WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:06.879 The day I found the new alley, I wasn't trying 2 00:00:06.960 --> 00:00:09.679 to discover anything. I'd set out just to retrace the 3 00:00:09.720 --> 00:00:11.560 old Hash twenty eight bus for out on foot, a 4 00:00:11.599 --> 00:00:13.919 habit that fit into retirement. The wayslip is fit after 5 00:00:14.039 --> 00:00:17.960 years of polished shoes, often as maize, crisscrossed by laundry lines, 6 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:20.039 and the sar bit of scent of grilled sardines was 7 00:00:20.039 --> 00:00:22.039 a map I wore in my muscle memory as much 8 00:00:22.039 --> 00:00:26.039 as my mind. Even the cobblestones remembered my knees. But 9 00:00:26.160 --> 00:00:29.039 that afternoon, easing past the tail darches near La gou 10 00:00:29.079 --> 00:00:31.399 du Chaffers de dentro Of, something snaked at the edge 11 00:00:31.399 --> 00:00:34.039 of my sight passageway I didn't recognize, with the sun 12 00:00:34.039 --> 00:00:36.439 painted gold stripes on to a row of mistake paving stone, 13 00:00:36.479 --> 00:00:38.520 sharper and more immaculate than the battered faces of the 14 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:41.200 main street. At first I assumed it was a trick 15 00:00:41.240 --> 00:00:43.520 of angle, or like Lisbon does that, especially in the 16 00:00:43.560 --> 00:00:46.280 old neighborhoods, where a single slumping on in can erase 17 00:00:46.320 --> 00:00:49.280 an entire doorway until the sun shifts. But this was 18 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:52.479 no optical error. The alley's entrance was bracketed by pale, 19 00:00:52.600 --> 00:00:56.159 clean stone, sharply cut, interrupted by glossy metal sign traversed 20 00:00:56.159 --> 00:00:58.439 Tu whalen hawdo, the letters arranged in a crisp sand 21 00:00:58.520 --> 00:01:00.479 sera if I'd only ever seen on the new avenues. 22 00:01:01.119 --> 00:01:03.359 The sign's edge still wore a sheen of factory plastic, 23 00:01:03.520 --> 00:01:07.040 so fresh and practically squeaked from inside the alley. Laughter 24 00:01:07.120 --> 00:01:10.799 pealed up, bright, youthful, and mistakably unfolded. I glimpsed a 25 00:01:10.799 --> 00:01:13.799 cluster of students outside a small cafe fitted with copper panters, 26 00:01:14.079 --> 00:01:15.879 their faces lit by the low sun and the glow 27 00:01:15.879 --> 00:01:18.840 of phone screens. A white dog with a brindled ear 28 00:01:18.920 --> 00:01:21.799 snorre content to the in their midst shas spilled out 29 00:01:21.799 --> 00:01:23.959 from a tilted window over in a blemish blue awning. 30 00:01:24.519 --> 00:01:26.879 I pulled out the alturist map I carried folder toice 31 00:01:26.920 --> 00:01:29.120 in my breast pocket, to habitat, kept even after they 32 00:01:29.159 --> 00:01:31.159 replaced it with phones and bus road updates. Who could 33 00:01:31.159 --> 00:01:33.840 never trust from more than a morning. The owl's mouth 34 00:01:33.920 --> 00:01:36.920 squeezed between the hardware stor and bakery sets, querrely where 35 00:01:36.959 --> 00:01:39.400 nothing but a blank wall existed, at least on my map. 36 00:01:39.959 --> 00:01:42.799 In its place, only a sliver of shading suggested a 37 00:01:42.840 --> 00:01:44.719 dead end or a loading bay. Ad usd to squeeze 38 00:01:44.719 --> 00:01:48.079 the bus rout during delivery pelaps. As I studied the sign, 39 00:01:48.159 --> 00:01:50.719 a pair of older women strolled by, arms linked, picking 40 00:01:50.760 --> 00:01:53.640 at keaps of gingerbread. They glanced at the alley with 41 00:01:53.680 --> 00:01:56.359 the casual recognition of people who passed it a thousand times. 42 00:01:57.079 --> 00:01:59.680 One nodded dead her friend, These students, they always end 43 00:01:59.760 --> 00:02:02.439 up at Phylum as for coffee after classes, rain or shine, 44 00:02:02.480 --> 00:02:05.640 ever since Phylum has started opening early. The other replied 45 00:02:05.799 --> 00:02:09.719 still by Ellinharddo, as always, some things never change, they laugh. 46 00:02:10.439 --> 00:02:12.599 The echo of us always shivered in my ears, out 47 00:02:12.639 --> 00:02:14.919 of sync with what I thought I knew. I turned 48 00:02:14.960 --> 00:02:17.360 the old map over at double checking street names, finger 49 00:02:17.400 --> 00:02:20.080 tracing from the cinema to the pharmacy. No sign of Ellinhardoe, 50 00:02:20.120 --> 00:02:22.319 not in the legend, not in the pale penciled notes 51 00:02:22.360 --> 00:02:25.080 I had made last year about didos and resurfacing campaigns. 