Texts & Contexts

by Antonio Carlos Mongiardim Gomes Saraiva

  Texts & Contexts

  Antonio Carlos Mongiardim Gomes Saraiva

  Translated by Ingrid Veiga

  “Texts & Contexts”

  Written By Antonio Carlos Mongiardim Gomes Saraiva

  Copyright © 2019 Antonio Carlos Mongiardim Gomes Saraiva

  All rights reserved

  Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

  www.babelcube.com

  Translated by Ingrid Veiga

  “Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Texts & Contexts

  TEXTS & CONTEXTS | mongiardimsaraiva

  Presentation

  Texts & Contexts is a compilation of some writings of the author produced between 2012 and 2018. The genres oscillate from chronicles to articles and prose poetry. They present ordinary traces derived from both style and observation of daily life facts and situations.

  The Author

  Mantena, July 2018.

  TEXTS & CONTEXTS

  mongiardimsaraiva

  VISIT TO LISBON

  I came back to Lisbon 15 years later. The first feeling was that of recognition of a city, heritage of my recent memory, with the same color, smell, profile and people who walked in a rush with those somewhat morose looks on their faces. After all, I had gotten used to a way more cheerful and loose profile, characteristic of the tropical climates. That's Brazil and the city I live in now. The old Lisbon was still the one who breathes history to me, full of splendid monuments and loads of poetics alongside Tejo. Of an unique beauty.

  As I arrived, my will to wander around Lisbon was tremendous. Still tired from the trip, I couldn't resist the appeal of walking through the old Baixa Pombalina. Chiado, Rua Augusta, Terreiro do Paço and Rossio, just as I used to on the good old days. It was almost Christmas and the stores were simmering in colors and full of people. A great number of tourists savoring the relics of our land. The temptation of the cakes served on the old pastries of Lisbon and the typical restaurants with mouth-watering medieval delicacies. My tiredness had abandoned me entirely. My senses were now overwhelmed by a familiar sweet scent as hadn’t happened in a long time. My city had embraced me back as a son who comes back home after a long trip. Without questioning. With arms wide open in a gesture filled with comfort and affection I won’t forget anytime soon. A lot had changed without a doubt; a whole heap of new constructions and just as much demolished. Walking by these streets and avenues was to me like savoring an old familiar fruit that had matured several times but never really lost its essence. I found some almost chocking changes: stores which were now closed, gone restaurants, Rossio’s Square taken by a refugee’s population. The once noble area of the high part of town was now almost abandoned and in clear downfall. Who does not remind of the famous Roma Avenue’s buildings now overtaken by the population with lower economical incomes. I also enjoyed the wonderfulness created by Estação Oriente alongside the Tejo, with its rich residential and entertainment infrastructures. The impression I was left with was that of a Lisbon in deep transformation but remaining all its charm and glamour.

  To me, this was without a doubt, the most valuable and waited Christmas gift that I had gotten in the last years. I will remember it for a long time, longing to live many more Christmas’ like that one.

  MILITARY SCHOOL

  The year was 1968. I had just lost my father, an officer of the Portuguese army. I was taking admission exams for the Military School, an institution solely reserved for the soldiers’ sons and famous for housing venerable and distinguished names. At the age of 10 I barely knew about these things. The challenge was right there in front of me, as raw as it could be, and I neither had a choice nor was asked the reason behind those purposes. I heard the Institution was primeval and had the best conditions that a child could be given to be educated for life. Therefore, I faced this choice as a needed and voluntary act once this opportunity was valuable and desirable.

  I was given a uniform and a gun which I was supposed to learn how to respect and handle. I was also assigned to a number: 110. From that moment on I should always answer by it, as a way of identifying with myself and the system to which I now belonged. It was a new life in an internship regime, inside a quarter they called “school”. The rituals were very similar to those that take place in real military quarters with the aggravation factor that this time the soldiers had the ages of a child and were monitored by other children a little older than them, called the “graduates”. These were the students in their last years. They were authorized and instructed to preserve all the rules followed by the School since its foundation. They could manage punishments and penalties whenever they assumed the standards of conduct had been violated or decried. Above them there was a group of officers who managed the interests of the Institution but had no active role on the daily life of the students. Our journey started early in the morning with the dawn (and the horne) and ended with a curfew followed by silence. During the activities we’d always walk in formation, as soldiers. In formation we headed to the lunchroom to eat... in formation we left it... we went to classes... came back... sometimes we even headed in formation to our bathhouse to shower. It was hard but our skins started to thicken, year after year. It allowed us to partially relieve this heavy and responsible day-to-day that in such an early age became part of our lives. A great number of incredible stories took place during this time as you can imagine.

  Well, this was the heavy and hard side. The other side of this story is that we were part of an institution of magnitude which had an overly efficient structure destined to schooling. We had plain space for our activities, great laboratories, rooms, courts, pavilions, gymnasiums, fields for different sports modalities, equitation, fencing, entertainment rooms, swimming pools, movie theaters, etc, etc. And all that secured by the best crew of teachers and methodologies. There’s no doubt that those were tough and demanding times. But the worst was still to come and we, children, could never know that. Life is hard. For everyone.

