Skylight by José Saramago Page B

is or isn’t.”
    This, too, led him far away from his objective. He again looked at his son and saw that his eyes were closed, his face calm, his breathing easy and regular. He had fallen asleep. Then, very softly, his eyes fixed on his son’s face, Emílio murmured:
    â€œI’m unhappy, Henrique, very unhappy. One day I will leave. I don’t know when, but I know that I will. Happiness isn’t something you conquer, but I want to try to conquer it anyway. I can’t do that here. Everything has died. My life is a failure. I live in this house as if I were a stranger. I love you and possibly even your mother, but there’s something missing. It’s like living in a prison. Then there are all these rows, all this . . . Yes, one day I’ll leave.”
    Henrique was sleeping deeply. A lock of fair hair lay across his forehead. His half-open mouth revealed small, bright teeth. His whole face was lit by a faint smile.
    Suddenly Emílio felt his eyes fill with tears, quite why he didn’t know. Then, distracted by the cigarette burning his fingers, he went back to the window. It was still raining, quietly, monotonously. When he thought about what he had said, he felt ridiculous. And imprudent too. His son would doubtless have understood something. He might tell his mother. He wasn’t afraid of that, of course, but he didn’t want any more scenes, more scoldings, more tears, more protests. He was tired, so tired. Yes, Carmen, I’m tired.
    In the street, outside the window, he saw his wife pass by, barely protected from the rain by her umbrella. Emílio said again, out loud this time:
    â€œDo you hear that, Carmen? I’m tired.”
    He went into the dining room to fetch his sample case. Carmen came in. They bade each other a cold goodbye. It seemed to her that her husband was leaving with suspicious haste, and she feared that something might have happened. Finding nothing untoward in her son’s bedroom, she went into their bedroom and immediately spotted what it was. On the dressing table, next to the ashtray, lay the stub of a cigarette. When she brushed away the ash, she saw the burn mark on the wood. Her anger burst forth in the form of violent words. She overflowed with misery. She bemoaned the fate of the dressing table, her own fate, her own sad life. She mumbled these complaints in between sobs and sniffs. She looked around her, afraid she might find further signs of damage. Then, casting one fond, despairing look at the dressing table, she went back into the kitchen.
    While she was preparing lunch, she was imagining what she would say to her husband. He needn’t think it would stop there. Oh, she would tell him a thing or two, all right. If he wanted to spoil things, then he should spoil something that belonged to him, not the bedroom furniture bought with money given to them by her parents. So this was his way of saying thank you, was it, the ungrateful wretch!
    â€œHe always has to spoil everything,” she was muttering as she walked back and forth between stove and table. “That’s the only thing he knows how to do!” Senhor Emílio Fonseca, always so full of fine words! Her father had been quite right; he had never approved of the marriage. Why hadn’t she married her cousin Manolo, who owned a brush factory in Vigo? She would be a lady now, the owner of a factory, with maids to do her bidding! Silly fool! She cursed the hour she had decided to come to Portugal to spend some time with her aunt Micaela! She had caused quite a sensation there. All the men had wanted to court her, and that had been her downfall. She had gloried in being so much more sought-after than she had been at home, and this was where her blindness had led her. Her father had told her: “
Carmen, eso no es hombre bueno!
” He’s not a good man, Carmen. But she had refused to listen to his advice, had dug in her heels and rejected cousin Manolo