Out of desperation to hear a familiar voice, I call my ex-wife. Instead of hers, an unshaven, tired, and annoyed baritone drones hello. Him. Fuck him. I ask for my ex-wife. His response is the hollow clatter of the telephone receiver hitting a tabletop. A door opens and shuts in the distance; a dog barks. I must’ve woken everyone. I hear him say, “It’s him. What the hell?” “The fuck if I know,” she says.
My ex-wife sighs and asks, “Why are you calling?” “I’m in Lisbon,” I say. “It is early, I know.” “We agreed not to talk.”
I want to say I got off my plane and waited several hours for someone from the National Library to pick me up and take me to the arranged guesthouse. There, I’d stay for a week and look for a place to stay for the duration of my summer fellowship. No one showed. I was forgotten. From five-thirty to eight-thirty, I waited and waited outside the airport terminal. I sat on a bench near the taxi stand, right where I was told to. Half-awake, I called the Library, but there was no answer.
I decided to take matters into my own hands and hailed a taxi. At the guesthouse, I rang the bell and tried to check-in, but they didn’t know who I was. I asked the taxi driver to take me to the cheapest place he knew. I half-joked, a bordello. He was happy to oblige. I said no, no, just somewhere to sleep. He dropped me off in front of a place called the Residência Canadá. West African men in green and red-striped hats and brightly polished shoes walked in and out of the front door. Suitcases at my feet, I counted several bills, crisp from the foreign exchange counter, and handed them to the driver. He shook my hand, winked, and left without giving me my change. The guy at the hotel reception desk asked if I needed anything special. I think he said a girl. I asked him to speak slower; my Portuguese is weak. I still couldn’t understand him. I said a room, yes. Something cheap. I flew in from Macau. I’m tired. He gave me a knowing glance, the sort he reserves for stupid tourists, no doubt. He handed me a key hanging from a large plastic lozenge and rattled off a number. My mind was full of hail. He held up three fingers and said, “Três.” I took the elevator to the third floor.
A young woman opened the door right next to mine and smiled. Face-to-face, I gave her a slight smile and a nod. Wearing a gray smock with a wide chambermaid’s collar, she looked striking in the low light. Her radiant, fatal brown eyes were the sort that draws you in and hypnotizes you. Her smile changed to a withering look as my eyes left her torn black hose, and my hand went to my room’s doorknob and fiddled with the key. Then, following a chime and the sliding open of the elevator’s lattice grate, a dark man entered her room. Her vacuum stood sentry outside the door.
The first thing I noticed about my room was its depressing shade of gray. I put my suitcases down and wondered why the hell I was here. Where did I go wrong? I should have remained in the States and become someone else, not me.
Silver-flecked in termite tracks, the room’s mirror reflected my red eyes. With a sliver of soap, I washed my face. Despite the basin having the bleach-like smell of a man’s semen, I suppressed the urge to gag and swallowed a mouthful of water from the worn faucet. Facedown on the musty bed, all around me, I heard short conversations and sounds of desire: “Como assim,” “Ó que sim, que sim”; gasps and groans; slaps and shouts; doors opening and closing; the wheezing of springs. I couldn’t stand it. I wanted to be home. I wanted badly for America to awake. I needed to hear your voice and not those saying “Like this” and “Oh yes, oh yes” through the wall.
Instead, I say, “I called to say hello.” Not, I’m all alone. Not, I’m scared.
“Jesus. That’s all? I’ve got to go, please don’t call again,” she says. She doesn’t say Happy Birthday – she must have forgotten. I’m left with a click and the steady tone of a disconnected line.
Birthdays are always a convenient place to pause and to take stock of your life. We always take photographs on birthdays, recording the happiness shared with family and friends. Flash, I’m smiling over a cake here, opening a present there. This year will be noticeably absent from the photo albums: no cake, no presents, no loved ones. Flash, I’m in a dingy room on a ratty bedspread. And here I am, holding a sticky telephone receiver; its seams caked with a gray paste of human detritus.
I dial Julia and hear the double ring. It goes over and over. Finally, an answering machine clicks on, followed by a flurry of Portuguese and then a Cantonese bye-bye. I say, “It’s me. I’m safe.”
I place the receiver in the cradle and pick it back up again. I call my department and tell the answering machine no one showed at the airport, and the guesthouse turned me away. I chant off my room’s direct line number.
