The Copyist began putting away his brushes and his palette. He covered the canvas with a cloth and asked me to help him move the easel over against the wall at the back. Right, he said, I think that’s enough for today, mustn’t overdo it, my client wants the painting by the end of August, I think I’ll make it, what do you reckon? I’d say you had loads of time, I replied, you’re pretty far advanced, it’s almost finished. Will you be much longer? asked the Copyist. No, I said, I don’t think so, I think I’ve seen enough of this painting, and besides today I’ve learned things about it I never would have suspected, it has a meaning for me now that it didn’t before. I’m off to Rua do Alecrim, said the Copyist. Great, I said, I’m going to Cais do Sodré to catch a train to Cascais, we can walk part of the way together.
VI
“SOMETHING YOU PUT on your finger and the noise the telephone makes?” said the Ticket Collector on the train, any idea what that could be? He sat down opposite me and showed me the crossword puzzle in the newspaper. How many letters? I asked. Four, he said. “Ring”, I said, it must be “ring”. Of course! exclaimed the Ticket Collector, I don’t know how I didn’t get that. Crossword clues are difficult to guess when they use puns or plays on words, I said, they’re always the hardest.
The carriage was empty, in fact the whole train appeared to be empty, I must have been the only passenger.
You’re lucky to have time to do the crossword, I remarked, there’s no one on the train today. Not now, he said, but on the way back it’ll be hell. We were passing through Oeiras and he pointed to the beach packed with people. You couldn’t see the sand, just bodies, like a huge flesh-coloured stain covering the beach. It’ll be hell, he said again, there’ll be all kinds of people, boys and girls, cripples, blind people, children and pregnant women, grandfathers and grandmothers, it’ll be hell on wheels. Well, I said, that’s Sundays for you, everyone goes to the beach. It wasn’t like that in my day, said the Ticket Collector, we used to spend our holidays in cool places, we’d go to the country, go back to our villages and visit our parents, that’s what we called going on holiday, not any more though, everyone wants to get a tan, they can’t get enough of the heat, they spend all day on the beach frying like sardines, and the sun’s not good for you, it causes skin cancer, there’ve been articles about it in the paper, but no one cares. The Ticket Collector sighed and looked out of the window. We were at Alto da Barra and you could see the Torre de Bugio standing in the middle of the sea. They drink Coca-Cola too, he added, they spend all day drinking that muck, I don’t know if you’ve ever been on Oeiras beach on a Monday morning, but it’s covered in caricas, like a carpet. Caricas? I said, I don’t know that word. Bottle tops, said the Ticket Collector, caricas, is what country people call them. Oh, I said. And then I asked: Do you mind if I smoke? there’s no one else on the train. Feel free he said, smoke all you want, I’ll have one too. We both reached for our packs of cigarettes at the same time, I offered him one of mine and he offered me one of his. What do you smoke? the Ticket Collector asked. Multi-filter, I replied, you can’t buy them in Portugal, they’re very mild, it’s almost like inhaling air, it says on the packet “activated charcoal filtration system”, which means it hasn’t got much nicotine or tar, but it’s still rubbish, smoking causes cancer too, it’s worse than the sun. Everything causes cancer, replied the Ticket Collector, even being unhappy, I had a friend who died of cancer because he wasn’t happy. He took the cigarette I was holding out to him and gave me one of his. I smoke Português Suave, he said, I used to smoke Definitivos, but you hardly ever see them now, people’s tastes have changed completely, even in cigarettes.