April Witch, by Majgull Axelsson

Another very good Swedish book, about family relationships and the welfare state in Sweden. The characters are extremely believable, and the dreamlike writing intertwines the fantastic in the prosaic in a smooth way that makes the fantasy stuff blend perfectly in the narrative.

A Secret Country, by John Pilger

This book was suggested to me by an Australian friend; he said “This a good book to help you understand this country.” And I did find it extremely interesting, especially after having been there. In a way, it’s a grim reading, and, having spent such a pleasant time sightseeing in Australia, I couldn’t help but having the recurrent thought “so much darkness in Paradise!”. But I think it helps to understand the country, in particular the first chapter in what regards the Australian character and the fourth about its history. The appalling account of the Aborigines’ treatment wasn’t new to me, but it’s always chillingly shocking. The chapters about politics are less interesting, because unfortunately the situation is not much different in the rest of the Western world – what the author mentions in the preface,"What is happening today in Australia is no more than a warning that liberal societies are being returned to passivity, obedience and secrecy and that the subjugation of people's minds and pockets has a new set of managers and a new vocabulary.", can be said of all the Western democracies since the early ‘90s. And I think he lingers too long on the details there, sounding a little obsessed with CIA conspiracies – that are perfectly credible, but the tone comes out a little paranoid.



In short, I think it’s a very interesting reading, especially if one wants to know more about Australia, which is mostly an unknown country to us Europeans.

Titans of History, by Simon Sebag Montefiore

A disappointing book, after having read the excellent Jerusalem biography. It's very superficial, and not only the selection of historical "titans" is sometimes odd (Montefiore seems particularly to revel in the lives of dictators, the more barbarous the better), as the historical appraisal of some of them is extremely questionable, especially the modern ones (like Gandhi, John Paul II or Thatcher, for instance). It's a pleasant reading, but these faults make it often annoying. I think it's more suitable for children, as an introduction to history, like we used to read in the 70s collections of texts in the series "15".

And the Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini

A nice book, about a family in Afghanistan from the late 40s to the present. Well written, it depicts family emotions fairly well, and the sense of loss and lost opportunities and time, but also the resilience and hope in human nature. Some interesting characters and engaging plot, but I would have liked to know more about the relatives who stayed in Afghanistan, and whose experience is just hinted at, instead of the long passage about the Greek doctor, that seems a bit superfluous. But all in all a nice read.

The Settlers, by Vilhelm Moberg

The Settlers is the third book in Moberg's series about a group of Swedish emigrants to America in the 19th century. As the others, it's a beautifully written book, that makes us feel the trials and tribulations of the emigrants in a plentiful but hard and often dangerous land, their courage and tenacity. Karl Oskar, Kristina, Robert, Ulrika, are vivid and believable characters that we feel we come to know and love. I would still like to be able to read it in Swedish... There is still one fourth part, that I hope to read soon.

Missing an old patient

When I met this patient, more than 20 years ago, she was in her middle-forties - a thin, wide-eyed, anxious looking short woman (as any young doctor, eager to make clever diagnoses, I was disappointed to find she didn’t suffer from hyperthyroidism). I came to know her very well and cherish her as one of my best patients: curious and inquisitive, but sensible and capable of understanding – a rare bless to a physician – and extremely responsible and aware of the importance of her behavior to her well-being.

She had several serious problems over the years, and faced them all with tenacity and optimism: always inquiring and trying to understand what was happening, braving her chronic anxiety and doing what it took to get better. And, being unusually careful and compliant with treatments, she kept a fully functioning and active life. Short and thin, with systolic blood pressure seldom above 100, she was actually very resilient.

I got to know her quite well over the years; I liked her cunning of a poorly educated but very clever woman, the way she engaged in patient support groups, her witty and insightful critiques of the medical flaws she shrewdly learned to detect (and over more than 20 years as a renal patient, she had multiple opportunities to come across all kinds of doctors and nurses – and patients, of whom she was equally critical when they were unreasonable, tedious or aggressive), the way she used to spend the long hours on dialysis reading to be better informed and instructed. I witnessed her worries about her daughter’s first boyfriends, later, the joys of becoming a grandmother.

For many years, her deepest frustration was not getting a kidney transplant. She was in fairly good general health and a very compliant patient; apparently the ideal candidate. But she also had a very reactive immune system – allergic rhinitis, several drug allergies, allergic dermatitis – and soon became hypersensitized, which prevented her from receiving a transplant – the cross-match with every donor was positive. She witnessed many of her contemporary patients being transplanted, many more dying, and after a number of years she was one of the few remaining patients of the early nineties. Sensible as always, she eventually resigned herself to a life on dialysis, and philosophically concluded that maybe it was for the better, since after all she didn’t do that bad (she was one of the few patients that never forgot how hemodialysis got better over the years). She kept going to the pre-transplant appointments out of habit, though.