52 00:02:25.680 --> 00:02:28.400 And yet here it was solid and lively enough to 53 00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:31.599 attract the impossible. Every piece of the alley felt slightly 54 00:02:31.599 --> 00:02:34.080 out of phase. The geometry was lispen but the finished 55 00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:36.479 too precise. The story is too long standing for something 56 00:02:36.520 --> 00:02:39.520 that minutes ago, I was certain hadn't been real. My 57 00:02:39.599 --> 00:02:42.479 mind well with possibilities. Had I missed a city works project, 58 00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:46.319 a sudden gentrification push. Was this some feverish remembering error, 59 00:02:46.360 --> 00:02:49.080 an old man's laps. I suppressed the urge to make 60 00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:52.520 sense too quickly. Instead, I leaned against the doorway, lighting 61 00:02:52.560 --> 00:02:55.039 the current of the street crest over my knees. The 62 00:02:55.080 --> 00:02:57.439 alley was there, and not just as a stretch of stone, 63 00:02:57.439 --> 00:02:59.639 but as a not in the city's living tapestry, filled 64 00:02:59.639 --> 00:03:02.879 with peace. Who had always known it? Or so they believed. 65 00:03:03.520 --> 00:03:05.719 That night, I lay in bed, listening to the trams 66 00:03:05.719 --> 00:03:09.680 grown over their ancient rails. Afma, always restless, was alive 67 00:03:09.680 --> 00:03:11.520 and knew for me a city with stories too quick 68 00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:14.319 for any map. But already the alley had set its 69 00:03:14.319 --> 00:03:17.919 hook Astros. I became Joe with the retired, or so 70 00:03:18.039 --> 00:03:20.400 my friends joked. After three decades, driving every cut and 71 00:03:20.439 --> 00:03:23.639 corner of the city, I never minded the teasing. What 72 00:03:23.719 --> 00:03:25.520 else could you call a man who knows the cities 73 00:03:25.560 --> 00:03:27.400 to us better in the circuits of his own kitchen. 74 00:03:27.960 --> 00:03:30.479 Most mornings I take espresso at the murder ro de 75 00:03:30.479 --> 00:03:32.479 Santa Lusia, leaning on the rail ab of the river, 76 00:03:32.520 --> 00:03:34.719 where you could design norded just by watching the shadows 77 00:03:34.759 --> 00:03:38.000 stretch over the tiled roofs below. Routine gave me comfort. 78 00:03:38.199 --> 00:03:41.120 Sunday walks with Pedro, my grandson, who loved seeing the 79 00:03:41.199 --> 00:03:44.479 yellow trams tilt through impossible passages, their bells like Burton 80 00:03:44.520 --> 00:03:47.240 after rain, lazy chats at the depot with Honor, still 81 00:03:47.280 --> 00:03:49.919 queen of the schedule boards, shopping at Jokum's cafe, where 82 00:03:49.919 --> 00:03:52.439 the walls had seen three generations of drivers, each with 83 00:03:52.479 --> 00:03:55.599 their own opinions on football City Council and the biscustered tarts. 84 00:03:56.240 --> 00:03:58.280 The depot was my club, even after I handed in 85 00:03:58.319 --> 00:04:01.800 my transit badge and keys. Drivers cycled in an abricado 86 00:04:01.919 --> 00:04:04.199 who always arrived with all jokes and your aches. Honor 87 00:04:04.319 --> 00:04:06.840 holding court over delivery, arrivals with an iron spatcher from 88 00:04:06.879 --> 00:04:09.280 her family's task at the lot of us, passing roebooks 89 00:04:09.280 --> 00:04:12.759 and schedule tricks like chess masters. Lispin's geography is written 90 00:04:12.759 --> 00:04:15.159 as much, indeed was in short cuts, as and street names. 91 00:04:15.879 --> 00:04:18.040 Knowing when a new graffiti blew meant avoid this way, 92 00:04:18.199 --> 00:04:20.680 or which buildings facade marked the shelter from sudden wind 93 00:04:20.959 --> 00:04:23.560 was scale as much as memory I wore the city's 94 00:04:23.560 --> 00:04:26.759 patterns deep in my bones. If I sometimes lingered over 95 00:04:26.800 --> 00:04:29.160 family albums or maps, it was less nostalgia than a 96 00:04:29.240 --> 00:04:32.120 natural habit of marking change. When you drive the same 97 00:04:32.160 --> 00:04:34.319 city long enough, you see that every year a piece 98 00:04:34.319 --> 00:04:36.800 of the street gets nudged by planners, by weather, or 99 00:04:36.839 --> 00:04:40.000 even the mood of crowds. I collected oddities as mementos. 