The colonel nodded, his forehead creased, but smiling at his son.
'You stay here now and look after your mother,' he said, pulling his daughter to him, kissing her on the head. 'Nobody leaves this apartment until I say it's safe.'
'You'll see,' said Ze, teasing his father now, 'they're dancing in the streets out there.'
'My son… the communist,' said the colonel, shaking his head.
At 12.30 p.m. the guard came in to Felsen's cell in the Caxias prison with a tray of food. He put it on the bed. The noise from the rest of the prison, which had been going on all morning, had not abated. The politicals were into their fiftieth rendition of the anti-fascist song Venham mats cinco and the guards had given up trying to quieten them long ago.
'Anything I should know about?' asked Felsen.
'Nothing that will affect you,' said the guard.
'I was just commenting on the different atmosphere in the prison today.'
'Some of our friends might be leaving soon.'
'Oh yes? Why's that?'
'Just a small revolution… like I said, nothing that will affect you.'
'Thank you,' said Felsen.
Nada,' said the guard.
Dr Aquilino Oliveira should have been happy following the nurse down the corridor of the maternity wing of the'sao Jose hospital. He'd been told that his fourth child was a boy, weighing 3.7 kilos and was completely healthy. The nurse was gabbling at him over her shoulder as she batted her way through the swing doors. She didn't seem to need any response from him to keep herself going.
'…four dead and three wounded. That's what they said down in the Urgencia, only four. They can't believe it. I can't believe it. There are tanks in the Terreiro do Paco and the Largo do Carmo but they're not doing anything. They're just there. The soldiers have rounded up the PIDE agents but not to punish them… you know… just for their own protection. The soldiers. I haven't seen it… but they say the soldiers have put red carnations down their rifles so that the people will know, you see… they'll know that they're not there to shoot anyone. They're there to liberate them. Only four people dead on a night like this with tanks in the streets and battleships in the Tagus. Don't you think that's just incredible, Senhor Doutor? I think that's incredible. You know, Senhor Doutor, I never thought I'd be able to say this in my lifetime but I'm proud. I'm proud to be Portuguese.'
She flung open the door to the maternity ward and led the lawyer in. His wife was screened off in the corner of the room with six other women in it. His shoes skidded on the highly polished floor and he had to grab a bed to save himself from falling.
'Watch yourself,' said the nurse, whose rubber soles squeaked on the floor.
He went behind the screen. His wife was sitting up, concerned.
'Are you all right?' she asked.
'He nearly slipped over on the floor,' said the nurse. 'I've told them before not to polish it so much. It's all right for us, but anybody coming in here with leather soles… they're in trouble. Do you know what you're going to call him?'
'Not yet.'
'Well, you won't have much trouble remembering his birthday.'
Ana Rosa Pinto sat with her mother in the kitchen. They were holding hands and crying, looking down at the three-year-old Carlos, who was playing on the floor. She'd started off the day annoyed because they wouldn't let her board the ferry to cross the river to get to her doctor's appointment for Carlos in Lisbon. Then they'd pointed out the Almirante Gago Coutinho with her guns up and she'd gone home scared but excited to wait for news.
In the late morning her father had gone down to the first open meeting of the Partido Comunista Portugues on the docks in Cacilhas on the south bank of the Tagus. Ana Rosa and her mother were hoping he'd bring back news of the release of political prisoners from the Caxias prison.
Little Carlos had never seen his father. His mother had been six months pregnant when the GNR had broken up a union meeting at the shipyard and his father had been taken across the river for questioning. Just two weeks before Carlos was born Ana Rosa had heard that her husband had been taken to Caxias to serve a five-year prison sentence for illegal political activities.
They waited all day, until dusk had just changed to night, when there was a knock at the door of the apartment. Ana Rosa eased her hand out of her mother's and answered it. A boy handed her a message and ran off without waiting. She read it and the tears which had gradually dried through the day sprang back.
'What is it?' asked her mother.
'They've taken the boat across. There's a crowd gathering in the Rossio. They're going to march on Caxias prison tonight.'
At 3.00 a.m. on 26th April the door to Antonio Borrego's cell in the Caxias prison was unlocked. The guard didn't say anything, he didn't even open the door, he just moved on to the next cell and opened that one. Antonio looked out down the dimly-lit corridor. Other men were doing the same. There was cheering and embracing. Antonio squeezed past them and trotted down the three flights of stairs into the courtyard. There were another fifty-odd men down there all looking expectantly at the gates to the prison. He jogged across the courtyard to the hospital block and ran up the stairs two at a time. He had to catch his breath at the top, more out of condition than he'd thought.
There were three men in the ward. Two of them were sleeping and the third, Alexandre Saraiva, was sitting on the edge of his bed, trying to get his socks on but only managing to cough. Antonio took the socks and fitted them on his friend's feet. He found the man's boots and pushed Alex's feet into them and tied them up. Alex spat into the metal dish on the bedside and inspected the phlegm.
'Still bloody,' he said, to no one in particular. 'Have you come to take me home?'
'I have,' said Antonio.
'Who's paying the cab fare?'
'We're walking.'
'I don't know whether I'll make it. It's damned nearly killed me to get dressed.'
'You'll make it.'
Antonio wrapped Alex's arm over the back of his neck. They stood. Antonio hooked his thumb into the waistband of Alex's trousers. They went down the stairs into the courtyard. There were more than a hundred people now. The sound of a crowd clamouring on the other side of the gates reached them. Names were shouted out and lost in the noise. Antonio leaned Alex up against the wall and held him there lightly with a hand on his chest.
The gates opened to pandemonium from the huge crowd, who'd come up from Lisbon on free train rides. The prisoners came out blinking into the flashlights of cameras, searching for faces that meant something to them.
Antonio waited for the courtyard to empty before he moved Alex out into a freedom neither of them had known for nine years. They skirted the euphoria and walked down the hill into Caxias. They didn't have to go far. They got a free ride to Paco de Arcos from a tearful cab driver.
The cab dropped them off at Alex's bar next to the public gardens. The tiled sign set into the wall was still there. It showed a blue line-drawing of the Bugio lighthouse and underneath O Farol. Alex tapped the lighted window of the house next door. A woman sounding old and tired answered.
It's me, Dona Emilia,' said Alex.
The toothless woman, dressed in black, opened the door and peered out into the night, her eyes not so good any more. She saw Alex and grabbed his face with bent and twisted fingers and kissed him on both cheeks, harder and harder as if she was kissing him back into existence. She produced the key to the bar from her front apron as if she'd been prepared nine years for this moment. She brought them candles from her kitchen.
Alex unlocked the bar door and Antonio sat him down on a metal chair next to a wooden table in the dark. They lit the candles.
'There should be something behind the bar,' said Alex. 'Nice and mature by now.'
Antonio found a bottle of aguardente and a couple of dusty glasses which he blew into. He poured out the pale yellow liquid. They drank to freedom and the alcohol set off a coughing fit in Alex.