The journalist, a man of much experience, but so lacking in skepticism that he did not even appear to be French, stated that in his opinion, the cult of relics requires only a suitable object, its authenticity is of no importance, for the sake of verisimilitude one asks for nothing more than a mild resemblance, consider the Cathedral of Valencia, where in times gone by the faith was promoted with a col lection of precious relics, namely, the chalice used by Our Lord during the Last Supper, the shirt He wore as a boy, some drops of Our Lady's milk, locks of Her hair, fair in color, and the comb She used, and also some fragments from the Holy Cross, some indefinable object that had belonged to one of the Holy Innocents, two of those thirty pieces, made of silver after all, with which Judas allowed himself to be bought through no fault of his own, and, to end the list, one of St. Christopher's teeth, four fingers in length and three in width, dimensions undeniably excessive, that will surprise only those unaware of the saint's gigantic proportions. Where will the Spaniards bury the poet now, asked Joaquim Sassa, who had never read Machado, and José Anaiço replied, If, despite the ups and downs of life and the reversals of fortune, everything has its place and every place claims what belongs to it, what remains of Antonio Machado today must be buried somewhere in the fields of Soria, beneath a holm oak, the Castilian word is encina, without any cross or tombstone, nothing but a tiny mound of earth, it doesn't even have to look like a stretched-out corpse, in the fullness of time earth will turn to earth and all will be equal. And we Portuguese, what poet should we go and look for in France, if any of our poets ever stayed there, As far as I know, only Mario de'Sà Cameiro, but in his case there's no point even trying, first of all, because he wouldn't have wanted to come, second, because the cemeteries in Paris are well protected, third, because so many years have passed since he died, the administration of a capital city would not commit the errors of a provincial town, especially one with the additional excuse of being Mediterranean, And besides, what purpose would it serve to remove him from one cemetery in order to put him in another, now that in Portugal it is forbidden to bury the dead in an unauthorized place or in the open air, not even his bones would rest in peace if we were to leave him in the shade of an olive tree in the Parque Eduardo VII, But are there any olive trees left in the Parque Eduardo VII, That's a good question, but I can't give you an answer, and now let's get some sleep, for tomorrow we must go in search of Pedro Orce, the man who can feel the earth shaking. They switched off the light, lay there with open eyes waiting to drop off, but, before sleep arrived, Joaquim asked another question, And what about Venice, what's going to happen there, Believe me, the easiest of all the difficult tasks in this world would be to save Venice, all they would have to do would be to close the lagoon, and link the islands together so that the sea wouldn't be able to enter so readily, if the Italians aren't capable of carrying out the job on their own, let them send for the Dutch, they could dry out Venice in no time at all, We should help, we have certain responsibilities, We are no longer Europeans, well, perhaps that's not entirely true, For the time being you are still in territorial waters, interrupted an unknown voice.
In the morning, as they were paying their bill, the manager started to unburden himself, the hotel was almost empty at the height of the season, such a pity, Joaquim Sassa and José Anaiço, absorbed in their own affairs, had not even noticed the dearth of guests. And the grottoes, no one is visiting the grottoes, the man repeated in dismay, for no one to visit the grottoes was the worst of catastrophes. On the street there was great excitement, the children of Aracena had never seen so many starlings together, not even when they went bird-watching in the countryside, but the pleasure of this novelty did not last long, no sooner had the Portuguese Deux Chevaux started off in the direction of Seville than the starlings took flight as if the entire flock were a single bird, they circled twice as if saying farewell or trying to get their bearings, and disappeared behind the castle of the Knights Templar. The morning is clear, you could touch the sky with your fingers, and today promises to be less hot than yesterday, but the journey is long, From here to Granada it's more than three hundred kilometers, and then we have to go in search of Orce, let's hope we're successful and we find the man, these were the words of José Anaiço, that they might not find the man was a possibility that only now came to mind, And if we do find him, what are we going to say to him, now it was Joaquim Sassa's turn to be doubtful. In the merciless light of another day, or perhaps as a result of night's evil counsel, he suddenly found all these events absurd, could it be true that a continent had divided simply because someone had thrown a stone into the sea, a stone that exceeded the strength of the person who threw it, yet there was no shadow of doubt that a stone had been thrown and the continent had divided, and a Spaniard swears that he can feel the earth shaking, and a flock of demented birds is following a Portuguese schoolmaster everywhere, and who knows what else has happened or is about to happen throughout the peninsula, Let's talk about your stone and my starlings, and he will talk about the earth that shook or is still shaking, And then, Then, if there is nothing more to see, nothing to experience and learn, we'll go home, you to your job, I to my school, pretend it was all a dream, and by the way, you still haven't told me what you do for a living, I work in an office, I also work in an office, I'm a teacher. They both laughed, and Deux Chevaux, ever prudent, pointed out on the gauge that they were running out of gas. They refilled the tank at the first service station they encountered, but they had to wait more than half an hour, the line of vehicles stretched way down the road, everyone was anxious to have a full tank. They got back on the road, Joaquim Sassa was now seriously worried, There's a run on gas, very soon they'll close the pumps, and then what, We should have been prepared for this, gas is a sensitive commodity, unstable, whenever there's a crisis it's the first indication, some years ago there was a ban here on supplies of gas, I don't know if you can remember that or even heard about it, it was utter 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.