In Europe

graduallycalmed down. But it wasn't easy, organising a coup against your old comrades …
    ‘Now we're a quarter of a century further along. We lost Africa, and now we belong to an expanded Europe. In 1986 Portugal suddenly became a full member of the European Community, and all the other European countries thought that was wonderful. But still, it was a big mistake. We should have arranged things here at home first. Our country was too far behind, it had no chance against the other member states. What did we have to offer? Only the beaches and the sun, only a growing tourist industry. Why would anyone set up operations here when they can have the most modern of everything in North-Western Europe or northern Italy? Why grow oranges here when inexpensive fruit from Spain is already flooding our local markets? We can't deal with that economic onslaught, and it's only getting worse.
    ‘We should have created a transitional phase to allow Portugal to reach a more or less equal level with the rest of Europe, before becoming a full member of the EEC. And, what's more, the government should have held a referendum, before making that decision. But Mário Soares had a political reason for having us join up so quickly: the democracy had to be safeguarded, and he felt that could only happen under the EEC. I think he was wrong. That democracy was something we had already appropriated for ourselves, during the Carnation Revolution of 1974 and the November Movement of 1975.
    ‘For the members of the European club, Portugal is totally uninteresting. All they want, following their political logic, is hegemony over the entire Iberian Peninsula. They don't see any blank spots or cracks in that picture. For centuries, the Spanish tried to conquer our poor little plot of land, and now they are easily succeeding through the European Union, with the money they use to buy up everything, with the meat and vegetables that are flooding our villages. Things will get better for us, I don't doubt that. But we will lose our identity. That was at the core of the Carnation Revolution: our democracy and our identity. Now we're handing that back to Europe.
    ‘And what about my father-in-law? It was inevitable, our clash, sometimes you have to make choices, it was about democracy, about freedom for everyone. He also realised that there was no sense in staying angrywith me, but he suffered. In 1974 he was Caetano's crown prince; if there hadn't been a revolution he would have been Portugal's next strongman. And suddenly there we were in the spotlights, standing on his stage, playing a role that was meant for him …
    ‘It was always our custom for the whole family to eat together every Sunday afternoon. Meanwhile I became a cabinet minister, deputy prime minister, ambassador, presidential adviser, and he remained bitter. Those remarks at the table all the time, I couldn't take it any more and I stopped going. For twenty years I ate alone on Sunday afternoon. My wife and my daughter went, I wanted them to, family ties are important.
    ‘And now here I am, sitting beside his bed, holding his hand.’

    Some people claim that Portugal is an island, that you can't get there without getting your feet wet, that all those stories about dusty border roads to Spain are simply fables. The weather map on Spanish TV shows Portugal in blue, almost all sea, barely any land. And indeed: I find myself cruising down the quietest four-lane motorway I have ever seen, not a car in sight between me and the horizon, I sail across the mountains. The two Iberian countries live back to back. In Lisbon, for the first time since Odessa, I hear people talking about going ‘to Europe’.
    On the ferry across the Tagus, the evening rush hour floats to the far shore. For twenty minutes, commuters sit on the top deck: civil servants, office girls, workers, nurses, poor, wealthy, young, old, white, brown, all with bags on their laps and their eyes on the horizon. The sky above the river is red from the evening sun. I see the contours of the impressive suspension bridge, ships in the haze, the ocean in the distance. The passengers are silent, but everywhere the electronics twitter like an aviary. A black businessman is playing tunes on his telephone, a young boy wearing a baseball hat is fighting space invaders in the palm of his hand, the black girl across from me is playing with a discman, her beautiful mother stares dreamily at the water.
    The Lisbon of this top deck seems