I choked slightly on the galão I was sipping and glanced toward their table. The “French Legionnaire” slowly turned to look at me. I had never noticed his eyes before and I almost choked again. Have you ever seen anyone with one bright green eye and the other an icy blue? But it was the phrase from the other man at the table that I just overheard that nearly gagged me: “No one feels better after killing a friend”
This had become my favorite café when I found it, quite by accident, one afternoon late this summer. A brief rain spirit chased me from the river parque and I sought shelter at a little place I hadn’t noticed before. It’s close to the busier parts of the city, right along the Mondego River1, and not far from my apartment. Strange it’s not more popular.
Even on the hottest days, the surrounding chestnut and plane trees shade the small deck perfectly without blocking the splendid view of Coimbra’s University Tower (Torre da Universidade) with the Portuguese national flag proudly waving to all. On early summer mornings, the leafy branches provide choir space for the warbling blackbirds and yellow European finches singing their high-pitched tinkling chant. I love those dreamy mornings, sitting there watching the mist drift off the river. Like a creeping vine, it fills the becos and narrow lanes with a clandestine fog climbing the city's steep hills.
There are only five small tables on the deck, solid swedges of old oak that never wobble or slide. And the weatherproof plastic Buondi chairs are graced with cushions upon request. Inside, only two side tables frame the timeworn bar with its black marble counter. The mirrored backsplash is decorated with the requisite Bezzera Strega Expresso machine, its unpolished brass reflected on the polished marble. Shelves of distilled liquors, including all the usual suspects, age patiently above rows of glassware, upturned wine goblets, and three sizes of coffee cups. Even the WC is crisp, white-tiled, spotless, and always with towels in abundance.
I love it because it’s small and intimate, ancient yet polished by the years of use by reverent patrons. In fact, the serene quiet is reminiscent of a church, or at least a library. I usually bring a book to enjoy with a mid-morning galaō or a late afternoon glass of vinho verde, as do a few other patrons. I guess I’m lucky because there always seems to be a table left open for me. And occasionally, I hear an interesting conversation, inadvertently, of course. But usually, in Portuguese, so I am mystified beyond picking up a stray word or two. There are never any tourists and only an occasional foreigner, like me. I’ve begun to recognize a few regulars.
Last week, the gentleman I think of as “The Legionnaire” was sitting at the table closest to me. He always wears a crisp white shirt with a black ascot (gravata in Portuguese) and green military-style beret. He is of a certain age, distinguished, and graying, but not old. His posture is formal and upright, likely a remnant of some soldierly service. He was speaking English, with a French accent, to another younger man, also wearing a beret, but his cap was coal black.
“We have no choice, Phillipe,” said the Legionnaire. “He must die … the sooner the better.”
I probably blinked a couple of times, unsure if I heard correctly. I feigned deafness and took a big gulp of my coffee drink. Mistake.
The man in the black beret looked away and sighed deeply, but said nothing. When he looked back their eyes locked for several long seconds then the black beret nodded slowly.
The Legionnaire smiled, somewhat sinisterly, and continued: “When you get past this … you will feel better. At some point, you forget that killing him even bothered you.”
The other man stiffened, his back arched slightly and his feet slowly slid back under his chair. He resembled a cat getting ready to pounce. A sneer contorted his lips and he finally spoke in a growl: “Never! One does not forget killing a friend.”
Irony is a funny thing. As I tried to conceal my choking reaction to the horror I just overheard, the haunting musical scales of a wandering knife sharpener’s flute floated through the cafe. All manner of gory images of bloody knives marched through my imagination and I began to feel a little lightheaded. These itinerant craftsmen have existed in Europe since the Middle Ages and usually brought a smile of nostalgia to my face, but not today.
The Legionnaire leaned forward to his companion and spoke in a hushed tone I could not understand. He glanced back at back at me, ominously, as he continued. Whatever he said immediately affected his companion, who quickly glanced at me before lowering his head and leaning back in his chair. They fell into a long silence until the Legionnaire nodded toward a waiter and made a scribbling motion to signify he wanted to pay their bill.
Having avoided further choking, I stared into my book, pretending it was the most captivating thing I’d ever read.