I laugh and cry as I massage my face.
Everything’s spinning. My mouth tastes horrible. I put some toothpaste on my finger and scrub the fuzz off of my teeth. My toothbrush is sitting in a bathroom, a lifetime away in Macau.
Lying down and trying to fall asleep, my exhausted mind won’t stop wandering to before. I could have stopped this.
Two months ago. It feels more like two years. With exams over, all I needed to do was write my paper for the conference. Procrastinating away, I had only a week to write something scholarly. I decided to present three interviewees with whom I’d become acquainted: a traditional, old-order Macaense lady; a Chinese woman stating she’s Macaense by virtue of blood; and a half-Portuguese, half-Chinese woman who’s Macaense by association. The middle’s claim to Macaense ethnicity will cause some pause for thought: she was a product of rape. Three cases. Three tests for identity – the paper would write itself, I thought. It didn’t. I couldn’t concentrate. Arguing, taking care of the travel plans, and sifting through notes burned through those last days.
She boxed up albums, clothes, and housewares while I vomited words on the keyboard. “I’m not coming back here,” she said. “I’m going to stay with him and start life over.” “With him?” I asked. “Don’t be dense,” she responded. Swallowing my pride and any amount of self-respect I might have, I heard myself saying: “After the summer, come out to Portugal.” “What’s the use pretending anymore? We pretended for how long?” she quipped, “You’re not going to change. You use Portugal to sort yourself out.” She produced a cache of papers, “This is a separation agreement; we’ll get it notarized tomorrow. Look, you owe me nothing. I owe you nothing. This makes it official that we’ll be living apart, okay?” “You were jealous of my studies,” I said. “My mistresses are library books and daydreams.” I broke down crying. With a steady voice, she said, “I’m going to Virginia. You’ll come back in a year, and our divorce will be no fault. Do your thing, work it out. I’ll keep your mistresses safe.”
She continued packing. I continued typing. It had always been that way, hasn’t it? The two of us lived in the same space, apart and asunder. I resolved to make it right and said I’d send money to pay her back for the rent she footed while we were in school. She said, no thanks, I owed her not a thing. Before I hopped in the taxi for the airport, we parted with: “No regrets? This is it, isn’t it?” “Yeah.” No hug, no good luck, only a simple “yeah.” My paper wife became my ex-wife at five-thirty in the morning at the corner of Power and Governor Street.
And then Macau. And now here: Lisbon.
The huffing and wheezing next door share the same rhythm as my heartbeat. I press my hand to my closed eyelids. Steady waves of crimson course through the dark. Eyes open, a sea of blues and greens wraps around and lights up the corners of the room. The rocks and shoals I knew as a child appears on the floor. I try to conjure the fishing boats I loved so much.
Quicksilver flashes flicker as I close my eyes again. I stand but lose my footing. I hit the floor: shoulder then head. Am I falling asleep, or am I looking into the mirror? The steady pulse of blood rushes in my ears and immobilizes, confuses. Is this my breath escaping from my lungs? Those must be my sobs and my tears. I hear humming and a faint crescendo of singsong laughter reverberating in my skull. A voice is singing far away and then closer in the darkness. Wordless notes drift in shrill, raspy gasps.
There’s rapping on the door. Faces unfamiliar look into my eyes and walk away. There’s the warmth of breath on my earlobe and a splash of water on my face. I hear the words Senhor, senhor. My shoulder rocks back and forth. I see the chambermaid remove her head and burst into a cloud of black feathers. Where her concerned smile once was, a black sparrow’s eye blinks at me. Que merda é esta?
I reach to grab hold of her hand, except my arm does not move. She’s saying “cada terça-feira” and leaves. My Vavó told me once that bruxas were feiticeiras who practiced their gifts for ill. Tuesdays and Thursdays are their days, and on those days, we must be the most pious and not forgot our rosary. I look up, and the sparrow has returned. She strides around me in an ellipse, fast then slow. The bird takes me across the awakening coastline I saw lit up when my plane descended through the clouds a couple of hours before. Our feet are on a deck of the boat, and she tells me in singsong to listen to the waves. As I reach my hands out to a woman passing me, the boat pitches and yaws. The sparrow perches on the masthead.
