TAVIRA, VIVE CULTURA; or, THE PROVERBIAL COUPLE (SO TO SPEAK)

the husband and the wife wish the same thing for each other: that the eventual widow or widower be taken care of as well as trevora, whom the couple meets on a patio by the river in tavira. the conversation starts naturally enough:

"do you know tavira well?" asks trevora to the wife. and the wife says no but asks her what she's looking for. the wife doesn't know where that is, but the portuguese woman that the wife asks does, and she also speaks trevora's native french.

"and are the shoes open all day?" trevora asks the wife now, but the wife doesn't understand trevora's accent in english. "the shoes," the husband says and points to the shoe store across the street. the wife doesn't know, but she walks across the street to ask. when she comes back, trevora is happy to find out that the husband and the wife speak spanish, because she needs a lead on an eight euro pair of shoes.

"but eight euro shoes aren't going to last you the week," says the wife. but trevora doesn't care because they can fall apart after a week if they want -- she has piles of shoes at home.

and where does she live? the wife wants to know. "seven months of the year in the south of france, and the other five in toledo," trevora says in spanish and with her fingers. she met her spanish husband in paris, but toledo was where they spent their married life until he drank himself to death. it isn't clear whether it was the husband who was the dentist or if it's their daughter.

trevora, however, doesn't need a dentist. she came to tavira to see her doctor, who moved here from france eight years before. she went to the clinic the day before, but it was closed.

"and what kind of specialist is this doctor?" asks the wife. "not a specialist, just a doctor," says trevora. apparently trevora has come to tavira from france not only without an appointment but without any idea of why she wants to see her doctor. maybe just to catch up. it's been eight years, after all. but what trevora does know is that she wants a pair of shoes for eight euros to get her between her hotel and the bus stop until she has to leave for faro to fly back to france -- probably without having seen the doctor (who may or may not know that trevora exists and may or may not exist himrself).

it's good to have a daughter who is maybe a dentist looking out for you after her father who was maybe a drunk is dead. so, "i think we should have kids," the husband says, "so that i can drink myself to death with a clear conscience." the wife laughs. because better, as they say, the devil you know than a thousand trevoras.

anyway, that's probably what the couple that the husband and the wife meet at the church on the way to the castle would say. the church is open, so the husband and the wife go in. they don't think to stay very long, but the guy with the grey moustache would really like them to see the temporary exhibition in the back. as he's talking the couple through the exhibition, he doesn't appear to have any affiliation with the church or any special relationship with any of the artists. his devotion to the exhibition is cast in any even rarer light (or maybe it's just him that the light illuminates) when he introduces the wife to his own and the older couple starts talking to their younger guests about the international proverb conference that they've held in tavira every year since they retired there. the wife gives them her email address because, well, the more you run over a dead cat, it's not going to encourage sleeping dogs to stop lying.

the thing is, even if after all that climbing the husband and wife just want to eat in silence over their periodicals, the moustache's wife's face is light and happiness itself, and when the older couple waves so enthusiastically for the husband and wife to join them when they step out onto the patio of the restaurant, the husband and wife aren't able to seat themselves alone as they would like under the lemon tree. so they talk to the retired math professor about proverbs, and his wife, who was a professor of biology, makes light and happiness. then the math professor gets the husband and wife a bottle of wine. and the wine they really need after having seen the price tags on the handmade, recycled plastic handbags at the store that was also selling prints of photographs of neighborhood doors for forty-five euros. paco rabanne by bangladesh, apparently; and the husband and wife are getting a big smile from the face of the markup. they might not care about proverbs, but the wine is refreshing, and there just isn't any kicking a portuguese power moustache in the face.