Life Embitters (44 page)

When Portuguese navigators reached the Indies in their journeys around the world, they ruined the Republic of Venice’s trade. The Venetians bought in ports in the heart of the Mediterranean everything that was transported there by caravans from the remotest parts in Asia. Using all their ingenuity they organized and sustained highly complicated expeditions, which paid countless tolls to the authorities at different points on the caravan routes. The Republic of Venice’s influence on Asia is one of the most extraordinary phenomena in history and one of the most fertile in its consequences. Marco Polo penetrated deep into China … However, Venetian trade was built on a system – caravans, tolls, and tithes – that made the merchandise very expensive. The Portuguese transported goods by sea and sold at much more reasonable prices. Venice went into decline. The Mediterranean experienced a reduction in shipping that lasted for centuries. The opening of the Suez Canal reinvigorated it.

The Portuguese were the masters of world trade, though briefly. They almost established a monopoly over this marvel. Nevertheless, the Dutch and the English, equally seafaring peoples, soon challenged them and their system. In any case, wealth flowed into Portugal to a degree it had never known before, and this concentration of riches gave birth to the particular tone late florid Gothic and Renaissance styles possesses in this country. This is naturally very visible in Lisbon.

This distinct tone is what is called the Manuelline style – because it coincided with the reign of Dom Manuel – and consists in exuberant, decorative motifs in the styles we have just mentioned. This exuberance generally runs out of control and is excessive for my taste. Characteristic features are the abundant detail, coils, twirls, and filigree imitating the marine world, and not only that world in the strict sense (fish, shellfish, snails, crustaceans, and multiple shapes of marine fauna and flora), but also imitations of the world of navigation at the time: rigging, barrels, navigational instruments, ships’ wheels, not to forget the full pomp of wet sails billowing in the wind. The Manuelline style, a reflection of the Portuguese expertise at sea, is the artistic consecration of Portugal as a seafaring land. Its forms penetrated the interior of the country along its rivers and reached the eastern lands of Spain, where they took root, perhaps not so much because they came from Portugal as from the renown brought to the Peninsula by the discovery of America and the hopes raised by the birth of that life from the sea. This explains why decorative detail so abounds in the Manuelline style in towns of the interior.

The expressions of this style in Lisbon are usually over-flowery and far too heavy, even if they are a clear indication of the wealth that flowed into the country from across the sea. Lisbon has two monuments that are typical of the Manuelline style: the monastery of the Order of St. Jerome and the Torre de Belém.

This desire to embellish a model, perfect form with decorative over-elaboration, showy, intricate exuberance, a generally inert baroque – and I say “inert” because the Manuelline style doesn’t come with the
meravigliosi gesto di muoversi
described byVasari in his life of Michelangelo – isn’t a feature exclusive to sculpture and architecture. The style imbued many aspects
of life and can be found, naturally, in furniture. In Lisbon I have seen beds that display huge mussel shells and mirrors framed within giant oysters … Perhaps it’s all too much.

Then I headed towards Estoril.

Social life in Lisbon at the time wasn’t particularly appealing. One choked on a surfeit of politics. Everybody was conspiring. Six or seven conspiracies were inextricably on the boil, each with its own particular version of redemption. People had no time to do anything. Cafés were forever seething. As the Portuguese are so attached to this kind of establishment and cafés closed late, one formed the impression that conspiracies worked night and day from the first of January to the thirty-first of December. It was completely mad. The far right and far left were conspiring, and so were the right and the left, the center right and center left, not to mention the centercenter. I always imagined the Government must be conspiring too. At every hour of the day strings of men propped up walls in the Baixa district, hands in pockets and smoking cigarettes. There were a good number of glassy, yellow-eyed
negritos
in white trousers and black jackets with carnations in their lapels. The backs of the heads of those idle, unpleasant fellows who seemed rooted to the spot left what appeared to be a grimy line on the wall, the same line left by flood waters, the one that brings to people’s lips the ritual phrase: “The water reached thus far.”

