Free The Lives of Things by José Saramago Page B

well. The Inspection Department can investigate both complaints, yours and mine. Here are the documents. On the date written there present yourself at the delivery office. But since you’re in category C, I assume the piano will be despatched to your home.
    —That is what normally happens when I order something. Good afternoon.
    —Good afternoon.
    Five hours later the civil servant found himself once more at the main door. He reached out for the handle, carefully calculated the distance and, with one quick movement, opened the door and passed safely to the other side. With a muffled noise that sounded like a sigh, the automatic door slowly began to close. It was almost night. Working the second shift had its advantages: a better class of people, quality products, and no need to get up early in the morning, although in the winter when the days are shorter it could be a little depressing to go from the brightly lit office into the twilight, much too early and also much too late. Yet, although the sky was unusually overcast, this was late summer and the short stroll was altogether pleasant.
    He did not live far away. There was not even enough time to see the city transform itself as dusk began to fall. In rain or sunshine, he covered the few hundred metres on foot because taxi-drivers were not allowed to pick up passengers for such short journeys and no buses passed along his street. Slipping his hands into his coat pockets, he could feel the letter he had forgotten to drop into the pillar-box when he set out for the Department of Special Requisitions (DSR) where he worked. He kept the letter in his hand in order not to forget a second time and used the underpass to get onto the other side of the avenue. Walking behind him were two women chatting to each other:
    —You can’t imagine the state my husband was in this morning. Not to mention myself, but he was the first to notice what had happened.
    —Honestly, it’s enough to drive anybody mad.
    —We both stood there in amazement, looking at each other.
    —But surely you must have heard something during the night?
    —Not a thing. Neither of us.
    The voices died away. The women had turned into an underpass going off in another direction. The civil servant mumbled to himself ‘What on earth were they talking about?’ And this made him think about the day’s events, about his right hand clutching the letter inside his pocket, the deep scratch the door had inflicted, about the settee suffering from fever, his watch which went on ticking with the hands still indicating there were ten minutes to go before he was due to start work. And the note tightly wrapped round one finger. There had always been such incidents, nothing too serious, simply inconvenient, but too frequent for his liking. Despite the efforts of the Government (G), it had proved impossible to avoid them, and no one seriously expected otherwise. There was a time when the manufacturing process had reached such a degree of perfection and faults became so rare that the Government (G) decided there was little point in depriving members of the public (especially those in categories A, B and C) of their civil right and pleasure to lodge complaints: a wise decision which could only benefit the manufacturing industry. So factories were instructed to lower their standards. This decision, however, could not be blamed for the poor quality of the goods which had been flooding the market for the last two months. As someone employed in the Department of Special Requisitions (DSR), he was in a good position to know that the Government had revoked these instructions more than a month ago and imposed new standards to ensure maximum quality. Without achieving any results. As far as he could remember, this incident with the door was certainly the most disturbing. It was not a case of some object or other, or some simple utensil, or even a piece of furniture, such as the settee in the entrance-hall, but of an item of imposing