Robert Wilson - A Small Death in Lisbon

'Are you all right?' she asked.

'He nearly slipped over on the floor,' said the nurse. 'I've told them before not to polish it so much. It's all right for us, but anybody coming in here with leather soles… they're in trouble. Do you know what you're going to call him?'

'Not yet.'

'Well, you won't have much trouble remembering his birthday.'

Ana Rosa Pinto sat with her mother in the kitchen. They were holding hands and crying, looking down at the three-year-old Carlos, who was playing on the floor. She'd started off the day annoyed because they wouldn't let her board the ferry to cross the river to get to her doctor's appointment for Carlos in Lisbon. Then they'd pointed out the Almirante Gago Coutinho with her guns up and she'd gone home scared but excited to wait for news.

In the late morning her father had gone down to the first open meeting of the Partido Comunista Português on the docks in Cacilhas on the south bank of the Tagus. Ana Rosa and her mother were hoping he'd bring back news of the release of political prisoners from the Caxias prison.

Little Carlos had never seen his father. His mother had been six months pregnant when the GNR had broken up a union meeting at the shipyard and his father had been taken across the river for questioning. Just two weeks before Carlos was born Ana Rosa had heard that her husband had been taken to Caxias to serve a five-year prison sentence for illegal political activities.

They waited all day, until dusk had just changed to night, when there was a knock at the door of the apartment. Ana Rosa eased her hand out of her mother's and answered it. A boy handed her a message and ran off without waiting. She read it and the tears which had gradually dried through the day sprang back.

'What is it?' asked her mother.

'They've taken the boat across. There's a crowd gathering in the Rossio. They're going to march on Caxias prison tonight.'

At 3.00 a.m. on 26th April the door to António Borrego's cell in the Caxias prison was unlocked. The guard didn't say anything, he didn't even open the door, he just moved on to the next cell and opened that one. António looked out down the dimly-lit corridor. Other men were doing the same. There was cheering and embracing. António squeezed past them and trotted down the three flights of stairs into the courtyard. There were another fifty-odd men down there all looking expectantly at the gates to the prison. He jogged across the courtyard to the hospital block and ran up the stairs two at a time. He had to catch his breath at the top, more out of condition than he'd thought.

There were three men in the ward. Two of them were sleeping and the third, Alexandre Saraiva, was sitting on the edge of his bed, trying to get his socks on but only managing to cough. António took the socks and fitted them on his friend's feet. He found the man's boots and pushed Alex's feet into them and tied them up. Alex spat into the metal dish on the bedside and inspected the phlegm.

'Still bloody,' he said, to no one in particular. 'Have you come to take me home?'

'I have,' said António.

'Who's paying the cab fare?'

'We're walking.'

'I don't know whether I'll make it. It's damned nearly killed me to get dressed.'

'You'll make it.'

António wrapped Alex's arm over the back of his neck. They stood. António hooked his thumb into the waistband of Alex's trousers. They went down the stairs into the courtyard. There were more than a hundred people now. The sound of a crowd clamouring on the other side of the gates reached them. Names were shouted out and lost in the noise. António leaned Alex up against the wall and held him there lightly with a hand on his chest.

The gates opened to pandemonium from the huge crowd, who'd come up from Lisbon on free train rides. The prisoners came out blinking into the flashlights of cameras, searching for faces that meant something to them.

António waited for the courtyard to empty before he moved Alex out into a freedom neither of them had known for nine years. They skirted the euphoria and walked down the hill into Caxias. They didn't have to go far. They got a free ride to Paço de Arcos from a tearful cab driver.

The cab dropped them off at Alex's bar next to the public gardens. The tiled sign set into the wall was still there. It showed a blue line-drawing of the Búgio lighthouse and underneath O Farol. Alex tapped the lighted window of the house next door. A woman sounding old and tired answered.

It's me, Dona Emília,' said Alex.

The toothless woman, dressed in black, opened the door and peered out into the night, her eyes not so good any more. She saw Alex and grabbed his face with bent and twisted fingers and kissed him on both cheeks, harder and harder as if she was kissing him back into existence. She produced the key to the bar from her front apron as if she'd been prepared nine years for this moment. She brought them candles from her kitchen.

Alex unlocked the bar door and António sat him down on a metal chair next to a wooden table in the dark. They lit the candles.

'There should be something behind the bar,' said Alex. 'Nice and mature by now.'

António found a bottle of aguardente and a couple of dusty glasses which he blew into. He poured out the pale yellow liquid. They drank to freedom and the alcohol set off a coughing fit in Alex.

'We'll go to the notary tomorrow,' said Alex.

'What for?'

'I want to make sure that when I go, this place is yours.'

'Eh, homem, don't talk like that.'

'There's one condition.'

'Look, forget it, you're…'

'Pour another drink and listen to me,' said Alex.

'I'm listening.'

'You have to change the name of the bar to A Bandeira Vermelha. That way nobody will forget.'

On 2nd May 1974 Joaquim Abrantes, Pedro, Manuel and Pica had lunch in a small restaurant in the centre of Madrid. It was agreed that Manuel would fly to'São Paulo in Brazil and open a branch of the Banco de Oceano e Rocha. Joaquim and Pedro would go to Lausanne and track the political situation in Portugal from there. Pica wanted to know why they couldn't do it from Paris, but nobody paid any attention to her.

On the 3rd May 1974 just as Manuel Abrantes' flight from Madrid to Buenos Aires was leaving the West African coast, thirty-six ex-PIDE/DGS agentes made themselves available to the new regime for traffic control and vehicle registration.

There was a rush on at the office that morning which did not include me. Narciso's secretary was waiting for me in the corridor and led me straight up to see him but, of course, he wasn't ready and the five minutes that his secretary had promised turned into twenty. She wouldn't let me leave.

At 08.30 I was standing in front of Narciso on the other side of his desk. He was standing too, with his chair pushed back to the wall, his hands spread wide apart gripping the edge of his desk as if he was going to tip it over me. Emotions made rare appearances in his face but that morning there was one-anger. Not the eruptive, volcanic type, more the penetrating, gelid variety.

'I haven't seen your revised report yet.'

'I haven't had the opportunity to get behind my desk this morning.'

'I also haven't seen the report on what happened yesterday.'

'For the same reason, Senhor Engenheiro.'

'But I have already heard things,' he said, 'about you and agente Pinto putting yourselves at risk and the destruction of all evidence in a fire.'

'That was unfortunate.'

'What have you learnt from the fire department?'