Apparently those long strings of gentlemen spent their time watching ladies young and old walk by. In fact, they were waiting with an impatience they subdued for the cannon salvoes that would redeem them. They were cannon-salvo experts and could distinguish perfectly their movement’s salvoes from those of any other. If theirs finally resounded, they ran to say goodbye to their families and went off to make the revolution. The others
went to bed and waited for the inevitable moment when
their
cannons would fire.

An important Catalan lived in Lisbon at the time: Don Plató Peig. Sr Peig was in charge of the Souza-Figueiredo trade name – the Comillas of Portugal – that encompassed a lot of companies. A member of the entourage of Sr Peig introduced me to the Barcelona architect, Sr Ferrés, an excellent individual, tireless worker and highly productive man. Sr Ferrés had already built the Hotel Palace in Madrid, and was giving the final touches to the main buildings in Estoril. Estoril was the first place of any size and quality to be built for tourists on the Peninsula. Sr Ferrés had constructed hotels, a splendid, sumptuous casino, a spa, a large theater, gardens, tennis courts, golf courses, etc. around thermal springs and on the landscape of haughty pines and lofty palm trees to make the most of the sloping plain on the side of Estoril that overlooked the river estuary. It was an ideal spot and looked to have a great future.

Estoril is on the road from Lisbon that goes to Cascais, namely the road that follows the right bank of the river – a word that is quite inappropriate because the river here is a huge estuary that seems completely still except when it rises and ebbs with the tide. It makes for twenty kilometers of magnificent roadway between villas and gardens, pine groves and slender palms. It is especially delightful on sunny days in autumn and winter when a warm breeze blows and a harmless bank of white cloud fills the limpid sky. A voluptuous feel to the air makes life really pleasant. Sunsets over the estuary, river sandbar, and Atlantic are splendid and diverse. Sunsets over the sea usually have a magnificent quality that is hard to find in those over land. That’s why the
tramonti
in Rome over the Mediterranean and sunsets over the Portuguese Atlantic are so renowned.

On days when the dark, shadowy sea seems ready to pounce on Portugal as if desperate to devour it, the spectacle isn’t so polished. The palm trees shiver with cold. The pine trees act up.

Indeed, I think the pines add greatly to Estoril’s elegance, as least as much as the Gulf Stream temperatures, sulfurous spa waters, sunsets, and pleasures of roulette. They are tall, wild pines with a natural svelte charm. They don’t create a thick mesh of foliage, but high patches of green, a fresh bright green interspersed with red roofs, glaring white-washed walls that on heavy, damp days have the quality of milk sprinkled with cinnamon powder, and the flowers carpeting the land are a lively, elegant presence. The small picturesque fishing port in the estuary by the side of modern Estoril has quickly adapted to the amenities brought by tourist life. Its inhabitants are welcoming and likeable, courteous and understanding; they required few lessons in how to smile when it’s good for business, and although they remain Atlantic fishermen, their fate will be that of the fishermen in Cannes and Nice: to work as hairdressers or waiters or give baths to boys and girls from good families.

So I decided to go and live near Estoril. Before you reach this sophisticated, expanding town, you come to a boarding house with a prestigious reputation. I rented a room there. It had views over the estuary and was surrounded by pots of geraniums. The river passed by the front of the establishment, as did the train and the road, the road to Cascais that is really the road to Sintra. There is in fact a novel by Eça de Queiroz that is called
The Mystery on the Road to Sintra
. Places that come with a literary halo seem so much prettier.

My bedroom window opened onto a splendid vista. The extensive estuary had no current, and was dead still. All the boats going to and from Lisbon
sailed through its waters – from large transatlantic liners to slender schooners and river lighters, with square sales the color of pumpkin or nicotine. It was a continuous spectacle that lasted night and day. On the other side lay a very low, treeless, interminable, toast-colored plain. The river breeze sometimes carried the hubbub from Lisbon to the east; the city was invisible, but you could see its glow: by day, a gray murk and by night, a greenish pink. To the west were views of the sandbar and beyond that the Atlantic Ocean.

Sunsets died opposite my window. The still waters could be orange, the color of new wine, or often a purple hue that was far too ghostly and literary. The sky could be draped in a mass of rich red, a sumptuous curtain, as in Pincio’s gardens.

