I barely noticed what I ate after inflicting that mouth-numbing injury on myself, bad enough to make me almost regret going to the restaurant. Still, I’m glad we went. We did a favor for someone back home without sacrificing anything, and met Emilio, another Brazilian who’s trying to make a life in Portugal.
It reminds me of when a friend asked me to put a note for her in the Western Wall after I told her I was traveling to Israel to visit my family. She wanted me to ask god to help her get pregnant after several failed pregnancies and IVF treatments. She wasn’t even Jewish. I agreed to do it, even though I hadn’t planned to travel to Jerusalem, let alone visit the Wall. I don’t believe in god, and I don’t put notes in walls asking for miracles. Then a childhood friend suggested we spend a day in Jerusalem. During a stop at the Western Wall, I wrote a note and posed for the camera, pushing it between the stones. I felt ridiculous, but I wanted to make her happy. And she got pregnant, though not by her husband, which made me think I should have been more specific. I didn’t take credit for the miracle, but it gave meaning to the trip and a reason to feel good about myself.
Rita, however, doesn’t feel good. As soon as Vera enters the bedroom and closes the door, she collapses on the couch in the walk-up Airbnb she found for us and throws her keys bundle toward the coffee table. It lands on the floor, and she lets it stay there. She stretches her legs over one armrest, her feet still inside her tattered boots, and jams her head against the other.
“Are you going to spend the night like this?” I ask. It’s too early to go to bed but she looks exhausted.
“I don’t know,” she sighs. “It depends.”
I don’t have to ask “on what?” We know the answer. Instead, I ask how she slept last night. I didn’t see the inside of the upstairs apartment in Belmonte, only the staircase, but I have a feeling she had to sleep in the same room as Vera.
“So, so,” she says, pushing the boots off her feet. It’s the first time we’re alone since she walked into my room in Porto. She can let the cheerful mask fall, knowing she doesn’t have to perform when I’m the only audience. She can be herself: achy, listless, whiny, and frustrated.
“We should stay in a three-bedroom place tomorrow so you can get a good night’s sleep,” I say. She needs to sleep in a room of her own at least every other night to recover the hours she loses when she shares a room with Vera. She knew it from day one, but chose to ignore the consequences, or maybe she thought she could handle it when she obviously couldn’t.
“I shouldn’t have eaten your fries,” she groans in response.
That too. She shouldn’t have, and it’s partly my fault. After I bit my tongue, I couldn’t eat and offered to share the fries, which she couldn’t resist. Now, she’s paying the price of gluttony, which Anna enjoyed watching and interpreted as a sign of happiness and love of life.
“I’ll make tea,” I say and head to the kitchen to boil water.
Through the window above the sink, I see the Convent of Christ silhouetted against the darkening sky. Tomorrow we’ll walk up the hill to see it up close. It’ll be the last touristy thing we do on this trip. Hopefully, it’ll be worth it. It's a UNESCO World Heritage site, and those usually don’t disappoint.
When I return to the living room with the tea, I find Rita snoring quietly on the couch. I put the steaming cup on the coffee table in case she wakes up, and retire to my room to reflect on everything that happened today and how to proceed from here.
