On our way back to the car, Rita tells me about another discovery she made in Óbidos: ginja in a small chocolate cup. “It was so yummy,” she adds. She often describes the food she eats in restaurants with “Ta’eeeeeeem,” using the Hebrew equivalent of “yummy” and stretching the second syllable to underscore her pleasure.
“Uh, too sweet,” Vera interjects and shrugs. It’s hard to impress her when she’s in that mood.
A shot of ginja in a chocolate cup is uniquely Portuguese. At Monterey’s Fisherman’s Wharf, which was only a block from where I used to live, waiters stand at the entrance to seafood restaurants offering passersby a tiny paper cup of steaming, thick clam chowder without a spoon, for free. Here, young women lure tourists into souvenir shops with sour cherry liqueur in small, dark chocolate cups for 5 euros a pop. I guess everyone has to make a living. I skip that little treat, as I skip most stuff that’s imposed upon me in touristy zones, not because I am stingy but because I just wasn’t into it at the moment.
Back on the road again toward I don’t know where, Rita mentions that she received a text message from her Brazilian hairdresser; the one who attaches the blond braid extensions to her unruly short hair when she gets bored of living unnoticed.
“What’s up with her?” I ask. I’ve never met Simoni, but I have heard about her and how much she loves Rita and wants her to fly to Brazil to meet her family.
“She wants us to meet her nephew who lives somewhere in the mountains.”
“Do you know him?” Vera asks.
“I met him over the summer. He stayed with her for a few months, but he wasn’t making any money so he went to Portugal to study something, I don’t remember what.”
“What’s the name of the town he lives in?” I ask.
“I don’t remember. She sent me several texts already. She’s been bugging me to visit him since I told her I was going to Portugal.”
“Do you want to meet him?” I ask again.
“I told her I’d try.”
I am not sure I believe her, but it doesn’t really matter.
“How far is this town?” Vera asks.
“She said a couple of hours from Lisbon,” Rita responds, her eyes thankfully glued to the road. No matter how much she loves her phone, she is not tempted to check the name or the location of the town the nephew lives in. She’s a good driver. She always pays attention, keeps a good distance from the car in front of her, and lets aggressive drivers pass her without getting competitive or angry. “We can stop and look for him on the way back to Lisbon,” she adds.
This little chat reminds me of Belmonte, a small town somewhere in the mountains, which I considered visiting. Not because I know much about it, but because I have a Brazilian friend who owns some Airbnb properties there. I used to share an apartment with him and another guy when I lived in Rio in my twenties. He was a tall, skinny guy with long curly hair and strong leftist views that all the Brazilians I knew espoused at that time. When I interviewed for the third bedroom in the apartment, he asked me who I voted for in the Israeli elections. Luckily, I gave the right answer. After I was accepted as a roommate with equal rights and responsibilities, he told me that had I voted for the right-wing Likud Party, I would have been thrown out the window. That would have landed me on a bunch of noisy chickens who lived in cages in the corner of the open-air market which was located four flights below and woke us up every day long before the market opened for business. When I found him on Facebook three decades later, he was already a grandfather and a widower. His long curly hair, now a bit grayer and thinner, was still gracing his shoulders.
From the pictures that Umberto, my former Brazilian roommate, posted on Facebook, I learned that Jews who were expelled from the big cities over five hundred years ago (1496) and forced to convert settled in Belmonte and left symbols on the stone walls of their houses to demonstrate to their neighbors that they were good Christians. I also saw pictures of the properties that Umberto bought and restored with the help of his two adult sons. I didn’t contact him to let him know that I was coming to Portugal because I was not sure where I was going to be and if Rita would be willing to stop in Belmonte. But now that it looks like we might go to the mountains in search of Simoni’s nephew, Rita might agree to stop there. I mean, it’s not every day that we travel to a country where we can spend a night at an ex-roommate’s property. I might even run into him or get a good deal. Who knows?
I don’t share my thought with Rita just yet. We can make decisions later on, when we know where we are heading and how much time we have. In the meantime, Rita appears to have parked the car in front of a supermarket. A non-distinct, mundane-looking, neon-lit store, with rows and rows of packaged food items on shelves, large bins with fresh vegetables and fruits, and refrigerators full of stuff. What a relief. A welcome break from the exotic offerings of this lovely country.
I have to say that strolling down this supermarket’s aisles by myself feels more satisfying than stepping into a medieval church in Lisbon or standing on the westernmost point of continental Europe. Finally, I get to see what life is like for those who live in Portugal. Discover what kind of things are sold in supermarkets. Maybe see something I’ve never seen before. Like the humongous meat globs with a giant bone sticking out of them hanging on a pole in the cured meats and sausage section. They look like they were smoked or dried and I have no idea what people do with them. I’ve never seen anything like this at my local supermarket. They are too in-your-face, too provocative for the refined American shopper who prefers to consume meat that does not look like it came from an animal. In Tel Aviv they are nonexistent because I am sure they used to belong to pigs.
I can also say that food costs more in Portugal than where I live, especially the fresh stuff, because here I pay in euros and those euros are worth more than my dollars on any given day. Not that I’m complaining. I know I have it easy in California.
Interestingly, the shopping carts are much smaller than the American carts and I wonder if they are intentionally not user-friendly. They are similar to the shopping baskets I use at home, but much deeper and with four wheels on the bottom. The long stick that is attached to one side of the basket lets me steer it up and down the aisles. So not only do I have to drag this thing behind me like a carry-on suitcase, I also have to bend down to the floor to put the merchandise in it because the bottom is at the same level as my feet. What if I had knee problems? What if I had a weight problem like dear Freddy? I cannot imagine him using this so-called shopping cart. If the man bends down to put something in it, it will be the end of him. He will never be able to rise back up and no one will be able to lift his extra 350 pounds to a standing position without a crane. It’s a doomed scenario. I think that whoever thought up this contraption should be tarred and feathered.
Despite my poor opinion of the shopping basket, I buy a few things I can recognize that would last me for a couple of days. Nothing extravagant that will require cooking or chopping. If I feel a need to indulge, I can always order something at a bakery, cafe, or a restaurant that might attract Rita’s attention. This time, I see that she has already found a place inside the supermarket where she can order food. She is sitting at a small round table with Vera. They are enjoying a pastry, a sandwich, and coffee. I take a seat next to them after I order a small coffee and a croissant. I still don’t know how to order coffee with milk so I get an espresso and ask for a little milk, which makes the guy behind the glass counter look at me funny.
When I ask about Anna’s whereabouts, Rita says that she went to look for the bathroom.
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