The Parallel of Terror, doesn't look to me as if it has very much to do with your speciality, There's no law that says I can only study history for the rest of my life, No, of course not, but it's only natural that I should find it odd to see you surrounded by videos, as if you had suddenly developed a passion for the cinema, when, before, you weren't really interested at all, As I said, I'm engaged in a piece of work, a sociological study, if you like, Look, I may be an ordinary clerk, a bank employee, but even my rather dim intelligence can sense you're not telling the truth, Not telling the truth, exclaimed Tertuliano Máximo Afonso indignantly, not telling the truth, that really is the limit, There's no point getting angry, I'm just saying how it seems to me, Now I know I'm not perfect, but dishonesty is not one of my faults, you should know me better than that, Forgive me, That's all right, you're forgiven, we won't mention the matter again. That is what he said, but he would in fact have preferred to continue talking about it, if only to avoid talking about the other subject he was much more afraid to broach. Maria da Paz sat down in the armchair in front of the television set and said, I came to talk to you, I'm not interested in your videos. The nightingale's song had got lost in the stratospheric regions of the ceiling, it was already, as they used to say in days gone by, but a sweet memory, and Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, who cut a deplorable figure in his dressing gown and slippers, his face unshaven, all of which put him in a position of clear inferiority, was aware that an acerbic conversation, even though the angry words he might use would suit what we know to be his final aim, that is, to end his relationship with Maria da Paz, would be difficult to conduct and doubtless even harder to bring to a close. So he sat down on the sofa, covered his legs with his dressing gown, and began in a conciliatory tone of voice, My idea, What are you talking about, broke in Maria da Paz, us or your videos, We'll talk about us afterward, for the moment I just want to explain to you the kind of work I'm involved in, If you must, replied Maria da Paz, reining in her impatience. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso prolonged the ensuing silence for as long as possible, he racked his brain for the words he had used to put the assistant in the video shop off the track, and he experienced a strange and contradictory feeling. Although he knows he is going to lie, he thinks, nevertheless, that this lie will be a kind of warped version of the truth, that is, although the explanation may be completely false, the mere fact of repeating it will, in a way, make it plausible, and all the more plausible if Tertuliano Máximo Afonso does not stop at this first attempt. At last, feeling himself master of his material, he began, My interest in looking at a number of films by this production company, chosen at random, for, as you will see, they are all made by the same company, was born out of an idea I had some time ago, that of making a study of the tendencies, inclinations, intentions, and messages, explicit, implicit, and subliminal, in short, the ideological signals disseminated among its consumers, image by image, by a particular film company, And how did it come about this sudden interest, or as you call it, this idea, what has it got to do with your work as a history teacher, asked Maria da Paz, completely unaware that she had just handed to Tertuliano Máximo Afonso on a plate the very answer which, in his hour of dialectical need, he might not have been capable of finding for himself, It's very simple, he replied with a look of relief on his face that could easily have been mistaken for the virtuous satisfaction experienced by any good teacher taking delight in the act of transmitting his knowledge to the class, It's very simple, he said again, just as the history that we write, study, or teach penetrates every line, every word, and even every date, what I termed ideological signals, inherent not just in the interpretation of facts, but also in the language we use to express those facts, not forgetting the various types and degrees of in-tentionality in our use of that language, so it is that the cinema, a storytelling mode that, given its particular efficacy, acts upon the actual contents of history, at once contaminating and falsifying them, so it is, I repeat, that the cinema, with far greater speed and no less intentionality, participates in the general propagation of a whole network of those ideological signals, usually in a way that promotes its own interests. He paused and, with the indulgent half smile of someone apologizing for the aridity of an explanation that failed to take into consideration his audience's inadequate ability to understand, added, I hope to clarify my ideas when I write them down. Despite her more than justified reservations, Maria da Paz couldn't help looking at him with a certain admiration, after all, he is a skilled history teacher, a trained professional of proven competence, one presumes he knows what he's talking about even when he ventures into matters outside his speciality, while she is a mere middle-ranking bank employee, without the necessary preparation to take full cognizance of any ideological signals unless they first explained who they were and what they wanted. However, throughout Tertuliano Máximo Afonso's speech, she had noticed a kind of embarrassed catch in his voice, a disharmony that occasionally distorted his delivery, like the characteristic vibrato produced by a cracked water jar when struck with the knuckles, quick, someone, go to Maria da Paz's aid and tell her that it is with precisely this sound that our words leave our mouth when the truth we appear to be saying is the lie we are concealing. Apparently, yes, apparently someone did warn her or else intimated as much with the usual hints and suggestions, what other explanation can there be for the fact that the admiring light in her eyes was suddenly extinguished and replaced by a wounded expression, an air of compassionate pity, whether for herself or for the man sitting opposite we do not know. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso realized that his discourse had been not only offensive but useless too, that there are many ways of showing one's disrespect for other people's intelligence and sensitivity and that this had been one of the grosser examples. Maria da Paz did not come to see him in order to be given explanations about procedures that are neither here nor there, or anywhere else for that matter, she came to find out how much she would have to pay to have restored to her, if such a thing were still possible, the small happiness she had believed to be hers during the last six months. It is also true that Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is not going to say, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, You won't believe this, but I've discovered a man who is my exact double and who appears as an actor in some of these films, there was no way he would say that to her, if, indeed, such words could legitimately follow the words that immediately preceded them, for this could be interpreted by Maria da Paz as yet another diversionary tactic, when all she had come to find out was how much she would have to pay to have restored to her the small happiness she had believed to be hers during the last six months, and please forgive the repetition, which we make in the name of the right we all have to say over and over where the pain is. There was an awkward silence. Maria da Paz should really speak now and say defiantly, Right, if you've finished your stupid spiel about nonexistent ideological signals, let's talk about us, but dread has formed a lump in her throat, the fear that the simplest word could shatter the glass of her fragile hope, which is why she says nothing, which is why she waits for Tertuliano Máximo Afonso to begin, but Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is sitting, eyes downcast, apparently absorbed in contemplation of his slippers and the pale fringe of skin that appears where his pajama bottoms end, the truth, however, is very different, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso does not dare to look up in case his eyes drift over to the papers on the desk, the list of films and actors' names, with its little crosses, deletions, and question marks, all so far removed from his unfortunate discourse on ideological signals, which seems to him now the work of another person. Contrary to popular belief, the helpful words that open the way to great, dramatic dialogues are, in general, modest, ordinary, banal, no one would think that Would you like a cup of coffee could serve as an introduction to a bitter debate about feelings that have died or to the sweetness of a reconciliation that neither person knows how to bring about. Maria da Paz should have responded with due coolness, I didn't come here to drink coffee, but, looking inside herself, she saw that this wasn't true, she saw that she really had come there to drink coffee, that her own happiness, imagine, depended on that coffee. In a voice that was intended to reveal only weary resignation but which shook with nerves, she said, Yes, I would, and added, I'll make it. She got up from her chair, and it wasn't that she stopped as she walked past Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, how can we explain what happened, we pile up words, words, and more words, the very words we talked about elsewhere, a personal pronoun, an adverb, a verb, an adjective, and, however we try, however hard we struggle, we always find ourselves outside the feelings we so ingenuously hoped to describe, as if a feeling were like a landscape with mountains in the distance and trees in the foreground, but the truth is that Maria da Paz's spirit subtly froze the rectilinear movement of her body, hoping, who knows what, perhaps that Tertuliano Máximo Afonso would stand up and embrace her, or softly take the hand hanging loose by her side, which is indeed what happened, first his hand taking hold of hers, then the embrace that did not dare to go beyond a discreet proximity, she did not offer him her lips and he did not seek them, there are times when it is a thousand times better to do less than to do more, to hand the matter over to sensibility, which will know better than rational intelligence how best to proceed toward the full perfection of the following moments, if, that is, they were born to reach such heights. They slowly separated, she smiled a little, he smiled a little, but we know that Tertuliano Máximo Afonso has another idea in his head, which is to remove from Maria da Paz's eyes, as quickly as possible, the telltale papers, which is why we need not be surprised by the way he almost propels her toward the kitchen, Go on, then, you make the coffee while I try to bring some order to this chaos, and then the unexpected happened, for, as if giving no particular importance to the words emerging from her mouth or as if she did not entirely understand them, she murmured, Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered, What, what did you say, asked Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, who had already removed the list of names, Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered, Where did you read that, or did you hear someone say it, No, it just occurred to me now, I don't think I read it anywhere and I certainly never heard anyone say it, But how could you just come out with something like that, Is there something special about it, There certainly is, Oh, I don't know, perhaps it's because my work at the bank is all to do with numbers, and numbers, when they're all mixed together, muddled up, can seem like chaotic elements to people who don't know them, and yet there exists in them a latent order, in fact I don't think numbers have any sense at all outside some sort of order you impose on them, the problem lies in finding that order, There aren't any numbers here, But there is a chaos, you yourself said so, A few videos out of place, that's all, And the images inside them, attached to each other so as to tell a story, i.e., an order, as well as the successive chaoses they would form if we jumbled them up before putting them together to make different stories, and the successive orders that would come out of that, always leaving behind an ordered chaos, always advancing into a chaos waiting to be put into an order, Ideological signals, said Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, not entirely sure that the reference was pertinent, Yes, ideological signals if you want, It sounds to me like you don't believe me, It doesn't matter whether I believe you or not, you presumably know what you're after, What I find hard to understand is how you stumbled upon that discovery, the idea of order being contained within a chaos and which can be deciphered from within, Do you mean to say that in all these months, ever since our relationship first began, you have never considered me intelligent enough to have ideas, Oh, come on, that's got nothing to do with it, you're a very intelligent person, but, Oh, I know, but not as intelligent as you, and, needless to say, I haven't got the necessary training, I am, after all, just a poor little bank employee, There's no need to be ironic, I've never once thought you were less intelligent than me, I just meant that your idea is really original, And you didn't expect such originality from me, No, in a way, I didn't, You're the historian, but I would say that it was only after our ancestors had had the ideas that made them intelligent that they actually began to be intelligent enough to have ideas, Now you've gone all paradoxical on me, I can't keep up with all these surprises, said Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, Well, before you turn into a pillar of salt, I'll go and make the coffee, said Maria da Paz with a smile, and as she headed off down the corridor that led to the kitchen, she said, Tidy up that chaos, Máximo, tidy up that chaos. The list of names was swiftly locked away in a drawer, the loose videos were returned to their respective boxes, and