José Anaiço stayed in the hotel, quietly awaiting the return of his companions, he ordered some newspapers, the interviews made all the front pages, with explosive photographs and dramatic headlines, Enigmas Baffle Science, The Unknown Forces of the Mind, Three Dangerous Men, The Mystery of the Hotel Bragança, we had been careful not to specify the name, only to find it published by some treacherous reporter, Will Spaniard Be Extradited, question mark, We're up the creek, this is not a headline but what José Anaiço was thinking. The hours passed, it was time for lunch, there was no news from Joaquim Sassa and Pedro Orce, no message, have they been arrested, thrown into prison, a man loses his appetite with so much worry. I don't even know where they were taking them, how stupid of me, I should have asked, what am I talking about, what I should have done was to go with them, not to leave them on their own, calm down, even if I'd wanted to go, they probably wouldn't have let me, but how can one be sure, I was quite happy to be left out of it, cowardice is worse than an octopus, an octopus can both contract and extend its arms, cowardice can only contract them, from these barbed words one can see just how annoyed José Anaiço is with himself, but who can tell where sincerity lies in these contradictory impulses and thoughts, best to wait, as in all human affairs, to see what he does. First he went to ask the manager whether he had heard any revealing remark, an address, a name, but the manager replied, Nothing at all, sir, I didn't know any of the gentlemen, I was seeing them for the first time, and that goes for the two Portuguese as well as the Spaniard, suddenly José Anaiço had a brainstorm, and about time too, he would go to the Spanish Embassy, the Embassy is bound to know, and then he had another brainstorm, these never came singly, the press, of course, he need only turn to one of those newspapers and within a few hours all the sleuths of the press, be they named Argos, Holmes, or Lupin, would be on the trail of the missing men, necessity is indeed the mother of invention, in this instance the father is called caution, but not always.
Wasting no time, José Anaiço his room, he wanted to change his shoes, to brush his teeth, these mundane things are not incompatible with a resolute spirit, take Othello, for example, who, suffering from a cold and without realizing what he was doing foolishly blew his nose before killing Desdemona, who, for her part, notwithstanding her dark premonitions, didn't lock her door, for a wife never refuses her husband even if she knows he is about to strangle her, and besides, Desdemona knew very well that the room had only three walls, in the present drama, then, José Anaiço is cleaning his teeth with a brush and rinsing out his mouth when he hears someone knocking, Who is it, he asked, although it doesn't sound like his voice the tone is one of happy anticipation, Joaquim Sassa is about to reply, We're back, but the deception was short-lived, May I come in, so it's the maid after all, One moment, he finished rinsing his mouth, wiped his hands and his mouth, dried them, and finally went to open the door. The maid is an ordinary hotel employee with such individual traits and so specific a role that this is the only moment in her life in which she will impinge, ever so superficially, and only for as long as it takes to deliver a simple message, on the existence of José Anaiço and his companions, both present and future, this often happens in the theater and in life, we need someone to come and knock on our door simply to tell us, There is a lady downstairs looking for you, sir. José Anaiçows his surprise, Looking for me, and the maid adds what she had felt would be necessary, The lady asked to speak to all three of you, but since the others aren't here, She must be a journalist, José Anaiço thought to himself before replying, I'll be down at once. The maid retreated like someone withdrawing from life, we won't need her any more, there's no reason why we should remember her, even with indifference. She came, knocked on the door, delivered the message, which for some strange reason wasn't given over the telephone, perhaps life enjoys cultivating from time to time this sense of the dramatic, if the telephone rings we think, What can it be, if someone's knocking at our door, we think to ourselves, Who can it be, and we give voice to our thoughts by asking, Who is it. We already know it was the maid, but the question was only half answered, perhaps not even that, which is why José Anaiço can it be, he has forgotten his suspicion that it might be a journalist, some of our thoughts are like this, they serve only to occupy, as if in anticipation, the place of others that would give us much more food for thought.
The hotel is so very peaceful, like an empty house bereft of restless activity, but it has not yet aged from neglect, there are still the echoes of footsteps and voices, a sob, a whispered farewell that lingers on the upper landing. The manager is on his feet, behind the counter hangs the key rack with its pigeonholes for messages, letters, and bills, he is writing in a ledger or copying figures from it onto a sheet of paper, the type of man who keeps himself busy even when there is not much work to be done. As José Anaiço is about to pass, the manager nods in the direction of the lounge, and José Anaiço responds with an assenting nod, I know, is what this nod implies, while the first nod had implied at greater length, There's a lady in there waiting to see you. José Anaiço paused in the entrance to the lounge, he saw a young woman, a mere girl, it can only be her, there's no one else here, although she's sitting in the shadow of the awnings, she seems pleasant, even pretty, she is wearing blue slacks and a matching jacket, of a color that might be described as indigo, she might or might not be a journalist, but beside the chair where she is sitting there is a small suitcase and on her lap a stick that is neither large nor small, some where between a meter and a meter and a half in length, the effect is disturbing, a woman dressed like this doesn't walk through the city carrying a stick in her hand, She can't be a journalist, José Anaiço thought to himself, at least there's no sign of the tools of that profession, notebook, ballpoint pen, tape recorder.
The woman got up, and this gesture was unexpected, for according to the rules of etiquette and good manners a lady should remain seated until the gentleman approaches and greets her, at which point she will extend her hand or offer her cheek, and depending on her confidence, degree of intimacy, and disposition, the lady's smile will be polite, insinuating, conniving, or revealing. This gesture, or perhaps not so much the gesture as the fact that four paces away a woman is standing there waiting, or rather the sudden awareness that time has stopped and is waiting for someone to make the first move, it is true that the mirror is a witness, but of an earlier moment, in the mirror José Anaiço and the woman are still two strangers, not here on this side, for they are about to know each other, they know each other already. This gesture, this gesture that could not be fully described earlier, caused the wooden floor to sway like a deck, like the pitching of a ship amid the waves, slow and wide, an impression not to be confused with the familiar tremor that Pedro Orce talks about, José Anaiço's bones don't shake, but his whole body has felt, physically and materially felt, that the peninsula, so called out of habit and convenience, is really and truly sailing away, before he only knew it from external observation, now he can actually feel it. And so, because of this woman, unless it was because of the hour when she turned up, for most important of all is the hour when things happen, José Anaiço be merely the unwilling lure of demented birds. He goes up to her, and this movement, launched in the same direction, will be added to the force that pushes, without remedy or resistance, the raft of which the Hotel Bragança at this very moment is the figurehead and forecastle, if you'll forgive the blatant inappropriateness of these terms. Is that too much to ask.