terrible voting weather, remarked the presiding officer of
polling station fourteen as he snapped shut his soaked
umbrella and took off the raincoat that had proved of little
use to him during the breathless forty-meter dash from the
place where he had parked his car to the door through which,
heart pounding, he had just appeared. I hope I’m not the last,
he said to the secretary, who was standing slightly away from
the door, safe from the sheets of rain which, caught by the
wind, were drenching the floor. Your deputy hasn’t arrived
yet, but we’ve still got plenty of time, said the secretary
soothingly, With rain like this, it’ll be a feat in itself if
we all manage to get here, said the presiding officer as they
went into the room where the voting would take place. He
greeted, first, the poll clerks who would act as scrutineers
and then the party representatives and their deputies. He was
careful to address exactly the same words to all of them, not
allowing his face or tone of voice to betray any political and
ideological leanings of his own. A presiding officer, even of
an ordinary polling station like this, should, in all
circumstances, be guided by the strictest sense of
independence, he should, in short, always observe decorum.
As well as the general dampness, which made an already
oppressive atmosphere still muggier, for the room had only two
narrow windows that looked out onto a courtyard which was
gloomy even on sunny days, there was a sense of unease which,
to use the vernacular expression, you could have cut with a
knife. They should have postponed the elections, said the
representative of the party in the middle, or the P.I.T.M., I
mean, it’s been raining non-stop since yesterday, there are
landslips and floods everywhere, the abstention rate this time
around will go sky-high. The representative from the party on
the right, or the P.O.T.R., nodded in agreement, but felt that
his contribution to the conversation should be couched in the
form of a cautious comment, Obviously, I wouldn’t want to
underestimate the risk of that, but I do feel that our fellow
citizens’ high sense of civic duty, which they have
demonstrated before on so many occasions, is deserving of our
every confidence, they are aware, indeed, acutely so, of the
vital importance of these municipal elections for the future
of the capital. Having each said their piece, the
representative of the P.I.T.M. and the representative of the
P.O.T.R. turned, with a half-sceptical, half-ironic air, to
the representative of the party on the left, the P.O.T.L.,
curious to know what opinion he would come up with. At that
precise moment, however, the presiding officer’s deputy burst
into the room, dripping water everywhere, and, as one might
expect, now that the cast of polling station officers was
complete, the welcome he received was more than just cordial,
it was positively enthusiastic. We therefore never heard the
viewpoint of the representative of the P.O.T.L., although, on
the basis of a few known antecedents, one can assume that he
would, without fail, have taken a line of bright historical
optimism, something like, The people who vote for my party are
not the sort to let themselves be put off by a minor obstacle
like this, they’re not the kind to stay at home just because
of a few miserable drops of rain falling from the skies. It
was not, however, a matter of a few miserable drops of rain,
there were bucketfuls, jugfuls, whole niles, iguaçús and
yangtses of the stuff, but faith, may it be eternally blessed,
as well as removing mountains from the path of those who
benefit from its influence, is capable of plunging into the
most torrential of waters and emerging from them bone-dry.
With the table now complete, with each officer in his or her
allotted place, the presiding officer signed the official
edict and asked the secretary to affix it, as required by law,
outside the building, but the secretary, demonstrating a
degree of basic common sense, pointed out that the piece of
paper would not last even one minute on the wall outside, in
two ticks the ink would have run and in three the wind would
have carried it off. Put it inside, then, out of the rain, the
law doesn’t say what to do in these circumstances, the main
thing is that the edict should be pinned up where it can be
seen. He asked his colleagues if they were in agreement, and
they all said they were, with the proviso on the part of the
representative of the P.O.T.R. that this decision should be
recorded in the minutes in case they were ever challenged on
the matter. When the secretary returned from his damp mission,
the presiding officer asked him what it was like out there,
and he replied with a wry shrug, Just the same, rain, rain,
rain, Any voters out there, Not a sign. The presiding officer
stood up and invited the poll clerks and the three party
representatives to follow him into the voting chamber, which
was found to be free of anything that might sully the purity
of the political choices to be made there during the day. This
formality completed, they returned to their places to examine
the electoral roll, which they found to be equally free of
irregularities, lacunae or anything else of a suspicious
nature. The solemn moment had arrived when the presiding
officer uncovers and displays the ballot box to the voters so
that they can certify that it is empty, and tomorrow, if
necessary, bear witness to the fact that no criminal act has
introduced into it, at dead of night, the false votes that
would corrupt the free and sovereign political will of the
people, and so that there would be no electoral shenanigans,
as they’re so picturesquely known, and which, let us not
forget, can be committed before, during or after the act,
depending on the efficiency of the perpetrators and their
accomplices and the opportunities available to them. The
ballot box was empty, pure, immaculate, but there was not a
single voter in the room to whom it could be shown. Perhaps
one of them is lost out there, battling with the torrents,
enduring the whipping winds, clutching to his bosom the
document that proves he is a fully enfranchised citizen, but,
judging by the look of the sky right now, he’ll be a long time
coming, if, that is, he doesn’t end up simply going home and
leaving the fate of the city to those with a black car to drop
them off at the door and pick them up again once the person in
the back seat has fulfilled his or her civic duty.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from Seeing
by José Saramago
Copyright © 2004
by José Saramago and Editorial Caminho SA .
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Harcourt Trade Publishers
Copyright © 2004
José Saramago and Editorial Caminho SA
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-1510-1238-5