I found the boarding house to be very comfortable. In the afternoon I’d go for a long stroll and end up in Estoril. I’d converse at length with Ferrés the architect and his partners. Nightfall would often catch us under the pine trees, talking, listening to the crickets, and smoking cigarettes. In bad weather, we’d drink our aperitifs at the casino. It was a very crowded spot and, though only just inaugurated, it was already a legend. Prone to outbursts of patriotism, the Portuguese were extremely proud of it. Eccentric characters abounded. A cosmopolitan atmosphere was beginning to gather over Estoril.

Perfect order reigned in the boarding house. It was very quiet. There were two Scandinavians who worked for export companies in Lisbon, a nice English couple, a Swiss bank clerk, and two or three Portuguese. The Portuguese were, of course, very keen on politics and that meant I avoided them. Nevertheless, one, by the name of Pacheco, became a really good friend. He was definitely a conspirator – of the center-left variety – but he seemed to be in no rush to convert anyone. One day he admitted to me, very
sotto voce
, that what he most feared was his own party’s victory.

Pacheco had been living in the house for years and seemed to have free run of the place – to the extent that free run was possible there, which wasn’t great. By talking to him – he was idle as I was – I found things out about the boarding house.

It belonged to a Sra Souza who lived far away, in a city in northern Portugal, where she led a nondescript existence. Her marriage to Sr Souza, a rich property owner, had been a disaster. She was an affluent provincial lady, of the house-loving, naïve variety. Her husband seemed fine on the surface, but was in the grip of a passion for gambling. After three or four years of marriage Sra Souza realized her husband was on the point of losing his own wealth and was about to start on her own. Her indignation didn’t lead to loud outbursts. It was a cold rage. No arguments or attempts to reach an agreement could shift her. The marriage was ended and husband and wife lost sight of each other. Sra Souza managed to save the best part of her fortune. Maria, the couple’s daughter, a child at the time of their separation, was brought up by her mother according to the strictest principles.

Several years passed, during which Sra Souza’s income was drastically reduced. Meanwhile Srta Souza grew up, was full of life and seemed fascinated by life’s ways. Above all she found provincial life too sleepy and dull. When she was nineteen, seeing her mother’s financial worries – the Portuguese currency had lost most of its purchasing power as a result of all those revolutions – she suggested setting up a boarding house in Lisbon so she could earn a living. Her usual frosty self, the old lady agreed without comment. She’d have preferred her daughter to make a typical provincial marriage: an exemplary civil servant, ten year’s her daughter’s senior, who’d be on the wane, insipid, and about to wither away. Maria refused point-blank and established their boarding house on the outskirts of Lisbon on the road
to Estoril. When they did so, above all they had in mind a summer income. Building developments in Estoril ensured it was permanent.

For the first few months Sra Souza helped her daughter run the boarding house. The truth is she had to teach her very little. The young woman turned out to be active, lively, indeed the perfect mistress of the house. The old lady returned to the provinces convinced the business couldn’t be in better hands. As she gradually turned drowsier and danker in the rainy provincial city in the north of the country, she felt secretly envious of her daughter’s strength and energy.

When I met her, Maria Souza was a pleasant, delightful woman. She was an extraordinarily fine brunette, with large ecstatic pale gray-blue eyes, moist lips, and pink luminous skin. She was tall and buxom. However, what most surprised me about that woman was the absolutely natural way she spoke and walked. Belonging to a country where so many women shout, scream, speak through their noses, continually act up, grumble, make absurd lip movements when they talk, huff and puff, who in the course of a conversation pass from languid mindlessness to hysterical clowning, a woman who behaves naturally is a real find and makes an astonishing impression. Maria Souza was one such woman. She was a woman many men dream of in these latitudes: pleasant but not saccharine, easy-going, ever good-tempered, never trite or affected and always rather distant – even in her most intimate moments.

She managed the boarding house. She saw to the accounts, gave the orders, was in charge. She did it well, succinctly, with great common sense. She did what she could for everyone without making a fuss. She always had an appropriate smile at the ready for her boarders. A lovely collection of smiles! We all became rather childish in her presence and frankly fell languishingly in love with her.