"Adeus, Lisboa":
Philip Graham's
Final Dispatch
From Lisbon.
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D I S P A T C H 2 0
Fairly Medieval.
BY PHILIP GRAHAM
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After only a few steps inside the castle gate, Hannah and Sara clutch each other in mock horror as a ragged beggar shuffles by, his cheeks, arms, and legs dotted with impressively realistic rubber boils and pus-filled wounds. The girls may giggle at this make-believe, but a nervous edge to their voices suggests they'd rather not encounter another guy like this just yet, so Alma and I lead them up a nearby stack of broad stone steps, to the top of the castle wall.
Once there, we amble along the ramparts to take in the town of Óbidos below: the multiple geometries of angled red-tiled roofs, almost impossibly whiter-than-white buildings, and great swaths of red and purple flowers, all tucked into the oval expanse of ancient stone walls. In the distance loom higher walls protecting the castle keep, that last line of defense when all else is lost. We might as well be a million miles from the wind-turbine farms we drove past on our way here an hour ago—100 or so sleek and towering windmills, their enormous white blades turning slowly in the bluest sky.
The cobblestone streets below are Disney-theme-park-thick with visitors to the town's annual medieval fair. Óbidos, though, has Mickey & Co. beat by a millennium and then some. This town, which goes back to Roman times, has seen Visigoths and Muslims come and go. Then, in 1210, King Afonso II gave Óbidos to his princess bride as a wedding present, and every king since has repeated that romantic and rather high-handed gesture. I can see why—the town is a buffed-up version of what any royal couple might fondly imagine the rest of their country looks like.
Hannah and Sara peek through the ordered gaps in the top of the walls, out at the green countryside stretching away, and then pull back with muted happy shrieks, as if dodging incoming arrows. The girls bring out the joy in each other, and I wonder if they're so close because much of the world is still new to Sara, who lived in an orphanage until she was 10, while all of Portugal is new to Hannah.
Alma's cell phone bleeps—it's our friend Helena, calling to say she and her friends are running about an hour late. So we decide to buy our tickets and enter the castle keep, where most of the fair takes place. Soon we're walking through narrow alleys of tents filled with medieval kitsch, jewelry, leatherwork, jars of local honey, fresh bread, and flagons of wine, all peddled by hawkers decked out in full re-enactment mode—leather vests and felt caps, shawls and tunics. A gypsy offers palm readings, and Alma, who's wanted a crack at one of these all year, enters the tent. While we wait, Sara and Hannah hurry off to buy each other little matching gifts, avowals of undying friendship, since they only have two weeks left to spend together.
Alma emerges a few minutes later with a mysterious wouldn't-you-like-to-know look on her face. We continue on, past an enormous pig turning on a spit, its fat crackling as it roasts, then past smithies clanging away at work, one grimy fellow pulling and pushing a huge bellows. I used to play with toy castles when I was a kid (one is still boxed up in the basement back home), and now I feel as if I'd shrunk down to the size of my old figurines of knights, squires, and peasants, who themselves have somehow come to life, especially when an executioner, shouldering an ax, makes his way through a crowd that easily parts before him. He doesn't notice anyone, however; his eyes look inward, and when he lets out a high-pitched giggle I'm back in this century, relieved not to be living in another.
Two or three combos of big drums, bagpipes, and narrow-stemmed horns wander through the keep, playing a frenetic music that, if you listen too closely, can get under your skin. We stroll past booths displaying broad leather belts and herbal sachets, and then we come upon a young woman who furtively glances back and forth beneath her scarf as she hunches by, pulling at a long string tied around a triangular stone, leading it as though it were a pet. A gray-haired crone (well, a 20-something woman sporting a wig and penciled-in wrinkles) follows her, exuding disapproval. They seem attached by their own invisible string, a mother accompanying her grown child's skittish mad path.
We come to a small stage where belly dancers—draped in jewelry and strings of bells, their midriffs bared—click their hand cymbals and swirl gauzy veils with a slink and a swoop to three musicians' flute, drum, and tambourine stylings. Hannah and Sara can't stop staring at all those silky moves, so we watch until Alma gets another call—Helena and company have finally arrived. We make our way out of the keep, but not before our palms are stamped so we can return.
As we enter the courtyard outside the gate, dark-haired Helena waves, flanked by Jorge, her lanky, handsome boyfriend, and her best friend, pale and delicate Sónia, along with a handful of their wider circle of friends. This past year, we've joined the group on various hikes: through the sprawling Monsanto Park overlooking Lisbon; to an underground excavation of the ancient Roman version of the city; to a vegetarian feast at a Tibetan restaurant. And now we double-kiss, shake hands, and embrace with an undercurrent of sadness—today may be the last time we see each other before my family and I leave the country.
While we're all chatting away, one of the belly dancers from the keep saunters by and calls out Helena's name. They hug and kiss, and it turns out, once introductions are made, that this dancer's day job, in the 21st century, is conducting research at a biochemistry lab.
