Tagus...

The city’s fishermen never quit it seems. Patiently, they wait for their prey at the pier. They exchange jokes and secrets of their craft, and sometimes they quarrel over politics. The constant noise over their heads doesn’t seem to bother them. They’ve got used to it, and so did the fish, or at least those that ignore the danger and swim under the bridge at the mouth of Tagus to the Atlantic Ocean. I don’t even know for how long I was sitting there. Enough time to smoke five or six cigarettes, the last Greek ones from the packs I bought at Athens airport’s duty free store.

How on earth did I come here at the end of Europe? “Here where the land ends and the ocean begins” as the Portuguese poet had said. What the hell… Life is an adventurous game. I guess I couldn’t have imagined myself over here a year ago. But, then again, a year ago I hadn’t met Luis...

Now, as I hold the keys of my new apartment in Linda-a-Velha, which I found through a real estate paper ad for a monthly rental much higher than any average Portuguese would have ever agreed to pay for two rooms on the second floor of a 1970 building by the side of the busy avenue, I wonder what is more urgent: buying a TV set or a kitchen table…

Humidity kills me. My shirt swims in sweat and 35º C don’t make it any easier. It is 10 pm already and the fishermen don’t seem tired. I should get going in a while. I should buy my first local smokes and walk back home. Without television set and kitchen table. They told me that they’ll ring me tomorrow early in the morning for the interview. I’d better go to sleep at once, while Tagus is still floating outside my bedroom window.