Then, shortly after the pre-transplant appointment that we agreed would be the last – she had turned 69 and, although doing still relatively well, the risks of transplantation were becoming greater than the potential benefits – she unexpectedly got a call: there was a compatible donor. And she took the no longer expected opportunity; I heard the news a few days later and was sincerely happy for her – if anyone deserved a successful transplant, it certainly was her.

The first week went rather smoothly – the kidney worked, she was finally off-dialysis. But then, the heavy immune suppression used in hypersensitized patients took its toll, and she caught pneumonia. As it often happens, the combination of a hospital germ and the effects of age, chronic illness and immune suppression soon led to a downward spiral: worsening clinical condition, ICU, mechanical ventilation, acute kidney injury, multiorgan failure and ultimately death.

It made me feel so sad. What if that call had never come? What if we had given up on transplant 1 year earlier? Maybe she could have enjoyed another 5 or 10 years, who knows. Then, maybe things could have turned out well with the transplant (I actually had another patient with a very similar case that has been living with her transplant for more than 5 years now and doing well), and she had never quite given up the dream of leaving dialysis. Yes, I know we can never know for sure. But it is sad anyway, and today, doing the round in the dialysis room at the time when she used to be here, I missed her.

Brothers, by Yu Hua

An interesting book about the social transformations in China during the last decades. Implacably cruel, often funny, a bit too much on the escathological humor. I guess it gives one an idea of how life under the Chinese "miracle" is.

Unto a Good Land, by Vilhelm Moberg

Another very good Swedish book, the second part of the story of a group of Swedish peasants that emigrate to the USA in 1850. I had enjoyed very much the first part - The Emigrants - and this one is just as good. I'm still sorry I cannot read it in Swedish, but maybe sometime I will have the necessary language skills. Over the years, I have been reading more untranslated books, and it has been really enjoyable and enriching.

Correspondance, de Marcel Proust

I love the writings of Proust, and reading this collection of his letters left me a bittersweet taste. Bitter, because most of the content of the letters is not very interesting - a few details about his work, some good depictions of his relationships with friends, a lot of details about his routine and his illness, but mostly nothing that adds significantly to his books, articles and essays. Sweet, because it's always an immense pleasure to read his elegant prose and to be reminded of his masterpiece, that was really a milestone in my life, and that I plan to reread soon, this time in French - what better way to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of Du Côté de Chez Swann?

Weekend in Toulouse

I spent recently an extended weekend in Toulouse. I really enjoyed it, there was a lot to enjoy - great sightseeing, excellent monuments and museums, the always fine French food. It's a 2 hour flight away from Lisbon, so it seemed like a nice place to go for a short getaway, and so it was.

Toulouse is a beautiful city, with an ancient history that goes all the way to the Romans. I stayed between the railway station - Gare de Matabiau, a name reminiscent of the Toulouse saint bishop Saturnin, killed by a bull - and the Place du Capitole where is the City Hall. It's a pleasant city to walk, being flat and well paved.

And so I walked, through beautiful squares like Place du Capitole, Place Saint-Georges, Place Wilson, Place de l'Esquirol, prosperous 19th century boulevards and narrow medieval streets. Toulouse is called la Ville Rose on account of the numerous buildings of local brick. There is a beautiful Romanesque cathedral, the Basilique de Saint-Sernin, and impressive Gothic churches, especially the church of the Couvent des Jacobins - also built with bricks, it's a peculiar kind of Gothic, more austere than usually, and with beautifully faded frescoes on the walls. I guess it's what they call the Languedocian Gothic.

I visited two excellent small museums: the Musée Saint-Raymond and the Musée des Augustins. The first has a fine collection of Roman artifacts, especially remarkable are the numerous busts, I love the perfection of the portraits, really individualistic and expressive. The second, in the ancient convent of the Augustins, has a wonderful collection of Romanesque and Gothic sculpture, I was particularly struck by the beauty of the Romanesque capitals and some Gothic faces. There are also some good paintings - Delacroix, Reni, Lautrec - and sculptures by Rodin.

From Toulouse, I took a day trip to Carcassonne, a small town with a fortified medieval city which was important at the time of ta Cathars and then extensively restored in the 19th century by Viollet-le-Duc. The place is outrageously touristic now, with cafés alternating with souvenir shops, but it manages to retain a magic fairy tale atmosphere, especially the castle. And of course I tasted the famous local cassoulet.