The men have just hauled in their oars. Despite the bad luck of having a woman on board, a shawl-wrapped and rope-sandal wearing woman is sitting on the prow, pointing her hand to port. The men nod their heads as they throw heavy hemp nets over the edge. She’s whispering indecipherable secrets in my ears. Her words are liquid sloshing in a tin can. I don’t understand, I say.
The fishing boat’s hull creaks as the small craft is buffeted by wave after wave. The men disappear, and I’m drifting on the ocean, looking for the sparrow to guide me home. Black sparrows are never to be trusted. The nets are long gone. The boat is empty save a few fish heads lying here and there on the deck. I call for the woman, but she’s gone.
I have a faint feeling of helplessness, but there’s no use worrying. Not anymore.
I watch the waves change from ultramarine to the oranges and reds of sunset. I hear a country waltz on the wind: a concertina and a guitar hiccup, a triangle, and a drum mark the meter. I’m tired, and I need a smoke. I peel myself from the seagull guano-splattered railing, and I search my pockets for a match and cigarette. My lungs hurt from smoking so many cigarettes, but I need something to calm me, to soothe me.
In the waning light, I unfold a well-worn piece of paper tucked in my breast pocket. It is white then gray. The writing fades with each pass of the eyes. I smile as I read aloud:
Mockingbirds only sing at sunrise, and I see the sky changing to lighter hues. I know you’re miles away, under the same sky. Missing you.
Twilight descends in a breathless hush. I watch as the sun sinks into the horizon and the stars start winking at me. Then, calm spreads over me, and I feel at peace. The moon is so bright and close it could be mistaken for the sun in a squall.
Off the bow, I hear someone calling my name. I must be imagining it – there’s no one here. I hear my name, louder in the mist. The voice is singing it. I walk to the bow of the boat and look over the gunwale. I see a woman in the foam. “Keep paddling,” I shout. She slips under the waves; hair splays and churns under the waves where her head and shoulders were moments ago.
The rope burns my hands as I run from one end of the boat to the other with a buoy. I’m panting, worried, and my guts knot. I toss my cigarette down and throw the buoy overboard. The woman below laughs and says, “I don’t need to be saved. Jump down. I’ll catch you.” She swims closer and pats the hull. Water splashes over her head.
In a panic, I bellow over the waves, “I’ll get the rope ladder, and you’ll grab my hand.”
She smiles, “there’s no need to shout. Can’t you hear the waves have stopped?”
I pause and hear nothing but my heart beating. It is beating fast, then slow. I feel a nicotine calm wash over me. She’s right. The waves have stopped crashing. There is no sound except breathing coming from behind the sun.
I go down the rope ladder and reach my hand out to her. I look into her eyes and see no reflection, only squid-ink black pupils. Her irises are the color of Sargasso. I say, “I know you.” She says, “Yes, you do.”
“Let go,” she calls, “let go, it will be alright.” My hand slips from the ladder’s brace. My legs are in the water, dungarees soaking to the knees. “I can’t,” I say, “I can’t let go.” “Do it,” she says. My heart feels light.
Air fills my lungs, and my vision jolts from pure black to a sudden flash of white. I’m still in the gray room. It is still morning. There are no boats, no oxen, no bells, no noises next door. Instead, I’m on the floor of a dank, depressing room washed up from the shoals of dream.
The phone is ringing. I hear nothing but static, and then a familiar, brusque voice tells me to go to the Library. They’re so sorry. They thought I was to come tomorrow. Ask for Dra. Luisa, the head of Research Services. A thousand apologies. Come, have a light late lunch of soup, the voice says. It repeats: we’re so sorry we thought you were coming tomorrow. It’s okay, I say. Mistakes happen.
I splash water on my face and change out of my clothes. I nod to the receptionist on my way out.
* * *
A corpulent and neck-scarfed, Dra. Luisa tells me she has a friend who has a room for let as we head across a thin stretch of green opposite the Library. She opens a door of her banged-up white Subaru and says I will like my summer “quarters.”
A cloud lifts as I hear her say:
– You will stay in a nice neighborhood. It is called Roma – Dra. Luisa trills the r.
Turning a slight corner to the Rua Silva e Albuquerque, we stop in front of an austere Estado Novo construction from the fifties.
