to whom we will always offer our grateful prayers for having chosen the good people of this country as his instrument. Which means, thought the prime minister when he finished reading the statement, that the noose is well and truly round our necks. Little did he imagine how tightly that noose would be drawn. Not half an hour had passed when, sitting now in the official car taking him home, he received a call from the cardinal, Good evening, prime minister, Good evening, your eminence, Prime minister, I’m phoning to tell you that I feel profoundly shocked, Oh, so do I, your eminence, it’s an extremely grave situation, the gravest situation the country has ever had to confront, That’s not what I mean, What do you mean, your eminence, It is utterly deplorable that when you wrote the statement I have just listened to, you failed to remember what constitutes the foundation, the main beam, the cornerstone, the keystone of our holy religion, Forgive me, your eminence, but I can’t quite see what you’re driving at, Without death, prime minister, without death there is no resurrection, and without resurrection there is no church, Hell’s bells, Sorry, I didn’t quite hear what you said, could you say that again, please, Me, no, I said nothing, your eminence, it was probably some interference on the line caused by atmospheric electricity, by static, or even a problem with reception, the satellite does sometimes cut out, but you were saying, your eminence, Yes, I was saying that any catholic, and you are no exception, must know that without resurrection there is no church, more than that, how could it even occur to you that god would ever will his own demise, such an idea is pure sacrilege, possibly the very worst of blasphemies, Your eminence, I didn’t say that god had willed his own demise, Not in those exact words, no, but you admitted the possibility that the immortality of the body might be the will of god, and one doesn’t need a doctorate in transcendental logic to realize that it comes down to the same thing, Your eminence, believe me, I only said it for effect, to make an impression, it was just a way of rounding off the speech, that’s all, you know how important these things are in politics, Such things are just as important in the church, prime minister, but we think hard before we open our mouths, we don’t just talk for talking’s sake, we calculate the long-term effects, indeed, our specialty, if you’d like me to give you a useful image, is ballistics, Well, I’m very sorry, your eminence, If I was in your shoes, I’d be sorry too. As if estimating how long the grenade would take to fall, the cardinal paused, then, in a gentler, friendlier tone, went on, May I ask if you showed the statement to his majesty before reading it out for the media, Naturally, your eminence, dealing, as the statement did, with such a very ticklish subject, And what did the king say, assuming, of course, that it’s not a state secret, He thought it was fine, Did he make any comment after he’d read it, Excellent, What do you mean excellent, That’s what his majesty said, excellent, Do you mean that he, too, blasphemed, Your eminence, it is not up to me to make such judgments, living with my own mistakes is quite hard enough, Well, I will have to speak to the king and remind him that in a confusing and delicate situation like this, only faithful, unswerving observance of the proven doctrine of our holy mother church can save the country from the dreadful chaos about to overwhelm us, That is up to you, your eminence, that is your role, Yes, I will ask his majesty which he prefers, to see the queen mother forever dying, prostrate on a bed from which she will never again rise, with her earthly body shamefully clinging to her soul, or to see her, by dying, triumph over death, in the eternal, splendid glory of the heavens, Surely no one would hesitate over which answer to give, Probably not, but, contrary to what you may think, prime minister, I care less about the answers than I do about the questions, notice that our questions have both an obvious objective and a hidden intention, and when we ask them, it is not only so that the person being questioned gives the answers which, at that moment, we need him to hear himself saying, it is also in order to prepare the way for future answers, A bit like politics, your eminence, Exactly, except that unlikely though it may seem, the advantage the church has is that by managing what is on high, it governs what is down below. There was another pause, which was interrupted by the prime minister, I’m nearly home, your eminence, but if I may, there is one question I would like to ask you, Ask away, What will the church do if no one ever dies again, Never is too long a time, even when one is dealing with death, prime minister, You have not, I feel, answered my question, your eminence, Let me turn the question back on you, what will the state do if no one ever dies again, The state will try to survive, although I very much doubt it will, but the church, The church, prime minister, has grown so accustomed to eternal answers that I can’t imagine it giving any other kind, Even if reality contradicts them, We’ve done nothing but contradict reality from the outset, and yet we’re still here, What will the pope say, If I were pope, and god forgive me the ridiculous vanity of imagining such a thing, I would immediately issue a new thesis, that of death postponed, With no further explanations, The church has never been asked to explain anything, our specialty, along with ballistics, has always been the neutralization of the overly curious mind through faith, Goodnight, your eminence, see you tomorrow, God willing, prime minister, god willing, Given the way things are at the moment, it doesn’t look like he has much choice, Don’t forget, prime minister, that beyond the frontiers of our country, people continue to die as normal, which is a good sign, That depends on your point of view, your eminence, perhaps they’re viewing us as a kind of oasis, a garden, a new paradise, Or a new hell, if they’ve got any sense, Goodnight, your eminence, I wish you a peaceful, restoring night’s sleep, Goodnight, prime minister, and if death does decide to return tonight, I hope she doesn’t think to visit you, If justice is anything more than an empty word, the queen mother should go before I do, Well, I promise I won’t denounce you to the king tomorrow, That’s very good of you, your eminence, Goodnight, Goodnight.

