Saga Lusa I

I was in Lisbon last weekend. I took Georgie with me. She is great to travel with. We had fun together. I love holding her hand walking down the street watching people go by. I know, I wrote this here before, but I really do. And it sounds like a song. I loved showing her the light of Lisbon, the way the sky bends at the horizon. We went to the Oceanário and saw the sharks, the manta-rays, the sun-fish, the penguins, the puffins, the oters, the fish, the fish, the fish. We also saw the ghost-fish, who shone in the dark. A bit spoky those fish.

We rode the telepheric at Parque das Nações and laughed like crazy all the way up in the air. Like hot air balloons. And then we went to the book fair inside Gare do Oriente, where I bought Caím by Saramago. Ah, the pleasure of buying a book on the Index of the Catholic Church... diabolic pleasure without the smell of sulphur. A book can still move mountains. It's good to be reminded of that.

We saw little children, and big children too, play violin at Reitoria da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, nearby Lisbon's Great Mosque (which looks so much prettier than last time, with a proper minaret shining bright in the evening sky of Praça de Espanha; and go tell that to the Suiss who voted down a month ago the sight of minarets among their ozone-layer-depleting cows!). It felt good to be sitting there next to Guida listening to Christmas music, from Bach to Little Star. Our friendship is like a heart-shaped red box of chocolate pralines. Georgie loved the stripped gloves she gave her. It made her look like Emília, the super-smart, silly-naughty doll in Sítio do Picapau Amarelo. This was centuries ago, when Brazil arrived at our doorstep in the shape of a magic place on TV.

We heard Berstein's West Side Story on the stero in our bedroom. I fell to my knees, tears about to cry, when the shooting gun was heard and the last song was sung. I sang with all my strength "there's a place for us, a time and a place for us, hold my hand and we're half way there, hold my hand and I'll take you there, somehow, somewhere, someday". Something like that. Emotion is never accurate, only it knows what it feels is real. I shared this moment with Georgie. She became a fan. She is a bit of a drama queen too, like her papalu. I'll always be sorry for those who don't fall on their knees with tears in their eyes, with Lisbon in the background, and the sun like a shield of gold, and the sky with clouds the colour and the shape of cotton, when on a stereo plays a record by Berstein with West Side Story. Where do they get their tears from?