Philip Graham
Spends a Year
in Lisbon.
- - - -
Philip Graham, a writer who teaches at the University of Illinois, will be spending a year in Lisbon, Portugal. He will be reporting to us from there.
- - - -
D I S P A T C H 14
We Capture
the Castle.
By Philip Graham
- - - -
I try my best to resist a sneaky glance out the side window at these mountains I'm driving through, because Alma's "Eyes on the road" mantra waits at the ready if I stray. She's right, of course—what's the upside to plunging my family into a rocky ravine? Still, as we snake our way up one narrow curve after another to the heights of Torre, the tallest peak of the Serra da Estrela, I manage a glimpse at the austere territory below, of wind-scrubbed slopes and stark plains strewn with boulders.
I shift down to first gear for another winding climb, and the engine's grumping briefly drowns out Nathaniel and Emily's backseat chatter. Our son and his fiancée rattle off an impressive string of acronyms—RPG and FPS, RTS and a mouthful of MMORPG—while discussing some computer game they're designing, but the silence of our daughter, sitting beside them, rings louder. I glance in the rearview mirror: head down, Hannah is deep in the world of her latest book. She's read over 60 so far this year, which fills me with a mixture of pride and concern. Though she's begun a number of budding friendships in her new school, the Portuguese don't quite get the concept of "play date," so Hannah courts imaginary girls on these pages she reads through, snuggling into the thrill of following invented lives, listening in on fictional thoughts. Yet while a first-person shooter or a massively multiplayer online role-playing game might mean nothing to her, I'd bet good odds she'd gladly put her book away if Nathaniel and Emily invited her into their little tête-à-tête.
"Eyes on the—" Alma begins, and I devote my entire gaze back to the road.
My ears, however, are elsewhere. I'm guessing that Nathaniel's steady stream of words back there serves as a protective, verbal embrace of Emily. She's bravely accompanied him on his spring-break visit to Lisbon—two weeks of vacation, sure, but also the challenge of trying on a possible fit with our family. I suspect that her calm face, framed by reddish auburn hair, masks an utterly sane wariness. She's certainly heard about our worst behavior, but so far she's only seen our best.
So far. And here we are in our first afternoon of a four-day jaunt into the Portuguese countryside.
"Oh my God, look at that," Alma cries, poking my arm. Ah, so now, apparently, I can take my eyes off the road? Before I can make some lofty comment on the importance of consistency, I take in a sight that demands the application of foot to brake.
We overlook a small valley shaped like a cupped hand. Huge smooth rocks of different colors, like otherworldly fingers, line the valley's palm, and clear streams cut through strange swaths of moss that range from bright green to dull tan. What really invites exploration is an enormous bas-relief scene carved out of one of the more imposing rocks—the Virgin Mary stands between two kneeling shepherds, their heads bowed as her arms and flowing cape protect them.
I park by the side of the road, and we make our careful way down the mossy inclines, then climb up to the edge of this unexpected sculpture. Even at close range, Mary seems less carved than simply there, her astonishing calm shaped from breathing stone. I'm a skeptical type, but I can see how someone of the appropriate persuasion could easily kneel before the spirit of this sight. Soon enough, we turn our attention to the surrounding rocky formations and discover that their black, green, or yellow surfaces are actually the thin crusts of different lichen colonies. Then we turn our attention to the clear streams cutting through stretches of soft moss, we taste the water's cold tang, and it's easy to understand why the Serra da Estrela holds an almost mystical resonance for most Portuguese. On and on, up and down, we wander this small valley in an extended moment of wonder, a family adventure that now includes, for the first time, a fifth person, Emily, and I realize that part of this adventure is the simple fresh fact of her addition.
- - - -
I'm mulling over that lightning strike of family solidarity the next day, because, as we drive above a narrow river valley toward the small town of Manteigas, Nathaniel and Emily are back in their little bubble, examining on Nathaniel's laptop some photos he took when we'd finally made it to the top of Torre Mountain. Beside the inevitable gift shops in the crisp, rarefied air stood the surprise of two geodesic-dome-like radar towers: abandoned NATO early-warning stations. Now Nathaniel plots how to transform those quaint relics of the Cold War into his own digital versions, for that game he and Emily are planning. Once again, Hannah sits beside them, book in hand and odd person out. So, at my first chance, I pull off to the side of the road for the promise of a beautiful view of the valley and its swift stream that marks the beginning of the Zêzere River.
