Distant skies, vast horizons
I spoke with a friend in a Lisbon lockdown a few days ago. Our discussion meandered aimlessly from air conditioning to Plato’s Parable of the Cave and the theory of forms and The Truman Show to long green bottles of Perlenbacher lager to sods of turf and contemporary art galleries to Joseph Beuys and the fact he took a piss at the old urinal at the forty foot and the disgusting nature of such a urinal dripping urine directly into the rockpools below but most of all we spoke about our mutual liking for yellow pastel de nata, the yolk-yellow tartlets of Portugal.
I have never been to Portugal but the last time I had a such a tart was in the old Portuguese colony of Macau, 10,000 kilometres from me now. The Macau-style pastel de nata was like a sweetened scrambled egg, lumpier, embedded in soft puff pastry. I ate two. The second ran down my chin and left a yolk stain on my shirt. This stain is still on the shirt. I cannot get it out despite intensive rubbing and the introduction of granular chemicals.
Full of tarts, I summited a hill over Macau, the highest point. On the peak there was a fort and a seafarers’ chapel from the 17th century. They are dedicated to nossa senhora da guia, our lady of guidance and were built between 1622 and 1638 during invasions by the Dutch. The promontory and panoramic views of the surrounding ocean gave them advantage over naval invaders.
Our lady of Guidance is the saint of the seafarers and travellers and navigators.
I entered the church and nodded at the security guard who looked fatigued and disinterested and unhappy to welcome me. The leather strap of his hat was tucked tightly under his chin and I presumed that was causing him some discomfort.
At the altar there was a statuette of nossa senhora da guia lit up with small technicolour bulbs that surrounded her discoloured face.
Above the apse door there was a glowing green notice that said Entrada and nailed below a sign warned to cuidado com a cabeça, mind your head.
Some information on a flat wooden tablet protected by a plastic sheet told me that in the 1990s conservation work revealed frescoes hidden under layers of plaster. Yellow paint was chiselled away and islands of faded frescos appeared emerging from the layers underneath.
A baptismal font stood in the centre. Scattered on the walls were beasts and babies and flora and fauna and dragons and ghouls. A rotund boy raised his arms in answer to the black stare of a dragon. Spotted patterns of the fleur de lis were interrupted by splashes of beige paint, the product of iconoclastic rage it seemed. A rampant lion on its hind legs proudly protruded its tongue from its mouth, decorated in barbed fangs. A purple orchid unfurled over the head of baby Jesus, a chunk of a new-born with the arms of a rural butcher.
An air dehumidifier laboriously buzzed in the corner of the room. The room was dim and dark, and spears of light shot through a rusted shutter, there were cracks where the light shone in.
I exited under the glowing green notice that said Salida was walked into the tunnels beneath.
In the cavernous crawlway I smelt the distinct smell of the inner sole of an old boot. The ceiling was low and it trapped the stench and the heat. The air was heavy like syrup. In small alcoves I was startled by mannequins of soldiers throughout the centuries. The paint in their eyes had melted and resembled tears rolling down their cheeks.
I exited the tunnels through a screaming iron gate and walked along a path decorated in the art of topiary: verdant leaves cut into the shapes of dragons and cannons, lighthouses and lotus flowers.
I strolled up to the lighthouse that stood beside the chapel. Construction of the beacon began in 1864 and finished the year after, the first modern lighthouse in the South China Sea. I looked out at the sea and the casinos and the rooftops and the new bridge that moves like a graph below the sea and above all the way to Hong Kong. Tucked close to the hill my eyes were caught by the bright turquoise walls of a small church in parish of St. Lazarus.
Twisting and turning on the meandering paths I made it to the church and the graveyard around it. A grounds keeper coiled a serpentine hose, twirling it into a spiral. I stepped over the ammonite pile that lay on the pavement. A grave digger stuck his shovel into the earth and leant on it. Searching his pockets, he removed a stained piece of cloth that he used to wipe the sweat from his upper lip. A woman, far off, looked to the sky carrying a bouquet of white chrysanthemums.
Within the church the stain glass made the air pink. The seasoned pews were recently varnished, and the light reflected and splashed off the brown. The pages of an open bible flapped over in front of me, the wind blowing through an open door.
I engaged in graveyard tourism and listened to the song Distant Sky, where the baritone voice of Nick Cave and the soprano Else Torp serenade each other, a prayer for the unknown, the sky spread out in front of them, the sun rising in their eyes and the dreams of setting out towards the vast horizon. In a meditative state I walked along the narrow alleys full of fresh and rotting flowers that both gave their own individual fragrance and listening to this transcendent anthem I observed a moment of transcendence. Carved into a granite slab I read:
Sacred to the memory of John Desmond
Native of Limerick Ireland
Died March 3, 1865
Aged 31 years
I read it over and over again. I couldn’t believe it. An Irishman buried in the parish of St. Lazarus in Macau in 1865.
John Desmond rests under the hill of Guia with the lighthouse shining on the hill above. I wondered did he get to the see the undulating light of the lighthouse, he died the same year it finished construction. I searched for a record of the man but to no avail, I am left to make assumptions. Was he a sailor or a stowaway or a criminal? Was he a member of the merchant navy or a mercenary or a slave trader? Did he die of a fever or cholera or a mosquito bite or did he meet his end in a drunken brawl that got out of hand?
I looked up at the lighthouse where I had stared out at the widening horizon. The same shining light that may have guided John Desmond to the shore.
By the grave it grew darker and a deluge threatened. I bought an overpriced yellow fisherman’s hat off a roadside merchant. It achieved its aim and absorbed the bullets of rain that shot from the sky.
Nearing twilight, I left the parish of St. Lazarus to catch a night boat at the terminal.
On the boat, it was dark and outside the sea sloshed, lit up by the lights of the ferry. The spinning orb on top of the hill kept shining. As I dozed off from a day of incessant walking and consumption of yolk-yellow tartlets, I thought of nossa senhora da guia guiding seafarers and travellers through the darkest of storms and tempests and typhoons promising progress towards a distant sky and a rising sun on the vast horizon, getting there someday with the passage of time.