The Mouth of Hell
“Child, you have to learn to see things in the right proportions. Learn to see great things great and small things small.”
I took the train to Cascais (pronounced CASH-k-eyes), an easy day trip from Lisbon. Cascais is to Alfacinhas* (which is to say: the people of Lisbon) what the Hamptons are to New Yorkers: a quick jaunt from the city to the beach where everyone lets their hair down while sporting stilettos and goes home sun-kissed and wind-whipped at the end of a long weekend. I’d have loved it a bit more 20 years ago, I’m certain, before the tourists descended on Cascais in droves and every ancient storefront full of history and personality on her crooked streets was transformed into a magnet + postcard shop selling trinkets to foreigners. It is a conundrum, no doubt, the way we tourists, with no malintent (in fact, quite the opposite), have bruised important aspects of the Portuguese culture while simultaneously breathing life back into her economy.
But offshore the waves are unchanged, still- and always-wild things, and I followed them along a promontory to a hollow in the wall of rock otherwise known as the Boca do Inferno, or Mouth of Hell, where they churn themselves into a volcano of water that spits salty droplets all over the fishermen casting lines from the rock wall, the soaring gulls, and the gawking passersby.
It wasn’t the first time I got spit on that day.
I saw the problem coming through the window of the railcar as it slowed to load more passengers shortly after departing Lisbon. The guy had his hand down his pants, enjoying his own company while awaiting the train, and I knew he’d make a beeline for me once onboard because I’m a crazy magnet. (I’m aware that’s not the appropriate word to use or the proper way to put it, but there’s no PC way around it: I’ve got a forcefield that draws in crazy like nobody’s business.) Given this, it was a foregone conclusion Happy Ending Harry was going to cozy up next to me for the ride to Cascais. To his credit, the dude worked hard for my attention, talking up a storm, raining a steady stream of spittle all over my bare arms, hair, exposed cheek. In what I’m sure he thought was a demonstration of good manners, he also grabbed my hand and gave it a good hard shake before disembarking – a gesture that would have been rather more mannerly had his hand not so recently been shaking other things.
There are all sorts of lessons, here: Why switching train cars at the first sign of masturbating men makes for a solid plan. Why one should never travel without hand sanitizer in one’s purse. But mostly: perspective. I got to choose how that man affected me. I got to choose whether to react with fear, or fury, or mirth; whether to roll my eyes and laugh it off when he left, or whether to let him sully my whole day.
I spent the day ascending spiral staircases into palace towers, watching full-rigged ships aim toward harbor, reading beside a duck pond, and staring undaunted into the Mouth of Hell.
Sully my day he did not.
* The word alface in Portuguese means “lettuce,” and alfacinhas means “little lettuce.” So why, you wonder, are the people of Lisbon referred to as little lettuces? Rumor has it that the nickname stems from a time when little food but vegetables was available, and Lisboetas – the other term for the people of Lisbon – demonstrated a marked preference for lettuce over other options.
Boca do Inferno. Photo credit to Anibel Trejo, who takes much better pictures than I.