1993 - The Blue Afternoon

by William Boyd

  “I didn’t do it, Udo. I didn’t do anything. I’m an innocent man.”

  “Of course you are. I know that. But you’ll never stop people talking.” He smiled apologetically. “Anyway, it’ll be better for the child to grow up away from this atmosphere.”

  “What child?”

  Udo frowned. “Didn’t Annaliese write to you? She’s pregnant.”

  We dined in the hotel: a mutton stew which I disliked but which Carriscant declared was among the finest he had ever tasted.

  “Mutton is a coarse fibrous meat with a strong taste. This dish is not pretending to be anything else. Garlic, potatoes, carrots and cabbage, what more could you ask for?” Back on dry land his appetite had returned. The dessert was a dense flat triangle of cake, a kind of heavy sponge, served with syrup from a green and gold can. The clientele were all smartly dressed, the dining tables covered with clean linen, the silverware much used but well shined.

  “I like this hotel,” Carriscant said, spooning more syrup. “I could live here.”

  Adulthood. When the prospect of physical or sensual excess is no longer enticing. Is this why I feel an adult? Is this why I feel so old beside Salvador Carriscant?

  THURSDAY, 4 MAY

  I sit at the pine table in my room and stare out at the street with the trams going by with a clatter and fizz. Their approach is announced by a singing of the electric wires, a kind of ghostly monotone whistle. A weak sun is shining today and new fragile green leaves flutter bravely in the cool breeze that blows off the estuary.

  So: S.C.’s version goes like this. During the false period of reconciliation with Annaliese they made love. He only specified one occasion, when she came into his study, but he did say he ‘reoccupied the marital bed’. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the event recurred. Annaliese became pregnant but probably only became aware of her condition after the arrest and trial. She never saw him again after he was arrested. She refused to attend the trial or visit him in prison after she was made aware of the unsent farewell letter. Then she quit Manila sometime towards the end of 1903 for German New Guinea. So let us say the child was conceived in early May 1903…It would have been born in January 1904. My date of birth is 9 January 1904.

  My head fills with clamouring questions when I try to come to terms with these facts. How did she end up in German New Guinea? Carriscant said Udo Leys told him she was returning to Germany…How did she meet Hugh Paget? Was she married to him by the time I was born, or did he marry her afterwards and adopt the baby girl as his own?…The thought comes to me that Hugh Paget might be merely a convenient fiction. An old photograph of a man of the cloth, found somewhere. A handy sad story to relate to a kind fellow like Rudolf Fischer; a neat explanation for the presence of a baby daughter. My mother is no fool. Widow’s weeds hide a great deal…

  Hugh Paget. My English father.

  Question: How did Carriscant know my name? How did he know to come looking for me in Los Angeles?

  We went out to buy Carriscant a new suit—his idea. We found a tailor’s on the Rua Conceicao and Carriscant bought a three-piece suit off the peg. It was a dark navy blue with a thin red and white chalkstripe, a double-breasted coat and a vest with small lapels. With it we purchased a cream soft–collared shirt and a maroon tie. The trousers had to be taken up an inch or so, which they did on the premises while we waited. He looked well in it: a fit, boxy, broad-shouldered older man, and the cream shirt set off the olive tones in his skin. And all of a sudden I see the young surgeon in Manila—confident, gifted, and so very sure of himself. Carriscant celebrates by having a haircut and a professional shave. I stand outside the barber’s and watch the thick suds applied to his face, see the poised careful scraping as the swathes of smooth skin are exposed. Carriscant studies himself in the mirror, his fingers on his chin, pulling and pushing, testing the grain.

  He is dressing for someone—not me—and intends to look his best. In the afternoon we go to an annexe of the US legation, a new building of tawny stone, on the Rua do Alecrim, where we had an appointment with a Mr Shelburne Dillingham, the second secretary. The envoy himself, a Mr James Marion Minnigarde, was visiting the consulate at Oporto. Also he was a recent appointment; we needed to talk to someone who had been in Lisbon for some years, who would at least be familiar with the legation’s business in the 1920s.

