As in a recurring dream, José Anaiçome calculations, he had asked for paper and pencil, this time he would not say how many days Gibraltar would take to pass in front of the battlements of the Serra de Gàdor, that had been a time of festivity, now it was necessary to ascertain how many days lay ahead before the Cabo da Roca crashed into the island of Terceira, one shudders just to think of that horrendous moment, once the island of'Sào Miguel has been buried like a spike in the soft earth of Alentejo, truly, truly I tell you, nothing but evil can come of it. Having made his calculations, José Anaiço tells them, So far we've gone about three hundred kilometers, all right, since the distance from Lisbon to the Azores is more or less twelve hundred kilometers, we still have nine hundred to go, and nine hundred kilometers at fifty kilometers a day, rounding off, makes eighteen days, in other words, we'll reach the Azores around the twentieth of September, perhaps even sooner. The blandness of this conclusion was a forced and bitter irony that did not bring a smile to anyone's face. Maria Guavaira reminded him, But we're here in Galicia, beyond its reach, You can't rely on it, Pedro Orce cautioned her, it only needs to change course ever so slightly toward the south, and we are the ones who will take the full impact, the best thing, the only thing to do is to escape inland, as the announcer said, and even then we can't be sure, Abandon our homes and lands, If what they're telling us should happen, there won't be any homes or lands. They were seated, for the time being they could remain seated, they could remain seated for eighteen days. The fire was burning in the hearth, the bread was on the table, there were other things too, milk, coffee, cheese, but it was the bread that attracted everyone's gaze, half of a large loaf, thick-crusted and firm in the center, the taste lingered on their palates, even after a while, but their tongues recognized the crumbs that were left after chewing, when the last day of the universe comes we shall look at the last ant with the painful silence of someone who knows he is taking his leave for the last time.
Joaquim Sassa said, My vacation ends today, if I'm going to stick to the rules, I should be back at work in Oporto tomorrow morning, these objective words were only the beginning of a statement, I don't know if we'll keep on together, that's a matter we must decide here, but speaking for myself, I want to be with Maria, if she agrees and wants to be with me. And so that everything should be said at the right moment and each piece fitted into the right order and sequence, they waited for Maria Guavaira, who had been summoned, to speak first, and she said, That's what I want too, without needless elaboration. José Anaiço said, If the peninsula should collide with the Azores, the schools won't reopen all that soon, in fact they might never open again, I'll stay with Joana and with the rest of you if she decides to remain. Now it was the turn of Joana Carda, who like Maria Guavaira said no more than five words, women have so little to say for themselves, I'm staying with you, these were her words, for she was looking straight at him, but everyone understood the rest. Last of all, because someone had to be last, Pedro Orce said, Wherever we go, I go, and this phrase, which obviously offends grammar and logic with its excess of logic and very likely of grammar too, must stand uncorrected, exactly as it was said, perhaps there is some special meaning that will justify and absolve it, anyone who knows anything about words knows to expect anything from them. Dogs, as everyone knows, do not speak, and this one cannot even give a loud bark as a sign of jovial approval.
That same day they walked all the way to the coast to see the stone ship. Maria Guavaira was wearing her brightest clothes, she had not even bothered to iron them, the wind and light would smooth out the creases after their years in darkest limbo. Pedro Orce, their experienced guide, led the way, although he trusts the dog's instinct and scent more than his own eyes, to which everything in the light of day looks like a different route. While we cannot expect any guidance from Maria Guavaira, her route is another one, everything with her is an excuse to hold hands with Joaquim Sassa and draw near to him until their bodies touch long enough to steal a kiss, a variable time span as we know, which explains why they do not so much accompany the expedition as trail behind it. José Anaiço and Joana Carda are more discreet, they have been together for a week now, have sated their initial hunger, slaked their initial thirst, desire comes to them when they summon it, and if truth be told, they do so frequently. Even last night, when Pedro Orce saw that splendor in the distance, it was not just Joaquim Sassa and Maria Guavaira who were making love, there could have been ten couples sleeping in that house and all making love at the same time.
The clouds come from the sea and speed away in haste, they form and disintegrate rapidly as if each moment lasted no more than a second or a fraction of a second, and all the gestures of these men and women are, or appear to be, at the very same instant, both slow and swift, one would think the world had gone crazy, if one could ever fully grasp the meaning of such an impoverished but popular expression. They reach the top of the hill and the sea is tempestuous. Pedro Orce scarcely recognizes these places, the enormous rounded boulders that are piled up, the almost invisible ox cart descending in stages, how could he have taken this route by night, even with the dog's guidance, this is a feat he simply cannot explain. He tries to make out the stone ship but it is nowhere to be seen, now it is Maria Guavaira who leads the group, and none too soon, because she knows these paths better than anyone. They arrive at the spot, and Pedro Orce is about to open his mouth to say, It's not here, but he has stopped himself in time, he has before his eyes the stone of the helm with its broken tiller, the great mast looks even thicker in daylight, and as for the ship, this is where he finds the greatest change, as if the erosion of which he had been speaking that morning had accomplished in one night the work of thousands of years, where is it, I cannot see it, the tall pointed prow, the concave belly, the stone certainly has the broad outline of a ship, but not even the most glorious of saints could work the miracle of keeping such a precarious vessel afloat without bulwarks, there is no doubt that it is made of stone, but somehow it seems to have lost the form of a ship, after all, a bird only flies because it looks like a bird, Pedro Orce thinks to himself, but now Maria Guavaira is saying, This is the ship in which a saint came from the east, here you can still see the marks of his feet when he disembarked and started walking inland, the marks were some cavities in the rock, now tiny puddles that the ebb and flow of the waves at high tide would constantly renew, clearly any doubts are legitimate, but things depend on what one accepts or refutes, if a saint came from afar sailing on a slab of stone, then why should it not be possible for his fiery feet to have marked the rock up to the present day. Pedro Orce has no choice but to accept and confirm, but keeps to himself the memory of another ship that he alone saw on a night almost without stars yet inhabited by sublime visions.