by Caela Carter
The world feels like it’s growing outward, getting bigger around my mushy brain. I’m only in one building in one city in one country on one continent and I can see and hear so many different kinds of people.
It makes me feel like a tiny speck in the universe. Like my problem of a mom I can’t trust and a dad who is gone is maybe nothing at all. Julia would love this.
Julia who will always be the best friend I ever had.
Julia who is mad at me and it’s all my fault.
Julia who has no idea where I am.
I’m suddenly desperate to talk to her.
“Alma,” Mom says. She’s standing right in front of me, the handle to a big roll-y bag in each hand.
“Mom, I need Wi-Fi,” I say.
She smiles. “We’ll have Wi-Fi in the apartment,” she says. “For now, let’s go. It’s time for you to see the hills!”
Twelve
What Does It Mean to Be Portuguese?
IT TURNS OUT THERE’S A LOT of traffic between the airport and the hills of Lisbon. I fall asleep in the cab with my head on Mom’s shoulder.
I’m not sure how long I sleep like that before Mom shakes me awake. I look at her, a little annoyed and foggy-eyed. She points to the front windshield. “Look!” she says.
And then I’m gaping. I’ve never seen so many colors on so many levels at once.
We’re on a highway-type road, straight and open, two lanes going each way with an island of trees and benches running up the middle. The road runs right into the hills of the city. It doesn’t actually look like hills. It looks like layers and layers of windows all arranged on top of and in front of and in back of each other. It’s a series of rust-colored roofs sloping down toward our highway. It’s pastel-colored buildings pushing up close to one another. The entire layered city is hugged by a blue, cloudless sky.
My heart is bouncing around my insides. My dad is tugging it this way and that, thunking it against my rib cage, pulling it up into my throat and dropping it again. We aren’t in a graveyard but he’s here. He’s everywhere.
At once I don’t ever want to move from this view and I also can’t wait to be inside, in between the buildings, in the middle of those hills.
I’m breathless.
“That’s . . .” I say. “That is . . . This is . . .”
“Lisbon,” Mom finishes. I can hear the smile in her voice. “The most beautiful city in the world.”
I take a break from the view to look at her.
I never knew she loved Lisbon, actually. I knew she studied here. I knew she knew Portuguese. I knew this was where my dad was from, where she met him. But I didn’t know Lisbon meant something to my mom on its own, separate from my dad and from me.
Mom leans back, her eyes still on the hills in front of us. She puts her hand out to grab mine. “Things are going to be different here,” she says. “Better. You’ll see, Alma.”
And maybe it’s the warmth of her hand around mine. Maybe it’s the calm confidence of her voice. Maybe it’s the view of the hills in front of me and the way my dad is dancing for joy in my bloodstream. For some reason, I believe her.
Soon we are driving into the city, winding over bumpy stone streets so small I’m sure that I could not open my car door without it crashing into the wall next to me. There’s almost no breaks between the buildings and they hunch over us on each side so that all I can see is this very narrow road and sky. It’s like we are in a maze. A beautiful maze. The buildings are pink and beige and yellow and orange, all the pastel shades of sunsets. A few have intricate tile designs in brighter colors: blue and green and yellow.
We bump along slowly. Dad is holding my heart, squeezing periodically. Mom is holding my hand, squeezing every once in a while when she sees something extra exciting or beautiful, but not saying anything. Both of us have our eyes glued to the windows. Sometimes people who were walking have to jump into doorways so that we can keep driving. Sometimes we have to back into a side street so that another car can pass. If I weren’t so tired, I’d be scared we were going to crash into a building or, worse, a person.
My brain is still woozy. It’s like I’m taking in all of this color and architecture through a very thin straw.
Then suddenly we drive out into an open street and the sky bursts into a dome above us. We’re driving down a steep hill and at the bottom is a shimmering bay of water backed by green hills and dotted with triangular sailboats. The sky and the water are so close in color you wouldn’t be able to tell where one began and the other one ended if it weren’t for the hills beyond. People are shadows against all the blue, walking in every direction. It’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen.
