The "arrumador"

Eugénio is the arrumador in the street where I work, that is, he helps drivers find a place to park in exchange for a small change. I know very little about him, we talk a bit from time to time. He´s a decent man, eternally grateful and obliged towards those who try to help him a bit in his difficulties.

I met him yesterday and he asked me how I had liked Madeira. "Didn´t I tell you", he exclaimed, when I told him I had loved it. "That´s where I would go if I could. I would go to live in the countryside. That´s where it´s nice. Here in the city we just get to know life´s miseries."

Luis Sepúlveda´s novel The Old Man who Read Love Stories finishes like this: "...he started walking in the direction of El Idilio, his shack and his stories, which spoke of love with so beautiful words that sometimes made him forget human barbarity."

Misery, barbarity... They take different shapes in our heads. We all seem to try to run away from them and find refuge in beauty. I don´t know if Eugénio can read. I think he might like The Old Man who Read Love Stories.