I retain a strong and moving image of him. It was about two weeks before his death and we had gone down to Cascais for a picnic and a bathe in the sea. It was late afternoon and the beach was deserted. John stripped off his clothes and ran naked into the sea, diving easily through the breakers. I could not — and still cannot — swim and so sat on the running board of our motorcar, smoked a cigarette and watched him splash about in the waves. Eventually he emerged and strode up the beach toward me, flicking water from his hands.
“Freezing,” he shouted from some ways off. “Freezing freezing freezing!”
This is how I remember him, confident, ruddy and noisy in his nakedness. The wide slab of his chest, his fair, open face, his thick legs darkened with slick wet hair, his balls clenched and shrunken with cold, his penis a tense white stub. I laughed at him and pointed at his groin. Such a tiny thing, I said, laughing. He stood there, hands on his hips, trying to look offended. Big enough for you, Lily Campendonc, he said, grinning, you wait and see.
Two weeks and two days later his heart failed him and he was dead and gone forever.
Why do I tell you so much about John Campendonc? It will help explain Boscán, I think.
The cork tree has in no wise escaped from disease and infections; on the contrary it has its full allotted share, which worries the growers more than the acquiring of a perfect texture. Unless great care is taken, all manner of ailments can corrupt and weaken fine cork and prevent this remarkable material from attaining its full potential.
Consul Schenk’s Report
Agostinho da Silva Boscán kissed me one week after he had resigned. He worked out his month’s notice scrupulously and dutifully. Every evening he came to my office to report on the day’s business and present me with letters and contracts to sign. On this particular evening, I recall, we were going over a letter of complaint to a cork grower in Elvas — hitherto reliable — whose cork planks proved to be riddled with ant borings. Boscán was standing beside my chair, his right hand flat on the leather top of the desk, his forefinger slid beneath the upper page of the letter, ready to turn it over. Slowly and steadily he translated the Portuguese into his impeccable English. It was hot and I was a little tired. I found I was not concentrating on the sonorous monotone of his voice. My gaze left the page of the letter and focused on his hand, flat on the desktop. I saw its even, pale brownness, like milky coffee, the dark glossy hairs that grew beneath the knuckles and the first joint of the fingers, the nacreous shine of his fingernails … the pithy edge of his white cuffs, beginning to fray … I could smell a faint musky perfume coming off him — farinaceous and sweet — from the lotion he put on his hair, and mingled with that his own scent, sour and salt … His suit was too heavy, his only suit, a worn shiny blue serge, made in Madrid, he told me, too hot for a summer night in Lisbon … Quietly, I inhaled and my nostrils filled with the smell of Agostinho Boscán.
“If you say you love me, Senhor Boscán,” I interrupted him, “why don’t you do something about it?”
“I am,” he said after a pause. “I’m leaving.”
He straightened. I did not turn, keeping my eyes on the letter.
“Isn’t that a bit cowardly?”
“Well,” he said. “It’s true. I would like to be a bit less … cowardly. But there is a problem. Rather a serious problem.”
Now I turned. “What’s that?”
“I think I’m going mad.”
My name is Lily Campendonc, née Jordan. I was born in Cairo in 1908. In 1914 my family moved to London. I was educated there and in Paris and Geneva. I married John Campendonc in 1929 and we moved to Lisbon, where he ran the family’s cork processing factory. He died of a coronary attack in October 1931. I had been a widow for nine months before I kissed another man, my late husband’s office manager. I was twenty-four years old when I spent my first Christmas with Agostinho da Silva Boscán.
The invitation came, typewritten on a lined sheet of cheap writing paper.
My dear Lily,
I invite you to spend Christmas with me. For three days—24, 25, 26 December — I will be residing in the village of Manjedoura. Take the train to Cintra and then a taxi from the station. My house is at the east end of the village, painted white with green shutters. It would make me very happy if you could come, even for a day. There are only two conditions. One, you must address me only as Balthazar Cabral. Two, please do not depilate yourself — anywhere.
Your good friend,
Agostinho Boscán
“Balthazar Cabral” stood naked beside the bed I was lying in. His penis hung long and thin, but slowly fattening, shifting. Uncircumcised. I watched him pour a little olive oil into the palm of his hand and grip himself gently. He pulled at his penis, smearing it with oil, watching it grow erect under his touch. Then he pulled the sheet off me and sat down. He wet his fingers with the oil again and reached to feel me.
“What’s happening?” I could barely sense his moving fingers.
“It’s an old trick,” he said. “Roman centurions discovered it in Egypt.” He grinned. “Or so they say.”
I felt oil running off my inner thighs onto the bedclothes. Boscán clambered over me and spread my legs. He was thin and wiry, his flat chest shadowed with fine hairs, his nipples were almost black. The beard he had grown made him look strangely younger.
He knelt in front of me. He closed his eyes.
“Say my name, Lily, say my name.”
I said it. Balthazar Cabral. Balthazar Cabral. Balthazar Cabral …
After the first stripping the cork tree is left in the juvenescent state to regenerate. Great care must be taken in the stripping not to injure the inner skin or epidermis at any stage in the process, for the life of the tree depends on its proper preservation. If it is injured at any point, growth there ceases and the spot remains forever afterward scarred and uncovered.
Consul Schenk’s Report
I decided not to leave the house that first day. I spent most of the time in bed, reading or sleeping. Balthazar brought me food — small cakes and coffee. In the afternoon he went out for several hours. The house we were in was square and simple and set in a tangled uncultivated garden. The ground floor consisted of a sitting room and a kitchen, and above that were three bedrooms. There was no lavatory or bathroom. We used chamber pots to relieve ourselves. We did not wash.
Balthazar returned in the early evening, bringing with him some clothes that he asked me to put on. There was a small short cerise jacket with epaulets but no lapels — it looked vaguely German or Swiss — a simple white shirt and some black cotton trousers with a drawstring at the waist. The jacket was small, even for me, tight across my shoulders, the sleeves short at my wrists. I wondered if it belonged to a boy.