Senhor José went in and went straight up to the counter, casting a cold eye over the seated guides, whom he disliked be cause their existence tilted the numerical balance of staff in the cemetery's favour. Since he was known to the people there, he did not need to show the identity card proving that he was a member of staff at the Central Registry, and as for the famous letter of authority, it hadn't even occurred to him to bring it, besides, even the least experienced of the clerks would have seen at a glance that it was false from beginning to end. Of the eight clerks lined up behind the counter, Senhor José chose one of the men with whom he got on best, a man a little older than himself, who had the absorbed air of one who no longer expects anything more from life. Like all the other clerks, he always seemed to be there whatever day it was. At first, Senhor José had thought that the people who worked at the cemetery never got a day off or took a holiday, that they worked every day of the year, until someone told him that this was not the case, that there was a group of casual workers contracted to work on Sundays, we are no longer in the days of slavery, Senhor José. Needless to say, the clerks at the General Cemetery have long hoped that the aforesaid casual workers might take over on Saturday afternoons too, but, for alleged reasons of budgets and finances, that demand has not yet been met, and in vain did the cemetery staff invoke the example of the Central Registry staff, who only worked on Saturday mornings, for, according to the sibylline communique issued from above refusing their request, The living can wait, the dead cannot. Anyway, it was unheard of for a member of staff from the Central Registry to appear there for work reasons on a Saturday afternoon, when everyone assumed he would be enjoying his weekly leisure time with his family, going on a trip into the country, or occupied with domestic tasks that have to wait until there's a bit of free time, or merely lazing about, or even wondering what is the point of having leisure time if we don't know what to do with it. In order to avoid any awkward questions, which could easily become embarrassing, Senhor José adroitly pre-empted the other person's curiosity, giving the excuse he had already prepared, It's a special case, very urgent, my deputy needs this information first thing on Monday morning, that's why he asked me to come to the General Cemetery today, in my free time, I see, you'd better tell me what it's about then, It's very simple, we just want to know when this woman was buried. The man took the card that Senhor José held out to him, copied the name and date of death onto a piece of paper, and went to consult the relevant senior clerk. Senhor José couldn't catch what they said, here, as in the Central Registry, you can speak only in a low voice, and they were some way away from him too, but he saw the senior clerk nod and, judging by his lips, he was sure that he had said, Fine, go ahead. The man went to look in the card index under the counter, where all the cards of those who died in the last fifty years were to be found, the others filled the high shelves that stretched into the interior of the building, he opened one of the drawers, found the woman's card, copied down the relevant date and came back to where Senhor José was standing, Here it is, he said, and added, as if he thought the information might be useful, She's in the section for suicides. Senhor José felt a sudden contraction in the pit of his stomach which, according to an article he had read once in a popular magazine about science, is the approximate location of a kind of many-pointed star of nerves, a radiating junction called the solar plexus, however, he managed to hide his surprise behind an automatic mask of indifference, the cause of death would, of course, be on the lost death certificate, which he had never seen, but as a clerk in the Central Registry, especially coming to the cemetery, as he was, on business, he could not let on that he did not know. Very carefully he folded up the piece of paper and put it in his wallet and thanked the clerk, not forgetting to add, as one official to another, although that is purely a manner of speaking, since both were mere clerks, that he was always at his disposal should he need anything at the Central Registry and always assuming that it was within his power to grant it. When he had taken two steps towards the door, he turned around, I've just had an idea, since I'm here, I think I'll spend part of the afternoon taking a little stroll around the cemetery, if you could let me through here, I wouldn't have to go the long way around, Hang on, I'll go and ask, said the clerk. He took the request to the senior clerk to whom he had spoken before, but instead of replying, the latter got up and went over to the deputy keeper in charge of his work. Although he was even farther away this time, Senhor José could see by the nod the deputy gave and by the movement of his Hps that he was going to be allowed to use the inner door. The clerk did not return to the counter immediately, he first opened a cabinet from which he took a large card which he then placed beneath the Hd of a machine with little coloured fights on it. He pressed a button, there was a mechanical noise, more lights came on, and then a smaller piece of paper emerged from a slit in the side. The clerk put the card back in the cabinet and then came back to the counter, You'd better take a map with you, there have been cases of people getting lost, and it's incredibly difficult to find them again, the guides have to go out looking for them in the cars and that gums up the works, you get funerals backed up outside, People panic easily, all they have to do is go in a straight line in the same direction, they're bound to reach somewhere, now in the archive of the dead in the Central Registry it really is complicated, because there are no straight lines, In theory, you're right, but the straight lines here are like the straight lines in a labyrinth of corridors, they're constantly breaking off, changing direction, you walk around a grave and suddenly you don't know where you are, In the Central Registry, we use Ariadne's thread, it never fails, There was a time when we used it too, but it didn't last long, the thread was found cut on several occasions and no one ever found out who the culprit was or why they'd done it, It certainly wasn't the dead, that's for sure, Who knows, The people who got lost were people with no initiative, they could have oriented themselves by the sun, Some probably would have if they hadn't been unlucky enough to get lost on a cloudy day, We haven't got one of those machines in the Central Registry, We've found them really useful. The conversation could not go on any longer, the senior clerk had already looked at them twice, and the second time he was frowning, it was Senhor José who remarked in a low voice, That senior clerk has already looked over here twice, I don't want you to get into any trouble on my account, I'll just show you where the woman is buried, see the end of this path, the wavy Une here is a stream which, for the moment, still serves as a boundary Une, the grave is in that corner there, you can identify it by the number, And by the name, Yes, if someone's put one there, but it's the numbers that count, the names wouldn't fit on the map, you'd need a map the size of the world, Scale one to one, Yes, scale one to one, and even then, the names would have to be superimposed on each other, Is it up-to-date, We update it every day, Now tell me, what made you think I'd want to see the woman's grave, No reason, perhaps because, in your place, I'd have done the same, Why, Just to be certain, That she's dead, No, to be certain that she'd been alive. The senior clerk looked at them for a third time, made a movement as if he were about to get up, but did not complete it, Senhor José bade a hasty farewell to the clerk, Thank you, thank you, he said, at the same time nodding slightly in the direction of the keeper, a person to whom one should always bow, just as one gives thanks to heaven, even when it's cloudy, with the important difference that then you don't lower your head, you raise it.