a vision of uncertainty
by
Douglas Messerli
José Saramago A Caverna, translated
from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa as The Cave (New
York: Harcourt, 2002)
Back in the small village where Cipriano Algor lives with his daughter,
Marta, and—upon his regulated free weekends—his son-in-law, Algor reports that
the Center—the gigantic shopping and apartment complex where Gacho works—has
ordered no further shipments of the pottery he and his daughter create for
their living, and that he must take away the remaining bowls, plates, jugs, and
other dishware. How will they survive? Gacho may soon be promoted, which means
he can obtain an apartment in the Center, but neither father nor daughter are
desirous of leaving their small community, their family-built kiln, and their
beloved mulberry tree.
The sudden appearance of a stray dog who they name Found after he adopts
them as owners, the discovery that Marta is pregnant, and a budding love-affair
between Cipriano, himself a widower of several years, and the local widow
Isaura Madruga further enrich their country lives. Yet these events also arouse
further fears. What will happen to Found if they move to the city, and how will
romance be possible if he is soon to leave with his daughter and Gacho? Will
there be room for the child and Cipriano in the small apartments at the Center?
Marta has the inspiration that they should turn their energies from pottery to
figurines, and taking down an old set of encyclopedias, father and daughter set
out to create a set of ceramic figures: a nurse, a bearded Assyrian, a jester,
an Eskimo, etc. To their surprise the Center not only places an order for the
dolls, but it is such a large order that they must overcome huge obstacles in
order to create them.
Most of the novel consists of Saramago’s loving presentation of their
relationships with each other, their work, and their landscape, as the reader
gradually comes to know and to love these individuals through Saramago's pastoral.
Their lives, in all their simplicity and arising complexity, are presented in
detail as they work at their new creations.
The intermittent travels between village and city, however, gradually
begin to reveal a future that is more than troubling. On one of the trips to
the city to return his son-in-law to work, Cipriano observes a police crackdown
in the Rust Belt that sets him to wondering if the police have not themselves
created or perpetuated the violence behind it. Slogans of the Center suggest an
Orwellian future.
Accepting the first batch of figurines, the Center reports that further
orders will depend on a test sampling among their customers. Within the Center
itself come deep rumblings as workers excavate deeper and deeper into the earth
below the behemoth structure.
The long-expected news of Marçal’s promotion, accordingly, is met with
dread by both daughter and father. The Center’s report that the test sample of
the dolls has been negative and that it is canceling all further orders
collapses the spiritual, creative, and productive world of the Algors, as they
are forced to leave the dog Found with Isaura Madruga and enter a strange new
world almost without natural sunlight.
The Center is wickedly presented by Saramago as offering nearly every
diversion possible: “shops, escalators, meeting points, cafes, and restaurants.
...a carousel of horses, a carousel of space rockets, a center for toddlers, a
center for the Third Age, a tunnel of love, a suspension bridge, a ghost train,
an astrologer’s tent, a betting shop, a rifle range, a golf course, a luxury
hospital, another slightly less luxurious hospital, a bowling alley, a billiard
hall, a battery of table football games, a giant map, a secret door… a wall of
china, a taj mahal, an Egyptian pyramid, a temple of karnak, a real aqueduct, a
mafra monastery,” etc. etc. However, having witnessed the family’s previous
lives, we quickly recognize that nearly everything of real importance has been
wiped away. Without the natural beauty of their home, their work, and their
involvement in the world around them, there is nothing at the heart of the
thousands of activities offered by the Center. Family members grow secretive,
suffering in silence.
A strange phenomenon has been found in the excavations below the
building and the guards have been called to keep watch over the secret
discovery and to listen in to the residents’ conversations. During Marçal’s
shift, Cipriano determines to find his way to subterranean level where the
guards are posted. I will not reveal what he and his son-in-law discover—indeed
I am not truly sure myself what it actually is that they witness there.
Whatever these "bodies" reveal they connect to the family itself and
portend for the future of these artisans in Plato's Cave. Indeed, the future
for anyone at the Center is, at very least, a virtual imprisonment, with
torture and a symbolic death, if not a real one. Cipriano decides to return to
the country, to Found and Isaura Madruga—even if he has no money nor future
there. Marta and Marçal follow. The book ends with the family driving off
together into a future that, even in its uncertainty, at least offers new
possibilities and hope.
Los
Angeles, November 25, 2002
Reprinted from Exploringfictions (July 2010).
