jute sacks) the cloudy rose catches the throat like a
Fernie shook hands amid tearing of bread and lifting of glasses. He pulled the stiff door beyond the terrace and it sang a choir-like note, echoing and vibrating. Inside the door it was dark. Barrels dribbled into bottles for the drinkers outside. Past tubs of black olives and bowls of green ones were boxes overflowing with figs. Fernie ran his hands through the sack and gave me a handful. We walked out through the far door. To the left and right low white walls provided picture frames around the red soil. Ahead, olive trees marked a brightly tiled path to a pale-blue building with complex white decorations. It sat across the landscape like a Wedgwood teapot. It was one of the old baronial houses or
Fernie pushed open the wrought-iron gate and, holding it open for me, said in slow, careful English, ‘You
‘Of course I am,’ I lied quickly.
He nodded silently and left me alone at the house of Senhor Manuel Gambeta do Rosario da Cunha, first citizen of the region.
By 5 p.m. in October the sun is well down. To the north the mountains were intensely mauve and the sun, hitting the higher of the white houses, made them as pink as the potted geraniums along the walls.
The last rays of the sun did a spray job on one side of da Cunha’s bony head, and behind him the gold lettering of Mommsen’s
On da Cunha’s simple mahogany desk was a porcelain-and-gold pen set, a gold letter-opener, an elegant sealing-wax holder, a seal and half a dozen foolscap sheets of fine handwriting. They weren’t held down by Coca- Cola caps either.
‘I understand you to be attempting to locate a lost article by dredging the sea floor.’
It wasn’t an exact description, but it wasn’t a question either. I said nothing.
Da Cunha removed his gold-rimmed spectacles. There was a bright red mark on the side of his thin nose where they had rested. I wondered just how political you had to be to have a set-up like this.
‘In the course of time this coast has attracted adventurers of all sorts. Not all of them have sought recently- lost treasure, and some of them have been far from successful. The town of Olhao was built entirely from the profits made by selling to both sides during the Cadiz affair.’
He said ‘Cadiz affair’ as though it had happened last week instead of the sixteenth century.
‘However, in the case of your party I am of the opinion that the motives are not entirely honourable.’
He paused, and then said, ‘I am hoping to provoke a reply.’
‘Your English is excellent,’ I said.
‘I spent the years of 1934 and 1935 at Peterhouse College, but you avoid my question.’
‘I’m not sure how your ideas of honour could be expected to key in with mine,’ I said. ‘You could buy a pair of shoes for every barefoot kid in Albufeira with that pen set.’
‘Ten years ago I would have been tempted to explain why you are so wrong. Now, however …’ his voice trailed away.
The sun had disappeared over the hill now, leaving only a few fiery trees to mark its passage. Da Cunha hooked his spectacles over one ear and wriggled his nose into them.
‘There is no discussion necessary. I am able to give you what you are looking for and I trust that then you will leave the Algarve and its people and not return.’
He walked slowly across to the corner of the room, the rich Persian carpet switching off the sound-track of his footfalls. He slid his hand into the shelf of loosely-packed books and removed about six between compressed palms. In the space behind the books was a brown-paper parcel about half the size of a cigar box. He tugged at a red velvet cord and then, bringing the parcel over to me, he put it on the mahogany desk.
I didn’t touch it.
‘I resent it,’ da Cunha said, ‘the whole manner of it, I resent it, tell your Mr Smith that, I resent it very much.’
I thought, ‘I’ll tell him all right — if I ever meet him.’ Da Cunha offered me coffee, while I wondered who the ubiquitous Mr Smith was, and how he connected with this little gang of Portuguese pirates.
Coffee came in the only way it could travel in a house like that: in a silver pot attended by Limoges cups and saucers. On a side plate were soft marzipan cakes with a moist egg-yolk in the innermost centre. Da Cunha forced three of them on me in quick succession.
‘I think of our Algarve as the secret garden of Europe,’ he said as he poured the coffee. He flicked a finger towards the decimated plate of sweets.
‘Almonds, figs, finest grapes in Europe, passable champagne. Wonderful olives, walnuts, oranges, tangerines, pomegranates; and lobster, squid, crab, eels, shrimps, sardines, cuttlefish, octopus; more than I can put my tongue to. Upon the upturned eaves of these houses (upturned to ward the evil eye away, as Portuguese sailors discovered in China) — upon these eaves sits the small nightingale so cherished by the Arab poet.’
‘No fooling,’ I said. I sipped my coffee and offered him a High Life cigarette — a cheap local brand. He declined and lit an oval Turkish which he discovered in a carved ivory box.
‘There is a story told of the region,’ da Cunha went on. ‘It tells of a Moorish prince who married a Russian queen. She pined away thinking of her snow-covered northern home, until one February morning she awoke and looked from her window to see the white blossoms of the almond tree covering our whole land. You would love our Algarve in February.’
‘I love it now in my own bourgeois way,’ I told him, helping myself to another cheese of almond. He nodded.
With the second pot of coffee he told me of the Sao Marcos festival, when monks whip a calf on the church steps in order that all the cattle ills and troubles of the year fall upon that one poor calf. I drank the coffee and mused.
Mr Smith is somehow involved with the car following me down the A3. He has R.N. Signals Gibraltar doing a wire-tap job on me; when I get here his name is brandished on all sides, and now someone is giving me presents because they think he and I are pals. I knew how that calf felt.
With the smoked paprika-and-pork sausage da Cunha told me of the climb to the top of a hill on the day of Sao Vincente. If the flaming torch is blown out, preparations are made for a good year. If it stays alight, the farm- hands are sacked. Half a dozen cold beers later we were on to the witches’ sabbath of St John’s night, when boys and girls jump hand in hand over bonfires. The girl burns the flower of a purple thistle in the flames and plants the stalk. Only true love makes the stalk flower.
‘Fascinating,’ I said. Senhor Manuel Gambeta do Rosario da Cunha got up from the desk and walked to the door, where he had a whispered conversation. Then he told me briefly of the twelve grapes that must be eaten on New Year’s Eve at midnight while drums, trumpets, and bells sound in every square in Portugal: only thus can twelve months of happiness be ensured. The door opened.
It was dark outside and Senhor da Cunha lit the little green-shaded brass lamp and cleared a space on the desk. The maid, in formal white cap and black dress, put a tray down on the desk. There was a lop-sided Portuguese loaf, butter, a red spider crab open and ready to eat, and a bowl of creamy fish soup floating with pink shrimps.
‘The local cognac is good enough to follow such a small snack,’ said da Cunha with Portuguese hospitalitity, ‘and perhaps a little of the sweet anise liquor with a fresh pot of coffee.’
As I left he clicked his heels and said what a pleasure it was to talk with such an educated and cultured person. He wanted to send Maria through the garden with me to carry the lantern, but I insisted upon taking it myself. Halfway to the iron gate a gust of wind blew the wavering light out. There was a thin nail-pairing of moon, and behind the house the dog began to bark again. Beyond the hydrangea flowers and the high wall, grey-blue in the moonlight, a two-stroke motor cycle started up.
I moved into the shadow of the wall and looked back towards the house. Only the light from the upstairs study shone across the garden. I hopped over a low wall and landed in the soft earth. I shook my head and tried to
