The Return of Carlosh (featuring the debut of Jacqueline the Vagabond!)

I'm drinking beer in an internet cafe in Lisbon right now, but I'll still be blogging from Coimbra (pronounce it Queembra) this evening. Just go with it; it's the internet, right? Time and space have no meaning here in cyber world. Except for the time I have to kill before dinner, that is, which allows me to complete a story which just gets better and better. Hey by the way, if anybody's reading this could ya drop me a comment? I'm all the way across the world blogging my little heart out here, and I'm starting to feel like I'm throwing electronic messages -- in shiny electronic bottles -- into the Atlantic and watching them float out on the tide.

Before Carlos and I parted the night before last, we heard a lot of fado. And it was wonderful fado, but it wasn't Coimbra fado. Coimbra fado is a specific genre in Portugal -- like St. Louis jazz instead of New Orleans jazz. Since Coimbra is the university town of Portugal (commonly referred to in the guidebooks as the Oxford of Portugal, except that the university here has 30,000 students -- imagine a cross between Oxford and San Diego State instead), Coimbra fado is all about loooooove. Unlike Lisbon fado, which is all about how life sucks and we might as well all kill ourselves. Coimbra fado is traditionally sung only by men (since until relatively recently, all the students were men, of course), addressed to the ladies of the town -- basically, the songs are all written by frat guys trying to get lucky with townie girls. About fifteen years ago a woman recorded an album of Coimbra fado, and when it was released there were actual riots. They had to pull it out of the stores. Since then, I believe that things have eased up a little bit, but only a little. So anyway, when a woman started singing fado at the Diligencia bar I asked Carlos if it was OK for women to sing Coimbra fado now -- he told me a) yes, but b) this wasn't Coimbra fado we were hearing, it was Lisbon fado. I asked him to let me know when we heard some Coimbra fado, and he said regretfully that given the particular people performing that night, we weren't going to (we did hear some beautiful Brazilian and African songs, though, along with a version of Dire Straits' "So Far Away From Me"). At the end of the evening he gathered his thoughts and said to me, very carefully and politely, "If you would like, and more important -- and this is very important -- if you agree, I take you to hear Coimbra fado tomorrow night." I asked where, and he said "A Capella". Well, A Capella is the other big fado place in town, also recommended in all the guidebooks, and I had been planning to go there the next night anyway. Why not go with Carlos? I arranged to meet him at a restaurant down the street from my hotel at 9:30.

After a day spent touring Coimbra (which I won't get into here, you can read a damn guidebook yourself if you care), I took a nap and a shower, ate dinner at an Italian restaurant (an American can take only so much ham without a break), and turned up to meet Carlos. When I got there he was deep in conversation with a good-looking woman at the next table, slim in jeans with long dark hair showing a few strands of silver. He turned to me, beaming, and said,"Boa noite! I am so lucky. I find two beautiful American women in two days! Who would believe?" Who would believe, indeed? Her name turned out to be Jacqueline; she was a bartender from Oregon who was also traveling by herself. Now, not a lot of women travel through the Iberian peninsula by themselves, especially American women, so we bonded a bit. She seemed very youthful and independent (I think the gray was premature) and we started comparing notes -- of course she turned out to be a huge fado fan, and of course she wound up joining us to go hear the fado. That's just the way it goes when you meet complete strangers in a foreign country. We chattered about this and that for a while (turns out she used to smoke Nat Sherman cigarettes too, when she used to smoke -- of course, even though we both quit years ago we both had one of Carlos's cigarettes at some point in the evening -- fado bars are just places where you have to smoke. Please don't tell on me! I'm in Europe, it doesn't count.). Carlos couldn't really follow our English, but he obviously didn't care -- he just sat there beaming back and forth at his two beautiful American women. When Jacqueline used the word "vagabond" to describe herself he was struck by the word and made her define it and repeat it a few times. Then he pulled out a notebook and wrote a poem about a mysterious vagabond on the spot, sitting at the tiny table in the bar listening to fado. When the singers started to take a much-needed break he asked them if he could say something. Obviously familiar with him, fond of him, and accustomed to gently humoring him, they graciously said yes and even provided dramatic background music on the guitar as he read the poem aloud. At the end of the evening he gave both Jacqueline and me a book of his poems, and insisted on driving me home and walking me to the door of my hotel. Adeus, Carlos.

P.S. -- Jacqueline told me about an absolutely wonderful fado bar she went to in Lisbon and made me promise to go there. She said, "You can't miss it." Wonderful, except she couldn't remember where it was. She did know where I could possibly find someone who might be able to tell me where to find it, though, and this is what she told me. I reproduce it here as verbatim as I can manage (not that I could make it any better by embellishing it, that's for sure): "So you go to this corner in the Barrio Alta, it's on the corner of the Travessa da Queimada and the Rua do Norte. There's a restaurant on the corner, but don't go in -- you can't go in, anyway, because it's closed for renovations. But there's a man working outside there, his name is Vicente. Ask him where is the fado bar at number 38 -- tell him Jacqueline sent you!" Wish me luck!