Well, I’m never leaving here. Restaurant down some tiny steps with a hand-lettered menu in the window and a tiny castle built out of corks. On ordering sardines what you get is a plate piled with whole grilled fish and a small mound of potatoes, boiled then tossed in butter. Everything perfectly simple. We ordered half the dessert menu and dipped our spoons contentedly. A very drunk man wearing double denim (I explained to my companion this could also be a verb: you’re not *double deniming*, are ya?) made his way up and down the stairs repeatedly, with determined attention and heavy breathing with effort. The owner stood in the narrow doorway smoke from his cigarette filling the room; his luscious daughter and her mother, a jowlier, fuller version, ran between the tables. In fact after poring over the Portuguese menu for a while I asked the daughter had they a menu in English. She summoned her father. He unfolded his glasses and peered into a few blue vinyl folders before triumphantly producing a version neatly typed in French. By comparing the two versions we could triangulate. Near midnight a man came in with his guitar and tuned up at the counter. His songs were written on laminated cards, he considered them for over half an hour. Then he turned to the long table of local people – there were only 14 of us in the restaurant – and began to play, inviting the room to the chorus. A bosomy lady in ferocious print danced, shimmying her hips expertly and directly in front of the face of the younger man, maybe 50, who had come in with his friend and who she evidently thought was a bit of alright. The singer sang on and she danced solemnly, proudly, stomping a little on the turns. Flushed and excited she raced up to the singer and whispered in his ear. “Another time,” he said in Portuguese: something like “Un autre mal.” I was mortified for her. She crossed between the head of the table and the serving counter with some difficulty and sat down, her bosom heaving. But within minutes she too was singing along with the rest of us, lustily but not loudly. When we left, the prize male and his elderly neighbour looked over their shoulders to say with careful enunciation, “Heff… a good… evening.” “Obrigada,” I said, “you too!” The beautiful one said, “Alfama! Ees beautiful!” Oh yes, I said, my hand on my breathing: beautiful. “And the people…” “Wonderful!” Steep, cobbled, gristly with careening streetcars: yes, wonderful.
