Travelling to the ‘Small Memories’

Lisbon seemed fanciful but gloomy. I strolled the whole day across Lisbon’s streets, getting enthralled by a fado singer filling a subway hall with a long-lasting saudade. A codfish steamed in rosemary helped me settle my melancholy down at night. A frank why not was the answer of my German roommate when I told him that I came to follow Jose Saramago’s childhood steps. I wrote down Penha de França, Rua Carlos Ribeiro 15 in my notebook and sketched out a Google map to get there. Early next morning, I took a bus along Morais Soares street, up to Poço dos Mouros. As if I have been here before, I walked up to Cesário Verde, where I turned right. Number 15 was on the left side of this narrow, cul-de-sac street. Here, the prolific Portuguese writer Jose Saramago was raised. He must have wandered around this neighbourhood, musing about its pigeons’ dropping-perfumed park, about that irksome, restless caged bird, and those staggering catfights. At quarter to ten I left Penha da França towards the train station that welcomed me last night, feeling that this momentum must take me to Saramago’s natal town. A young train officer was glaring at me while I searched for Azinhaga in a map. Azinhaga de Santarém, I said. Eu conheço, we answered. I purchased a ticket to Mato de Miranda, from where I will need to follow road signs for three miles. Three hours later, I was on my own walking along the countryside road to Azinhaga, with a lawnmower as soundtrack. A long, wavy street took me to a small plaza where an enormous Saramago, calmly gazing at his book, is moulded in bronze. I greeted him familiarly and sat on his left hand side. Passages of his book Small Memories started showing up in my mind as I walked throughout Azinhaga: the larch trees’ path, the Almonda River, the pigs’ barn, the irrigated crops, the marbles’ matches; and as long as those episodes showed up, my own small memories begun to arise, taking me back to the kid I was, as is written on the back of Saramago’s book.