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RUY TAPIOCA354see if the guy was still intent on selling lottery tickets. Thanks to the Knights Templar,the man had vanished in the crowd.Providentially, while looking back at the ticket seller, I spotted an individual in adark coat and suit, face hidden beneath a soft hat pulled over his forehead, who hadbeen following me from a distance since Rua do Comércio.Caught by surprise, visibly embarrassed, the man stopped all of a sudden. Helooked up, then back, and decided to stop, hesitant and unconvincing, in front of ashop window displaying women’s lingerie, feigning interest.Wary, I tried to interpret that incident as the neurotic effect of the mania ofwhich I am the victim, due to the contumacious mischief of the “chest clique,” thecreatures that occasionally escape and take to the streets, engaged in the work ofsnooping into other people’s lives, namely mine.I decided not to bother with that suspected stalker: I shrugged, considered thepursuit illusory – attributing it to my morbid fixation with being followed by theresidents of the chest – and went on my way.Brooding, I turned around abruptly when, inadvertently and awkwardly, I collidedhead-on with the pot-belly of a tumescent gentleman – a citizen who was probablysuccessful in life, judging by the huge amount of fat overhanging his waistband –accompanied by a lady, walking in the opposite direction to mine, under the archesof Commerce Square.I tried to apologize, overcome with guilt and embarrassment, while hearingunprintable words uttered by the person whom I supposed to be the man’s wife– a portly lady also endowed with abundant deposits of fat and a pronouncedmustache – shooting fiery glances at me in solidarity with her husband.I escaped the scene of the noise, fleeing, going overboard, bowing and scrapingand making obsequious apologies to the couple, not knowing where to hide, highlyembarrassed, just in time to hear, behind me, “the devil take who walks there!”roared at the top of her lungs by the foul-mouthed lady who was unleashing the evilone, that is, giving me a tongue lashing.I’m a passive person by nature – that’s not a supposition – as well as beingunaccustomed to dealing with the usual situations of everyday life, so imaginestruggling with embarrassing setbacks in transit, in public places.“You are better read than heard, my dear,” Sá-Carneiro whispered to me one day,in my ear, when the late poet still resided in this world.For these and other reasons I could never understand the nature and atavismof my countrymen: the calling for bold transoceanic heroics, with the intentionof conquering unknown worlds in the grand and wistful past; at the same timeuproarious and intolerant, clogs in hand and curses on the tip of the tongue at theslightest pretext, in these modern, wild, frustrated times.Inside the Martinho, Almada waved to me from a table in the back, sitting in thecompany of Montalvor.I greeted them with a nod and a wan smile, and took off the trench coat and hat,which I hung on a hook next to a cane stand, where I put my umbrella.I adjusted my bowtie in the mirror on the wall before sitting down.