«The world is small but round and has no end.
Some days ago, in Lisbon's International Fair, tourism was trying to shake off the crisis, like drops off a Mackintosh. I was in with my friend who lives in Brazil, Jorge. He gave me some fliers of Rio Grande (dunes over Christmas, “Turtles cross the ocean to eat here. Why?”), of Maceió (“It is way too beautiful”) and told me about a man you'd love to meet: Bill Goianes, guitar player, from Recife. One of Jorge's uncle got twenty six gun shots whilst coming out of a bank, and because he didn't die, he hired Goianes. The latter killed the responsible parties and went drinking to celebrate. At a certain point, the toothless guitar player, pointed the pistol to Jorge's head and asked his uncle:
This one is to die too?
It is a pity that we cannot go and talk to Bill Goianes, as we used to. Whilst arriving to Atacama desert, it rained and it turned flowers. In the “Valley of the Moon” you asked:
Don't say lunar landscape.
Lunar landscape.
Arica, you found the the red acacias from Lourenço Marques. You also liked the sidewalks of Manhattan, the bricks like those of Mozambique. In New York, with António Lobo Antunes, Maria João, we discovered writers in the stones. Lucille Clifton:
they asked me to remember
but they want me to remember
their own memories
but I keep remembering
my own.
In Colombia we saw a video of what to do in case of kidnapping. In Miami we got the bridal suite. In Cuba you stayed in the swimming pool with the kids whilst I went diving with the barracudas. In Eurodisney, the road-runner hotel, the coyote-tormenting-bird, bip-bip. A few weeks ago, in London, Henrique and Sara loved everything but Madam Tussaud's, a vulgar celebrity driven attraction. We were pretty by the queen. In Panama, in La Miel beach, the barman:
Princess Diana de Gales murió esta night.
How is it possible that she died?
Just so you know, I was born in Alentejo, land of dirt and suicides, only in classmates two or three, but that is sociological and literary, I think.
I don't like people who killed themselves. It is so rude.
You always got that sentence spot on. If this was easy, it would be for other people (your marines' motto).
On our wedding day, in Portalegre, Hermínio Monteiro offered us a Juan Muñoz painting, both of them went almost at the same time. Al Berto had given us, previously, two laced tea cloths and also went. In a book with a Nazolino cover he asked me to take care of you, but he was a poet. Mena gave us a beautiful letter opener, Croft had delivered an immense box, Pinharanda had the Público newspaper talking about having art at home, Luís Pedro was very talkative. Alexandre Melo was telling people he almost beat me up the day we met, he thought I was an eejit trying to chat you up. Tininho, Pereirinha, Zeca, Eustáquio, my sisters, the cousins, etc., sang some local blues with the Stray Gazelles Choir. A mariachi group hired in Badajoz blew the horns 'till dawn, and drained by our friends they retired shortly after. They haven't attempted the spotlight in the ten following years.
Alexandre has a trick: friends don't die, they just cannot come today.
The last:
If I die will you take care of our children?
You're not going to die. But of course.
I just got one thing wrong.
What is left of a heart: the huns were here.
Miss Sud-America died this week with the same bacteria. You were far more beautiful.
I am sorry for the uncombed words, they run from the shrubs into the sky, but I have not your accuracy to hunt clichés. I am not Bill Goianes, the guitar player from Recife.
So many still travels in the round world.
Many have done it by now, but let me just tell you, Tereza Coelho, love, thank you and see you around.»