The fourth day happened to be the day on which he had to go to the Center to fetch Marçal for his day off, which we would call weekly if it were not, as we know, decimal, that is, every ten days. Marta told her father that she would go, so that he wouldn't have to interrupt his work, but Cipriano Algor said no, what an idea, There are fewer robberies on the road, it's true, but there's always a risk, If there's a risk for me, then there's a risk for you too, In the first place, I'm a man, in the second place, I'm not pregnant, Respectable reasons which do you credit, There's a third reason too, the most important, And what's that, I wouldn't be able to do any work until you got back, so it won't make any difference if I go, besides the journey will help to clear my head, which certainly needs an airing, all I can think about are molds, mold pieces, and slips, It would help to clear my head too, so why don't we both go and pick Marçal up, and Found can stay here to guard the castle, If that's what you want, Don't be silly, I was just kidding, you usually go and fetch Marçal and I usually stay at home, so long live usually, No, seriously, we can both go, No, seriously, you go. They both smiled, and the debate on the central question, that is, the objective and subjective reasons we usually do what we do, was postponed. That afternoon, at the appointed hour, and still in his work clothes so as not to waste time, Cipriano Algor set off. As he was leaving the village, he realized that he had not turned his head when he went past the street where Isaura Madruga lives, and when we say turned his head, that could be in either direction, because in recent days, Cipriano Algor had sometimes turned to see if he could spot her, and sometimes turned away so that he would not see her. It occurred to him to wonder what interpretation to put on that troubling indifference, but a stone in the middle of the road distracted him and the moment was gone. The journey to the city passed without incident, he was delayed only once by a police block that was stopping every other car to check the drivers' documents. While he was waiting for them to return his documents, Cipriano Algor had time to notice that the boundary of the shantytown seemed to have shifted closer to the road, Any day now and they'll push it back again, he thought.
Marçal was there waiting for him. Sorry I'm late, said his father-in-law, I didn't leave the house early enough, and then the police wanted to have a nose through my papers, How's Marta, asked Marçal, I didn't manage to phone yesterday, She's fine, I think, but you should ask her yourself really, she's not eating much, no appetite, but she says that's normal in pregnant women, and maybe it is, I don't know much about these things, but if I were you, I wouldn't be too sure, Right, I'll talk to her, don't worry, maybe it's because she's just in the very early stages of pregnancy, We men haven't a clue really, confronted by these things, we're like lost children, you should take her to the doctor. Marçal did not reply. His father-in-law fell silent. They were both probably thinking the same thing, that she would get the best possible treatment at the hospital in the Center, at least that's what people say, although, as the wife of an employee, being resident in the Center isn't a necessary condition for receiving decent treatment. After a moment, Cipriano Algor said, I can bring Marta in any time you want. They had left the city and so could drive more quickly. Marçal asked, How's the work going, We're still only at the beginning really, we've fired the figurines we made, and now I'm tackling the molds, How's that going, We fool ourselves, we think that clay is just clay, that if you can do one thing with it, you can do anything, and then you realize that it simply isn't true, that we have to relearn everything from scratch. He paused, then added, But I feel happy, it's a bit like trying to be born again, well, not quite, Tomorrow I'll give you a hand, said Marçal, I know next to nothing about making pottery, but I'm sure I can be of some help, You need to spend time with your wife, go for a walk somewhere, No, tomorrow we'll be having lunch with my parents, they still don't know about Marta being pregnant, it'll start to show soon, and you can imagine what they'd say then, And quite right too, I mean, be fair, said Cipriano Algor. Another silence. Nice weather, remarked Marçal, Let's hope it lasts another two or three weeks, said his father-in-law, the dolls need to be as dry as possible before we put them in the kiln. Another silence, longer this time. The police block had been removed, and the road was free. Twice Cipriano Algor was about to speak, the third time he did, Any news about your promotion, he asked, No, not yet, replied Marçal, Do you think they've changed their minds, No, there are various procedures that have to be gone through, the bureaucracy in the Center is as nitpicking as anywhere else, With police patrols checking driving licenses, insurance policies, and health certificates, Yes, that's about the size of it, We don't seem to