  We learnt important values as friendship and the will to win. Today, many years after leaving the Military School, I have, besides everything, a weird feeling of accomplished duty, associated to a deep reminiscence that makes me recall friendships and highlight amazing moments I lived there. I recognize a lot of precious values learnt that I will keep with me forever. For all that, I think it was worth it after all. Zacatrás!!!

  THE NEIGHBORS

  I live in a traditional-inhabited-by-middle-class building of my city. There are eleven floors with four apartments each, which equals a total of 44 residents (families), half of it composed by elderly people who became widow(er)s and embraced the edifice as their forever home. Talking about neighbors is unavoidable when we live in a building. They become a part of our routine, even if we want to forget about their existence sometimes. The biggest part of them is irrelevant and we pass through them with simple “good morning” or “good afternoon” greetings and that’s all. They follow this protocol promptly. There are others who are not able to settle with just a polite greeting and express a desire to show they are there for better or for worst. Those are the people I am going to tell you about.

  In general, they are middle-aged and some very few of them are a little older. Usually they live by themselves. When we meet, most of the times on the elevator, they love to talk about the weather. Asking or affirming how cold or hot it is, if it is going to rain, as if this was the most important thing in the world. That type of conversation that won’t take anyone anywhere. In my opinion, that’s the way they found to socialize without taking big chances, using a topic of conv
ersation that won’t compromise anyone, but that becomes increasingly and deeply tedious whenever it happens. A truly trial by fire to me. Anyway, those are not the worst. There are others, even more dangerous, who live to pay attention to other people’s lives and always know the latest news. And as if it was not enough, they gossip about all sorts of conversations or information. Obviously, in this snoopering a lot of stories are enlarged and distorted, creating unimageable and bizarre narratives.

  There is a woman who keeps one of her doors open most of the time whenever she is home. This door gives access to the entrance hall, to the rest of the apartments and to the elevators’ precinct. Believe me if you might but whenever someone steps on this area or makes noises while moving, the woman shows up promptly, out of nowhere, and comes to see what is happening as if she was a spider looming at her reckless prey who just fell into the web. A truly Divine Work of Nature.

  As for me, I try to show myself not too distant from people, but I also don’t give too much space for those who I have been watching for some years to approach. Fortunately, the building has a great post code and construction structure. The walls are so thick and solid that I’m not allowed to hear any of the neighborhood’s noises and that, to me, is a true blessing.

  THE ELEPHANT’S KING

  That is all everyone would talk about. King Juan Carlos apparently had engaged in an elephant hunting. Not satisfyed with that, he had also posed beside a slaughtered prey, wielding his riffle in a victorious attitude.

  Yes, Spain’s king still hunts elephants, can you imagine... But did he? Well, it all leads us to believe that al least he tried. People vehemently pointed out their fingers and condemned the king for his unexpectable and ignobel action. Imagine, coming from a king of a certain age. Monarch of a country such as Spain, with respected traditions and given examples. It can’t be true.

  But it can happen and really happened in Botswana, as an invitation of an Arabian entrepreneur. Both the media and people didn’t forgive him and spread pictures and acid comments about the episode, as with everyone was a saint and had never planned and executed a hunt in their lives. Society and people are great hypocrites and forgetful of their actions, especially when it is convenient to them. All right, the king could had been more careful in avoiding embarrassments once he is a public person known as a defender of ecology and the animals. On the other hand, the hunting topic itself is an activity deep-seated in every person’s blood, especially in monarchy or royalty’s members, constituting their habits since the dawn of times. But back at us, recriminating and scathing society, what do we do other than constantly organize bloody and infamous hunts in which the chased animal is almost always our equal, a thousand times smaller and more fragile than an elephant?

  MAYOMBE

  Yesterday, while I was reading a small chronicle of a friend of mine, I could remind some places and episodes, distant in space and time. I refer to the six years that I lived in an Angola (Africa) colonized by Portugueses and stained for the great amount of trope’s commissions sent by Portugal to defend and secure these territories.

  My father was one of these militaries, through a number of service mobilizations; Angola, Mozambique and India. At that time, it was typical for these militaries’ families to have the opportunity of remaining together or nearby during those service commissions. The chronicle I had the chance to read talked about an area placed on the North of Angola, closely to the Cabinada city, almost border with Congo. Area of densand characteristic forests. This African jungle is known by its high forestall density, with gigantic trees, famous by the high quality of its wood (mahogany, brasilian rosewood, pau-santo, tola, ebony, etc). This enormous forest is also home to the famous Mayombe’s Gorillas. For three years my father defended a small fortified clearing in the middle of the woods, called Alto do Bucozau. Entirely isolated in the woods and constantly threatened by enemies’ attacks. It happened for a long time and a few letters he could send every once in a while were the only communication we had with him.