We ring a buzzer, and the door clicks. We’re presented with an empty atrium lit by a skylight; feeble light filters through a languid updraft of dust. It smells musty, with the aroma of decomposing books mixed with sweet tones of boiled onion, garlic, peppers, and hints of tomato and bay laurel. Dra. Luisa tells me it is a flight up. I stand for a moment, and she looks at me with impatience. Oh yes, the old rule: a gentleman never follows a woman on a staircase. I mount the steps. She tells me I may call the Senhora Doutora, Dona Aida, as everyone does. “She’s simply lovely,” she adds.
Without us knocking, an elderly lady opens the door. She leads us down a long, dim corridor. The apartment walls are covered in photographs and prints. Deco and Edwardian furniture upholstered in beige and cream people room after room. At the corridor’s end, the lady raps and slides open a pocket door. Inside, a woman in a cardigan and trousers greets us. I notice the pearls around her neck despite the low light and the brilliant gold and ebony bangle hanging off her wrist. Behind her is a large map of the world: Germany looms large across central Europe; Poland is partitioned, and Palestine’s border to the east is Transjordan; Africa is a patchwork of purple, pink and light brown; Mozambique is Portuguese East Africa; A starred Maputo is Lourenço Marques; Pt hovers near Goa and flyspecks named Daman and Diu. It was the world in 1941.
My eyes search the room and see a flag with a strange green fleur-de-lis cross behind glass, bronze statuettes, a small bust, brass shell casings turned into lamp bases, and scores of books.
Next to the map is a photo of an arm with three stars on a sleeve pinning a cross on a soldier’s chest. He’s young and serious, wearing a beret. A plaque with the words “Legião Portuguesa” and a certificate emblazoned with the motto “Mocidade Portuguesa” catches my eye. There are wide photographs of uniformed young boys flanked by serious men. The soldier grows older in the photos marching from left to right with his sleeves weighing heavier with braid and chest covered with more medals.
Our hostess has an inviting, weathered face. She and Dra. Luisa carry on between them a distinct grace in greeting one another. Such decorum and so polite, they are. Hands extended, a kind word on being invited, another in coming, a motion to me, a press of hand, a gesture to a tufted divan. Hands folded, Dona Aida seats herself, followed by Dra. Luisa and then me. I feel underdressed and shabby in my linen shirt and unpressed plaid trousers. I should have worn a shirt and tie. Words fly between the two in clipped endings and elided vowels which I half-comprehend; Dona Aida must notice the blank look on my face and addresses me in English:
– You’ll like it here. They’re all Madeirans: an open, friendly people.
– This is an informal República – says Dra. Luisa.
– I am sorry, I do not know the word República. What does that mean, ma’am? – I ask.
– University students who all have a common interest and live democratically. A home away from home. Like your fraternities. Except these are all good people, not ‘Animal House.’
– You’ll see – says Dona Aida.
The landlady motions at the silver pot on the drawing-room table:
– First, coffee and biscuits.
Dra. Luisa says she must return to the Library, leaving me with Dona Aida Rosa, the coffee, and biscuits. I nod and thank her. Thick perfume trails her as she takes her leave.
– See you tomorrow – she says.
– Until then – I say, rising.
The ladies give each other beijinhos.
As we sip small cups of coffee, I tell Dona Aida what I am doing in Lisbon, my course of study at Brown, and my optimism to discover my roots.
– Portuguese roots go deep, my son – she says.
She tells me she comes from a village called Pontével near Santarem – “a village as old or even older than Portugal itself.” The parish has records of her family’s baptisms and marriages for generation after generation back to the sixteenth century. Her family has been in Pontével since the end of the Reconquista. “The thirteenth-century?” I ask. “Very good, yes,” she responds. What stories must there be in her village’s dust.
– I like you – she says. – You are an unusual young man. If you need anything, come upstairs. I am always home.
After signing a rent contract, Dona Aida deposits me in the capable hands of a slender young woman named Eliza she called from the apartment below. She looks as my ex-wife would call Basic: white, tight jeans, a sleeveless cornflower blouse, rubbed leather sandals. In other words, normal. I extend my hand in greeting, except she leans in and gives me a beijinho instead.
– Elisabete dos Santos, prazer. Mas tu podes chamar-me Eliza dos Pecadores.
– Elizabeth of the Saints, a pleasure. But, you can call me Eliza of the Sinners.
She laughs.
– Desculpe, pode a doutora falar um pouco mais devagar? Fala a doutora inglês?
– Pardon, but could you speak a little slower? Do you speak English?
– Slower and speak in English? – asks Eliza.
