A Small Death in Lisbon

I didn't get off at Alcantara. I could see from the train that the scene at the back of the Wharf One was now empty. It was lunchtime by the time I got to Cais do Sodre. I started to cross the tram rails on Avenida 24 de Julho to get to a restaurant near the market. One of the new trams, a humming electronic slug of effervescing 7Up, approached. The crowd of people around me waiting to cross seemed to contract and pop open. Somebody thumped me in the back. I fell off the pavement, my ankle went, my knee connected with the tarmac. My fingers slid into the silver strips of track scintillating to the approach of the tram. Life slowed. Sound crunched. Faces slipped across my retina. A dark, curly-haired girl, wire-hanger thin, reached out a hand, not to help but to point. A thick-set man, with vast belly and wrestler's forearms stepped forward and reared back. The woman's face next to his had pencilled-in eyebrows which disappeared into the creases of her forehead, her mouth opened and a strange and distant ululation came out. The strip of film in my head jumped out of its sprockets. Light and dark colour ripped through the gate. My muscles unfroze. I rolled. Metal squealed. Hydraulics hissed. My fingers slipped out of the silver rail. A steel wheel screeched through.

I was looking up at the sky, through the criss-cross cables overhead, and everything beyond seemed suddenly simple after life's complexities. Faces canopied over me. Someone held my hand, which was cold, and rubbed it warm. I must have been smiling like an idiot because everybody was smiling back. Today had not been the day. I sat up. People helped me to my feet. A woman brushed me down. Someone told me I'd been lucky. I said I knew it and laughed and they all laughed with me, as if they'd escaped it too. I found myself swept into a restaurant with three or four people and they sat down with me at a long table and told all the other lunch people that I'd nearly been the slice of lemon under the 7Up tram.

After lunch, still dazed, I decided that underground travel was safer. I stood well back from the tracks in the Cais do Sodre Metro. The train travelled as far as Anjos and I climbed the stairs on to Avenida Almirante Reis. It was there that I discovered that the day had edged up to 35°. It was there that I felt strange and cold inside. It was there that I threw up my lunch and that I realized that I wasn't as safe as I had been before.

Chapter XXXIII

20th April Banco de Oceano e Rocha, sao Paulo, Brazil The rain had stopped for the afternoon. The lights flickered back on. Manuel Abrantes stroked his bald head and tried the phone. It was working again. He pressed a button for an outside line and dialled a number. He sat back and loosened his tie another inch and shouted for his secretary.

'The air conditioning's not working,' he said to the twenty-five-year-old university graduate.

'It was…'

'But it isn't now because when the power goes off… Wait,' he said into the telephone.

'I'll get the tecnico.'

'It's the one thing that never comes back on.'

'I'll get the tecnico.'

'Good,' he said and waved her away. 'Roberto?'

'Yes, Senhor Manuel,' said the voice.

'What have you got for me?'

Silence.

'Are you still there, Roberto?'

'Yes, but Senhor Manuel, you didn't like what I sent you the last time?'

'She was fine.'

'Then I'll send you the same.'

A knock on the door.

'Wait. I'm busy. There's an engineer coming to see me. Come in! Hold the line.'

The tecnico came in. Manuel pointed him to the air conditioner.

'Just hold the line for a moment,' he said, and turned to the tecnico. 'It never comes back on after a power cut. Do you think it's…?'

'It's the fuse,' said the tecnico, impassive, unimpressionable. 'When the power comes back on it surges and blows the fuse.'

The tecnico put in a new fuse and left. The condenser kicked in and cold air blasted down Manuel's back.

'Roberto?'

'I'll send her again.'

'Don't you have anyone who owns a business suit?'

'A man?' asked Roberto, confused.

A woman, you idiot. Women have suits, too. I don't want any more of these girls in bright orange and lime green mini-skirts with their backsides hanging out… I'm running a serious business here.'

'Oh, OK.'

'Buy her a suit. I'll give her the money.'

'You want her to come up now?'

'I'm just getting the room to cool down after the power cut.'

'So, when?'

'Twenty minutes.'

Manuel put the phone down. It rang immediately.

'Your brother, Pedro, on line two,' said his secretary.

He pressed the button… loving the technology.

'Are you all right?' asked Pedro.

'Just busy, that's all. The power failures don't help.'

'Father's sick again.'

'What's the matter this time?'

'You know they took that piece of his bowel out.'

'The tumour?'

'The tumour. They think he's got an infection now and that it… you know, the cancer has gone into the lymph.'

'What does that mean?'

'I think you should come back.'

Silence, as Manuel took cold sweat off his forehead.

'Is it that serious?'

'I wouldn't have said that you should come back.'

'You know my problem.'

'You'll be flying to Switzerland.'

'But it's Europe… you know what it's like.'

'What do you mean?'

'Even if Franco died tomorrow I wouldn't be happy flying into Spain.'

'You're not a Nazi war…'

'Be careful what you say. You know whose birthday they still celebrate out here. And we read about what's going on over your side all the time.'

'What are you talking about now?'

'Hitler's birthday.'

'But what's going on over my side?'

'The communists.'

Silence, just a hiss from Lausanne.

'They nationalized the banks in Portugal,' said Pedro.

'You see,' said Manuel. 'That's the end of us.'

'So, you're not coming.'

'I don't want to risk it yet. Can I speak to him?'

'He's on a ventilator.'

'You didn't tell me that. You said it was his bowel and the lymph. He can't breathe now?'

'I didn't want to worry you. His breathing packed up.'

'How long has he got?'

'It could be any time. The doctors won't say.'

'I'll try and get a flight now.'

He put the phone down and it rang again instantly. He shook his head and rolled his eyes. 'Busy, busy,' he said to himself.

'There's a Senhora Xuxa Mendes here to see you,' said his secretary, and without backing off on the derision, 'she says it's business.'

A tarted-up mulatto in a cheap light blue suit came in. She was carrying a plastic briefcase which looked even cheaper than her face. Her unmanageable bottom was already splitting the seam down the middle of the short skirt.

'Senhora Mendes,' he said, taking the girl's hand and closing the door on the graduate. 'What's in the briefcase?'

The girl was confused but opened it up, took out the wad of newspaper and handed it to him. He pushed his chair back and told her to come round. He stood, hitched his trousers and ordered her to bend over the desk.

Chapter XXXIV

Tuesday, 16th June 1998, Avenida Almirante Reis, outside Anjos Metro, Lisbon

I fell into a cafe close to the Metro station. If it had a name it didn't snag in my brain. If there were people in it, they were faceless. I went to the toilets at the back and washed my face. I asked for a glass of wat er and swilled my mouth out. I ordered a cup of tea with two tea bags. Catherine of Braganca might have introduced tea to the British but her legacy in Portugal is Lipton's. I sugared the tea heavily and drank it. I ordered something stronger and sat down, sweating again, the breathing not going well, unsynchronized. The barman kept an eye on me. The TV was encouraging us all to go to Madeira.