I wake up from a dream that torments me with its convoluted plot line and scenery. It’s one of those dreams that tell me something is off. It’s not a nightmare by a long shot, but it’s so stressful that it forces me into wakefulness. In my dream, I am looking for the key to lock my hotel room before I leave, but I can’t find the key or the room. I am lost in a long hallway and can’t remember the room number. All the doors look the same and no one is around. I finally find myself in my room, but I can’t find my wallet and passport. I decide to call my brother to ask him to look for my passport so I can fly back to San Francisco, but the battery on my phone is dead and there’s no one who will lend me a phone to make an international call. Then I realize that I didn’t memorize my brother’s phone number so I can’t call him anyway. I’m afraid I am going to be late for my flight, and I will be forever stuck where I am. Wherever it is I don’t know. There’s a river outside the window and I can hear the siren of an ambulance rushing down the street. I try not to panic but I am not sure how because without my wallet, my phone, and my passport I don’t exist in this world.
I can interpret this dream with my eyes closed. Anyone can. You don’t need a PhD in Jungian dream analysis to understand why I had an anxiety-ridden dream. It’s so obvious that it’s cliché. But that is why I am awake. Now I need to shake off the fog inside my brain and prepare to leave Porto. I think I will have a nice cup of galão at the café across the street and maybe a pastry to go with it to indulge my subconscious. To hell with cutting fat, sugar, and calories.
At least today is the last time I will sit across the table from Anna and pretend not to notice her unhappy circumstances and denialism. I am not good at pretending that everything is okay when things are rocky. I’m quite transparent and a bit obsessive. Never developed the important survival skill of hiding my feelings or ignoring my thoughts.
When I enter the café, Rita is her old cheerful self. My expressed gratitude from last night seems to have enlivened her spirit and maybe even reminded her of why she is so fond of going on nature walks with me. She loves to hear that she is needed, and she thrives on the gratitude of those beholden to her.
“Good morning,” she greets me, raising her eyes from her phone. “Did you sleep well?”
“I slept great,” I exaggerate. I can tell that she is not terribly interested in my answer. She is never terribly interested in how other people feel unless they are involved in her dramas. “And you?” I reciprocate looking at the three women sitting at the table.
Vera looks up and raises a cup of galão to her lips. “Luckily you woke up in time for breakfast,” she says before taking a sip.
As usual I can’t tell if she means it or is criticizing me for skipping breakfast yesterday. Or maybe she is glad I am conforming to the group’s schedule. She has this amazing talent for saying things that can be interpreted in several different ways, unlike her daughter, who possesses not one ounce of subtlety.
“I’ve been fantasizing about a nice cup of coffee with milk for two days,” I smile to disarm her and turn to the elderly man who stands behind the counter.
I’m almost giddy at finding an opportunity to talk to someone who looks like a resident of Porto; a real flesh and blood human who regularly mingles with the local population rather than the hordes of tourists who barely notice those who make their stay in Portugal comfortable and memorable.
“Brazilian?” he asks after I order a galão and decide on one of the pastries on display.
Israel is the only place where no one asks me which country I’m from. In California, I say one word to a stranger and immediately I am confronted with, “Where are you from?” If I dare tell the truth, I am forced to answer even more questions about the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and if I like living in California more than in Israel.
I tell him I am from California and skip the Brazilian issue.
He asks if there are many Brazilians in California. I forgive him for asking that because making small talk with customers is good business. He’s just being friendly, which is nice, considering the little contact I have with anyone outside my group.
I don’t really know the answer to his question. I think most Brazilians live in Texas or in Florida, but I don’t want to confuse him. I also don’t know how familiar he is with the geography of the U.S. Years ago, a Russian man I met in Israel who heard I lived in California asked me if I knew his friend Sergei who was a taxi driver in Chicago. I can't remember what I said in response.
Fortunately, a woman who I am guessing is a relative of the man comes out of the kitchen with a pile of sandwiches on a tray and absolves me from answering his question. Her appearance is his cue to stop talking to me and turn toward the coffee machine. I wait by the counter while the woman arranges the sandwiches for display. When she’s done, she looks up and asks me if I ordered anything else.
I point to the pastry I chose earlier. She puts it on a plate and hands it to me. Then she goes to the cash register. She moves at a leisurely pace, as if we are hanging out in her own kitchen. No reason to rush anywhere. Life in this little café has its own rhythm. Apart from my travel mates, there is only one other customer in the small sitting area. He’s reading a newspaper and drinking one of those small coffees the locals drink, nothing like the giant mugs I am used to seeing in the States. And no free refills as far as I understand.
I pay the woman and join my troupe at the table. Rita is glued to her phone as always.
