I killed the dog. I had to; it kept barking. Being a reasonable man who likes animals, I first tried killing it with kindness, showering down praise and dog-biscuits, but when that failed I resorted to just plain murder. It really was the only way to have peace in my life.
This dog, like the thousands of other dogs chained up all over Portugal, was small, brown and ugly. Long, long ago, a Welsh Corgi and a Dachshund met somewhere on the Iberian peninsula, fell in love and mated. Throughout the centuries, their offspring mated and re-mated to produce today’s Portuguese Chain-dog. It’s pedigree points are: the color is always scruffy-brown, its body is ill-proportioned, being too long for its modest height, and the head should have huge ears, extra points if one flops down. Queen Anne legs are essential, as is a coat that appears to have been created by dragging the animal backwards through a roll of barbed-wire - many times. The perfect Chain-dog should be charmless and devoid of all ability, except for one: it must be capable of barking for hours, without pause or provocation, and such longevity is much sought after among Chain-dog owners.
In most Portuguese towns there are Chain-dog barking competitions which are fiercely contested and some offer tremendous prizes. Practice goes on year-round and country-wide. The very select of the breed - ninety eight percent of them - are also memory-deficient. This ensures that no matter how kind you have been to the animal, the moment it blinks all memory of your kindness is erased, and once more you are a hostile creature to be barked at and about.
In Portugal, the dawn chorus is a dog chorus. The rising sun belongs to the hounds, not the birds, and by government decree, at no time shall there be more than three consecutive barkless minutes anywhere across the land.
That is why I killed the dog outside my house. Its death solved one problem, but created another because it belonged to Senor, my neighbor in the cottage across the yard. He appears to be a man of advanced years, although being from the country he might be only thirty, and looks much as I imagined Benito Mussolini would look today, if only he hadn’t hung around that corner lamp-post too much with his mistress after Italy lost the war. Actually, I could no more guess Senor’s age than speak Portuguese backwards, or forwards for that matter.
The Senor, I have yet to learn his name, growls out Portuguese as though every word is a parade-ground command. On discovering I am American, and therefore genetically incapable of learning a second language, he settled on a military salute as the sole, yet direct means of communication between us. Every morning he appears at his front door (but not too early because the Portuguese are late risers) and his hand flashes up in a crisp salute the instant he sees me. I return it with an American insouciance learned from watching countless John Wayne WWII movies.
Senor then rumbles out some arcane Portuguese greeting, his body erect and head tilted back. Unfortunately his head is inclined so far off vertical that I can see only the underneath of his chin, thin lines where his eyes peer down over his cheeks, and two cavernous nostrils, Stygian-black holes that undoubtedly harbor unknown lands and unusual forms of life.
I will later discover the Senor has only one eye. He is also a kind and generous man with a wonderful dignity that is particularly Portuguese.
Senor is also my landlord’s father and therein lies the problem, me having offed his pedigree Chain-dog. Thank goodness no one saw me do it. I hope.
Other difficulties loom. I live on a farm, along with the Chain-dogs, twin shabby grey cats - or one very fast cat, my Mussolini Senor neighbor with a wife who looks and dresses just like him, and the next problem, a bunch of chickens, what is the collective noun? - herd, flock, franchise? Now I’ve never met a chicken yet that could scare me, not truly scare me, but I have a faithful companion whom it might bother.
Rockat, my Maine coon cat, is a city boy, Los Angeles born and bred. He is a tough, sophisticated California city-cat, which means he’s never seen any bird bigger than a sparrow. He’s caught, tortured and eaten a few of them in his time and it’s possible karma is spinning the big wheel of fortune in his direction. For the time being, we will not know what happens when Rockat meets a bird far bigger than he is, and one that speaks a foreign tongue too, because traumatized by the flight over, Rockat is buried deep in the middle of the bed and comes out only at night. The great Portuguese outdoors with its monster avian life still awaits him.
We, Rockat and I, are in Portugal and both alive, as is Senor’s Chain-dog, who died only in my wishful imagination. For now. But this is a strange and foreign land in which anything might happen. And most surely will.
