The arroz de cabidela had a most refined taste and a repugnant appearance. It was served on a large earthenware tray with a wooden spoon. The boiled blood and wine made a dense, brown sauce. There were marble tables between a row of barrels and a zinc counter dominated by the corpulence of Senhor Tavares. At midnight an emaciated-looking fado singer arrived, accompanied by an elderly violist and a distinguished gentleman with a guitar. She sang ancient, faint, languid fados. Senhor Tavares turned out the lights and lit the candles on the tables. The transient patrons had already gone, only the devotees remained. The place was filled with smoke. At every finale there was discreet, solemn applause. Some voices requested Amor é agua que corre, Travessa da Palma. Maria do Carmo was pale, or maybe it was the candlelight, or maybe she had drunk too much. She had a fixed stare and her pupils were huge. The candlelight danced in them. She seemed to be more beautiful than usual. She lit a cigarette abstractedly, lost in revery. “Enough, now,” she said. “Let’s go. Saudade, yes. but in small doses — it’s better not to get indigestion.”
The Alfama was semi-deserted. We stopped there on the belvedere of Santa Luzia. There was a pergola thick with bougainvillea. Leaning on the parapet we looked at the lights along the Tagus. Maria do Carmo recited Lisbon Revisited, by Alvaro de Campos, a poem in which a person is at the same window as in his childhood, but it isn’t the same person anymore and it isn’t the same window anymore, because time changes men and things. We began to go down toward my hotel. She took my hand and said to me, “Listen — who knows what we are? Who knows where we are? Who knows why we are here? Listen — we live this life as if it were a dream. Tonight, for instance, you must think you are me and that you’re squeezing yourself between your arms. I think that I’m you squeezing me between my arms.”
“Anyway, it isn’t that I love Góngora so much,” said my traveling companion. “I don’t understand him — you need the vocabulary — and then I’m not cut out for poetry. I prefer the short story — Blasco Ibañez, for instance. Do you like Blasco Ibañez?” “Moderately,” I said. “Perhaps it’s not my genre.” “Then who? Pérez Galdós, maybe?” “Yes, now we’re getting somewhere,” I said.
The waiter served us coffee on a shining tray. He had a sleepy face. “I’m making an exception for you gentlemen because the dining car isn’t open now. It comes to twenty crowns.” “In spite of everything, the Portuguese are kind,” said my traveling companion. “Why in spite of everything?” I said. “They’re kind. Let’s be fair.”
We were approaching a zone of shipyards and factories. It was not yet full day. “They choose to be on Greenwich time, but in reality, according to the sun, it’s an hour earlier. And then, have you ever seen a Portuguese bullfight? They don’t kill the bull, you know. The bullfighter dances around him for half an hour and then at the end makes a symbolic gesture with his arm — a thrust like a sword. A herd of cows comes in with cowbells, the bull troops back into the herd, and everyone goes home—olé. If this seems like a bullfight to you …” “Maybe it’s more elegant,” I said. “To kill someone it isn’t always necessary to murder him. Sometimes a gesture is enough.” “Oh, come on!” he said. “The duel between man and bull has to be mortal, otherwise it’s a ridiculous pantomime.” “But all ceremonies are stylizations,” I objected. “This one keeps only the wrappings, the gesture. It seems more noble to me, more abstract.” My traveling companion appeared to reflect. “Could be,” he said without conviction. “Oh, look, we’re at the outskirts of Lisbon. We’d better go back to the compartment and get our luggage ready.”
“It’s a rather delicate thing. We didn’t have the courage to ask you about it … We’ve discussed it … It can present some inconveniences, too … I mean the most that can happen to you is that they refuse your entrance visa at the border … Listen, we don’t want to keep you in the dark about anything … At first, Jorge was the courier. He was the only one who had a passport from the UN … Do you know what time it is in Winnipeg? He teaches in a Canadian university. We still haven’t found a way to replace him.”
Nine o’clock in the evening on a bench in Piazza Navona in Rome. I looked at him. Perhaps my expression was perplexed. I didn’t know what to think. I felt vaguely embarrassed, at a disadvantage, like talking with a person you’ve known for ages and one day he reveals to you something you didn’t expect.
“We don’t want to involve you … It would be a special thing … Believe me, we feel terrible about having to ask you … Even if you say no to us, our friendship for you won’t change, you know … So … Think aboul it… We don’t ask for an answer right now. We just want you to know that you’d be a great help to us.”
We went to have an ice cream at a café in the piazza. We chose a little table outdoors, far away from the people. Francisco had a tense expression. Perhaps he, too, was embarrassed. He knew that this was something that even if I refused, I would never be able to forget. Maybe he was really afraid of my possible remorse. We ordered two water ices at the cafe. We remained silent a long time, slowly sipping the ices. “There are five letters,” said Francisco, “and a sum of money for the families of the two writers who were arrested last month.” He told me their names and waited for me to speak. I said nothing and drank a little water. “I believe it’s not necessary to tell you that it’s clean money — it’s the demonstration of solidarity from three democratic Italian parties we asked for help. If you consider it relevant, I can have you meet with the representatives of the parties in question. They will confirm it to you.” I said that I did not consider it relevant.
We paid, we took a walk around the piazza. “All right,” I said. “I’ll leave in three days.” He gave me an energetic, rapid handshake, thanked me. “Now, remember what you have to do. It’s a very simple thing.” He wrote a number on a ticket. “When you arrive in Lisbon, telephone this number. If a man’s voice answers, hang up. Keep on trying until a woman’s voice answers. Then you must say, ‘A new translation of Fernando Pessoa has come out.’ She will tell you how to meet. She’s the one who keeps the exiles who live in Rome in touch with their families at home.”
It had been very easy, as Francisco had predicted. At the border they did not even have me open my suitcase. At Lisbon I stayed in the center behind the Trinity Theatre, two steps from the national library, in a small hotel where there was a cordial, talkative Algarvite concierge. At my first attempt at telephoning, a woman’s voice had answered me, and I had said, “Good evening. I’m an Italian. I’d like to let you know that a new translation of Fernando Pessoa has come out. Perhaps it would interest you.” “Let’s meet in half an hour at Bertrand’s Bookstore,” she had replied, “in the periodical room. I’m in my forties, I have dark hair, and I’m wearing a yellow dress.”