It figures. Most of Helena's circle is pushing 30 or beyond, and they're among the cream of the crop of Portugal's first post-Salazar generation, yet sometimes they have to live from government research grant to research grant, or make do with temporary jobs out of town. Newspaper articles describe the plight of bank tellers and store clerks with degrees in sociology or journalism who struggle to make do. Helena, an accomplished forestry biologist, is considering a research job in Aveiro, one that might eventually offer her more security, even though her boyfriend, Jorge, a botanist, has just returned to Lisbon from a six-month gig in Castelo Branco, near the Spanish border. Sónia's work with endangered wolves doesn't get her much more than a small apartment, Joel has an economics degree but survives by writing reviews of the latest cameras while winning awards for his own photos, and Joana, a bioengineer, has found better employment in the U.S. They're as talented a group of folks as I've ever met: multilingual, juggling professional careers with artistic pursuits—music, photography, poetry (and, apparently, belly-dancing). Yet somehow the country still hasn't figured out how to unleash and reward the energies of this generation.
We retrace our steps through the keep with Helena and the gang, pass a group of knights lazing about after a joust we just missed, do a little more idle shopping, stand for a while around one of the bands making a mesmerizing racket. Everyone's getting hungry, so we make our way to a huge outdoor grill, where strips of beef, chops, and sausages sizzle side by side. Traditional soups are on offer (sopa da pedra, açorda), as well as local delicacies like migas—a gooey mix of bread, garlic, bits of pork, and cilantro that I can't get enough of. And let's not forget the inviting drinks served in brown ceramic cups, such as Elixer da Juventude (Youth's Potion) and Sangue de Boi (Ox Blood) and Levanta Mortos (Raise the Dead).
We take our plates and cups to the stone steps of a nearby outdoor amphitheater that extends up a gentle slope, stopping short of the castle walls, and we commandeer front-row seats to an empty stage. But something's in the works, because soon a thousand or more people are gathering behind us: avós and avôs—grandmothers and grandfathers—young families, couples, even babies in strollers.
A comedy troupe takes the stage. Hannah sits beside Sara and, beset by another stomachache, merely nibbles at her meal, while Alma bends her head in deep conversation with Helena, adding or subtracting the pluses and minuses of moving to Aveiro. Feeling restless, I get up to stretch my legs and make my way to a corner that looks out over the rest of the keep as the evening deepens into night, the distant lights of nearby towns small points in the darkness. The rest of our time here, our last two weeks, will be packing, packing, packing, punctuated by more than a few misty-eyed farewells. I can't help regretting that we never took a boat ride up the Douro River to view the vineyards, or explored the wild northern corner of Trâs-os-Montes. I could stretch this list, but what's the point, indulging this unseemly urge to linger? Hannah, despite her deepening friendship with Sara, is antsy to return to her school friends back home.
A handful of young men dressed as squires (who might actually be medical interns) pass by, pulling the carriage of some faux noblewoman (who could be a law clerk), and I'm surprised that, even this late, the re-enactors keep themselves busy, that drums still rumble beneath plaintive bagpipes. When I notice a juggler off in a quiet corner, performing for no one but his own self beneath a tree, I wonder why they're all so reluctant to abandon the play-acting. There must be some stronger draw than part-time fun for a little extra cash.
That executioner, with his creepy giggle, walks past me, and I decide to return to the amphitheater. The slapstick performers are gone, the ancient walls of the castle are now lit from within, and all those roving bands have converged on the stage, the big sound of their joined forces threatening an out-of-the-body lift.
We turn to the sound of surprised shouts and gasps behind us: along the grassy verge beneath the castle walls, skulking gray-skinned fallen angels and horned devils wrapped in scraps of animal fur carry burning torches. To booming drums, they march down, parting the audience on their way to the stage. The musicians continue to play as they slip to the side, giving way to these figures waving fiery arcs, who then give way to bare-chested men dancing on stilts, the bottoms of those long wooden legs blazing with fire. Then a handful of women take their place, swinging over their heads what look like giant bat wings, though these shower sparks and flames, until six women arrive swinging pots of fire in circles, their faces eerily expressionless. The whole spellbinding panoply rages on and on, drums chasing multiple rhythms, bagpipes soaring: a hypnotic call to overwhelm some enemy that will be real sorry, real soon.
Maybe it's the light and shadows cast by these swinging flames on the rapt faces of the audience, but it seems to me that everyone sitting around us is digging deep into the wildest part of their Portuguese soul, back to the time before the taming church, before the Islamic control of Iberia, to the steely core of the country that eventually battled back, the essential inner itch that then set Portugal to building ships that sailed off into the frightening vastness of all the uncharted waters of the world.
The music stops in midphrase, a simultaneous flourish of silence after the last notes echo against castle walls. We all give ourselves a little mental shake, stand, and start to make our way out of the keep. Hannah and Sara have the wilted look of a too-long day, so Alma and I decide we'll search out some nearby pensão for the night. First, we linger awhile with Helena and Jorge, Sónia, and the rest, not quite ready to say goodbye. But say goodbye we do, then watch our friends blend into the departing crowds, off to their cars and the long drive back to Lisbon, back to the present time of frustrating job searches, where their tiny apartments can barely contain the raucous buzz of this evening they'll bring home.
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For a glimpse of the medieval fair's fire-dance finale, click here.
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An expanded version of Philip's dispatches from Lisbon, The Moon, Come to Earth, will appear in October 2009 from the University of Chicago Press.
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