Read Requiem for Free Online Page B

I heard heavy footsteps
     along the corridor above and Isadora appeared on the stairs. She was an old prostitute, now
     retired, who had taken on a rather respectable air, a pair of spectacles hung about her neck
     on a chain and she wore a scarlet blouse. With all the aplomb of a headmistress, Isadora
     advanced down the stairs towards me. I do apologise, she said, our porter can be a little rude
     at times but, you know, with the things that go on nowadays, you can’t be too careful,
     but if you wanted to speak to me, you should have said so at once. Tadeus sent me, I said,
     I’m a friend of his, he sends his best regards, look, I just wanted a room to rest in
     for a couple of hours and a nice clean bed, I just wanted to have a nap, I had lunch with
     Tadeus, we ate
sarrabulho
, and I’m dead on my feet, plus I didn’t sleep
     last night because the farm dog kept barking, and I have to meet someone at midnight on the
     Cais de Alcântara. My dear boy, said Isadora, you should have said so right away,
     I’ll get a nice cool room ready for you with a clean bed, but why doesn’t Tadeus
     call round any more, damn him? I don’t know, I said, I expect he’s got problems.
     Isadora rang the bell on the counter, at the same time calling out: Viriata! Viriata! Then she
     turned to me again and said: You can have number fifteen, my dear, it’s on the first
     floor, right next to the bathroom, Viriata’s just going to make up the bed. Do you need
     my identity card?, I asked. Certainly not, she said. I went up the stairs and into room
     fifteen. It was a spacious room, with a large double bed and was furnished with the sort of
     furniture you find in the provinces: a dresser with capacious drawers, a mirrored wardrobe, a
     few dark chairs. In one corner, near the window, was a washstand made out of wrought iron with
     a jug of water on it. I laid my jacket and my spare Lacoste shirt on the dresser and waited
     for the maid. After a while there was a knock on the door and I said: Come in. Good afternoon,
     said the woman, I’m Viriata. She was a plump young woman, with a very curly perm and a
     country face. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five but she looked forty.
     I’m from the Alentejo, she said smiling, we nearly all are here, apart from one little
     girl called Mercedes, who’s Spanish, but now she only works here every other day,
     otherwise she works in Praça da Alegria, she wants to be a jazz singer. She began
     putting the clean sheets on the bed and said:I’d like to be a singer
     too, but I’ve never studied music, Mercedes did, she went to a posh school in
     Mérida, she comes from a good family. And you, I asked, didn’t you study
     anything? Me, no, she said, I only learned how to read and write, my mother died when I was
     eight and my father was a pig, always drunk, do you like the Alentejo? Very much, I said, do
     you know, this very morning I was in the Alentejo, in Azeitão. Oh, she said,
     Azeitão isn’t the real Alentejo, it’s practically in Lisbon, to really get
     the feel of the Alentejo you have to visit Beja and Serpa, I’m from Serpa, when I was a
     little girl I used to keep sheep near the walls of Serpa and on Christmas Eve, the shepherds
     used to get together in their houses and sing old folk songs, it was so nice, only the men
     sang, the women just listened and cooked, we used to eat
mìgas, açorda
and
sargalheta
, the sort of food you don’t get in Lisbon any more,
     Lisbon’s gone all posh now, do you know, yesterday I went to have lunch in a little
     restaurant just next door here, nothing special but the fish is good, I ordered sole and the
     waiter said to me: Grilled or with bananas? With bananas?, I said, what do you mean, with
     bananas? It’s Brazilian-style, the waiter said to me, and if you didn’t know
     before, now you do. I know, I said, the world’s gone mad, with all these peculiar fads,
     it’s a complete mess really. Viriata finished making