The Portuguese Architect
READING THEM WAS like looking through a keyhole of noble ancestry. The look didn’t ask if it was good or bad. The look was greedy. An enigmatic character appeared first of all. Who was this Most Worthy?
Most Worthy Judge
My dear Dr Azevedo da Acosta,
That’s how well they know how to address each other, the heights they reach. Imagine Polka receiving a letter like that: Most Worthy Gravedigger. He’d think it had come from another world. If that’s the way you start, you’re not going to write just anything. You’ve something important to say.
I would be greatly interested to know your opinion concerning the work of the Portuguese architect António Soares, based in the city of Porto. I have the impression he is considered a bright hope on account of his boat-houses and is held in high regard in foreign countries, in particular France and Holland. I would ask for the greatest discretion in the likely event that you should have to request additional information. People of importance to me in the field of construction are studying the possibility of hiring his services, but I wish this initial exploration to be confidential and not to come to the said architect’s notice. Before contacting him and taking a false step, my friends wish to count on the opinion of someone of sound judgement and exceptional meticulousness, knowing that he will be duly rewarded for his efforts. At your service as always.
May God keep you for many years.
And there, at the end, was the typed name: Ricardo Samos Pego-Mandivi.
This is what sets hairs and letters apart. Hairs go in search of each other and re-form locks in the river. But letters in the water quickly disintegrate. Though it’s true there are some letters that, if you dry them out, go stiff like survivors who’ve been put in plaster casts. These letters resist and help each other out. They snuggle up close, hold on to each other, to avoid being gnawed, pulped, consumed, burnt. Drowned. These two were saved. They’re whole and alive. One protecting the other. The one signed by the judge Ricardo Samos is obviously a carbon copy. Protected by the other, enclosed in a folded envelope. On the stamp, there’s a shield with a white horse and a rider dressed in red clothes and a headscarf. It says Correios de Portugal. And, under the horse, Timor 1963.
If they came to me, it must be for a reason. Shame not to read them.
Most Excellent Judge
My dear Dr Samos,
Having received your letter, I quickly sought out information concerning the architect António Soares. The investigation was carried out by people I trust implicitly and obviously I looked into the matter myself. The results could not be more surprising. We found no evidence of an architect by that name and I am in a position to affirm that there is not one in the whole of Porto. There must have been some kind of mistake. All our enquiries came back negative, in the sense that we received no news of such a person either as an architect or in any other notable profession. We could only find a baker of that name, a man with the habits of his trade, who sleeps during the day and works at night, and who eventually was kind enough to confess that he had travelled to Galicia only once and had no plans to return. When asked why, he simply said that he considered it, and the whole of Spain, ‘dangerous land’. He went no further, since he spoke very little and was distrustful when silent. I only mention this episode because of its interest concerning the prejudices people hold.
With God, for many years.
P.S. How are your studies on the links between the thought of José Donoso Cortés and our own António Sardinha?
P.P.S. I remember now a strange detail. The architect’s name is the same as that of a sculptor from Porto in the last century, António Soares dos Reis, who happened to receive first prize at the 1881 Exhibition in Madrid for his work The Exile.
She’d give them back to the judge. They were his. They were in a zipped pocket in his green hunting trousers. It wasn’t usual to find something like that. She always went through the clothes. In case there was a banknote or something. She only ever found the odd coin, which are like nits. Who knows what the letters were doing in there, his carbon copy and the Porto judge’s reply? To start with, she wondered what this Most Worthy would be like. But then she directed all her attention towards the Portuguese architect and his boat-houses. Until then, these letters had only been read by the two friends. If they’d fallen into her hands, there must be a reason. She shared the secret about that invisible man, the Portuguese architect. She stared at the film of water. Who was this António Soares?