100 00:04:40.040 --> 00:04:42.279 Three pages in a battered notebook on where news decades 101 00:04:42.279 --> 00:04:44.879 had appeared between Alphama and Grossa scrawled lines about the 102 00:04:44.879 --> 00:04:48.319 bus arranching devotion near Serviaisen after the Curo collapse. Curiosities 103 00:04:48.360 --> 00:04:50.759 like the telegraph pole that shifted two meters left between 104 00:04:50.800 --> 00:04:53.600 nineteen ninety one and nineteen ninety two, reflected nowhere but 105 00:04:53.639 --> 00:04:56.600 my own careful records. This spin, to me was a 106 00:04:56.639 --> 00:04:59.240 living thing, a city of disguises, where layers of stone 107 00:04:59.240 --> 00:05:01.399 in memory over lae up with only the faintest warning. 108 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:04.480 In retirement, I had time to notice the slippages, the 109 00:05:04.519 --> 00:05:07.000 ghostly scent of verbina from a hidden garden. The wayside 110 00:05:07.040 --> 00:05:09.240 alley would balloon outward in the memory of an argument, 111 00:05:09.319 --> 00:05:12.560 then contract into obscurity. But even amid all this change, 112 00:05:12.600 --> 00:05:15.240 streets do not just pop into be. I knew every 113 00:05:15.240 --> 00:05:17.800 pivot and angle of Alvama's plan, like the veins on 114 00:05:17.839 --> 00:05:21.680 my wrists. No shortcut, no delivery passage existed there that 115 00:05:21.759 --> 00:05:23.839 hadn't been there the day before until Travis a jewel 116 00:05:23.879 --> 00:05:27.240 and hardo. That was the rule, at least until now. 117 00:05:27.959 --> 00:05:30.519 And so while the rest of the city rushed onward, 118 00:05:30.600 --> 00:05:33.120 I became a wanderer through its mysteries. The map in 119 00:05:33.160 --> 00:05:35.240 my pocket and the notebook in my hand reproofs against 120 00:05:35.240 --> 00:05:37.680 the river of forgetting that I thought could never touch 121 00:05:37.680 --> 00:05:41.879 stone asterisk. The next morning, after my usual coffee and 122 00:05:41.879 --> 00:05:44.040 an argument with Honor over whether a new metal entrance 123 00:05:44.040 --> 00:05:46.519 had improved or ruined Rossio's chaos, I wound back to 124 00:05:46.600 --> 00:05:50.639 Jocum's corner cafe. The plays hadn't changed, checker tablecloths, orange 125 00:05:50.680 --> 00:05:53.319 lights slipping through the lace curtains, baskets of sweet rolls 126 00:05:53.319 --> 00:05:56.040 cooled on the counter. I settled into my usual seat 127 00:05:56.040 --> 00:05:58.600 as Jocum fussed with a radio dial, the static slicing 128 00:05:58.680 --> 00:06:03.560 up foddo and football commentary. When business lull approached, the question, joquim, 129 00:06:03.600 --> 00:06:06.319 can I ask you something odd? He arched a bushebraar 130 00:06:06.519 --> 00:06:09.920 half smile curling under a gray mustache, Ask away, as 131 00:06:09.959 --> 00:06:13.600 long as it's not about politics, Illinhardo Alley Traveser du 132 00:06:13.680 --> 00:06:16.560 Allen Hardoe. Since one has it been there? Jokum Grin, 133 00:06:16.720 --> 00:06:18.879 then actually choked on his coffee, bursting into a laugh. 134 00:06:19.600 --> 00:06:21.759 Since before you were dreaming of girls and short skirts. 135 00:06:21.839 --> 00:06:24.360 Don't you remember hiding there from Donah Elizabete, the teacher 136 00:06:24.439 --> 00:06:26.759 with the umbrella. Me and Carlos would sneak down there 137 00:06:26.759 --> 00:06:28.879 for pistries from the old philom. Now we'd get whipped 138 00:06:28.879 --> 00:06:31.240 if we were caught, but worth it. He kept going, 139 00:06:31.319 --> 00:06:33.360 telling of a bicycle crash that left his friend with 140 00:06:33.439 --> 00:06:35.879 his skin knees, or playing marbles by the sewer great 141 00:06:35.959 --> 00:06:38.279 under the blue lamplight witch. Now that he mentioned it 142 00:06:38.360 --> 00:06:40.720 bore the same design as the bright New Street i'mbaud scene. 143 00:06:41.319 --> 00:06:43.920 The stories were intricate, tangled into local ore. His mother 144 00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:46.360 ran which bickery, how the best art Emmanel was always 145 00:06:46.439 --> 00:06:49.519 just passed a bend on Aileen Harder. The details tessellated 146 00:06:49.560 --> 00:06:52.519 into the neighborhood is completely his sunlight. I press a 147 00:06:52.600 --> 00:06:55.040 little wary. I walked there yesterday, but I don't remember 148 00:06:55.079 --> 00:06:59.000 it at all. Jokums jaw dropped in pantomime. Come Joe, 149 00:06:59.160 --> 00:07:01.600 you always had a terror sense of direction. Maybe you're 150 00:07:01.600 --> 00:07:03.519 thinking of that blind alley by the tiling shop one 151 00:07:03.519 --> 00:07:05.120 street over, if you took the left up from the 152 00:07:05.160 --> 00:07:07.600 old newspaper stand. But no map of Alphama works without 153 