No one wants to leave the car, but I nag them out, and all complaining stops when we see below us the river's myriad shallow waterfalls and rapids surging their way through a litter of polished white boulders. "Wow," I say (though from now to forever I'll always see this word in my mind's eye with the Portuguese spelling: "ouaou"). Those mini-waterfalls look so inviting, and the slope to the river, thick with tall grass and clumps of brush, is not so steep, so I wander along the road in search of easy access. "Hey, everyone, I think we can get to the water from here," I call out, and my feet feel the best way down, tentative at the edge of little grassy ledges, at rock slabs with no sure footing.
When I reach the rapids and get over my initial amazement at all the little worlds created by water and stone, I realize no one has followed me. From here, I can't make out the roadside from the clusters of brush on the slope; I call out additional encouragement, but the rushing river swallows my voice. Where is everyone? Miffed, I decide to wander, rock by rock, among the gnarled, twisting water to find a quiet pool where I can brood.
A few minutes of that is enough for me, and I clamber back up to the top of the slope, where everyone still stands by the road guard, annoyed at Impulsive Dad, who disappeared, they say, without a word, and never answered when they called and called.
"Hey, I called you," I begin, then decide to drop it—all I really want is to coax Nathaniel, Hannah, and Emily down there, and soon enough they're off while Alma and I stay behind with the car.
Once they're out of sight, Alma turns and gives me an ample serving of hell, with a side of brimstone, for my sudden vanishing—but quietly, because this is as tough as she gets. A Fernando Pessoa moment arrives and some of my several selves rise and jostle each other: one Philip protests my innocence, another Philip entertains my wife's point of view, while yet another Philip secretly enjoys the ruckus I've caused. But they all collapse where they came from when Alma tells me how much my disappearance unnerved Hannah. I cave and gush an apology.
That settled, we realize we've lost sight of Nathaniel and company. Ancient parental reflexes kicking in, Alma and I make our way halfway down the slope and keep staring at where we think they should be, willing them to appear from behind a thick patch of small trees or a huge boulder, and they do: there's Nathaniel's narrow frame, then the smaller figure of Hannah, followed by Emily. They're searching together the nooks and crannies of the riverbank, and there, along a rough spot above tumbling water, Nathaniel reaches out a hand to help Hannah, and Emily lifts her from behind.
Then they're waving to us, excited by something Emily's carrying, something so symbolically apt it's hard to believe: even from this distance, I can see the glinting quartz surface of a hefty white stone, perfectly shaped like an enormous egg. They pass it back and forth, gauging its weight, and I want to shout out, "Don't drop that metaphor!" Not to worry—they carefully take turns holding it, as if that unlikely stone were about to give unlikely birth.
- - - -
The following day, everyone is still a little annoyed at my vanishing act down to the river, so I stick close by as we wander the winding narrow streets of Belmonte, past older-than-old women draped in black, and equally antique men armed with canes and caps. For a small town, there's a lot to explore: a minor castle belonging to the family of Pedro Álvares Cabral, the first European to encounter the coast of Brazil; a spanking-new and active synagogue (a rarity in Portugal); and an even newer Jewish museum, which is where we're headed. As the story goes, 500 years ago the Jews of Belmonte, having been forcibly converted to Christianity, secretly kept alive their old traditions and beliefs. Since the Inquisition in Portugal lasted well into the 19th century, only recently have the town's Jews felt safe enough to out themselves.
So we wander two floors of religious and historical artifacts going back to the Middle Ages, in a sleek contemporary setting. One wall lists the names and ages of the 180 or so people who were killed, locally, by the Inquisition: the youngest victim was 11 years old, the oldest, 87. A computer screen to the side of this list calls up tidbits of information about each person, giving contour to snuffed-out lives. Here Alma parks herself, scrolling from life to life, and I'm guessing that she wonders if some of these people might be related to the Cape Verdean Jews she's been interviewing these past few months. When the Expulsion of the Jews was ordered at the end of the 15th century, many who fled Portugal headed for the then recently discovered and uninhabited islands of Cape Verde. There, along with newly arrived slaves from Africa, they began to contribute to the islands' creole soul.
When the museum closes, we make our way along the cobbled streets to the synagogue, where, we've been told, a service will soon be held. Alma must have a ton of questions rattling around in her head that she's hoping to ask, and so she hurries, though it only takes about five minutes to cross town. I find myself doubting that any secret could be kept for 500 years in a community this small. What if the Jews here survived with the help of their Christian neighbors, a mutual, perhaps unspoken pact that lasted 25 generations? Now that would be a way, way better story.