A few minutes later a small silver tray with a printed bill was left placed on their table. Neither man even glanced at it, already knowing the cost of their drinks. The black beret placed several euros in the tray and they simultaneously rose from the table. Now pointedly ignoring me, they marched away toward the wide path leading to the river parque.
I was gobsmacked. Were they planning a murder? And not just some random act of mayhem, but someone they knew - a friend. I was mystified as to what I should do or who I might tell. I could feel my heart thumping against my chest and the agitation inside my head caused my vision to blur. I shook my head vigorously a few times trying to shake things back into some logical focus. I had to do something, but what? I didn’t even know who these people were, I …
Without any plan whatsoever, I got up quickly to leave. Taking a cue from the men in berets, I left four euros on the table, intentionally overpaying for my galão, and headed toward the trail where I last saw them. Why I was following them and what I was going to do were abstract distractions at this point. I had to follow them! I had to know!
The trail through this part of the park was narrow and infrequently used. I had to take care not to step in mud in some places, but that allowed me to see two distinctly different fresh footprints heading toward the pedestrian bridge that spans the river. I hurried to catch up as they had several minutes of head start. When I got to the Pedro and Inês Bridge, they were nowhere in sight. I started across the bridge, hoping to see them somewhere on the other side. When I reached the middle, the high point of the bridge, I took one last look back toward the parking lot, hoping they hadn’t come in a car. There on the far side of the lot, I saw a little flash of light in a pedestrian tunnel that goes under the street and leads to a residential area. Someone was lighting a cigarette - someone in a green beret!
I’m getting too old to run anymore but I moved as quickly as I could back down the bridge ramp, and across the parking lot. I probably looked like a staggering drunk as I closed the gap between me and my targets. As I came out of the tunnel, I saw them stopped at a pedestrian crossing that had one of those annoying crosswalk lights. The kind where you have to push a button and wait for it to turn green before traffic will stop. Now I was able to slow down and use some apartment doorways to obscure my approach. I waited until they crossed the street and then followed them from the opposite side.
After about two hundred meters, they opened the gate of an old estate. The iron gate creaked loudly and the black beret had trouble getting it closed, leaving it hanging off-kilter. The Legionnaire was halfway up the walk to the door, but turned and called back: Don’t worry about it, Phillipe. Ana will be coming back out in a few minutes.”
Just then the front door opened and a small woman with dark hair opened the front door and stood there with her hands on her hips. She said something in rapid French that I couldn’t make out. She pointed at her watch and shook her head so I didn’t need an interpreter to tell the Legionnaire was late and she wasn’t happy. They all went inside while I walked slowly past the entrance.
There is a sheltered bus stop a little further down, on the other side of the street, with a crosswalk. I used that to cross back over then walked back down toward the house. I stopped at the corner of a three-foot stone wall topped with a wrought iron fence surrounding the yard and house. It was an older, large two-story home that had seen better times. At first glance, I might have even wondered if it was still occupied, but then many old houses here are like that. Saudade, the somber haunting mood defining traditional Portuguese culture is reflected in the complex state of housing. Tattered old buildings called ruins commonly sit neglected next to handsome rehabilitated houses or even newer residences throughout the country. Just another confounding mystery to newcomers coming to Portugal.
Beyond musing about the state of repair of this particular house, I had no idea what to do next. I realized I was only two blocks away from my apartment, assuming I didn’t mind ascending a serious flight of stairs behind the bus stop. They connected this street with one closer to mine, a shortcut new to me. I was turning over the prospect of trying to explain to the police a fragment of a conversation overheard in a café when the front door opened and the woman I had seen earlier strode out toward the front gate. She was a little taller than I first thought. Wearing a loose-fitting NY Yankees sweatshirt, faded blue jeans, and white tennis shoes, she carried one of those short spring-loaded umbrellas.
Not wanting to look like I was lurking at the corner of the house, I pivoted back around toward the bus stop. I heard the creak of the iron gate being opened and then closed, followed by footsteps coming in my direction. I ambled slowly along and she walked past me at a faster pace. We were almost back to the bus stop shelter where I figured I would reverse direction again to go back to the house. But the woman walked under the shelter and started reading the schedule posted on the clear plexiglass wall. She frowned, looking down at her watch, and shaking her head resigningly then sat down on the bench. Her shoulders slumped as she leaned back against the back wall of the shelter. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out a handkerchief and started daubing her eyes. I wondered if she was crying.