00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:09.319 ailin harder. You can't get to file on this without 154 00:07:09.360 --> 00:07:12.519 passing it. What's got you spooked? His casual certainty gave 155 00:07:12.560 --> 00:07:15.240 me pause, The tone of someone recalling simple arithmetic, not 156 00:07:15.360 --> 00:07:17.720 a dream a legend. I thanked him and called on 157 00:07:17.839 --> 00:07:19.720 at the depot, a voice mess of so dry it 158 00:07:19.759 --> 00:07:22.000 almost crumbled out of my throat. Do you ever recall 159 00:07:22.040 --> 00:07:24.800 scheduling re routes through aalen Hoddo ever had a deterrpuses 160 00:07:24.879 --> 00:07:28.720 or dodge delivery vans? There? She replied in seconds, Are 161 00:07:28.759 --> 00:07:30.959 you joking? The owl is always a disaster for vans. 162 00:07:31.040 --> 00:07:33.120 We gave up trying to close it. Everyone uses it 163 00:07:33.160 --> 00:07:35.319 as a cut through. There's always a bakery van blocking 164 00:07:35.399 --> 00:07:37.399 you by the past deliria. Don't blame the street, blame 165 00:07:37.439 --> 00:07:40.279 the driver's I close my note book. Fis tied round 166 00:07:40.319 --> 00:07:43.600 the bend. Anna had commanded the bus schedules for fifteen years, 167 00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:46.959 could recite every Detais since ninety five. I trusted her 168 00:07:47.040 --> 00:07:49.560 memory as much as my own, and she was unmoved. 169 00:07:49.600 --> 00:07:51.560 Of course, Illin Hotto was there. How else had we 170 00:07:51.639 --> 00:07:54.720 all worked round the bakery rushes the coal Nott formed 171 00:07:54.759 --> 00:07:58.000 low in my stomach? Was I losing my grip? Was 172 00:07:58.079 --> 00:08:01.199 memory a sieve? The certainty in Jocorn's and Hona's eyes 173 00:08:01.240 --> 00:08:04.000 didn't about doubt. Their stories were full of appolls and details, 174 00:08:04.199 --> 00:08:05.959 yet each blended Ill and hard Ow into the every 175 00:08:06.040 --> 00:08:09.639 day Elaine. They knews intimately as their own doorsteps. That night, 176 00:08:09.759 --> 00:08:11.959 I laid my current phone city map and my crumbled 177 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:15.519 hand annotated paper version side by side. Traviser, Dwell and 178 00:08:15.519 --> 00:08:17.879 Hardo appeared in the app, complete with the city verified 179 00:08:17.920 --> 00:08:20.600 Since eating twenty three label business listings and a half 180 00:08:20.639 --> 00:08:23.959 dozen photographs, my bad out print map, just a year old, 181 00:08:24.040 --> 00:08:27.040 showed a nondescript dead end, not even dignified with the name. 182 00:08:27.680 --> 00:08:29.920 In all my note books, every route and detO was 183 00:08:29.920 --> 00:08:32.879 accounted for, except for any mention of Ellen Hardo. He 184 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:36.200 existed now and had always existed for everyone else. I 185 00:08:36.320 --> 00:08:38.039 ram my thumb over the smooth band of the pen, 186 00:08:38.200 --> 00:08:40.600 feeling the anxiety of contradiction. Peel a way to reveal 187 00:08:40.679 --> 00:08:44.799 something sharper underneath. Maybe the mistake was mine. Maybe the world, 188 00:08:44.960 --> 00:08:46.960 in its quiet way was less stable than I'd ever 189 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:51.200 been led to believe asteris. By the next morning, curiosity 190 00:08:51.240 --> 00:08:56.759 pressed into me with the restless grip. My routines became operations, measuring, questioning, documenting. 191 00:08:57.399 --> 00:08:59.399 I walked the full length of illin Hardo from entering 192 00:08:59.519 --> 00:09:01.240 over writing that sense that it was a late addition 193 00:09:01.320 --> 00:09:03.919 to the city. The sun was high, the mesaic tiles 194 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:06.600 underfoot cleaned a sea of blue and white, edge by granite, 195 00:09:07.159 --> 00:09:09.519 flower pot, spilled basil and minto vestills painted in the 196 00:09:09.559 --> 00:09:13.120 ochchheades of older lispon, yet also immaculately seen freshly restored 197 00:09:13.799 --> 00:09:16.200 a mural I didn't recall. An abstract scene of boats 198 00:09:16.240 --> 00:09:19.080 and bridges sprawled from street corner to the cantina. The 199 00:09:19.120 --> 00:09:21.919 ice smelled of coffee, burnt sugar yeast, and behind it 200 00:09:22.039 --> 00:09:24.440 a copper tang of cooling metal. The dog from the 201 00:09:24.519 --> 00:09:28.000 day before washed me head cocked. I jotted down every impression. 