know how else to do things, Perhaps there isn't another way, Or perhaps it's too late to find another way They did not speak again until they reached the village. Marçal asked his father-in-law to stop at the door to his parents' house, I won't be a minute, I just want to tell them that we'll be coming to lunch tomorrow. It was, indeed, not a long wait, but, again, Marçal seemed unhappy when he got back in the van. What was it this time, asked Cipriano Algor, Oh, I don't know, nothing seems to go right between me and my parents, Don't exaggerate, man, family life was never what you might call a bed of roses, we have good times and bad times, and we're extremely lucky if most of the time it's just so-so, Well, I went in, and my mother was there alone, my father hasn't got back yet, and I said what I had to say and then, to jolly things along a bit, I put on a sort of half-solemn, half-happy face and said that I had a big surprise for them tomorrow, And, guess what my mother's response was, My prophetic gifts don't stretch that far, She asked if the big surprise was them coming to live with me at the Center, And what did you say, I said it wasn't worth saving the secret until tomorrow, I have to tell you, I said, that Marta is pregnant, we're going to have a baby, She was pleased, of course, Oh, yes, she couldn't stop hugging me and kissing me, So what are you complaining about, It's just that with them there's always some dark cloud looming in the sky, at the moment, it's their obsession with wanting to go and live at the Center, You know I don't mind giving up my place to them, No, that's out of the question, and it's not that I'm exchanging my parents for my father-in-law, it's just that they have each other, but you'd be left on your own, Well, I wouldn't be the only person in the world to live on his own, As far as Marta is concerned, I can guarantee that you would, Oh dear, I don't know what to say, Some things are just the way they are and need no explanation. Faced by such a categorical display of basic wisdom, the potter again found himself lost for words. Another contributory factor to this sudden silence might be that, at that precise moment, they just happened to be passing Isaura Madruga's street, and, unlike on the outward journey, Cipriano Algor's consciousness was unable to remain indifferent. When they reached the pottery, Marçal had the unexpected pleasure of being greeted by Found as if he were wearing not the intimidating uniform of a Center security guard, but the plainest and most pacific of clothes. The young man's sensitive soul, still smarting from the unfortunate conversation with his mother, was so moved by the animal's effusions that he embraced him as if he were the person he loved most in the world. These are exceptional moments, needless to say, the person Marçal loves most in the world is his wife, and she is waiting beside him, smiling sweetly, for her turn to be embraced, but just as there are times when all it takes for us to dissolve into tears is for someone to place a hand on our shoulder, so the disinterested joy of a dog can reconcile us for one brief minute to the pains, sorrows, and disappointments of this world. Given that Found knows little of human emotions, be they positive or negative, but of whose existence there is ample proof, and given that Marçal knows still less about canine emotions, about which there are few certainties and a myriad of doubts, someone will one day have to explain to us the reasons, apparently perfectly comprehensible to both parties involved, why these two should be locked in an embrace when they do not even belong to the same species. Since the making of molds was such a novelty, Cipriano Algor could not really avoid showing his son-in-law what he had been up to for the past few days, but his pride, which had already led him to refuse his daughter's help, trembled at the thought that Marçal might notice some mistake, some botched repair, or any of the other innumerable signs that provided such clear evidence of the mental agonies he had suffered within those four walls. Although Marçal was far too preoccupied with Marta to pay much attention to clay, sodium silicate, plaster of Paris, mold frames, and molds, the potter decided not to work after supper and to spend the evening with them, thus affording him the opportunity to discourse with a degree of theoretical exactitude on a subject whose practical pitfalls and disastrous consequences he knew better than anyone. Marçal warned Marta that they would be having lunch with his parents the next day, but he did not even mention the painful conversation he had had with his mother, which made his father-in-law think that this was a subject that had moved into the private domain, a problem to be analyzed in the privacy of the bedroom, not to be picked over and analyzed in a three-way conversation, unless, of course, with praiseworthy prudence, Marçal merely wanted to avoid falling yet again into a debate on the thorny topic of moving to the Center, we have seen far too often how it begins and have seen far too often where it usually ends.