In a blink, the driver makes another turn and the water is invisible again. He drives up another curved road and then stops, suddenly. We’re in the middle of the street. To one side is a building like all the rest. To the other is a set of stairs taller and steeper than I’ve ever seen.
The driver says something. I can’t understand it because it’s in Portuguese.
“What do you mean you can’t drive us all the way there?” Mom asks, alarmed.
My own head jerks and my eyes go wide at her. But she starts talking in Portuguese.
They go back and forth, getting louder and louder. The driver keeps gesturing to the stairs next to us. Mom keeps saying “não, não, não,” which is the only Portuguese word I understand in this conversation.
Translation: “No! No! No!”
The next thing I know Mom’s handing him euros and we’re out of the car, standing in front of the mega-staircase with backpacks on our backs and suitcases at our sides.
“Well, baby girl,” Mom says. “Welcome to Lisbon. Guess this is how they do it.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
Mom doesn’t say anything else. She takes two steps up the stairs and angles her body so her big feet can fit. She leans down, her blue tie-dyed skirt swishing over her sandaled feet, and pulls her suitcase up with a grunt. Then she does it again.
“Come on, Alma!” Mom says after she’s about five feet above me. “This is part of the adventure.”
So I start up the stairs, pulling my suitcase behind me. I’m so tired I don’t know if my muscles are going to work. The sun is strong, beating down on my bare shoulders and hair. My ponytail is sticking to my neck by the time I reach the tenth stair. My nose is sweaty under my glasses, and they slide around on my face. I look up. There have to be at least one hundred stairs. I grunt and pull again.
Halfway up, Mom reaches a little landing area. I reach it right after her and she looks at the sky, panting. I lean down and try to touch my toes. My arms and legs are already cramping.
“So,” Mom says, between breaths. “We’re staying in the old part of the city.”
“Yeah?” I say. That seems silly. The entire city feels ancient, like something out of a fairy tale or Disney movie. I can’t imagine an older part.
“I forgot one thing about it,” Mom says.
“Yeah?” I say again.
“No roads,” she says. Then takes another step.
Slowly, slowly, we make it to the top. Sure enough, a sidewalk spreads out in three directions from the top of the stairs. A sidewalk with no street. Mom leans against the edge of the wall and breathes. After a minute she says, “This way,” and takes off down one of the winding walkways.
The sidewalks are pavement, not stone, but otherwise this is exactly like the roads before it. There are buildings on either side of us, with an occasional break for a set of stairs down or up. I don’t know how Mom knows where she’s going.
My body follows hers. I’m so tired, I’m on autopilot.
Message Julia. Message Julia. I say the words in my head with each step. I have to do it as soon as I get there. I can’t fall asleep without messaging her. I have to apologize. I have to tell her where I really am.
Suddenly, there’s a blond-haired girl racing toward us. She looks about my age, maybe a little older
. Her hair is braided into an intricate design on the top of her head. She’s several inches taller than me. She’s wearing a black skirt with a bright pattern stitched at the bottom and a yellow tank top that’s falling off her shoulders. Her hands are out in front of her as if she’s apologizing.
“Mercy!” she says. “Alma!”
I don’t know how this girl would know my name.
Suddenly her arms are around me. I go stiff and I’m grateful that my own arms are tethered to my sides by my bags, making it impossible for me to hug her back. I’m not used to hugging strangers.
“Bem vinda a Lisboa! Eu sou a Leonor, a tua prima.”
I know Lisboa means Lisbon. I smile and nod at her. Something about this girl looks familiar. Something about her eyes or her round nose.
“Pensei que a Flávia nos ia encontrar?” Mom says. She’s not smiling.
The girl loses her smile for a second too. Then she says something else in Portuguese so fast I’m not sure my mom will catch it. But when my mom answers, she’s just as fast. They talk for a while and then they stop.
