As he was digging deep into his pocket, the cashier quizzically examined him. From the cut of the clothing and the size of the man there was no way he could be a local.
His glasses weren’t a current style, his clothing was both too large and two loose. If any question remained as to his place of origin his braces nailed his foreignness. Nobody in Portugal wears suspenders but a waiter. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to suss out this man was no waiter.
“Um brownie, take away, por favor“, he said as he tapped on the display case window pointing to the brownie he wanted to order. Smiling at him, “Ah, sim, sim,” rolled off her tongue. Leaning in with her plastic gloved hand, she grabbed the brownie and dropped it into a brown paper saco. At what seemed like a speed of sound to his ear, with a blurring of vocal sounds only the Portuguese can accomplish, the garçonete (waitress-was that the right term?) was asking for payment. “Dois euros vinte,” or two euros twenty, was her request. The digital readout of 2.20 on the cash register saved him from another moment of awkwardness.
Continuing to search the depths of his trouser pockets and his fingers extending and contracting within, he came up with a credit card for payment. Always the air miles card. Trips back and forth across the Atlantic just keep getting more expensive and every air mile counts. Pulling out the card, he tapped the portable card reader. Four green dots blinked showing the transaction was processed, He was handed a small white receipt which had choggled out from the machine. The receipt went in one trouser pocket the credit card in the other. Accepting the brown bag with his guaranteed sugar buzz within, the ‘Murican said “Obrigado,” twisted his shoulders, stretched a little-almost imperceptibly, and headed out to the street. As he had been warned by his elders long ago his body had become many years older than his spirit.
Out the door he turned left heading down the cream colored calçadas toward the corner of 5 Outubro and Rua Pedro Nunes and his apartmento. Thinking about the pastry in the bag brought him guilt. A brownie was not really a Portuguese treat. That chocolate goo was as invasive as all the expats flooding this city and the country. By buying it he took a step away from assimilation. So many other local choices existed many drenched or stuffed with chocolate. Still, every now and then a taste of home softened the jangly edges of the man’s soul. Having uprooted his life to move to a different continent, with a different language, with different concepts of how life should be lived wasn’t proving to be completely easy. Objectively emigration wasn’t hard but it wasn’t easy either.
He reached his final turn toward home. Late May and the jacarandas with lovely little pale purple blossoms made 5 Outubro’s center look like the living incarnation of the promise of spring. Stopping and scanning the street both ways he took the beauty of those trees in. Watching the cars speeding by, all so tiny by American standards, the realization that had come to him time and time again washed over him. For him this smaller life was a better life. From the leather repair shop to the fresh fruit stand to the flower stand and to each and every café and kebab place, life here was conducted on a much smaller but much more personal basis. Relationships mattered here. Quality of life mattered here. Time does not matter here.
Reaching his door his plan was in place. In five minute’s, time he would be on his balcony with a cup of decaf and the brownie. He would be watching the world pass by. For now, that was just about perfection.
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