  Mr Dillingham was a serious young man with a pronounced overbite which he tried to disguise by pushing his bottom lip out and up to cover his protruding top teeth, a trick which had the effect of making him look oddly pugnacious. But whenever he talked, or smiled, the old overbite re-established itself until he remembered his trick again. I became so fascinated with this labial manoeuvre that I found I was paying scant attention to his words. I concentrated once again.

  “—I’m pretty sure that the Aishlie cup lapsed in 1930 or 1931,” he was saying. He smiled at me, toothily. “I’ve only been here three years.”

  Carriscant pushed his photograph across the desk. “This is the woman we are interested in. She was the wife of an embassy official here, I’m sure.”

  Dillingham looked attentively at the picture. “Very elegant lady,” he said. “What age would she be there?”

  “Early fifties.”

  “Let me see.” He went to his bookshelf and drew out a slim navy blue book from a row of identically bound volumes. On the cover was a gold seal and lettering that read: Department of State, Foreign Service List, 1927. He flicked through the pages.

  “The envoy in 1927 was Warrick Aishlie and we know that the lady in question is not Mrs Aishlie…The only other diplomats of an age to have a wife in her fifties are…”

  He consulted the list. “Hmm. Mr Parker Gade, vice consul in Funchal, and Commander Mason Shoemaker, the naval attache for air.” He made an impressed noise. “That was forward looking for us in 1927. Now,” he reached for the 1936 service list, “let’s see where they are today.”

  “Naval commander?” Carriscant said, drawing the photo back. “Could that be him in the picture?”

  “I couldn’t tell you, sir,” Dillingham said as he checked the index. “No reference. Both of these gentlemen appear to have retired from the service. Or they’re deceased.” He made an unhappy face. “I could cable the State Department, but I’m fairly sure they wouldn’t give out any personal information.”

  Carriscant suddenly looked glum and unhappy, shifting uncertainly in his seat, his fingers tugging at the collar of his new shirt, and I felt sorry for him, his hopes raised and dashed so swiftly. “Isn’t there anyone here in the legation who was here in 1927?” I asked. “There must be some member of staff who goes back that far.”

  “Good point,” Dillingham said, throwing me an admiring glance. “Please excuse me one moment.”

  Carriscant stood up and went to the window to look down on the little courtyard outside. I joined him. Some small scruffy pigeons pecked around the base of a lime tree, pecking in a dilatory and routine manner at the sparse blades of grass, as if the search for nourishment itself was sufficient to satisfy their hunger.

  “If she did marry this naval commander she could be anywhere,” I said gently.

  “No,” Carriscant said with complete confidence. “She’s here, I’m certain of it.”

  I turned away, exasperated. He had all the doggedness of a Flat-Earther. These people had to find out the hard way.

  Dillingham returned with an elderly Portuguese man in a black suit. He had grey hair combed brutally back from his forehead and held in place with some fearsomely adhesive grease or potion. He wore small round tortoise-shell glasses and a neatly trimmed toothbrush moustache dyed a disconcerting shade of coppery brown.

  “Senhor Liceu,” Dillingham said, presenting him. “Our esteemed chancery clerk. Been here for ever.”

  Senhor Liceu shook hands with us, inclining his trunk forward at a slight angle each time. Carriscant showed him the photograph and asked if he could identify Commander Shoemaker.

  He di
d so at once. “That’s Commander Shoemaker,” he said. “A good likeness.” His English was excellent.

  Carriscant pointed to Delphine. “And is that Mrs Shoemaker?”

  Liceu tried not to smile at some memory. “No, sir, there was no Mrs Shoemaker. The commander was a confirmed bachelor.”

  “Do you recognise that lady?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. I was there that day, I remember it well. I was a great admirer of Senhorita Barrera.” He gave a sad smile. “I think I only had eyes for her. This lady was probably Commander Shoemaker’s guest. Or Mr Aishlie’s.” Despair was creeping back into Carriscant’s face. “Could this lady have been French?” Liceu said, frowning. “I have some recollection of a very elegant French lady at one of the receptions.”

