bawdy.: benfica campeão

[ stories from lisbon - april 20, 2014 ]

we were driving back from belem, the place where my parents took all of those photos that i love. there were lovers all over the park, wrapped up in each other, literally and figuratively - i smiled at them but i was jealous. carla was too. she pretended not to have seen them until i saw them and said something, but her quick and eager nod and grin made me realize she was thinking the same in portuguese. i feel like she and i think a lot of the same things. i really wish we spoke the same language. i feel like we'd be great friends, we'd get along well.

belem was beautiful though, immaculate architecture, fresh greenery, genuinely international and european from my limited knowledge. small stoned sidewalks, mosaic'd beautifully in some parts. pink and orange pastel homes with tiny ironclad balconies, some decorated with flowers, others with flags. i could see myself behind the other end of those french doors, writing a love story, or living one.

pasteis de belem was exciting - the crowd of people, the signature blue mosaic tiles at the entrance. i was feeling like i'd found part of the treasure i'd come here looking for. i feel like i'm digging for gold here, like somewhere, in the cracks of the cobblestone, slow-cooked into some pastry, or in words i miss in portuguese conversations that i can't fully translate, lies exactly what i came here looking for - some history, or rather, some story.

we were driving back from belem and carla turns the radio on softly under our parents' conversation. about twenty minutes into the drive she, without forewarning, spiked the volume to hear the announcer commentate on what turned out to be a missed goal. she turns it back down, lightly sucked her teeth. our mothers start discussing football in the backseat. their common matter of fact statements that commonly weren't fact and didn't matter go quietly corrected by carla and her father. she spikes the volume again. i can't understand the commentators quick words, but i recognize the pace. i know what's coming. "goal," carla whispers to herself, mostly. i remember my father. i didn't call him before i left to come to lisbon.

my father used to wake up early on weekends, watching bob ross before the football games started. eliseu cheered for argentina, elias for brazil, my father for portugal - always. i'd fluctuate between the prettiest flag. i walked into the attic one day to find my father hanging up a porto scarf. it took me years to learn that that was his favorite team, to learn where it was, what it meant. this was the man my mother fell in love with on the grass in belem. i took a picture of her, alone on a bench by that grass. she looked so happy, right there, in that way.

benfica scores another goal, later they win the national championship. a car drives opposite of us on the road, a handsome young man hanging half of his body out of the window, waving a benefica scarf. carla beeps and waves, she smiles to herself and claps in glee. small gestures, but it's the happiest i've seen her. my mother must have seen the scarf and been reminded, like me."how's porto playing these days," she asks. "bad," martina responds.

i need to call my father, i think to myself. i need to tell him that i went to belem on the day benfica won the national championship. i imagine he will feel more than he will tell me, that he'll remember the grass at belem, the intertwined lovers, the fact that porto is not what it used to be, he'll ask me if benfica looked happy.