Alcântara forever

Whenever I pass through Alcântara I feel I’m having a déjà-vu, pardon my French. I’m sure I felt it the first time I saw the place. This strange sensation of recognizing it from somewhere in the the labyrinth of my imagination. The amazement of sensing what that place is without knowing it at all. Like in a well-written fiction where some crucial event is, at the same time, unexpected and justified. That’s it: for me, Alcântara, in Lisbon, is made from the material of stories.

There are several Alcântaras, of course. To begin with, there’s Alcântara-Terra and Alcântara-Mar, two train stations that used to be linked by a pedestrian walkway (and here it’s imperative to bring on A Marcha de Alcântara, Vitorino´s wonderful marcha, that some years ago got a great cover by Camané). Behind Alcântara-Terra, on a beat-up corner, there’s this restaurant or cervejaria (pardon my Portuguese) called “O Palácio”.

A large sidewalk, a sort of unofficial plaza — with several park benches turned in different directions, an old mailbox, a glass bus stop, two big maple trees and a row of red metallic chairs waiting for the sun — kind of grows from “O Palácio”. It’s a big space, that looks very much like a stage during the day and exactly like a film set when the evening comes.

People sitting, people waiting in front or behind the bus stop glass wall, people simply passing by — in this forgotten place of Alcântara, everyone looks like a true character. Everything rings true, if you know what I mean. There are these city maps on the bus stop glass wall; when someone passes behind, you see legs walking below the map. And then you get it: Lisbon has gone for a stroll.

In the evening, the space shortens. The red and blue neons of the cervejaria “O Palácio” project this idea of cinema. Reflections, sparkles, lights creating tree branches on the floor and non-existent forms that resemble thoughts, amazingly, or the process of thinking.

And I think about actors. Actors aren’t “actors”; they’re people with names, histories, specific circumstances. But when you watch them on stage, under the lights, you might see them like that just for a moment, for a tiny little second, a fraction of a second. Like the “actor”, the “actress”, the ever unique and universal “actors”. Herberto Helder, a great Portuguese poet, writes: “No one loves so publicly as the actor./ As the secret actor.” (Pardon my translation.) I have been writing all these paragraphs, trying to show all these things and then I open a book and there it is — two lines, two small verses say it all.

Alcântara, or this special area around “O Palácio”, is one of those rare places where you can see people’s solitude shining. Anonymous, everyday people, looking like actors of themselves. So publicly secret. Yes, this “O Palácio” plaza is a tear in the city’s tissue. A crack through which you can glimpse the mystery.