After a beat, the girl looks away from my mom and toward me. Something about how she’s looking at me makes my fingers itchy. I have to get on my Wi-Fi. I have to talk to Julia.
“This is the granddaughter of our landlady,” Mom says. “She’s going to show us our rooms.”
The girl holds out her hand. “Leonor,” she says. “Pleased to meet you.”
I blurt, “You speak English?”
She giggles. “Just a little,” she says. “Apologies. I didn’t realize you haven’t yet learned to speak Portuguese.”
She reaches behind me and takes the handle of my suitcase. I want to object because she doesn’t look that much older than me and the whole thing feels a little too friendly. But I’m too tired to make my mouth work. And she said she only knows a little English.
“You’re going to enjoy Lisbon, I believe,” Leonor says. “We are welcoming, happy people. Also we love foreigners.” As if I couldn’t tell that already from the hug, she links her arm in mine and takes a step down the path.
I freeze and then yank my arm away, maybe a little too forcefully.
I have this sticky feeling in my gut. Like when a new girl, Annette, first moved to our town a few years ago and started to hang out with my friends. I became friends with her eventually. But when she was first around, I didn’t know how to adjust. How to make room for her.
I feel like that now. I don’t want to link arms with this girl. I want to Skype Julia.
“Excuse me,” Leonor says, her arm hanging dumbly at her side. “I didn’t . . . I’m just so thrilled to have a prima . . . What’s the English word? Well, a girl, my age . . . here,” she says.
She starts down a path, dragging my suitcase. I trudge behind her, feeling guilty and annoyed at the same time. Mom and her suitcase walk behind me.
We get to a break in the wall and Leonor turns into it. She climbs three stairs and then disappears into a pathway so small she has to roll my suitcase sideways. Then she stops at a blue door.
“Avó says you’ll be staying awhile?” Leonor says.
I shrug.
More answers I’m not worthy of knowing.
Mom looks up from her purse, where she’s been looking for something. She pulls out a scrap of paper.
She looks bizarre holding a scrap of paper. Mom-from-before-Adam-left would have had everything in a nice notebook. She’d have a folder of papers we need. She’d be organized.
I think about the Mom on my airplane last night. The one who was more than just Mom. Who was a person.
I don’t think too much about Mom missing Adam. I can’t. I miss him too badly myself.
“This is it?” she says. “Right? Three forty-seven. That’s what I have written down here.”
The outside of the building is a pale yellow, paler at the top where it reaches the sunlight. The blue door is wooden. It’s split in half lengthwise so that the knob and lock are in the middle.
“You are correct. We’ll go inside, to the second floor,” Leonor says in perfect English. We enter a very dark hallway and climb a narrow spiral staircase slowly slowly slowly. When we reach the second floor, Leonor pauses at another door, which is also wooden and split into two. She fiddles with the handle for a while, then the door opens. First the right half, then the left.
“Ah,” she says. “Here it is.”
I have to shimmy sideways through the door and then pull my suitcase in after me. Mom does the same behind me. There’s no space in the tiny hallway for three people, two backpacks, and two large suitcases. We follow Leonor down the hall and walk into a kitchen. There’s a stove, small fridge, sink, and cabinet on one wall. Next to the sink there is a window, open. A soft breeze and birdcalls fall through it into the kitchen. There’s a little table across from the fridge and a cozy two-person couch behind it.
The space is tiny, but it has more furniture in it than our old home. I’ve never been in an apartment like this. I’ve never even thought of an apartment like this. A space that has just enough space and no extra space.
No wonder Mom said only bring one suitcase.
I love it instantly.
This is how Dad grew up, I realize. In apartments like this.
I squeeze my eyes shut and imagine him here with us. If he were alive, he’d have taken me to Portugal before now. Many times before now. He’d be sitting down at the table, holding hands with Mom, spreading out a map between us and talking about everything we should see in the next few days.
If Dad were here, this would be only a familiar vacation and not a whole new life.