The question constantly asked me for a while was, Why? and the only honest reply I could give was, Why not? Next came, When? to which I answered, April 6th. I considered getting a T-shirt on which would be printed: Rockat and I are going to live in Portugal and we’re leaving April 6th.
Once past the opening questions, there came more questions that varied only by degree.
“But it’s so far away from Los Angeles and everyone, isn’t it?” No, it’s not, and I’m right next to me all the time.
“Won’t you be lonely?” Yes, sometimes, but it won’t kill me. And at times I have been lonely in Los Angeles. It is the most human of conditions.
“But you don’t speak Portuguese.” True - mais, vo aprender -but I’m going to learn.
“What will you do there?” Probably starve to death, after I eat the cat. Then again, perhaps I might survive and get to explore a new country. I did it once before.
Back to why. There were many reasons for leaving, or at least I could rattle off lots of them, but really there was just one that made sense: it was time. I had emigrated to the States in 1975, determined to work as a director of photography in Hollywood, and I did just that for thirty three years. There were many triumphs, many disappointments (usually of my own making), and wonderful experiences I could never have imagined as a child growing up in a Welsh coal-mining town. I have nothing but gratitude for my time spent in Hollywood. But I felt I had reached some form of ending, and therefore a new beginning. I had no responsibilities or debts, and few possessions. In short, I was free to do what I wished. I understood too that no decision is irrevocable, I can always go back to the States, and probably will at some future time.
I did not leave unhappy; I did not flee the country. I love the United States, my United States, and it has been good to me. It made me who I am today and sure as hell made a better man out of me than I expected. I became, I am, and I always will be, an American. And thankful for the privilege. It became clear to me that no one, regardless how well they make plans, knows how their life will turn out and so it should be enjoyed. Even the scary bits are to be celebrated.
That knowledge is my bed-rock, and from that springs freedom to explore. Regardless of what jingoistic politicians say, one country is not better or greater than another, just different, and within that difference lies interest.
Why Portugal? I shot part of a television series here fifteen years ago and liked the country. There was something appealing about its size and scale. It’s a small country, only 360 miles by 160, but contained within its compact borders is an astonishing repository of history and culture. I felt it was time to live in a small place that had changed little over the centuries. Truth is, the coffee and desserts are seductive too.
So I left my apartment in Studio City, in which I had lived for over twelve years, sold my beloved pickup truck, gave away what I didn’t need or couldn’t take, and flew away with the cat to a small hilltop farmhouse thirty miles outside Lisbon.
And it has been difficult.
Torrential rain and wicked storms hammered the country during the first two weeks and I was always cold. All of my belongings were on a ship heading for Portugal and I had been living out of a suitcase in an empty apartment for a month before I left Studio City. Now I was living in a friend’s house for several weeks and living out of the same suitcase. Poor Rockat was so traumatized by the flight he hid in or under the bed and I rarely saw him.
I was starting from scratch and needed everything. That simple sentence hides a mountain of frustration. For what seemed an eternity, nothing got finished completely; there was always one more piece of paper or another official to see to get simple things done. My list of things to do never got shorter, just altered. I also have great difficulty at times with perception, and that can make me unhappy. I allotted all of April to get settled in Portugal and then begin my new life. But really I wanted it all finished by Tuesday. Sometimes too, just going to a store and asking for something in a strange language was exhausting.
Many times over the last few weeks I wondered about the wisdom of making this move, and once or twice I was close to certain I had made a terrible mistake. But I have good friends in both countries and they saw me through. Now my rented house is nearly completely furnished, the rains have stopped and this day is glorious. I have a wonderful view from my office and today I took a walk along the hill and picked wild-flowers. An hour ago, a swallow flew through the open window, circled the room and shot out again. I saw that as a pleasant omen.
What has settled me most of all is that I am writing again. I normally write every day and have not done so for several weeks. Now I am back where I belong, in front of a computer pecking out words one letter at a time.
I am writing a blog about moving to Portugal, even though I so dislike that word. It’s clumsy and brings to mind Belgian peasants clog-dancing in a heavy rain. Another story dear to my heart occupies much of my time, LUSUS, a comedy-love story about an alien who lands in Portugal.
I write about what I know best.
