The Cave Read Online Free PDF Page B

working, if only I was lucky enough to do the same, Don't talk about dying, Pa, The only time we can talk about death is while we're alive, not afterward. Cipriano Algor poured himself a little more wine, got up, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as if the rules governing good table manners no longer applied once you had left the table, and said, I've got to go and break up some clay, we're running out. He was just about to leave when his daughter called to him, Pa, I've just had an idea, An idea, Yes, I'll phone marçal and ask him to talk to the head of the buying department and try to find out what the Center's plans are, whether the reduction in demand is just a temporary thing or if it's here to stay, you know how well his bosses think of marçal, So he says, If he says so, it's because they do, retorted Marta impatiently, adding, But if you don't want me to, I won't phone, No, go on, phone him, it's a good idea, besides, it's the only one we've got at the moment, although I doubt that a head of department at the Center will be prepared, just like that, to discuss his plans with a second-rank security guard, I know them better than he does, you don't have to work there to know what kind of stuff these people are made of, they're so full of themselves, besides, a department head is just another minion carrying out orders from above, he might even try to fool us with explanations that aren't true, just to make out how important he is. Marta listened to this whole long tirade, but did not respond. If, as seemed obvious, her father was intent on having the last word, she wasn't going to rob him of that pleasure. When he went out, she thought only, I must try to be
more understanding, I must put myself in his place and imagine what it must be like suddenly to have no work, and to have to leave his home, his pottery, his kiln, his life. She repeated the last words out loud, His life, and her eyes immediately filled with tears, she had put herself in her father's place and was suffering what he was suffering. She glanced around her and noticed for the first time how everything looked as if it were covered in clay, not with clay dust, but with the color of clay, with all the many colors of the clay dug from the clay pit, a color left behind by three generations who, every day, had stained their hands with the dust and water of the clay, and she glanced outside too, at the bright ash gray of the kiln, the last, fading warmth that lingered from when they had last emptied it, like a house abandoned by its owners, but which waits patiently, and tomorrow, if all this is not over with once and for all, there will again be the first flame from the wood, the first hot breath of air that encircles the dry clay like a caress, and then, very gradually, the slight tremor in the air, the rapidly increasing glow, the dawning splendor, the dazzling irruption into flames. I will never see that again when we leave here, said Marta, and her heart contracted as if she were saying good-bye to the person she loved most in the world, although at that moment she could not have said which of them she meant, whether her dead mother, her suffering father, or even her husband, yes, it must be her husband, that would be logical, since she is his wife. Then she heard the dull thud of the mallet breaking up the clay, as if the sound were rising up from beneath the floor, but those blows sounded different today, perhaps because they were driven not by the simple need to work, but by impotent rage at losing that work. I'm going to phone marçal, muttered Marta to herself, if I carry on thinking like this, I'll end up as sad as Pa. She left the kitchen and went into her father's bedroom. There, on top of the small table on which Cipriano Algor kept an account of income and expenses, was an antiquated-looking telephone. She dialed one of the numbers for the switchboard and asked to be put through to security. Almost at the same moment, a man's