202 00:09:28.639 --> 00:09:31.279 Sharp signs looked aged, but with surfaces, only time could 203 00:09:31.320 --> 00:09:35.080 polish numbered street os Bohan painted toils, each chip just 204 00:09:35.200 --> 00:09:37.159 enough to appear as if a hundred winters had pressed 205 00:09:37.200 --> 00:09:40.240 on them. I stepped into Phylum as pastel area, swept 206 00:09:40.279 --> 00:09:42.159 by one moman, daring the delicate cliang of a bell 207 00:09:42.200 --> 00:09:44.759 above the door. The woman at the counter greeted me 208 00:09:44.879 --> 00:09:47.879 like any other regular, flowers streaked her apron hair, tied 209 00:09:47.919 --> 00:09:50.919 in a bandanna with cheery stitch along the edge. Bonb 210 00:09:51.000 --> 00:09:55.000 dives and something sweet this morning. Just curiosity, I admitted. 211 00:09:55.639 --> 00:09:59.240 She poured coffee into a tiny porcelain cup. Curiosity always 212 00:09:59.279 --> 00:10:02.840 brings people here, she said, smiling. I asked about her shop. 213 00:10:03.480 --> 00:10:06.519 She explained with pride, how her family restored the century 214 00:10:06.600 --> 00:10:08.559 old oven when her grandmother bought the place back in 215 00:10:08.600 --> 00:10:10.559 the fifties, how the oven nearly collapsed in the Great 216 00:10:10.600 --> 00:10:13.039 Flood of sixty seven, how her uncle sandered the tables 217 00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:16.919 by hand as a wedding gift, names years, family drama, 218 00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:19.240 details stacked like milfie oil's, as if dusted with the 219 00:10:19.279 --> 00:10:22.320 powdered sugar of truth. I left, biting into a pastel, 220 00:10:22.440 --> 00:10:24.679 but barely tasting it for the tangle running in my mind. 221 00:10:25.360 --> 00:10:28.039 I circled every business, chatted with the mural artist who's 222 00:10:28.039 --> 00:10:31.759 been here forever, just got repainted and photographed everything, each angle, 223 00:10:31.919 --> 00:10:34.960 each mark, cross referencing with the city's digital arcvat home 224 00:10:35.039 --> 00:10:38.679 that night. Online Eleen Haddo appeared everywhere in black and 225 00:10:38.840 --> 00:10:41.919 white reels of the nineteen seventy four Carnation Revolution Parade. 226 00:10:41.960 --> 00:10:44.080 Photographs were a ban of swandap with the very doors 227 00:10:44.120 --> 00:10:46.759 of Philomez and digit has property documents in the nineteen 228 00:10:46.799 --> 00:10:49.399 eighty four city inventory that memory tells me ended two 229 00:10:49.440 --> 00:10:52.559 blocks early, yet here always included Allen Haddoe, shot by shop, 230 00:10:53.240 --> 00:10:56.840 I made lists, I checked counsel records at the local library. 231 00:10:56.919 --> 00:10:59.600 The foundation documentated eighteen twenty three, was pressed on thick 232 00:10:59.639 --> 00:11:02.360 paper bearing that fether the way only true age can manage. 233 00:11:03.039 --> 00:11:07.600 Resident rosters included the same names. Phylum mentioned all phone directories, 234 00:11:07.799 --> 00:11:11.120 voter rolls, city tax codes, Illin Hoddo woven directly into 235 00:11:11.159 --> 00:11:13.440 every web, never as a correction or update, always as 236 00:11:13.480 --> 00:11:16.720 if it had sat perfectly content for centuries. Still, my 237 00:11:16.759 --> 00:11:18.840 bus route locks, written in my own hands showed nothing. 238 00:11:19.399 --> 00:11:21.279 The alley was never a pick up or drop off, 239 00:11:21.480 --> 00:11:24.440 never a deeder. My maps, the ones I made after 240 00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:27.000 sewer repairs or pop up venda blockades bore no error 241 00:11:27.080 --> 00:11:30.440 or exclamation mark. For illinhdder escaped over all my work, 242 00:11:30.440 --> 00:11:33.000 as if ducking under a rock. I pressed Jokum with 243 00:11:33.120 --> 00:11:35.759 sharper memories, describing to him in detail the route as 244 00:11:35.759 --> 00:11:38.440 I'd always driven it. He probably just missed the turn. 245 00:11:38.559 --> 00:11:40.639 Happens even to the best. Maybe you were thinking of 246 00:11:40.720 --> 00:11:42.840 Santa Marta. But never mind, I and Hot has always 247 00:11:42.840 --> 00:11:45.320 been a short gut. You just forget as you age, amigo. 248 00:11:45.919 --> 00:11:49.000 His laugh turned my confusion into something stranger, a contradiction 249 00:11:49.120 --> 00:11:51.799 not just between memory and reality, but between my entire 250 00:11:51.879 --> 00:11:55.159 lived past and a city's fabric. Walking home, I stopped 251 00:11:55.159 --> 00:11:57.799 to greet San Jor leuiser All this neighbor on our hearer, 252 00:11:57.919 --> 00:12:01.080 who was craping pained off her winter frame. Travis a jewell, 253 00:12:01.120 --> 00:12:04.320 and hoddo you say, she replied, after a moment's pause. 