  “I don’t think so.” Carriscant shrugged. “Unless she married a Frenchman.”

  “I’ll ask some of the other staff,” Liceu volunteered. “Perhaps someone will remember. It was a great day for the legation. Most memorable. There may be others with better recall than I.”

  We thanked them both and left the place somewhat cast down. We walked down the front steps slowly. Evening was coming on and the streetlamps were lit. In the sky above were a few pink-touched clouds. A taxi pulled up and a young man with bad acne descended and spent some time searching his pockets for change while the taxi ticked patiently at the kerb. I felt Carriscant’s depression settle round my shoulders like a shawl. I had to say something.

  “How does it go? At the violet hour, something something, like a taxi throbbing at the door…No, the human engine, like a taxi throbbing at the door.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Carriscant rather snapped at me.

  “Just a line of poetry. Came to mind. At the violet hour, etcetera.” I pointed up at the rose-flushed evening sky. “It’s nothing important. Just the conjunction of the light effect and that taxi. Ignore it.”

  He was staring at me, a slow smile widening his face. “At the violet hour,” he said. “Don’t you see?”

  “What? No, I don’t.”

  “Violets.”

  FRIDAY, 5 MAY

  We spent the morning walking round the Baixa going from sweetshop to sweetshop looking for one that sold crystallised violets. Out of six confeiteiros we found only one with a stock of the sweets. We returned with Joao from the hotel to help us translate.

  “They sell many types of sweets,” Joao said needlessly as we looked round the small shop. It was narrow and dark and looked more like an apothecary’s with its crammed shelves of ornate glass bottles, some of them tinted green and blue. “But they have no regular order for the violets. They do not despatch them to special clients.”

  “What about regular customers?”

  Joao conferred with the bemused couple who ran the shop. Yes, they did have some regular customers. They peered curiously at Carriscant’s picture. No, they didn’t recognise the woman.

  Undeterred, Carriscant secured the name of the wholesaler who supplied them with the sweets; from him he would obtain a list of other stockists in the city, he explained.

  I was beginning to grow a little worried. If ever there was an example of clutching at straws…But Carriscant persisted, extracting a promise from them that they would ask anyone who bought the sweets to provide their name and address. They would try, they said, obviously affected by the earnestness of Carriscant’s demand, but they warned that not everyone would be prepared to divulge that information.

  We found a small café nearby, the Cafe Adamastor, and stopped there for refreshment. It was little more than a smoke-darkened room with a long zinc-topped bar running the length of the rear wall with a shelf above ranged with small dumpy barrels, with spigots attached, labelled Moscatel, Clarete, Ginebra. Fixed to the ceiling was a small fan mounted vertically on the end of a hanging pole so that it resembled a propeller shaft on an outboard motor. This revolved slowly round and round, ensuring that the cigarette smoke reached every corner of the room.

  We sat at a round marble-topped table. I ordered a vinho verde, Carriscant a brandy. I sipped eagerly at my cold wine, it tasted fresh and young, like crushed grass. I took out my cigarettes.

  “I don’t think you should do that, Kay.”

  “Do what?”

  “Smoke.”

  “Everyone else is, why not me, for heaven’s sake?”

  “None of the women are…I have a feeling it’s not the done thing.”

  “Well, I shall blaze a trail,” I said, defiantly setting fire to my Picayune. Carriscant’s instincts were correct, however:

  I became the object of fascinated stares and whispered conversations for a minute or two.

  “We’ve made a real start,” Carriscant said, with genuine enthusiasm, “a real start. I’ll look into that shop daily. I’ll find out others in the city. We should begin to build up a list of names.”

  I felt indescribably weary at the prospect of seeking out every crystallised violets lover in Lisbon.

  “Dr Carriscant, you really can’t—”

  “How many times have I told you, Kay? I wish you’d call me Father.”

  “It’s hard for me, you know that.”

  “I don’t see why. At least Salvador, then. We’re friends, Kay, good chums, you and I. I don’t want to feel that I’m here on sufferance. I’ll have another brandy, I think. What about you?”

