Seven o’clock Friday evening . We leave the Vincci Baixa, the lovely yet affordable (this is Portugal, after all) hotel Maureen found for us two blocks from the Lisbon waterfront. Senor Fado, the place in the Alfama neighborhood where we’re supposed to go for authentic, typico Portuguese fado music on Saturday night, looks on the map to be about a mile away. The hotel staff says it’s a 20-minute walk and that we will have to “go inside” at some point. I ask if that means and overpass or underpass. The lovely staffer repeats that we will have to “go inside.” Hey, she’s got a lot more English than I do Portuguese, and after all, it’s only Friday evening and we’re mainly going to make sure we know how to get to the place on foot.
It turns out by “go inside,” the staffer meant there’s a construction zone to navigate. But hey, we’re pros at that; after all, in the nearly six years we have lived in our apartment building, there have been perhaps thirty seconds without a construction zone between us and the Harris Teeter grocery four blocks away.
We find Senor Fado laughably easily. Which was probably the last time we laughed all night. Because, after all, it was fado.
Seven twenty. Luis and Marina, the owners, are the only ones in the little restaurant. There are tables to seat perhaps 20. Maureen confirms that our reservation is for Saturday and asks if, as long as we’re there, we could come Friday night instead. Luis, whose English is great, says sure, but not to come back until 8:30 or 8:45, “because we have to wait for everyone to finish eating before we start.”
Silly American me. I thought he was referring to the other diners.
We walk around Alfama’s hills a bit, continuing to develop more attractive calf muscles in 10 seconds than we could in hours on the elliptical. That’s the thing about Lisbon, you see. It’s built on seven hills. Just like Rome. Or Cincinnati. I don’t know how many hills San Francisco has, but that may give you a more accurate picture of Lisbon. Except San Francisco doesn’t have fado.
Eight o’clck. We happen into a teeny little neighborhood place and get a liter of sangria and some hummus. It may be the best sangria in the world. The owners then have supper with a friend and go out to sit on the stoop and have a cigarette with a friend. Very typico.
Eight thirty. We figure it’s OK to go back to Senor Fado. Luis and Marina are still the only ones there. But that’s OK. We get to talking with Luis about his time working in NYC and Miami and Los Angeles and on a cruise ship. We order fish in a stainless steel pot. It’s very good. We order green wine. He and Maureen talk about whether we should tour the vineyards up north in Portugal that make the stuff. I have a to-die-for dessert Marina made that’s called lemon pudding but the British way, more like cake but not exactly, with a marvelous taste of cardamom. Along the way, a couple of twentysomething French chicks, as egoiste as only twentysomething French chicks can be, come in and sit next to us. They make the mistake you just can’t when you travel. They figure we don’t understand what they’re saying, and start dishing the old Americans seated next to them (that would be us) and the place in general. Even thirty years on from a French degree, I know what incroyable and ridicule mean. But I don’t let on. An Italian couple sits next to Maureen. We know they are Italian because after Luis speaks to them in English and they answer, he responds, “Ah, buon serra,” and they nod. We hear nothing from them the rest of the night. Then there’s the Portuguese couple seated at the window table. Older. He seems a bit put upon. She’s wearing a scarf around her neck.
A Portuguese guy who looks like Big Pussy from the Sopranos except maybe thirty pounds lighter comes in and has a drink, no food or lemon pudding.
Maureen and I ask Luis if he will do fado. He laughs. No, he says.
Ten thirty. We’re all done eating. We sit. Luis makes a frantic phone call. Says the fado man is on his way, but stuck in traffic.
Ten forty-five. Luis makes another call. The fado man is in the vicinity but can’t find parking. Luis tunes a guitar and says he’ll tell us about fado so that when the fado man gets there, they can just play. Fado is to Portugal what jazz is to the United States, he says. He compares good fado to Frank Sinatra, whom he heard sing once. Fado is traditional music about love and hate, about emotion, he says.
Marina, who’s been dressed in a black cotton tee-shirt and slacks all evening, disappears. Maureen speculates she’s going to change.
I tell Maureen I can probably make it through a thirty-minute set before I fall asleep. She tells me to gird myself for an hour. I say I’ll close my eyes while they’re playing so no one knows I’m asleep. She gives me one of those don’t be ridiculous looks.
Eleven, maybe a little after. The fado man arrives. Thirties, nice looking. He starts tuning a Portuguese guitar, which has twelve strings and looks like a lute. It sounds like a balakaiya. Cool.
Eleven fifteen or so. Luis and the fado man start playing, Luis on vocals. What happened to him not doing vocals? He’s good, emotional, baritone but the lower range. Then the older woman seated with her husband is invited to get up and sing. She does a couple numbers, beautiful voice. No introduction of the songs; maybe you don’t do that with fado. Most are sad, sad, really sad as Lara in Doctor Zhivago said, and you don’t need to know many of the words to get that.
Then Big Pussy sings for a while. Strong voice, more tenor than you’d expect from a big man. Very emotive. I wonder if he ever shows this side when he’s not singing fado.
And then, shazzam, it’s Marina’s turn. She’s got this black taffeta dress on that is both a bit prim and revealing at the same time. Or maybe it just seems a bit prim to me because unlike 90 percent of the tourists here, she’s not proudly displaying her bra straps. She sings about a soldier dying. She sings about someone else dying. Huge, contralto voice that fills but does not overwhelm the room. When I shut my eyes to listen to her, it’s legit. I am feeling the music, not trying to sleep.
Around I guess midnight, they take a break. No one has their checks, so we can’t leave. People file into and out of the cramped WCs, and I congratulate myself on finally not tripping up the step to get in. I go into the kitchen, give Marina a hug, and tell her she sings from the soul… and could I please get some more water. She’s happy to oblige. The French and Italians don’t ask for anything, nor do Luis and Marina ask if anyone wants anything. Maureen says Mr. Italian has been doing everything in the world to stay away. Maureen goes to talk with Marina and asks her to sing a fado song she knows by a famous fado singer. Luis seems a bit offended, says no, she’s not going to sing that. Maureen and I speculate that Marina is the famous singer’s abandoned daughter.
They start up again. The older Portuguese lady. Big Pussy. Another sxitysomething friend who looks like he works on the docks and is in incredible shape and would be to die for gorgeous if only he’d cut that gray ponytail. The French girls are rolling their eyes and talking behind their hands. The Italian guy is close to asleep, and so am I. But the folks at Senor Fado don’t care. After all, we’re just along for the ride. They’d be doing this whether or not they had an audience, I suspect.
Luis has been pretty much ignoring the French and Italians since taking their dinner orders. Marina gets up and does a couple more songs. Then Luis says to Maureen, like no one’s there except us, that Marina doesn’t know all the words to the song that Maureen asked about, but would Maureen like to hear Marina sing something that was written especially for her. Sure, Maureen says. It’s beautiful, full of longing. Afterward, he and Marina ask Maureen if she liked the song. Maureen says it’s lovely. The French chicks want to leave. The Italians are almost asleep. The older Portuguese guy gets up to pay. I ask if Marina’s ever recorded. Luis brings out two CDs. Maureen agrees we’ll buy them… and write a review at the Web site where Maureen found out about them.
And so, after 1 a.m., we stumble out, the first non-neighborhood types to exit, thanks to American ingenuity in asking about and buying those CDs. The French and Italians are still there, for all we know, trying to figure out how to escape Fado.
