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about how I could get up on to the aqueduct, I understood why she had slyly made the rendezvous for the following Tuesday. It was going to take some time. All entrances were locked and one had to apply for official permission from the water company. Even supposing that one had a persuasive reason for asking for permission, there was bound to be some bureaucratic delay. I decided I would claim that I was writing a story about Lisboa.
    Do you know the city well? the public relations lady asked me. She was looking worried, as if she had too many exam papers to correct, although clearly she wasn’t a teacher. It occurred to me that I should have offered her some Toicino do Céu. She would have eaten them absentmindedly while working on her computer.
    No, I replied, I love the city but I don’t know it well. That’s why I need your help.
    As you are probably aware, the Águas Livres supplied water to the city until a very few years ago. Now it doesn’t but we keep it running as – how do you say? – as a kind of homage? You could go up on Monday morning with Fernando. He’s the maintenance inspector for the water channels. 8:30 a.m., here in this office, Monday!
    Could it be Tuesday?
    Yes, but I thought you said it was urgent.
    Tuesday would be better.
    Then come Tuesday.
    Fernando turned out to be a man in his mid-sixties, on the point of retirement. He had worked all his life for the Empresa Portuguesa das Águas Livres. He kept his eyes screwed up, he held himself very upright for his age, and he had the air of a man used to being alone and away from the crowds – like a shepherd or a steeplejack. He led me very quickly through the imposing temple-like building of the reservoir, which can hold 5,000 cubic metres of water. It was clear he did not like the temple – it had been built for too many people and too many speeches had been made there.
    His private passion was for the water on its long, solitary, unnatural, improbable journey from its sources. A journey underground, over ground, and through the sky. Up there in its ducts the water had to be kept cool and well mixed, tranquil, and transparent, with the correct amount of light so that it did not become turgid. As soon as we were on the steps climbing up from the reservoir to the aqueduct, he slowed down.
    The aqueduct at its top is only about five metres wide and consists of an apparently endless stone tunnel, on either side of which there is an open, very straight path, with a parapet to prevent people falling off. Fernando considered the water in the aqueduct as something alive, that had to be protected, fed, cleaned out, looked after – almost like an animal in a zoo. Perhaps an otter. Once a week he walked the fourteen kilometres to its sources in the Cavenque, checking everything. I think he had the impression that, like an otter, the water recognised him when he approached. He was dreading his retirement.
    By this time we had walked some distance along the path and were high above the Alcântara valley. With a gesture over the parapet he indicated how he hated the idea of being stuck down there with the crowds, the cows, the chatter. And what made it worse was that he was still fit! He asked me my age. I told him. So you understand! he said. Você entende! I understood.
    Now he wanted to show me his tunnel. He explained how the two semi-circular ducts for channelling the water were carved by hand out of basalt stone, piece by piece, and how the blocks were fitted together with mortice and tenon joints, and the cracks between the blocks filled with a putty made of quicklime, powdered limestone, and virgin olive oil, and how this putty, once set, was tougher than the basalt stone. Fernando had been trained as a stonemason.
    I could not accompany him because of my rendezvous. Nor did I want him to be there when I met my mother. The other times the presence of others hadn’t worried me. Perhaps it was something to do with the location, with being off the