the last book I ever read (Death with Interruptions by José Saramago, excerpt one)

from Death with Interruptions by José Saramago (Margaret Jull Costa, Translator):

The following day, no one died. This fact, being absolutely contrary to life’s rules, provoked enormous and, in the circumstances, perfectly justifiable anxiety in people’s minds, for we have only to consider that in the entire forty volumes of universal history there is no mention, not even one exemplary case, of such a phenomenon ever having occurred, for a whole day to go by, with its generous allowance of twenty-four hours, diurnal and nocturnal, matutinal and vespertine, without one death from an illness, a fatal fall, or a successful suicide, not one, not a single one. Not even from a car accident, so frequent on festive occasions, when blithe irresponsibility and an excess of alcohol jockey for position on the roads to decide who will reach death first. New year’s eve had failed to leave behind it the usual calamitous trail of fatalities, as if old atropos with her great bared teeth had decided to put aside her shears for a day. There was, however, no shortage of blood. Bewildered, confused, distraught, struggling to control their feelings of nausea, the firemen extracted from the mangled remains wretched human bodies that, according to the mathematical logic of the collisions, should have been well and truly dead, but which, despite the seriousness of the injuries and lesions suffered, remained alive and were carried off to hospital, accompanied by the shrill sound of the ambulance sirens. None of these people would die along the way and all would disprove the most pessimistic of medical prognoses, There’s nothing to be done for the poor man, it’s not even worth operating, a complete waste of time, said the surgeon to the nurse as she was adjusting his mask. And the day before, there would probably have been no salvation for this particular patient, but one thing was clear, today, the victim refused to die. And what was happening here was happening throughout the country. Up until the very dot of midnight on the last day of the year there were people who died in full compliance with the rules, both those relating to the nub of the matter, i.e. the termination of life, and those relating to the many ways in which the aforementioned nub, with varying degrees of pomp and solemnity, chooses to mark the fatal moment. One particularly interesting case, interesting because of the person involved, was that of the very ancient and venerable queen mother. At one minute to midnight on the thirty-first of december, no one would have been so ingenuous as to bet a spent match on the life of the royal lady. With all hope lost, with the doctors helpless in the face of the implacable medical evidence, the royal family, hierarchically arranged around the bed, waited with resignation for the matriarch’s last breath, perhaps a few words, a final edifying comment regarding the moral education of the beloved princes, her grandsons, perhaps a beautiful, well-turned phrase addressed to the ever ungrateful memory of future subjects. And then, as if time had stopped, nothing happened. The queen mother neither improved nor deteriorated, she remained there in suspension, her frail body hovering on the very edge of life, threatening at any moment to tip over onto the other side, yet bound to this side by a tenuous thread to which, out of some strange caprice, death, because it could only have been death, continued to keep hold. We had passed over to the next day, and on that day, as we said at the beginning of this tale, no one would die.

the last book I ever read (Eternal Summer: A Novel by Franziska Gänsler, excerpt seven)

from Eternal Summer: A Novel by Franziska Gänsler (Imogen Taylor, Translator):

