Free The Day of Atonement by David Liss Page A

thirteen-year-old boy a necklace. I approached the stall and remarked how Old Paolo appeared precisely as I recalled him, tall and thin, with strands of brittle white hair plastered to a wrinkled scalp.
    Then, as I grew closer, I saw Old Paolo had in fact changed. The old man’s eyes were red and heavy with bags, the skin loose about his face, and his arm shook as he lifted it in greeting.
    “Englishman, you have a need,” Old Paolo said in broken English. His words whistled through missing teeth. “I see it. What can I sell you?”
    I said, “Old Paolo, I need weapons.”
    When I last lived in Lisbon, Charles Settwell resided in one of the fine detached houses in the Bario Alto, on a street favored by successful factors. The Rua Madalena, however, bordered the dank alleys of the Alfama. Running more or less perpendicular, in a winding sort of way, to the Tagus, the narrow street served as a downhill sewer, and I had to keep close to the walls to minimize the damage to my shoes. The houses here had a decayed look to them, with cracked stone, broken tiles, and rotted wood, warped by time and neglect. Gypsies loitered nearby in the street’s shadows, as did Moors, mulattoes, and other dark-skinned men who were perhaps freed slaves, but had more likely escaped. At one house, a pair of Negro women peered out an open door and beckoned me inside. One pulled down the neckline of her tattered gown to expose a chest so gaunt her ribs protruded more than her breasts. I bowed and removed my hat, and the women giggled. Playing the fool was best. Even starving African whores might be Inquisition informers.
    I soon came to Settwell’s house, close enough to the Street of Tanners that the air was heavy with the scents of dung and offal and lime. I knocked and was met at once by an elderly mulatto womanwho beckoned me inside and then reached out for my coat with a trembling hand. Apparently she knew no English and presumed that I, like most Englishmen, knew little enough Portuguese. I was in no hurry to tip my hand, so I contented myself with communicating in exaggerated pantomime and speaking Settwell’s name loudly and slowly.
    Inside, the house was cramped and narrow, with low ceilings as if it had been made for dwarves. I tarried in a small room, smelling of mildew, that served as Settwell’s parlor. There were portraits and Turkish rugs, though these were faded. The paint upon the plaster was chipped, and the paper on the walls peeling. The paintings—none the finest to begin with—were flaking and offered bare patches of canvas. The furnishings were sturdy, but old and battered. The cushion upon my chair belched feathers when I sat.
    I waited no more than two minutes before Settwell came in. He was now in his midfifties, thinner than I recalled, and, like his environs, a faded version of his former self. His skin was pale, his wig shedding, his clothes stained and threadbare in places. I remembered him as a vigorous man, tall and commanding in his posture, the sort whom the ladies followed with their eyes and for whom men parted when he entered a room. Now he was stooped, his brown eyes haggard. Nevertheless, Settwell gave every impression of being unaware of, or indifferent to, these deficiencies. He grinned widely. For a moment his old countenance appeared to superimpose itself upon the new, but it passed quickly.
    “My dear boy. Sebastião Raposa!” He took me in an embrace, and though I did not generally care for such intimacies, I endured this one without complaint. Settwell was one of the few men to have earned my gratitude.
    After an instant he moved away but held on to my shoulders, notably higher than his own. “You’ve grown quite a bit, haven’t you? You were a skinny boy when last I saw you, but you are quite altered.”
    I clasped one of Settwell’s hands. “I am called Sebastian Foxx now.”
    “Of course you are. Your letter indicated as much. Forgive me. Your arrival has left me feeling quite keenly the