254 00:12:05.080 --> 00:12:07.039 I suppose there have always been more allahs than I 255 00:12:07.039 --> 00:12:08.960 could come. I can't trust this old mind any more. 256 00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:11.039 But honestly, the city is always hiding things from us. 257 00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:14.000 Perhaps they simply missed it. It was the closest any 258 00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:16.000 one had come to doubt, a note of uncertainty, quickly 259 00:12:16.039 --> 00:12:19.559 plopped away by the city's choruses of confidence elsewhere. By then, 260 00:12:19.879 --> 00:12:21.919 my head dropped with cushions that only deepened the more 261 00:12:21.960 --> 00:12:24.720 I pressed for an answer. Nothing about this was normal. 262 00:12:25.360 --> 00:12:27.519 I could accept new street names springing up from Amee's 263 00:12:27.519 --> 00:12:30.039 pipe dreen chased after by surveyors and matmicks and high 264 00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:33.759 visibility vests, that this wasn't just a new layer. Every artifact, 265 00:12:33.879 --> 00:12:36.879 city record, and half remembered story matched the ALA's existence, 266 00:12:36.919 --> 00:12:40.279 from public documents to private memories. Even my own faded 267 00:12:40.279 --> 00:12:43.039 wedding photo, previously hunt in my living room for decades, 268 00:12:43.240 --> 00:12:45.200 now included a glimpse of All and Haddo's entrance in 269 00:12:45.240 --> 00:12:48.000 the crowd, complete and entirely logical and noticed. Until there 270 00:12:48.639 --> 00:12:50.840 I was forced to ask, could the city be shifting 271 00:12:50.879 --> 00:12:53.919 beneath us reality, updating not just our surroundings but our history. 272 00:12:54.480 --> 00:12:56.320 Or was it possible I alone was tumbling for some 273 00:12:56.399 --> 00:12:58.759 private flaw, my mind too rigid to keep step with 274 00:12:58.799 --> 00:13:01.480 the world's edits. I looked at my hands, the pen 275 00:13:01.519 --> 00:13:03.840 trembling lightly as I made one last note. Not just 276 00:13:03.919 --> 00:13:07.720 a trick of memory, Something fundamentally changes. Asteriskstersk all lasterisksterist 277 00:13:07.799 --> 00:13:11.559 the evidence astersk. When the ground beneath you can be trusted, 278 00:13:11.679 --> 00:13:14.039 The only thing left is to test it. I called 279 00:13:14.080 --> 00:13:17.159 Ricardo Fell, a retiring and occasional drinking companion, under the 280 00:13:17.200 --> 00:13:19.840 pretense of planning a week end walk. We met at 281 00:13:19.840 --> 00:13:22.080 the pross, where he was already leaning in the sun, 282 00:13:22.320 --> 00:13:24.759 jacket thrown over his shoulder, face crept with the tan 283 00:13:24.840 --> 00:13:26.840 and smile of those who never let whither keep them home. 284 00:13:27.480 --> 00:13:30.279 After a bit of grumbling over football standings, I'd barely 285 00:13:30.360 --> 00:13:33.879 started my story when Ricardo shot me a grin Allen Hodder, 286 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:36.879 that old haunt, Remember that jokonetold After we got stuck 287 00:13:36.960 --> 00:13:39.279 behind the bread van. Two Christmases in a row, half 288 00:13:39.320 --> 00:13:43.679 the city's drivers have cursed that corner. I shook my head. Ricardo, 289 00:13:43.799 --> 00:13:45.759 do you have any old photos of that alley from 290 00:13:45.799 --> 00:13:48.840 before we were tired? He patted his pockets, then promised 291 00:13:48.879 --> 00:13:52.039 to check later. That evening, he sent me scans one 292 00:13:52.080 --> 00:13:54.720 of us arms around shoulders, laughing in front of a 293 00:13:54.799 --> 00:13:56.759 mural that I recognized now as the one on Alen 294 00:13:56.799 --> 00:13:59.279 Hoddo with philom As sign peeking from behind his elbow. 295 00:13:59.840 --> 00:14:01.960 There were group shots on the same street years before 296 00:14:02.039 --> 00:14:05.519 mobile phones. I stared at those images, unable to reconcile 297 00:14:05.559 --> 00:14:08.200 their casual candidness with the impossibility burning in my mind, 298 00:14:08.799 --> 00:14:10.879 I replied, are you sure those are from Aileen Hardo? 