A Small Death in Lisbon

Loss is like a shrapnel wound, I said, where the piece of metal's got stuck in a place where the surgeons daren't go, so they decide to leave it. It is painful at first, horribly painful, so that you wonder you can live with it. But then the body grows around it, until it doesn't hurt anymore. Not like it used to be. But every now and again there are these twinges when you are not ready for them, and you realize it is still there, and it's always going to be there. It is a part of you. A still, hard point inside.

They crossed the Mondego and Dao rivers to Viseu and headed south to Coimbra and Leiria.

The chinese character for "strife" is represented by two women under the same roof.

The portuguese never put anything behind them except a chair to eat lunch.

Eva was a between-the-lines talker. She left the sayable unsaid and said what she meant without saying it.

Boldly fruity, but clean and dry. The spice holding from the top to the bottom, as long as an Atlantic cruise.