He liked yellow roses, perhaps because they reminded him of the despair of the sick — the shadow of human skin as it faded. Grandfather Reynaldo — Abuito, as he was called in the family — had his house built in Lisbon, near the park, where the Gulbenkian Foundation stands today. In the forties, not far from the house where I was born and lived with Abuito, there was a hill overgrown with fresh grass used for cattle pasture, and there was a shepherd. I remember thinking that I lived in the countryside, because Mother would say to me, "Girl, go play in the fields".
Abuito — a distant grandfather who never knelt to play with me — lived on the ground floor with my Grandmother— Abuita. I lived above with my parents, my brother Bartolomeu and my sister Helena. Fortunately, Abuito embarked on a medical career, also doing research on our artistic heritage, especially Manueline and Baroque. But I've always heard that once he had considered playing the violin as a professional, even playing for his friends. It was more obstinacy than melody, so he gave it up.
The house where we all lived was a place where the walls talked to us, like a piano played by four hands. Only when Abuita died did I hear the sad chords fade into heavy silences, drowned out by the huge velvet curtains that separated the rooms from the central hall where a Gaveau piano stood, which we assassinated much to the teacher's horror.
Abuito's strong, well-articulated hands defined him as the artist who knew how to handle the scalpel with mastery and performed cures that seemed like miracles. His clear voice and concise speech were valuable tools in teaching, conferences, and family life. His piercing blue eyes sometimes became dreamy and vague when he came up with an idea and left it incomplete to see who in the audience developed it as a topic for discussion.
Lunch in the small room was simple, chicken with sautéed potatoes and peas, a dessert and fruit. It didn't vary much, but it compensated for the grand dinners and banquets Abuito had to go to, where he hardly ate. He didn't like complicated stuff, just that related to surgery.
It was at the Abuitos’ house that I came across the great master of medicine, such as René Leriche, and learned about Madame Leriche — a grand lady in heart and body. I spent summers with them on their property in Cassis, in southern France. Both Professor Leriche and Abuito had been surgeons in France during the 1914-18 war. The marks of this carnage were expressed in the care with which they treated and spoke to the patients. It was humanity to erase the inhumanity of this trench war.
He loved fine arts, music, travelling abroad and around our country, in a light blue DeSoto driven by Bento, the driver. He carried a woollen blanket over his knees, and set off in search of Romanesque and Gothic churches and chapels, which housed the religious images, the capitals, the colourfully carved naves he documented for his writings. He had a penchant for bullfighting in Spain — the death bulls— and he saw the acclaimed Manolete die in 1947 as a result of a wound by a Miura bull in 1947.
These fascinating worlds stayed in my mind through Abuito's words and Abuita's affection. Only much later did I realize that the family names of Grandfather Reynaldo and Grandmother Suzana came from the Spanish words Abuelito and Abuelita — a language he mastered completely. After lunch, which was always in a small room and in the company of one of his grandchildren, especially after Abuita died, Abuito turned on the radio and listened to the news from Spain, while arguing with himself and playing cards solitaire on a wooden tray placed over his legs.
He wouldn't let us talk. It was the moment for his rest, while he went through some idea in his mind. Then he took a short nap before leaving for his practice in Restauradores, where his assistant Maria José boiled syringes and helped applying bandages to the sick. Maria José cleaned everything thoroughly, always followed by a small Pekinois dog called Doll, which I found irritating. There was also a large, grey parrot on its perch, scattering hemp seeds across the room. The parrot could talk but I only remember it saying "Reynaldo".
In the house in Av. Antonio Augusto de Aguiar where we all lived but that no longer exists, the formal dinners were in the large room overlooking the garden. There, a medical, literary and artistic elite that fascinated me gathered together. I remember sculptor Francisco Franco, a young Joaquim Correia, doctor Gregorio Marañon, Master Almada Negreiro and Sara Afonso, and above all Afonso — the poet Lopes Vieira, married to Helena, with whom we spent summer holidays in the small fishing village of São Pedro de Moel. Men wore hats then, and women, with rare exceptions, showed a demure attitude, as befitting housewives.
Abuito and Abuita's dining room always reminded me of a fairy tale, with its huge chimney, long polished table, clawed armchairs, and David's tapestry slinging the giant Goliath. It hung from top to bottom on one of the walls. Little David had faith that he would overthrow Goliath, for the giant represented only strength, not reason. Grandfather Reynaldo was a man of reason who knew how to get around problems with a master's hand, science and art. He was a grandfather I will never forget and who I remember with all his might.
Luz Rezende (Maria da Luz Vilhena dos Santos Rezende)
9 December 2019