“What’s going on?” I ask her.
“I got a message from Morocco,” she giggles. “He wants me to send him money.”
“Who?” Vera turns to Rita.
While Rita scrolls down her Facebook page, the man from behind the counter comes with my coffee and puts it in front of me. He asks if anyone wants something and gets head shakes. After he leaves, Rita shows me a picture of a deeply tanned man wearing a blue turban standing by a camel. The vast desert stretches behind him all the way to the horizon.
“Let me see,” Vera demands, and Rita shows her the photo on her phone. Vera examines the photo and gives the phone back to Rita.
“Who is he?” she asks Rita.
“He was our guide on the trip to the Sahara,” Rita giggles.
By “we” she means her and poor Fred, who came along because she doesn’t like traveling by herself anymore. Also, he would rather subject himself to her misadventures than stay back home and take care of her cats, dogs, and chickens. After she came back from the trip to Morocco, I heard that apart from nearly colliding with a donkey and injuring several children on a rural road in their rented four-wheel drive, she also got a terrible case of food poisoning after eating something at the bazaar. Luckily, Fred does not eat anything prepared outside of a respectable looking restaurant and was able to make an emergency call to a doctor, who came to the hotel and gave her something that quickly stopped her vomiting and diarrhea.
“Why does he ask you for money?” Vera continues. She has the tendency of asking unnecessary questions, like a child.
“He’s in love with me and wants to visit me in California,” Rita explains.
I have yet to hear about a man she met on her travels who did not fall in love with her or insist on following her to the end of the world. I wonder if our desert man fell in love with her in front of Fred, or maybe it’s her imagination.
“How old is he?” I throw in my two cents. I want to see Vera’s face when she hears the answer.
“Thirty-two, maybe thirty-three,” Rita says. “He’s also married and has five kids,” she laughs.
Rita has no shame. Having a Tuareg man stalking her on Facebook is a huge ego booster and a source of pure joy, but she pretends to play it down. She is not one to brag to her mother about her success with men. But when she is alone with me on a nature walk, she opens up, and more than once has talked about a sherpa she met in Katmandu who still begs her to return to Nepal, or a Jordanian goat herder she met near Petra who wants to make her his second wife. Or third wife, I can’t remember all the details.
“I already sent him 50 dollars,” she giggles. “But if he continues to bug me, I’ll block him,” she promises.
Vera shakes her head in disapproval. This time she is not vague at all. But she is not one to scorn her daughter in front of other people, no matter how exasperated she can get from hearing about Rita’s shenanigans. I choose to remain quiet. I could start an interesting conversation by saying that I don’t believe Rita. She does not give money away if she can’t get something in return. She may buy you coffee, a sandwich, a pastry, or a plate of hummus, but she will always find a way to get her investment back. Fill up her gas tank on the way from here to there, buy her son an ice cream cone, take care of her animals while she is away. It’s all very innocent, unpredictable, and random. That’s why I strongly believe that her sending money to a man who dwells in the Sahara Desert is an embellishment if not a lie. But Rita likes to think of herself as a generous person. She says that she doesn’t care about stuff or money because you can’t take any of it to your grave. Yet I bet she haggled with that Tuareg man for a long time after he stated the price for a guided tour of the Erg Chebbi Dunes, just like she did with the tuk-tuk driver from Lisbon and the jewelry sellers near the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos.
“That’s nice of you,” Anna intones cluelessly. She is not one to disparage Rita. She is a peace-loving protector of the earth and the downtrodden who would not contaminate the air with negative observations.
“I’m sure he’s not saving up to buy a plane ticket,” Vera says dryly. Her reaction makes me want to hug her. Sometimes she can be too funny even though it is not her intention.
“He can do whatever he wants,” Rita shrugs and puts down her phone. She is not going to let her mother burst her bubble. The man is still messaging her and that’s what counts.
“We are all free to do whatever we want,” I recite Rita’s life motto and take the last sip of my coffee, though I have a different perspective on the issue of freedom and our ability to do what we want in the world we live in.
“Exactly,” Rita concurs and Anna nods. Whether they noticed the irony in my voice or not, I don’t really care to find out.
“I’m happy to hear you all agree on something,” Vera brings us back to reality and rises from her chair. She is not one to get carried away by philosophical nonsense. She is ready to move on and has no interest in wasting her time discussing issues that lead nowhere.
“OK,” Rita announces, following her mother’s signal that our time at the café has come to an end. “Let’s go get our stuff. We have a long day ahead of us.”
Like the good troops that we are, we follow Rita back to the apartment, pick up our luggage, and walk to the parking lot up the street where we left the car two days ago. There, we load the car and once again head out to face the world.
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