Lisbon Revisited (1984)

At first light there is little traffic,a cab starting out, another leaving

off, someone walking here, anotherone there, stepping off their sleep.

The monuments call attention tothemselves, one of them trumpeting

the Great War, telling of Germany'sdeclaration against Portugal,

listing the dates of armistice,the date of the official ending.

The upstart hero of independencefor South Americans looks Byronic,

bourgeois, successful, peers out,hopelessly fixed. Simon exhausts

my interest in solemn things of stone.On a side street, backing down a hill,

a voice pssts me, then pssts me asecond time. I look up, to a puffy

woman's face that calls to me froman upper-floor window: Will I open

the bottom-floor door for her. But itis already open, I tell her. Another

woman, walking behind me (we arethe only ones out on the street), says,

"It's for the dog—the door—to do itsnecessities. She's always at the

window." She walks past me, whenI hesitate, stop short to listen to her,

and turns the corner, still on course.I notice that traffic has thickened,

that noise, louder, bigger, stretchesout to fill more space. I think of news-

papers, breakfast. A young woman—blonde, dressed in black and khaki,

white socks—walks by. Another, ina smock—dark green—mop-washes

a black, slate-like facing of a travelagency, to no perceptible effect. This

part of her day is soon done and shestarts to clean off the mop with a rag.