299 00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:13.279 I swear I've never seen that street before last week. 300 00:14:13.919 --> 00:14:16.559 Ricardo replied in seconds a photo of his old notebook 301 00:14:16.639 --> 00:14:19.080 to confirm, of course, a mego look outing on Aleen 302 00:14:19.080 --> 00:14:22.279 Hardo nineteen ninety two. Don't you recognize the bench? He 303 00:14:22.399 --> 00:14:25.240 kept it with a smiley face emoji. Ricardo was so 304 00:14:25.320 --> 00:14:28.240 effortlessly convinced there was no hint of uncertainty, only the 305 00:14:28.279 --> 00:14:30.679 bermeuse concern you reserved for a friend fussing of Verma's 306 00:14:30.720 --> 00:14:34.200 place Waller. I flipped back through my own albums now. 307 00:14:34.360 --> 00:14:36.720 Even the caption on my wedding procession read corner of 308 00:14:36.759 --> 00:14:39.399 view adis all and Trevor sa duel and harder. There 309 00:14:39.440 --> 00:14:41.919 we were, Me, Maria, my brother, the sound of the band, 310 00:14:42.080 --> 00:14:43.919 just memories I co now, all lined up in front 311 00:14:43.960 --> 00:14:45.720 of a building that a month ago I would have 312 00:14:45.759 --> 00:14:49.279 sworn didn't exist. The city, I realized, was not just 313 00:14:49.360 --> 00:14:53.200 a palm sist of construction and demolition. Every surface, every memory, 314 00:14:53.360 --> 00:14:56.039 every artifact had written itself to embrace the new reality. 315 00:14:56.639 --> 00:14:58.679 The past was not only altered in stories, but in 316 00:14:58.720 --> 00:15:01.360 the artifacts handed down and a ways people remembered and 317 00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:04.639 proved themselves right. My assumption that evidence kept us anchored, 318 00:15:04.720 --> 00:15:06.759 that maps and photos hold the final what crumbled to 319 00:15:06.799 --> 00:15:09.440 send It was no longer a matter of a forgotten 320 00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:11.480 alley or a lost memory, but of a place where 321 00:15:11.480 --> 00:15:14.480 the very nature of truth, historical, physical communal bent beneath 322 00:15:14.519 --> 00:15:18.039 the pressure of collective assurance. Lisbon, always proud of its 323 00:15:18.080 --> 00:15:20.600 maze like soul, was more mutable than I dreamed possible. 324 00:15:21.200 --> 00:15:23.279 What was the force that could overall not just memory, 325 00:15:23.360 --> 00:15:25.919 but every stack prove I knew? Why was every one 326 00:15:25.960 --> 00:15:28.799 else so convinced? Why even my mementos, my own handwriting, 327 00:15:28.840 --> 00:15:31.879 had changed their tune. Was the city itself somehow complicit? 328 00:15:32.080 --> 00:15:34.279 Or was I some odd man out slipping between versions 329 00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:37.159 of Lisbon. The longer I dwelled on these questions, the 330 00:15:37.240 --> 00:15:39.559 more their shape shifted, branching from what happened to how 331 00:15:39.600 --> 00:15:43.120 to astrischstras quia astris castrisk. Why would this city, whether 332 00:15:43.200 --> 00:15:45.840 by will, by software, by mass hallucination, go to such 333 00:15:45.919 --> 00:15:49.440 lens to revise itsel so quietly and inevitably. If this 334 00:15:49.600 --> 00:15:52.320 was a test, I was only at the beginning astorisk. 335 00:15:52.960 --> 00:15:55.559 Most things in Lisbon don't make you question reality for long, 336 00:15:55.600 --> 00:15:57.759 and not when the practicalities of whether and hunger are 337 00:15:57.799 --> 00:16:00.440 close at hand. That by the fifth day yet found 338 00:16:00.480 --> 00:16:03.840 myself obsessed, pecking away at every possible explanation, desperate for 339 00:16:03.879 --> 00:16:06.799 an external reference point. It came to me suddenly, on 340 00:16:06.919 --> 00:16:09.000 a morning when the sky wore its high spring blue 341 00:16:09.039 --> 00:16:11.320 and the swallows sharpened their silouettes above the roof ups, 342 00:16:11.919 --> 00:16:14.279 I should call someone who had escaped Lisbon before whatever 343 00:16:14.399 --> 00:16:17.120 had happened, someone who kept her rel tattered memories free 344 00:16:17.159 --> 00:16:20.240 from the humidity of the alpham's living archive. Elena was 345 00:16:20.360 --> 00:16:22.200 just that, a former co worker who had driven with 346 00:16:22.320 --> 00:16:24.399 me in the nineties before emigrating to Canada in two 347 00:16:24.440 --> 00:16:27.320 thousand one. She'd always tease me from my collection of 348 00:16:27.360 --> 00:16:30.159 bus tokens, and my stubborn refused to go digital. We'd 349 00:16:30.200 --> 00:16:32.960 stayed in tautr erratic messages and photos of snow storms 350 00:16:33.000 --> 00:16:35.960 far from the tagus. Without much preamble, I set up 351 