I nod my head. She extends her hand:
– Eliza. A pleasure. I thought you were Portuguese.
– My apologies, I’m from the States.
– I’ve never met an American. I thought you were all taller.
– And blonde, I know.
– You have a Portuguese face.
– My family emigrated a few generations ago.
– That explains it. It is still my pleasure.
Eliza laughs with a trill and takes me downstairs to the apartment. With head nods, pronounced hand motions, and in wavy sentences ending in sighs, she explains the ins and outs of the utilities, paying bills, and touches on quotidian concerns like how the bathroom door does not lock and how to operate the water heater. “Strike a long match and stand back.” After a pause, she offers to take me to the bank and help me open an account. I can’t help but agree.
* * *
On a wide avenue, with the perpetual motion of cars and buses and slow-walking window shoppers bordering us, Eliza guides me to the bank. The sun kisses us.
– Americans wear their wedding rings on the right hand? Or do you have a girlfriend back home?
– Excuse me? – I ask.
She lifts her right hand and shows me her right hand with a thin platinum band:
– You know, left hand, the promise. Going Steady.
– No. Or rather, no, we’re getting a divorce. Let me try again. I’m divorced.
We were never married, I repeat behind my eyes. A check on a box for financial aid.
– She left before I flew out. It’s for the best. We’d drifted apart. And, I didn’t know what to do with the ring, traveling and all. I thought about pawning it. And you, promised?
A silence. Eliza offers a quick, “No, not really. Sorry.”
– You’re so far away from family to help you through that. – She says – My family’s in Ecuador. This being so far away from them makes things difficult, but it is a blessing and a curse.
– Oh, I thought Dona Aida only rents to people from Madeira.
– I am Madeiran. I only live in Ecuador. We left when I was a girl for my father’s job. He works in a bank. But, my family first came from Lourenço Marques. You call it Moçambique. It is confusing. I’ll tell you someday.
When do you stop being and become someone else? So far away from Madeira, isn’t she, for all intents and purposes, an Ecuadorian? But from Mozambique, too.
– I didn’t ask you, what are you doing here?
– I’m researching Macau.
– Macau? How so?
– I’m to write about the opium trade during the first half of our century – like where it came from and how it affected the social fabric of the place. Macau, then, as now, existed on the periphery of the acceptable, especially since it was a drug transshipment port. There’s precious little written about this; I hope to get hints in newspapers, journals, anywhere. Although, in the meantime. I also hope to find something to write about for my dissertation too. I must be boring you. What are you studying?
My nervousness fades, and I pause and take notice of Eliza – she’s a fragile, friendly face. I could look at her for hours. Especially her eyes: they’re an exquisite hazel.
– Law.
– You look so young, to be in law school.
– Hardly, I’m older than most. I had to take a couple of years between liceu and faculdade to study for the entrance exams. In Portugal, it is different than in the States. We chose a course of study; we don’t waste time, we start law or medicine or architecture when we first enroll.
– That’s an enlightened approach.
– And you look young to be getting a doctorate – she pauses and looks up. – Here’s my bank. We’ll get you signed up. I will do all the talking. Your Portuguese is not bad, but you need some help.
The façade reads BNU: Banco Nacional Ultramarino. How convenient: the currency-issuing authority of Macau. I smile to myself as we walk in.
* * *
Leaving the bank, Eliza beams and says:
– I have an idea you might like: since I need to practice English, and you need help with Portuguese, I talk to you in English, and you talk to me in Portuguese.
– Speak, I think, would be a better word. Talking doesn’t imply listening. But, yes. It is a good idea, but I need to be immersed, or I will learn nothing.
– You will have trouble with our accent. You need to talk Lisbon-style. You sound sort of Brazilian. We have to change that. I’ll tell everyone to talk to you with a posh accent.
– Posh?
– Just kidding. We think all the lisboetas are posh. You do sound so funny.
– What’s a libeta?
– Lis-bo-eta. A Lisbonner; someone from Lisbon.
– Okay. It’s a deal. I need to clean the wax from my ears first.
Eliza laughs.
– Well, maybe, let’s see how it goes, – I say. – You may tire of English. My English.
For the rest of the walk home, we try Eliza’s plan. We end up laughing at our mistakes and decide to stick to Portuguese. For the first time in weeks, I feel lighthearted. Perhaps staying in Lisbon’s not such a bad idea.