Free Requiem by Antonio Tabucchi Page A

have
     been very boring.
    The old woman appeared at the door and looked at
     me suspiciously. Good afternoon, I said, I’ve come to see the house, I’d like to
     visit it, if you don’t mind that is. My house?, asked the old woman, alarmed and
     uncomprehending. No, I said, not your house, the big house, the one next to the lighthouse.
     It’s all locked up, said the old woman patiently, no one lives there, it’s been
     closed for years now. I know, I said, that’s why I wanted to see it, I’ve come all
     the way from Lisbon just for that, look, I’ve got a taxi waiting for me. I pointed to
     the taxi parked on the other side of the road to prove to her that what I was saying was true.
     The house is all locked up, she repeated, I’m sorry, but the house is locked up. Are you
     the housekeeper?, I asked. No, she said, I’m the lighthousekeeper’s wife, but when
     I have time I also take care of the house, I open the windows now and then and do some
     dusting, here by the sea everything falls to bits, windows, furniture, and the owners
     don’t care, they don’t live here, they live abroad, they’re Arabs. Arabs?!,
     I exclaimed, this house belongs to Arabs now? That’s right, said the
     Lighthousekeeper’s Wife, the last owner, who’d bought it for next to nothing from
     the old owners, wanted to build a hotel here, but his company went bust, it seems he was some
     kind of con man, at least that’s what my husband says, so he sold it to the Arabs.
     Arabs, I repeated, I would never have imagined that one day this house would be owned by
     Arabs. The whole country’s up for grabs, said the Lighthousekeeper’s Wife,
     foreigners are buying up everything, you know. Yes, I said, unfortunately, but what are these
     Arabs going to do with the house? Well, said the Lighthousekeeper’s Wife, to tell you
     the truth, I think they’re waiting for it to fall down of its own accord, at the moment
     the council won’t give permission to build a hotel, but if it falls down, that’s
     different, they can build something new then. Is it falling down?, I asked. Well, said the
     Lighthousekeeper’s Wife, in April, when we had those storms, the roof collapsed and made
     a hole in the ceiling in two of the rooms, the rooms facing the sea are in a terrible state, I
     think that come this winter, the whole top floor will cave in. That’s why I came, I
     said, to see the house before it fell down. Are you interested in buying?, asked the
     Lighthousekeeper’s Wife. No, I said, I don’t quite know how to explain, but a long
     time ago I lived here for a whole year, it was before you worked here. That must have been
     before 1971 then, she said, that’s when we arrived, Vitalina and Francisco must have
     been here then. Yes, I remember Vitalina and Francisco well, I said, they were around the year
     I was here, Vitalina looked after the house and did the cooking, she made the best
arroz
     de tamboril
I’ve ever had, what happened to them? Francisco died of cirrhosis of
     the liver, said the Lighthousekeeper’s Wife, he used to drink a lot, he was a cousin of
     my husband, and Vitalina’s living with her son now in Cabo da Roca. The whole family are
     lighthousekeepers, I said. Yes, she said, the whole family, Vitalina’s son is
     lighthousekeeper at Cabo da Roca, but he’s earning good money, I think Vitalina’s
     much better off now than when Francisco was alive, she had a terrible time with him, he was
     always drunk, sometimes she had to go up to the lighthouse herself because he wasn’t in
     a fit state to. I know, I said, one night she came to ask me for help, it was a terrible
     night, rainy and misty, Francisco was drunk in bed and Vitalina came to wake me up, she wanted
     to turn on the radio but she couldn’t get it to work, so she came and woke me, I spent
     the whole night with her in the lighthouse. Poor Vitalina, said the Lighthousekeeper’s
     Wife, she had a hard life, it’s a real tragedy when all