THE COMFORT

UNUSUALLY FOR ME, THIS MORNING, being a Saturday, involved a little bit of work at the University Chancellery, the good offices of which have for some reason granted me the responsibility of looking into issues of plagiarism and copying by those good lads and ladies who wish to join our establishment. This morning I had to take a signed declaration banning an individual I have never met from studying at university in Portugal for the next five years. This is upon the recommendation of people I have known for over twenty years and whom I would willingly ban from the country for ever, were the chance given to me.

WHEN I LEFT MY HOUSE this morning there was a syncopated empty echo in the air – a sort of vacuum – hanging under the hackberry trees that line my street; often this indicates a crack in the weather. However, when I was taking coffee and reading The Times in the Jardim da Parada gardens it looked like the threat of rain, or hail, might be only that. There was, indeed, a little more of a sway in the maidenhair trees and the royal palm, but I couldn’t see any condensation on the leaves of the Japanese grass.

I SAT FOR A LITTLE WHILE looking at the garden before I got into the taxi. This is the Teófilo Braga garden, named after a statesman who, I imagine, “did the right thing” when called upon to do so. I was sitting on a bench by the children’s playground, looking at the giant hairy redwood and cypresses, and watching the flower sellers set up their stands. Today is probably the first day of the major sales of the Portuguese tradition of courting couples giving a manjerico, or sweet basil, plant to each other, expressing love and trust.

AND THEN I GOT INTO THE TAXI and went off with my little envelopes with the little pieces of paper with my signature on them. Somewhere, someone I do not know will be affected by this. Next week there will be elections in Portugal, and at that time I will not be here. Yet I wonder if the people who are going to be elected, or those who are going to elect them, or indeed anyone involved in the event will ever sit down in a garden and think for a little bit about whether they are doing the right thing.

THE STORM BROKE SHORTLY after I came back to the neighbourhood. I felt the shuddering weight of the impending onslaught as I walked to the fish market; nothing was actually dropping from the sky, and the temperature had increased considerably, yet mothers were rushing their babies to safety and older men lounging about outside cafés and shops were pointing to the deep, rolling, dirty leaden sky, to each other’s grim faces, and coming out with statements such as, “We deserve this”.