The anchor was dropped into the water at Alfama when the sun plumbed under the horizon. The ship knocking on the water at the shore stopped at the edge of the land and the sea. The door of Alfama was open.

The sailor could not wait to go home. He told me that Alfama for him was as if a house without windows, but it was his hometown, where his lover sang him sweet songs and the light was never too strong to hurt him. But the painter chose here to be his destination. He said he was destined to be in a loft, a space stolen to grief, with four walls made of water sealed with injured silence.

I watched them go off the ship. When their shadows buried in the far dark, I closed my eyes. In this cold night, I smelled nostalgia.