After we’d hung up I put on a clean mask and went out the glass door, into the garden. The heat shot through my body to my head, roaring in my ears, smarting on my skin. I could feel the hot gravel through the soles of my flip-flops, the rubber softening and sticking with every step. I unrolled the garden hose—that, too, soft and hot—and turned on the water. I let it run for a long time, until it had cooled to lukewarm and eventually to cold. Then I pulled the hose over the gravel and through the smoke toward the pond. I could hardly keep my eyes open. Somewhere, I thought, I had a pair of pale-blue goggles—it was time I looked for them. I hunkered down. Only a puddle of hot water was left at the bottom of the pond. The fish lay still on the black plastic lining, shimmering gold beneath the smoke, their eyes a murky pale blue. One of them had burst and was oozing innards, all a blur through my watering eyes. It was only now, from this crouched position, that I noticed the birds, the starlings. Soft dead bodies on the hot gravel around the edge of the pond. Fifteen, twenty, thirty—hard to say. I imagined them covering the garden to the fence, strewn across the field to the forest. Hundreds of them, their feathers ruffled in the wind. At some point I’d have to gather them up. I pictured myself with the shovel, scooping up the little corpses and dumping them in a blue garbage bag. I watered the tree, aiming the jet of water at the trunk and branches for minutes at a time. Maybe it would survive.

the last book I ever read (Eternal Summer: A Novel by Franziska Gänsler, excerpt six)

from Eternal Summer: A Novel by Franziska Gänsler (Imogen Taylor, Translator):

Billy Idol was playing on the radio. “White Wedding.” Dori sang along. Then she turned to me and said, “Everything’s so easy with you!” She laughed as she spoke, her short tooth glinting in the light. “We’ll get married, and Ilya and I will stay on with you.”

“We’ll buy the lakeside B and B,” I said. “And you can act at the local theater.”

For a moment it seemed possible.

the last book I ever read (Eternal Summer: A Novel by Franziska Gänsler, excerpt five)

from Eternal Summer: A Novel by Franziska Gänsler (Imogen Taylor, Translator):

“Do you have any glucose?” I asked. I’d heard that glucose and sports drinks were good for dehydration.

“No, I don’t have any glucose!” she screamed. “It wasn’t my idea to go on this crazy journey! I had no idea what I was getting myself into!”

I was familiar with this—the mood swings, the accusations. It was like hearing my mother talk in Dori’s voice, overwhelmed by everything. I couldn’t expect her to make decisions.

the last book I ever read (Eternal Summer: A Novel by Franziska Gänsler, excerpt four)

from Eternal Summer: A Novel by Franziska Gänsler (Imogen Taylor, Translator):

“It must have been hard to combine an acting career with motherhood,” I said. “All those rehearsals and performances.”

She shook her head. “That wasn’t so much the problem. I just couldn’t act anymore. I couldn’t do it.” She lit another cigarette. I imagined her on stage, speaking someone else’s words, her heavily made-up face in the bright light. Before today I couldn’t have imagined it. I remembered what she’d said on our walk about being a different person before she got married.

“I thought it would come back; I thought, give it a few weeks or months and it would come back. But it didn’t. My craft, the thing I was good at—it was gone.” She opened her palms a little, as if it were vanishing then and there. As if to show they were empty. “The emotions, the empathy. The ability to get inside another person, to feel their love, their despair.” She paused and looked down at her firm white fingers, lying open on the photos of old Bad Heim.

the last book I ever read (Eternal Summer: A Novel by Franziska Gänsler, excerpt three)

from Eternal Summer: A Novel by Franziska Gänsler (Imogen Taylor, Translator):

After supper I hung around in the dining room, hoping the woman would come out of her room again, as she sometimes did after putting Ilya to bed. I wanted to tell her about finding Ilya alone by the river. I waited a long time, but she didn’t come that evening. Once I thought I heard something, but when I looked out the terrace door, the garden was empty in the warm night. All was still, even the forest. The sky over the hotel was a gray pall. I looked for the moon but couldn’t find it.

the last book I ever read (Eternal Summer: A Novel by Franziska Gänsler, excerpt two)

from Eternal Summer: A Novel by Franziska Gänsler (Imogen Taylor, Translator):

It was going to be another hot day. The sky hung low over the woods, but the wind was coming from town and blew in warm gusts over the field and pond. The maple was swaying, its red leaves spinning through the air toward the forest. I imagined the situation there changing with the wind—orders being yelled, reporters and activists being moved on by the fire brigade, having to regroup. I thought of the girl with the short hair. I imagined tents and banners being packed up in a hurry, the protesters toiling through the forest, keeping an eye on one another.