  SATURDAY, 6 MAY

  We found two more sweetshops which stocked crystallised violets, one a tobacconist on the Praca do Commercio, the other in Biarro Alto. Unable to make our complicated requests understood we resolved to return later with Joao.

  I prevailed upon Carriscant to attempt another method of finding Delphine. I suggested we obtain an enlargement of the photograph and place an advertisement in a newspaper, asking anyone who recognised Delphine to contact us at the Commercio. We could even offer a reward, I suggested. He thought this was a fine idea, so we ended our day with a visit to the photographer’s studio where we had had our photographs taken for our identity cards and where the enlargement was duly made.

  When we returned to the hotel there was a note from the US legation, from Senhor Liceu, beautifully written in exquisite copperplate. A colleague in the office thought that the woman who had been with the guests of honour on the day of the inaugural Aishlie cup was not French but Portuguese. He had spoken to her and recalled her name as Senhora Lopes do Livio. “A melodious appellation,” Liceu had added, “which is why it stayed in his head.” This fact was confirmed when they found the official visitors’ book for the day. But there was no address by the signature.

  “Portuguese?” Carriscant said. “There must be some mistake.”

  According to Joao there were three Lopes do Livios in the Lisbon telephone directory. One was a beautician’s, one was at an address in the Alfama—“I don’t think a lady of distinction would live there,” Joao averred—the third was in a respectable part of town near the jardim botanico. We decided to investigate in the morning.

  We sauntered out arm in arm for a digestive after our meal that evening, heading for the Cafe Martinho, situated between the station and the National Theatre on the Rossio. We walked through the dimly lit streets into the enormous square, still loud with trams and taxis, the shouts of lottery-ticket vendors and the calls of shoeshine boys, with groups of people strolling about the fountains and the monument, the café windows under their faded awnings glowing orange, and, beyond the classic bulk of the theatre, rose the city on one of its higher hills, a loose heap of spangling lights in the luminous dark. For the first time I experienced the authentic thrill of travel, that strangeness of displacement, as we strolled, anonymous foreigners in this hospitable, scruffy city, amongst its idling denizens, their laughter and their chatter falling on our uncomprehending ears. I was in Europe, I remembered, albeit on its very western edge, and I should draw some sustenance from this trip I was paying for—and, my God, did I need it—and stop behaving like the tolerant chaperone of a testy a
nd eccentric old man. But the testy and eccentric old man, I could see, was enjoying himself too as he strode briskly across the square, proud in his new suit, towards the blurry warmth of the Martinho, from whose open doors a smell of roasting coffee wafted.

  The Martinho was a grandly capacious place. A large room with solid pillars, encrusted cornices and tall gilt mirrors. It was filled with neat ranks of simple wooden tables with marble tops, laid out with a schoolroom precision in immaculate rows. Drooping lights with frosted glass shades sprouted like wilting tulips from the central pillars sending out a diffuse yellow light. All the waiters were stout middle-aged men with long white aprons and generous moustaches. The place was crowded, full of men who did not remove their hats and who sat, most oddly I thought, with one hand resting on their walking sticks and canes as they drank and chatted, as if at any moment they were about to spring to their feet and stride off into the night.

  We found a table for two at one side of the room, beneath a baroquely carved mirror whose sides were formed by two golden caryatids, bare breasted pubescent beauties emerging from a tangle of lianas and tropical fruits. We ordered coffee, with a brandy for Carriscant, and sat back to survey the scene.

  “This is the life,” Carriscant said, upending his brandy into his coffee cup. He looked at me slyly: “You won’t find anything like this in Los Angeles.”

  “Which is why one travels,” I said a little frostily, irritated by his patronising manner. “How boring it would be if every new place merely reproduced your home town. Someone from Lisbon doesn’t go to Los Angeles looking for a Cafe Martinho.”

  “He’d be pleased to find one, however,” Carriscant said in a self-satisfied way.

  A silence fell as I decided not to prolong this discussion.

  “How did you know,” I said abruptly, irritated with him for souring the excitement and pleasure I had experienced crossing the Rossio, “that I lived in Los Angeles? How did you know Mother had gone to live there?”