At the door, we discover that tonight's service is for locals only. "Come back another day?" says an embarrassed, standoffish elder. "We live in Lisbon," Alma tries to explain, yet it's no-go. Centuries of keeping a secret, even if the whole town is in on it, doesn't encourage admitting strangers at a moment's notice. Though Alma understands this, her face is stiff with disappointment, and she turns away, trying not to show it. We're not fooled. Hannah leans in first, and then we all do, offering murmurs of sympathy to sooth Alma, a brief huddle that seems to do the trick.
- - - -
I'm savoring that collective clinch the next day as we approach a small mountain that rises from the middle of a plain of farmland so incongruously that I can imagine that someone planted a magic stone in a loamy field and it grew and grew into the craggy thing that faces us now. Nestled on one side is the town of Monsanto, whose castle is one of a series of fortresses lined along Portugal's border with Spain. But what really catches the eye as we draw closer is the enormous boulders that dot the mountain's steep slopes.
When we drive into Monsanto and park, they tower over us. Think of a really big rock, the biggest you've ever seen. Now imagine it doubled, trebled, quadrupled, until it's bigger than a house—some are even bigger than a small apartment building. Now imagine rows of homes built around these monsters. Back in the day, the Portuguese must have been real tough bastards, because it takes a certain hardy stubbornness to build a town, a castle, in a landscape like this. Really, if I were leading an army with intent to make trouble for any locals in my way, just one glimpse at Monsanto and its castle perched among huge boulders on the side of a mountain would get me reconsidering the whole pillage-and-destroy concept. I certainly wouldn't want to be climbing a steep grade weighed down with chain mail while dodging arrows and other assorted unfriendly objects. I'd turn to the troops and say, "Forget it, boys—let's go back home to Spain and our women, then kick back on sangria and tapas until we can't budge."
We take lunch in a restaurant that—of course—is built around boulders, and, once done, we decide to take on the castle above us. Why not? We'll be storming walls guarded by no one but ghosts, no match for us. When Nathaniel and Emily forge ahead, I try to keep up, until Hannah says, "Dad, wait for Mom," and she shoots me a raised eyebrow that doesn't tolerate back talk. She's right, Alma is huffing up the hill below us. Sometimes, when you're keeping up with one part of your family, you're in danger of leaving another behind. So I sit on one of the smaller of the ubiquitous boulders, catch my breath, and the first sentence of Anna Karenina comes to me, unexpected and unwanted: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
I've never liked the smug simplicity of that opening sentence. What family, however happy, doesn't have sadness laced through it? Even families steeped in misery can manage to scrape together a few moments of truce, a sliver of comfort. Any family can swing back and forth between emotional antipodes over the long haul or within the space of a single day, and it's all complicated further by the higher math of all those customized Others that stir inside us. I regard my daughter parked beside me: she's filled with scads of characters from the books she's been reading and the stories she's been writing this year; Nathaniel and Emily, closing in on those castle walls, nurture avatars who'll eventually inhabit their computer-game world; Alma, now only steps away, spends days translating the voices of the Cape Verdeans she's interviewed; and as for me, my fictional buds and I go way, way back.
Alma joins us and for a while we admire together the view of the village below, its odd alternation of those gray smooth curves of rock and red roof tiles. But then a boyish voice inside me rings out "To the castle!" and I'm off again, braving my way past invisible arrows. Far ahead, Nathaniel and Emily have managed to avoid any imaginary boiling oil flung from the walls, and they enter through the empty space of what must once have been a fully functioning portcullis. Soon the rest of us follow.
We capture the castle. The castle is ours, ours. I look back at the few bands of fellow tourists who trudge up the slope behind us, and I decide, as latest lord of these ancient walls, that my first decree will permit them entrance. My reign here, however brief, will be benevolent.
From inside the castle, we climb the ramparts, for a grand view—the entire surrounding countryside reveals itself for more miles than I can guess. And suddenly I realize—duh—that castles once served as a medieval early-warning system, much like those abandoned NATO towers on top of Torre.
I stare in all directions, and there's not a single distant cloud of dust raised by any approaching army. Nah—too medieval, such trouble. Standing here with my family, though, I feel my fretful self worrying about any possible threat that might appear on the horizon, any surprise lurking just around the future's corner that might strain what holds us together. Whatever nameless peril comes our way, we'll certainly have to face it with something far more flexible than stone walls.
I sigh. Do I always have to steer through life with the soul of a defensive driver?
Finally sated with the stunning views, we descend to the castle keep and take pictures of each other in practically every combination possible, posing by the cistern, by steps cut through stone. We grin, we stand at attention, we embrace. We continue to create our own supple mix of invisible mortar.
MORE DISPATCHES
Red dot denotes content that is new today.
Black dot denotes newish content.