Memento of life

For the first time in ages I feel free.

Five months ago I made a break from the corporate world to travel – to travel light, for as long as I can, depending on how funds last. I had an intention of six months in Europe, six in the Americas and six in Australasia. Europe first – exploring whilst getting familiar with travelling. It is so different from taking a holiday.

I look for cafés, old towns, people, events and experiences, for memories. For moments I can capture in a sketch or write in a story. I am looking for mementos of a life better lived – enough to balance the years of airports, anonymous hotels, endless meetings and report after report after report.

Two months ago I found myself standing outside the Café Livrinho Preto, the Little Black Book café, high in the hills above Lisbon. It was a bright sunny morning mid-June.

The café’s sign spoke of years of existence, that old world charm and elegance from the height of coffee culture in the 1800s, and a date, ‘1796’, that helped too.

I could smell the scent of purpose and permanence, layers of Arabica and Robusta inveigling my senses. Portugal, I had been told, uses a blend of these coffee beans whilst other European countries focus on Arabica. The barista who explained this, in wonderful warm tones, said that this blend gave Portuguese coffee a stronger character, finer body and sweetness. All I could think was that it seemed to be a perfect description of the barista himself. “The result is a well-balanced coffee that lingers in one’s mind and in one’s heart.” I remember that cafe well.

As I stepped inside Café Livrinho Preto what struck me was the background scent of paper mixed with that of the coffee, a sort of crisp muskiness, vanilla, almond and late summer warmth. That scent of paper came from the hundreds, perhaps thousands of journals that surrounded a row of booths to waist height. From the doorway these booths, seven of them, occupied the right hand wall. To the left tables were laid out as you might expect. Light floods through two large front windows creating a sense of calm, even healing.

There were, as I recall, four people on the left, three chatting and a studious young man near the window, although not so close that passers-by could see the crumbs on his shirt from the flaky patisserie he was slowly consuming. At the bar a middle aged gentleman perched sipping an espresso whilst looking into the distance beyond the walls, beyond the time of here and now. The three booths furthest from the window were occupied, two or three women in each, deep in conversation.

I was drawn to the booths and felt a sudden urge to kneel and start going through each and every journal. I love books and writing, and here were hundreds of little black books, some brown and, in the middle booth, a collection of vibrantly coloured ones. It was enthralling, intriguing. I loved it, and not just because of the books and coffee. There was something else, something deeper that held me there, an otherworldly quality about the place – a sense of living history, as though the walls could tell stories if only you asked, and mirrors that had captured every occurrence from the very first moment it had opened.

I jumped, somewhat startled by the young dark-haired waitress who was stood smiling beside me. How long she had been waiting I didn’t know, moments I suppose.

Her gaze followed mine to the booth of brightly coloured journals, and she explained: “The 1980s – a decade of colour. We all prefer the little black books. They speak of gravitas, secrets and insights, hidden stories. As to colour, fashions are so elusive.”

The coloured journals did stand out, at odds to the natural tones of the café and the brown and yellow hues of the Portuguese patisseries on display. I recognised two: the pastel de nata, a lush custard tart, and the travesseiros de Sintra, the speciality I had come here to taste, a puff pastry pillow filled with egg and almond cream and sprinkled with sugar.

“Please take a seat. I’ll take your order. If you’d like to read any journal please do so, and you may write in them too, although please remember to write politely as anyone might read them. If you did wish to read or write anything more … exotic you could do that at the end booth where we keep such books. I’m sure those ladies would welcome you – they are very polite.” She looked to the furthest booth and smiled at the two ladies who smiled in acknowledgement whilst continuing to talk.

“This is fine by the window,” I said as I sat.

“For some reason British people like the window.”

“We relish the sun I suppose. It’s a less frequent visitor to our shores. A coffee please, a galão?” I stumbled its pronunciation, and she smiled, offering a precise pronunciation in return so that I was able to practice in kind. “And a travesseiros de Sintra please.” Her smile broadened, “Of course. It would be our pleasure,” and why not, it’s the local delicacy.

I settled myself into the booth nearest to the window. From there I could see something of the famous Palácio da Pena in its bright red and yellow hues, and down toward Lisbon with the expanse of the Atlantic just visible beyond the tumble of rooftops and verdant green trees.

I took out a little black book at random from those on my right, and quickly found myself skimming one after another to find something of interest. I didn’t know what it was I sought. I just knew that there were things to be found, there always are. I smiled realising that, of course, most was written in Portuguese which I cannot read. When the waitress returned with coffee and cake she indicated the books under the window to my left. She said that these were mostly in English. So, after a sip of coffee and a slow, indulgent bite of travesseiro, I started afresh.