Everyone here was familiar with the diagrams. A cross to mark the position of the fire brigade, a blue arrowhead to represent the fire driven by the wind, and along the sides of this arrow—the red zones. No one who was in these zones when the wind changed could escape the fire on foot. It was here that the two men had been caught by the flames—the men whose deaths had brought the fires to the attention of the international media. I don’t know why there was no talk of zones or wind direction before—maybe the fires hadn’t been as intense, maybe people were just lucky. Before those men died, the fire was seen as a local problem—a new phenomenon, to be sure, but part of the natural succession of the forest. A result of the hot summer, the drought. Over when fall came. We didn’t even have words for what was happening. It was only afterward that people started talking about the dead man zone, a term that would change our perception of what was going on in the forest.

the last book I ever read (Eternal Summer: A Novel by Franziska Gänsler, excerpt one)

from Eternal Summer: A Novel by Franziska Gänsler (Imogen Taylor, Translator):

Ash was lighter than ordinary dust. It had a habit of clinging, and when you brushed it off it immediately settled again. I quietly swept my way back to the other end of the veranda. A smoldering leaf drifted down in front of me and landed on the wooden balustrade. It had retained its curved shape, but between the black veins was nothing but white, burned-out cells. I propped the broom against the wall, carefully picked up the leaf, and carried it to the child, cupping it in my hands to protect it from the wind.

the last book I ever read (Property: A Novel by Valerie Martin, excerpt seven)

from Property: A Novel by Valerie Martin:

When I left my aunt’s, I walked to the Faubourg Marigny to leave a pair of shoes with the shoemaker there. That neighborhood is populated largely by free negroes, and a more arrogant and supercilious group could hardly be found. As I went among them, I found myself turning again and again to follow a figure or face that resembled Sarah’s. A man in a bright yellow frock coat approached me, his eyes meeting mine with perfect insolence, and for a moment I thought it must be Mr. Roget, though I had had such a brief glimpse of this person it was unlikely that I would recognize him. Was Sarah in hiding behind one of these simple house-fronts? Was Mr. Roget even now writing to her with further instructions for their eventual reunion?

the last book I ever read (Property: A Novel by Valerie Martin, excerpt six)

from Property: A Novel by Valerie Martin:

I bent over the offensive scrawl, trying to make out a sentence. Captain Wash ceen only won child as caut. “What does this mean?” I exclaimed.

My aunt examined the sentence. “Mr. Leggett takes an original approach to spelling and punctuation,” she observed.

the last book I ever read (Property: A Novel by Valerie Martin, excerpt five)

from Property: A Novel by Valerie Martin:

“My husband dislikes New Orleans,” I said.

the last book I ever read (Property: A Novel by Valerie Martin, excerpt four)

from Property: A Novel by Valerie Martin:

As we left the lawyer’s office I observed to my aunt, “The laws in this state are designed to provoke the citizens to murder.”

She gave me a disapproving look. “It’s the same everywhere,” she said. “A woman’s property is her husband’s.”

the last book I ever read (Property: A Novel by Valerie Martin, excerpt three)

from Property: A Novel by Valerie Martin:

Mother’s estate is left entirely to me and is greater than I thought. She had set aside a small inheritance I knew nothing about, and it has grown impressively. So I am to have the house, the furnishings, sufficient income to live comfortably, and two slaves, Peek and a boy named Isaiah whom Mother has hired out to a baker in town. All this is mine, and yet it is not mine, because my husband can, and doubtless will, dispose of it just as soon as I can get it. “Is there no way to preserve this to myself?” I pleaded with the lawyer.

“Not unless you were to divorce your husband,” he said. “And that could take years. In the meantime he would have control of the estate.”

the last book I ever read (Property: A Novel by Valerie Martin, excerpt two)

from Property: A Novel by Valerie Martin:

“I don’t know how you manage without the consolation of religion.”

“Yet I do,” I said, smiling, having no wish to offend her. Father thought highly of Aunt Lelia and said she could even make a virtue of religion, which was high praise from him.