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:38.759 a video call her kitchen back drop check curtains, a 352 00:16:38.799 --> 00:16:40.799 coffee mug and blazon with a maple leaf was another 353 00:16:40.879 --> 00:16:43.840 well from the sun bleached towels outside my window. Helena, 354 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:46.279 do you remember Travis a du Illinhoddo the alley in 355 00:16:46.320 --> 00:16:50.080 Alphama by far Lona's Pastelaria. She squinted, shook her head. 356 00:16:50.679 --> 00:16:52.320 I never heard of it. Are you sure that's not 357 00:16:52.399 --> 00:16:54.320 a new spot. The bakery we used to visit was 358 00:16:54.320 --> 00:16:57.480 on Eudas Flora's, wasn't it. I don't remember any Alin Haddo. 359 00:16:57.519 --> 00:17:01.799 Definitely not by that name. I felt a why urgent hope. Wait, 360 00:17:01.919 --> 00:17:03.799 I'll send you a screen gird from the city's map. 361 00:17:04.400 --> 00:17:06.960 I snapped an image with the alice clearly marked sign 362 00:17:07.119 --> 00:17:10.960 business listings the cities Unestablished eighteen twenty three banner. She 363 00:17:11.079 --> 00:17:13.799 clicked it open, stared at her screen, frowning. This is 364 00:17:13.880 --> 00:17:16.839 a joke, right, looks professional, but I guarantee we never 365 00:17:16.880 --> 00:17:18.880 picked up passengers. Though when I still lived in Lisbon, 366 00:17:18.960 --> 00:17:20.839 that side of the hill it used to be old warehouses, 367 00:17:20.880 --> 00:17:23.759 and while vines I walked that exact path to work, Joe, 368 00:17:23.960 --> 00:17:26.359 there was never an alley like that. I sent her 369 00:17:26.400 --> 00:17:30.279 photos old parades, digital composites, the mule lead showing crowds, banners, 370 00:17:30.440 --> 00:17:33.039 the unmistakable presence of Alan how To rendered as refutable 371 00:17:33.039 --> 00:17:36.000 as the apel sunlight in the picture's corners. She shook 372 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:38.720 her head. The photos look authentic, but none of us 373 00:17:38.799 --> 00:17:41.519 rings any bell. It's so strange, Joe, even my memory box. 374 00:17:41.599 --> 00:17:44.640 She gestured off screen, soon returning with battered city directories, 375 00:17:44.880 --> 00:17:47.000 doll gear from decades of shipping the sea, no mention 376 00:17:47.119 --> 00:17:49.079 of any Ellen Hardo, not even in the small print. 377 00:17:49.119 --> 00:17:51.279 I used to run those routes every morning. I'd stake 378 00:17:51.359 --> 00:17:53.960 my reputation. This must be photoshop or the city council 379 00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:57.000 making a big rebrand for the tourists. I laugh, partly 380 00:17:57.039 --> 00:18:00.519 in relief, partly in frustration. The gap between Helena's and 381 00:18:00.599 --> 00:18:03.880 my own mounting confusion stretch whiter than the Atlantic. Here 382 00:18:04.039 --> 00:18:06.720 was the folkrum inside Lisbon. Every fiber of city and record, 383 00:18:06.799 --> 00:18:09.319 Sedale and Hodder was always here. Outside Helene is an 384 00:18:09.319 --> 00:18:12.960 assailable memory, made the alley into a mirage. Emboldened, I 385 00:18:13.039 --> 00:18:15.160 sent scan of my own childhood photo, my wedding, the 386 00:18:15.200 --> 00:18:18.640 alley clear in the background. Open this does anything seem off? 387 00:18:19.279 --> 00:18:21.640 She stared at the picture, then at me. It's a 388 00:18:21.759 --> 00:18:24.559 nice photo, but again, nothing about it feels real to me. 389 00:18:24.759 --> 00:18:27.440 That shop that merely saying all that's just present, and 390 00:18:27.559 --> 00:18:29.680 everybody remembers it. I would bet my house it wasn't 391 00:18:29.720 --> 00:18:31.960 there before I left. I even check Google street View, 392 00:18:32.160 --> 00:18:34.839 just in case. Nothing Before two thousand nine. I felt 393 00:18:34.839 --> 00:18:37.680 the ground steady, if only for a moment. This wasn't 394 00:18:37.759 --> 00:18:39.839 just an old man's faily memory. It had a shape, 395 00:18:39.839 --> 00:18:42.000 a boundary won that TI beliefs and not facts only 396 00:18:42.039 --> 00:18:45.039 to those who blon those who stayed. For every one else, 397 00:18:45.319 --> 00:18:48.200 Every map, every tale, every photo remained stubbornly fixed. At 398 00:18:48.240 --> 00:18:51.279 the moment of leaving, we sat in friendly, puzzled silence. 399 00:18:51.960 --> 00:18:54.440 I wrote her address on a slip of paper. I'll 400 00:18:54.480 --> 00:18:57.799 send you a postcard, I promised, a proper photograph of 401 00:18:57.839 --> 00:19:00.119