Entries were mostly tourist reflections: ‘Wish you were here. The weather is amazing. This café is amazing. The castle is so beautiful – amazing. Amazed, Hannah and Bill, 2003.’ There were occasional sketches, longer entries and observations, gossip and poems, even a group of limericks, the first of which was simply one line: ‘There was a young woman of Lisbon’ with Lisbon crossed out several times, and a note that they couldn’t find a rhyme for it. I laughed. It seemed as though imaginative entries sparked imitation. For example, if a sketch of any quality was drawn there followed a number of other sketches gradually dwindling in skill and imagination.

On drawing out one book I felt the corner of another that had fallen down the back. Out of curiosity I pulled out a dozen or more, and then more from the shelf below. For some reason I found an eagerness to retrieve this lost book. I became absorbed, even obsessed. Finally, on hands and knees, I released it from its prison. It was dusty with pages yellowed at the edges. As I got up the waitress, seeming to appear out of nowhere, smiled, and then frowned seeing all the books and the dust.

“It was stuck down the back between the shelves and the wall,” I explained as I held up the retrieved book for her to see. I placed it on the table and began to return the rest to their place on the shelves.

“Would you like another coffee? Another galão?”

“Yes please, that would be lovely.”

By the time it appeared everything was back in its place except for the lost book, now found, which lay in front of me.

There was something about this little black book that I could sense was different. I have an intuition for things. There was a sketchbook I had bought two days previously in a flea market. I love drawing, buying art materials as and when I need them, then posting sketchbooks back home so that I can travel light. The sketchbook was old and had three pen and ink sketches already in it – beautiful, exquisite pieces. The seller had not spotted or did not rate them, it was a sketchbook after all.

I opened the little black book in front of me as the waitress brought the galão. On the first page was an amazing drawing, a frontispiece in Indian ink giving the date ‘1892’ and showing elements of the Palácio da Pena, amongst abstract swirls. It was signed Eduardo Hardiman-Cruz, 1892. The waitress saw the image and gasped in surprise.

“It’s amazing,” she said, caught between leaning in to see and sticking firmly to her role. I turned the book so that she could better see and invited her to sit. She smiled, had a glance to her colleague and sat beside me. Slowly we went through the book page by page. It was an elegant journal that she translated as best she could to give a sense of the contents. It was by a gentleman who had ‘borrowed’ the book on a tour of Lisbon and Sintra in 1892, using it for sketches and recording his insights about buildings and the people he’d met. It was a living history of a moment in one man’s life over a hundred years ago. The sketches were all fabulous, architectural drawings, little vignettes of people at cafés, in evening dress, or down by the port – the women in long skirts, white blouses and richly coloured shawls, with little hats too. The last entry he had made was a thanks to the café for the ‘loan of the little black book’ which he had then returned to the back of the shelves for someone to find, perhaps enjoy and perhaps be inspired by.

Then it struck me, the sketch book I had bought, the images within that. The waitress stood just as I reached for my bag. She went to talk with the man at the bar. As they came over I was opening my sketch book to compare the images to those in the little black book. They were so similar. Looking more closely I found a faded signature on mine, just initials – EHC. I sat back smiling.

The waitress introduced the gentleman as João Gilberto, a professor of architecture at the University, saying that he might be able to help … and he did. It transpired that Eduardo Hardiman-Cruz was an architect by profession who had written a treatise, well known in architectural circles, on the history of Portuguese architecture. The book was full of illustrations all beautifully capturing the essence and, where desired, the detail.

Professor Gilberto, João, looked through both journal and sketchbook with the seasoned eye of a professional. Having done so he sighed: “These are marvellous, and to find not one but two such books. I am sure that private collectors, and perhaps the University, would be more than willing to buy them, if you, or the café are willing to sell. I cannot begin to estimate the journal's value, but the sketches', perhaps twenty thousand dollars or more.”

It’s been some months since that happened and I am now in the Café Central in Vienna drinking coffee, writing. I had accepted the money. It came through this morning. The images, although beautiful, meant so much to others.

I am settled into travelling now, and have decided to continue for a little longer than planned.

Having ‘met’ Eduardo I feel inspired. I leave sketches in places as I go, in cafés, or with people whom I meet. I am keeping a journal too, my own little black books, for myself at the moment. Perhaps one day … perhaps I’ll leave them somewhere for someone else to find, and enjoy.