I turned toward the steep stairs leading up the hill to the street behind us and debated the futility of going back to stare at the old house or just going home to try and come up with a plan. I glanced back at the woman who was now putting her handkerchief back in her purse. She let out another deep sigh and turned her head to look at me. Our eyes met and, uncharacteristically, she held my gaze. Portuguese people rarely do that; they are usually very private and don’t make casual eye contact, especially not women. Maybe she isn’t Portuguese, I wondered.
Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she wore no makeup I could see. Fatigue accented early crow’s feet around her dark eyes. I guessed her age at maybe early 30s with high cheekbones and a slightly prominent nose. She wasn’t pretty, but not unattractive either. And then she did an unexpected thing - she smiled, or at least tried to, and scooted down the bench a bit.
“If you wait for bus, better you sit down. It no coming for one hour,” she said in a thick foreign accent.
I couldn’t place the accent; definitely not Portuguese or Spanish, maybe Italian? I wondered why she was comfortable talking to a stranger. I guess I look pretty harmless at my age and those who ride buses regularly have a relaxed familiarity with their fellow passengers. Not having a better plan, or any plan at all. I returned a polite smile and tentatively walked over to sit on the bench. Wondering if she had really been crying, I asked: “Are you OK? You seemed upset.”
She looked up at the sky where billowing cumulus clouds from the west were piling up higher in the sky. She sighed again: “I miss my bus and I am tired. And I don’t like to be wet. The rain come before next bus; I can smell this.”
“I guess we will get wet,” I said, thinking whoever designed bus shelters probably never had to use them in stormy weather. “How did you learn to tell the weather?”
“I grew up in Zadar,” she hesitated, looking at me to see any hint of acknowledgment before adding”… in Croatia, on the coast. The weather, it change quickly in Zadar. Because of the sea … you must learn quickly to stay dry.” She smiled again and I couldn’t help but like her. “We are sailors, my people, going back to the Phoenicians who teach us the ways of the sea.”
A thought came into my head and I looked back at the intimidating stairs for a moment before deciding. Yes, I could make it back to my apartment garage fairly quickly. She liked to talk and seemed like my best chance to get any information about the men inside the house. If I could convince her …
“I have a doctor’s appointment I don’t want to miss,” I said. “I have a friend’s car I can borrow to get there in time. Where are you going, maybe I can drop you off?”
Her eyes narrowed slightly as she looked at me again, suspiciously. “You have car, but you ride bus?”
“It’s not my car, but my friend is generous to share it with me,” I lied.
She looked again at the high clouds rolling in our direction. I thought she even subtly sniffed the air before looking back at me. She glanced at my hands, maybe noticing my wedding ring, before deciding. “OK, I like to be dry.”
It only took me ten minutes to get back to my apartment. My twenty-three-year-old Renault coughed some black smoke out the exhaust, but the little diesel engine rattled on reliably as I negotiated the narrow parking garage. Traffic was light and a few minutes later, I pulled up to the bus stop where she calmly opened the door and climbed in. As she put on her seat belt she told me her name was Ana and gifted me another smile.
“Nice to meet you, Ana,” I said. My name is Dante. Where can I take you?”
“Where you go … to see doctor,” she replied.
“Uh, across the city … up in Celas,” trying to think of the farthest part of the city. She must live somewhere in between here and there.
“Okay, Okay”, she replied, as she was thinking. “You can take me to Café Cataneo, not far from my apartment.”
I admired her caution in avoiding her exact residence address, but had no idea where this café was. “You can tell me directions to find it?”
Ana nodded and we pulled away from the bus stop. I negotiated a tricky roundabout and headed off across the Santa Isabella Bridge. Slowing to merge with street traffic on the other side of the river, I started to probe.
“I’m American, Ana. I’m retired and my wife and I moved here about two years ago. What do you do?”
“You Americans! Always you ask this thing … ‘what you do?’ … everybody you meet. Why your country think this way? She was smiling as she spoke, teasing me, maybe becoming more comfortable in talking.
“Just curious, Ana. I mean no harm. Really … if you don’t want to ….”
She laughed and rolled her eyes. “I do many things. I clean houses, I am waitress, I am hairdresser … I do whatever to pay the rent, to buy the food ….” She shrugged her shoulders.