  I would like to record here a fact that happened several times throughout this period of semi isolation. Something that latter I learnt to realize and give the rightful value. My father was a military officer and lived in an outline of imminent war based on hard and insecure moments. All that to say that at any point he let that out in the letters he sent us. On the contrary. As to me, he would usually sent me letters (aerograms) in which he told me his war episodes, as if they were adventures designed to be appreciated and read by a 6 or 7 years old boy. The most revealing and extraordinary was that every one of these letters had a dry and dissected butterfly within. A beautiful and colorful Mayombe’s butterfly that I would withdraw very carefully off of the paper, always leaving the marvelous pollen stain of their wings. Those stains remained recorded forever in that pages, just as they will forever remain in my memory.

  A MAGICAL NIGHT

  Few readers will be familiar, but for the majority won’t be aware of some facts that took place around the beginning of the 70’s, while we attended in internship regime the famous Military School in Lisbon, Portugal.

  We were at that time in our teen years, living our days confined in a small quarter-school where the severity and discipline made themselves present at every moment. I introduce it in order to tell you an extraordinary and worth telling episode that happened out of sight and out of the rules and the authoritarian system we were living in back then as students. On weekends, when we went back home, we’d frequently gather a group of close friends that were also internship colleagues. This group was friends with another, entirely formed by girls who were friends and shared the attendance to the famous Odivelas Institute where they studied in internship regime as well. So far, a group composed by two groups with similarities and shred aspirations is only normal and logical. Our weekends were highly and creatively enjoyed once it went by too fast and on every Monday everything went back to the school’s routine. The episode I’d like to record went far further the usual meetings we’d have.

  On one of those Sunday afternoons, as the time to go back to school started to show itself, someone had a genius idea. Why not dare to come up with an evil plan that would entirely overturn both institution’s systems. Something that would be the biggest and most tremendous plan ever made by students of the Military School. Someone took the lead and said: - Would you girls be up to get into the Military School and spend some time with us in there tonight, trying to deceive the whole strict and flawless system of the School? Silence took over the place. The idea was way too crazy and hard to be taken in by all of us. After a few seconds, weirdly, it became nothing but a simple plan. The dices were rolling. The whole thing started to shape up and we started to set every detail of the plan.

  It was a cold winter night and around 10 or 11 p.m, after we presented ourselves to the official to go back to our regular activities, there we were waiting in the Largo da Luz for our friends who were arriving in a cab. It was the beginning of a great adventure. At School, we had already taken care of hiding all the evidences. A night patrol through the dorms to check if the students were on their beds was usual. This patrol was made with a flashlight that would help checking if everything was normal. Using all of our creativity and mischievousness we came up our disguises under the sheets in such a way that it would look as if someone was indeed sleeping there. Once at the Largo da Luz and in front of the entrance gate, we ran through the outline of the building by the left until we reached a barbwire zone alongside the aeromodelling field, the place we had previously studied as propitious to the plan. Our entrance would be made under the wire, in a small bench made to this effect. The ones who couldn’t make it, would have to go over the wire. For us, teenagers, that was a delightful and unusual adventure. Way far beyond our imagination. And the pleasure of deceiving such a strict and flawless system was superb. I remember that there was a sentinel soldier who would pass by the aeromodelling pavilion every once in a while with his gun ready to be used. It gave a
touch of geniality and sophistication to the whole process. We got to enter and make ourselves comfortable enough to spend the night, that went by as a magical session, filled with a strong sense of complicity and great music; Genesis, Pink Floyd, etc. The feeling of that moment will certainly remain in the memories of those who engaged in the project for eternity. An unusual idea that shaped up and took place in the most plain and natural way.

  Rumor says, based on true facts, that our girl friends faced some tough moments when they went back to their school. As to us, the episode was not disseminated or commented by the high-ranking officers of the school, although it was heard that the both the principals were aware of what had happened. Certainly, they tough it was better not to make it public.

  THE HOST-EATERS

  I’m here to talk to you about a personal subject which is a little touchy for a few people, who see in it and in your observation some sort of intrusion by those who dare commenting about it. Indeed, each person follows their believes or religion according to their thoughts, life experiences or the need of some spiritualization. The constructive comments should always be welcomed by everyone.

  Even though I don’t currently follow any religion, my background is catholic. I feel more connected to the word “religiousness”, finding it more wide-ranging and free of dogmas that I have some difficulty in recognize as valid and acceptable.

  I have seen that a lot of people insist in going to their churches in such a constant and periodic manner, turning this habit into an almost social circumstance, and in a few cases solely socially. Why do I use these terms to talk about this practice? Because I have a hard time taking in that people who go religious and systematically to their temples don’t make any effort to follow the preaches and principles passed on on their religious cults. It would be praiseworthy if these people were indeed willing to use at least a few of the great commandments of their religions. On the other hand, we could also say that a lot of these people, perhaps the biggest part of them, are precisely those who have the hardest time following a conduct compatible with the religious principles and lessons, having the need to go all the way to a temple in order to pray, think and share. Well, I’ve been seeing that a big amount of people insists in fervently engage in the Holy Communion and other rituals, but shortly after seem to forget almost entirely the value and the meaning of these ceremonies. It’s all about acts that stands for something bigger than what is actually seen. Way more meaningful than the act of receiving a representative host.