“And the bedrooms,” Leonor says. We follow her back down the hall, past the split front door. The walls are white with a few black-and-white prints of flowers hung on them. The floors are made of pale-colored wood, uneven and squeaky as we walk.
This building is old. I wonder if it’s older than every building in Pittsburgh. I wonder if it’s older than every building in America. I wonder if it’s just plain older than America.
“Here they are,” Leonor says. There are only four doors in the entire narrow hallway. The one at the front is the kitchen with the couch in it. The one at the back is the bathroom. Then there are two side by side in the middle of the hallway. Mom walks into one; I walk into the other.
I guess this is my room. It has a double bed, which is exciting. But it’s very low to the ground. It has no closet but a rack in the corner, where I can hang clothes, and a small dresser with three drawers. There are fresh flowers in the window. The blankets are white and the bedspread is pale blue. There’s a picture of a beach scene hanging on the wall next to my bed.
I carefully pull my suitcase in behind me.
I feel very grown-up in this room. Or not quite. I feel ready to be grown-up enough for this room. I feel like I’m going to grow into it.
I unzip my suitcase, then turn. Leonor is leaning in the doorway, looking at me. I wonder why she’s still here.
After I look at her for a second her face turns red. “Oh, I’ll let you get settled.”
I feel sort of bad. I follow her into the tiny hallway. Mom meets us there and three warm bodies in the tiny space make me feel like I’m going to pass out.
“Thank you,” Mom says. “Please tell Flávia this place is wonderful.”
“Do you have the Wi-Fi password?” I ask.
Mom elbows me.
“I mean, um,” I say, “I love it too.”
Why am I supposed to say that? This isn’t her apartment, it’s her grandmother’s. And anyway, Mom is paying for it. It’s not like we’re guests.
“I need to contact my friend,” I say. “So . . . do you have the Wi-Fi password?”
Mom sighs and goes back into her room.
“I’m sorry,” Leonor says. “I’ll ask avó and come back with it later.”
I force myself not to sigh and roll my eyes. “OK. Thanks,” I say.
I go back into my room bu
t then Leonor calls out, “Alma?”
She’s standing in my doorway. “I wanted to bring you this,” she says. She holds a little white box with a string tied around it and moves it toward me. “We call them pastéis de nata. Um . . . breakfast treat? Yes. Welcome to Lisbon.”
The minute the little box is in my hand I realize I’m not just exhausted. I’m hungry. Starved. “Thank you,” I say.
I should say more. I should be friendly. Leonor stares at me like she wants a hug or something.
But I can’t give her one.
I don’t understand why she would bring me a treat.
I don’t know her. I don’t know anyone here.
Leonor leaves.
I walk down the hallway and sit at the kitchen table. Behind me Mom is mumbling and counting in her room, her heavy footsteps moving too quickly back and forth across the squeaky floor.
I don’t want to think about her missing Adam or her missing Dad, maybe even. I don’t want to think about her at all.
I have too much to think about. Too much to worry about. Where will I go to school? How will I make friends? How will I ever get used to this whole new life my mom suddenly dropped me into?
But I don’t want to be worried. I’m in Portugal. I’m in Lisbon. Finally. I don’t want to think about anything but how close he feels.
I focus on the birds and the breeze through the open window. In the distance I hear church bells. I focus on those too.
I open the box and take out a tiny pastry. It looks like a tartlet, with a thin crust and a center ranging from white to golden brown. It’s kind of a combination of a sugar cream pie and a mini crème brûlée.
I put it in my mouth and bite down. Sweetness rolls across my tongue, buttery and sugary and delicious. Church bells ring again. I stand and look out the window to take my second bite. I can see pastel buildings lining the narrow walkway. Laundry hangs on lines between some of the windows. The rust-colored roofs line up, uniform, topping buildings that look so different from one another. There are rolling hills full of the same sights in all directions. In the distance I see a hill topped by a castle. I take another bite.
I decide to pretend these pastries aren’t from Leonor.