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44 Lisbon A man has been yelling since midnight in Lisbon, yelling nonstop for an hour or so this hot August night, the windows all open all over the city, from Rua de Sao Paolo to the top of Bairro Alto. He is screaming at the top of his lungs in his kitchen, some song, some language I cannot imagine, some sad fado singer gone mad at rehearsal, gone loco, basso profundo, the others all dumbstruck in their sad pantaloons, his tirade so piercing, his song a great wound. Even the roosters are wide awake listening. I think it’s his daughter to whom he is speaking, his daughter home late on this long Friday night. He is hectoring her about fathers, tradition, that she has disgraced him, her family, her country, his voice pleading more than anything, quivering, shaking, his urging so true that it stills all the neighbors. Not one says, Shut up! We all need our sleep. Not one says, Be quiet. Our daughters are with us. If anything they would come in pajamas and nightshirts to stand at his window to applaud for his aria. Saudade, they would say, the sadness of things, his voice breaking for the fathers and daughters of Lisbon, the love they’ve been given that must not be lost. So his daughter sings too in her silence, her dreaming, the song of the boy she left standing, how he aches to be with her, how his song will be true. Now the father grows weary. Soon he will sleep, a cathedral caved in, an earthquake undone, his voice gone as soft as the moon. He wanders offstage, cues night to come on, having waited in the wings like a rose, to sing to each heart in the city of Lisbon, to sing the one song that everyone knows. ...

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