“Very well, I will pray for you, darling,” she said, coming to kiss my cheek. “And for your poor mother’s soul, which is in heaven.” Sarah came in carrying the breakfast tray. “In the dining room,” I said, waving her back. I followed my aunt to the door and watched her join a stream of pedestrians at the corner, all elegantly dressed, greeting one another lightheartedly. None, I thought, would name the true cause for his high spirits and say what each one felt: “Others have died, but I am alive.” I went back into the dining room and took a piece of bread from the plate. I called for Sarah, who appeared in the doorway, her eyes cast down.

the last book I ever read (Property: A Novel by Valerie Martin, excerpt one)

from Property: A Novel by Valerie Martin:

I could not bear another lecture on my failings as a wife. “How long can it take to warm a bowl of soup?” I said, rising from my seat. Just as I reached the door, Sarah appeared with the tray. “At last,” I said. “What makes you so slow?” I reached out to take the tray, but as I did so I saw that Sarah was looking past me with a grimace of revulsion. She backed away, allowing the tray to slip from her fingers and crash to the floor. Hot soup flew up onto my skirt; a few drops burned my ankles. I shouted, turning away to pull a towel from the washstand, and, as I did, I saw a sight so terrible it will haunt my dreams until I die. Mother was sitting just as she had been, propped on her pillows, her hands folded in her lap, but from her mouth, nose, eyes, and ears, a black fluid gushed forth. I screamed. Sarah ran, calling for Peek. I took up a towel and went to Mother, pressing it to her mouth and nose. She didn’t struggle. Perhaps she was already dead. “My God,” I said, over and over, mopping the viscous fluid away, but to no avail. I took her hand to find even her fingernails blackened and wet, and when I looked down, I saw two stains unfurling like black flowers at the toes of her linen slippers. “Can you hear me?” I said, as the towel turned slippery in my hands. Peek came running in, trailing towels, went straight to the washstand, filled the bowl, and brought it to me. Together we washed Mother’s face and neck as best we could. Soon the water in the bowl was black, and still the liquid seeped from her eyes and mouth. Her skin had turned blue, as if she were suffocating, and the veins in her neck and hands stood out against the flesh like spreading black tentacles. “Mother,” I pleaded. “Please speak to me. Please try to speak to me.” Peek put her hand on my arm and said, “She gone, missus. Nothing more you can do.”

the last book I ever read (If This is a Man by Primo Levi, excerpt ten)

from If This is a Man by Primo Levi:

“I have a ration of bread under the mattress. Divide it among the three of you. I won’t be eating anymore.”

We couldn’t find anything to say, but for the time being we didn’t touch the bread. Half his face was swollen. As long as he remained conscious, he was closed in a bitter silence.

But in the evening, and for the whole night, and for two days, without interruption, the silence was broken by his delirium. Following a last, interminable dream of submission and slavery, he began to murmur “Jawohl” with every breath, regularly and continuously like a machine, “Jawohl,” every time his poor rib cage subsided, thousands of times, so that you wanted to shake him, suffocate him, or at least make him change the word.

I never understood so clearly as at that moment how laborious is the death of a man.

the last book I ever read (If This is a Man by Primo Levi, excerpt nine)

from If This is a Man by Primo Levi:

Once the broken window was repaired and the stove began to spread its heat, something seemed to relax in everyone, and then Towarowski (a Franco-Pole of twenty-three, with typhus) proposed to the others that each of them offer a slice of bread to the three of us who had been working. And so it was agreed.

Only a day before, such an event would have been inconceivable. The law of the Lager said “Eat your own bread, and, if you can, that of your neighbor,” and left no room for gratitude. It really meant that the Lager was dead.

This was the first human gesture that occurred among us. I believe that that moment marked the start of the process by which we who had not died slowly turned from Häftlinge into men again.

the last book I ever read (If This is a Man by Primo Levi, excerpt eight)

from If This is a Man by Primo Levi:

When it rains we feel like crying. It is November, it has been raining for ten days now, and the ground is like the bottom of a swamp. Everything made of wood has the smell of mushrooms.

If I could take ten steps to the left, I would be sheltered by the roof; all I’d need is a sack to cover my shoulders, or the mere prospect of a fire where I could dry myself; or maybe a dry rag to put between my shirt and my back. From one swing of the shovel to the next I think about it, and I really believe that to have a dry rag would be positive happiness.

the last book I ever read (If This is a Man by Primo Levi, excerpt seven)

from If This is a Man by Primo Levi:

The personages in these pages are not men. Their humanity is buried, or they themselves buried it, under the abuse received or inflicted on someone else. The evil and stupid SS men, the Kaps, the political, the criminals, the Prominents great and small, down to the indistinguishable Häftlinge slaves—all the grades of the mad hierarchy created by the Germans are paradoxically united in a common inner desolation.

But Lorenzo was a man; his humanity was pure and uncontaminated, he was outside this world or negation. Thanks to Lorenzo, I managed not to forget that I myself was a man.