I felt a little bad trying to pry information from her. She seemed like a nice person just trying to make ends meet. Maybe she was house cleaning for the Legionnaire, that would make sense. I waited a few minutes before pushing a little more.
“Is that what you were doing today, cleaning that house?
She slowly turned toward me, studying me closely again, but didn’t respond. She gave me directions for turning down a street and told me to take the third exit at a roundabout down a block.
“Cafe Cataneo is there,” she said, pointing at a café just up ahead on the other side of the street.
I pulled over behind two double-parked cars, no drivers in sight. I figured one more wouldn’t hurt; trying to understand parking etiquette in Portugal is like taking ecstasy in the middle of an acid trip. And I sensed that I had pushed boundaries too far on this quest as well.
Ana opened the door slightly and looked back at me, tilting her head slightly. “Why you do this? You see me at house where I am cleaning and you … you follow me?” She looked puzzled, but not afraid.
I didn’t know what to say, thinking anything I said might sound creepy. Finally, I apologzed: “I’m sorry, Ana. I mean you no harm … really, I promise.”
She studied me hard for a moment then looked away, sighing again. I felt bad; she didn’t deserve more worries than she already had. Whatever evil the beret guys were up to, I couldn’t believe she had anything to do with it. But then again … people can surprise you.
And then she did. Ana closed the door firmly, turned in the seat to face me, and looked at me intently, at least at first. A hint of a smile bent the corners of her mouth and she reached over and punched me, playfully, in the shoulder. Again she tilted her head and said: “Why? You must tell me.”
Now it was my turn to sigh. The gig was up. I couldn’t think of a good lie so I told her the truth. “I heard something, Ana. Something bad those two men in the house, the men wearing berets, it was something I overheard while I was sitting at a table in a café right next to them.”
She frowned in disbelief and shook her head: “No … Jean-Pierre and Phillipe? No, no … they are pussycats. What bad thing you hear, tell me what they say.”
I tried to gauge her response. Was she covering up for them, was she part of some plot? No, that didn’t feel right either. I had just met her, but I couldn’t be that wrong about her. I would trust her and take my chances.
“I heard the one in the black beret say he was going to kill someone, to kill a friend of theirs, and the green beret was egging him on, encouraging him.”
Her frown deepened for about a half second and then she burst out laughing. She had a really deep throaty laugh for such a slight person, as if she had borrowed it from her father or some ancient mariner in her family’s history. Large raindrops started to fall slowly, making loud, plopping sounds on the hood of the Renault. On the windshield, each one looked like tiny hydraulic explosions. For some reason, this made Ana laugh even harder and the car’s worn-out shocks let her belly-laugh wobble the car slightly.
Now the rain came even harder, in a deluge that vibrated the car in a different rhythm. We sat there, Ana laughing and me squirming because I didn’t get the joke. The torrent lasted only a minute or two. The sky began to lighten, the rain slowed to a misting drizzle and Ana’s laughter dissipated with the fading tempest.
She opened her purse and took out her handkerchief again to dab tears of laughter dry. Finally, she got control and turned to me.
“Dante, you make the big mistake, but … I understand. Now I tell you. Jean-Pierre Gaston, you know this name? No? Okay, okay. He is famous author, write many books, French, Italian, Portuguese … Maybe not English, but many people know him. And Phillipe? He is his uh, how you say, estudante, no, no … protegé? Yes, protegé.
“Jean-Pierre, he is teaching, coaching Phillipe. They try to write book together. For weeks now when I come to clean, Tuesdays and Fridays, I hear them argue about a character in this book they write. Jean-Pierre say: Kill him! But Phillipe say no, no, no! Every week I hear, over and over ….” said Ana shaking her head. She chuckled again and opened the car door. The rain had stopped.
Ana looked back at me smiling: “Thank you for ride, Dante. See, I am dry! Take care yourself and don’t believe everything you hear.” She closed the door gently and strode away still smiling. Looking down the street, the double-parked cars had disappeared and I could see the soft green ridges of the mountains beyond the city. I thought I saw a faint rainbow in the far distance and even though it might have been another figment of my overactive imagination, the world seemed a lot brighter.
The longest river contained within Portugal’s borders flows through the ancient city of Coimbra on its journey to the sea.