chaos, I'm beginning to think we'll never reach Orce, Don't be a pessimist, I'm a born pessimist.
They passed through Seville without stopping, but the starlings lingered for a few minutes to admire the Giralda, which they had never seen before. Had there been only half a dozen of them they could have formed a diadem of black angels for the Statue of Faith, but because there were thousands of them, in their avalanche-like descent they covered the statue, transforming it into an indefinable figure, one that could just as easily have been taken for the symbol of Doubt as for the Statue of Faith. The metamorphosis was short-lived, José Anaiço is already speeding through this labyrinth of streets, let's follow him, winged species. Along the way, Deux Chevaux drank wherever possible, some gas stations had notices saying Sold Out, but the pump attendants said
Mariana,
they're an optimistic bunch, or perhaps they have simply learned how to make life tolerable. But the starlings had no lack of water, thank God, for Our Lord is much more concerned about birds than about humans, nearby are the tributaries of the Guadalquivir, the lagoons, the reservoirs, more water than those tiny beaks could drink in a million years. It's already mid-afternoon when they arrive in Granada, Deux Chevaux is panting, shuddering after all that effort, while Joaquim Sassa and José Anaiço go off to investigate, as if they were carrying sealed orders and the moment had come to open them, now we shall know where our destiny awaits us.
At the tourist office, an employee asked them if they were Portuguese archaeologists or anthropologists, that they were Portuguese could be seen at once, but why anthropologists and archaeologists, Because Orce is generally visited only by the latter, some years ago a discovery was made in nearby Venta Micena, the oldest human remains to be found in Europe, A whole skeleton, asked José Anaiço, Only a skull, but ancient, going back somewhere between one million three hundred thousand and one million four hundred thousand years, And do we know for certain they are human remains, Joaquim Sassa cautiously inquired, whereupon Maria Dolores replied with a knowing smile, Whenever human remains from ancient times are discovered, they always belong to some man, Cro-Magnon Man, Neanderthal Man, Swanscombe Man, Peking Man, Heidelberg Man, Java Man, at that time there were no women, Eve still hadn't been created, she was only created later, You're being ironic, No, I'm an anthropologist by training and a militant feminist by inclination, Well, we're journalists and we want to interview a certain Pedro Orce, the one who felt the earth shaking. How does such news make it to Portugal, Everything comes in Portugal and we go everywhere, this part of the dialogue was conducted solely by José Anaiço, who always has an answer ready, undoubtedly because he's used to coping with schoolchildren. Joaquim Sassa had moved away to examine some illustrated posters of the Courtyard of the Lions, the Gardens of Generalife, the entombed effigies of the Catholic Kings, studying them he had to ask himself if there would be any point in visiting these places after having seen the photographs. Absorbed in these thoughts about perceptions of reality,
he lost the drift of the conversation, what could José Anaiço have said to make Maria Dolores laugh so heartily, if every Dolores had not changed her name to Lola, each of those guffaws would have been a scandal. But she no longer showed the slightest hint of feminist aggression, perhaps because this Ribatejo Man was something more than just a mandible, a molar, and a patch of skull, and because there is plenty of evidence, in this age in which we live, that women do exist. Maria Dolores, who works in tourism because she cannot find employment as an anthropologist, draws the missing road on the map for José Anaiço, indicates with a black dot the village of Orce, and that of Venta Micena right beside it,
They passed through Seville without stopping, but the starlings lingered for a few minutes to admire the Giralda, which they had never seen before. Had there been only half a dozen of them they could have formed a diadem of black angels for the Statue of Faith, but because there were thousands of them, in their avalanche-like descent they covered the statue, transforming it into an indefinable figure, one that could just as easily have been taken for the symbol of Doubt as for the Statue of Faith. The metamorphosis was short-lived, José Anaiço is already speeding through this labyrinth of streets, let's follow him, winged species. Along the way, Deux Chevaux drank wherever possible, some gas stations had notices saying Sold Out, but the pump attendants said
Mariana,
they're an optimistic bunch, or perhaps they have simply learned how to make life tolerable. But the starlings had no lack of water, thank God, for Our Lord is much more concerned about birds than about humans, nearby are the tributaries of the Guadalquivir, the lagoons, the reservoirs, more water than those tiny beaks could drink in a million years. It's already mid-afternoon when they arrive in Granada, Deux Chevaux is panting, shuddering after all that effort, while Joaquim Sassa and José Anaiço go off to investigate, as if they were carrying sealed orders and the moment had come to open them, now we shall know where our destiny awaits us.
At the tourist office, an employee asked them if they were Portuguese archaeologists or anthropologists, that they were Portuguese could be seen at once, but why anthropologists and archaeologists, Because Orce is generally visited only by the latter, some years ago a discovery was made in nearby Venta Micena, the oldest human remains to be found in Europe, A whole skeleton, asked José Anaiço, Only a skull, but ancient, going back somewhere between one million three hundred thousand and one million four hundred thousand years, And do we know for certain they are human remains, Joaquim Sassa cautiously inquired, whereupon Maria Dolores replied with a knowing smile, Whenever human remains from ancient times are discovered, they always belong to some man, Cro-Magnon Man, Neanderthal Man, Swanscombe Man, Peking Man, Heidelberg Man, Java Man, at that time there were no women, Eve still hadn't been created, she was only created later, You're being ironic, No, I'm an anthropologist by training and a militant feminist by inclination, Well, we're journalists and we want to interview a certain Pedro Orce, the one who felt the earth shaking. How does such news make it to Portugal, Everything comes in Portugal and we go everywhere, this part of the dialogue was conducted solely by José Anaiço, who always has an answer ready, undoubtedly because he's used to coping with schoolchildren. Joaquim Sassa had moved away to examine some illustrated posters of the Courtyard of the Lions, the Gardens of Generalife, the entombed effigies of the Catholic Kings, studying them he had to ask himself if there would be any point in visiting these places after having seen the photographs. Absorbed in these thoughts about perceptions of reality,
he lost the drift of the conversation, what could José Anaiço have said to make Maria Dolores laugh so heartily, if every Dolores had not changed her name to Lola, each of those guffaws would have been a scandal. But she no longer showed the slightest hint of feminist aggression, perhaps because this Ribatejo Man was something more than just a mandible, a molar, and a patch of skull, and because there is plenty of evidence, in this age in which we live, that women do exist. Maria Dolores, who works in tourism because she cannot find employment as an anthropologist, draws the missing road on the map for José Anaiço, indicates with a black dot the village of Orce, and that of Venta Micena right beside it,
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