And so it was another very nice trip, not the less for the company - I took my mother with me, and she was a fine travel companion, valiantly walking a lot and always cheerful! Looking forward to do it again.

The Emigrants, by Vilhelm Moberg

Another suggestion from a Swedish friend, he told me Vilhelm Moberg's saga about emigration was good to understand Sweden. Anyway, it's an excellent book; I'd like to be able to read it in Swedish, somehow there is a tone that sounds very characteristic, the same kind of singsong one hears in Swedish films and that I also felt when I read a book by Knut Hamsun. And if these peasants are representative of the Swedish character, what stands out it's its seriousness, honesty and resilience, and also a certain gloom.

I already ordered the other three books of the saga.

The Chosen, by Chaim Potok

A very book, that a new friend recently suggested me. It's mostly about friendship, fathers and sons and coming of age, universal themes in this case set in the Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn and in the time from the D-day until shortly after the independence of Israel. The friendship between the boys is beautifully depicted, as is the relationships with the fathers and the conflict between parents' expectations and sons' willingness to please them and the youngsters' desires and hopes. And the Jewish conflicts between the religious conservatives and the less religious and more realistic ones is interesting, depicted at the crucial moment of the Holocaust discovery and the foundation of the State of Israel. Once more, I find it hard to understand how some people can spend their lives and waste their intelligence fussing over lines of the Talmud - it seems really Byzantine. All in all, a very good book.

Journal 1822-1863, de Eugène Delacroix

I loved reading the Journal de Delacroix. He was an intelligent and sensitive man, an extremely keen observer of the world around him, its beauty and its flaws, and always questioning everything. His dedication to and seriousness about his art is touching, and if sometimes the technical details can be a little boring to the non-artists like me, it's always interesting to "watch" a great artist at work, it makes us see so much better and understand his vision. But he thinks and comments about much more than painting, he was a curious mind aware of all that surrounded him and a very cultivated and intelligent man. And he writes in an extremely elegant French, which is a real pleasure to read.

I leave some of the passages I liked the most.

L'homme ne place presque jamais son bonheur dans les biens réels; il le met presque toujours dans la vanité, dans le sot plaisir d'attirer sur soi les regards et par conséquent l'envie. Mais, dans cette vaine carrièrre, il n'en atteint point ordinairement l'objet; au moment où il se réjouit de se voir sur un théâtre où il attire les regards, il regarde encore plus haut; ses désirs montent à mesure qu'il s'élève, il envie lui-même autant qu'il est envié; quant aux vrais biens, il s'en éloigne toujours davantage: la tranquillité d'esprit, l'indépendance fondée sur des désirs modestes et facilement satisfaits, lui sont interdites.

L'homme est si bizarre qu'il trouve dans le malheur même des sujets de consolation et presque du plaisir, comme celui, par exemple, de se sentir injustement persécuté et d'avoir en soi la conscience d'un mérite supérieur à sa fortune présente; mais il lui arrive bien plus souvent de s'ennuyer dans la prospérité et même de s'y trouver très malheureux.

Le vulgaire croit que le talent doit toujours être égal à lui-même et qu'il se lève tous les matins comme le soleil, reposé et rafraîchi, prêt à tirer du même magasin, toujours ouvert, toujours plein, toujours abondant, des trésors nouveaux à verser sur ceux de la veille; il ignore que, semblable à toutes les choses mortelles, il a un cours d'accroissement et de dépérissement, qu'indépendamment de cette carrière qu'il fournit, comme tout ce qui respire (à savoir: de commencer faiblement, de s'accroître, de paraître dans toute sa force et de s'éteindre par degrés), il subit toutes les intermittences de la santé, de la maladie, de la disposition de l'âme, de sa gaieté ou de sa tristesse. En outre, il est sujet à s'égarer dans le plein exercice de sa force; il s'engage souvent dans des routes trompeuses; il lui faut alors beaucoup de temps pour en revenir au point d'où il était parti, et souvent il ne s'y retrouve plus le même. Semblable à la chair périssable, à la vie faible et attaquable par tous les côtés de toutes les créatures, laquelle est obligé de résister à mille influences destructives, et qui demande ou un continuel exercice ou des soins incessants, pour n'être pas dévorée par cet univers qui pèse sur nous, le talent est obligé de veiller constamment sur lui-même, de combattre, de se tenir perpétuellement en haleine, en présence des obstacles au milieu desquels s'exerce sa singulière puissance. L'adversité et la prospérité sont des écueils également à craindre. Le trop grand succès tend à l'énerver, comme l'insuccès le décourage. Plusieurs hommes de talent n'ont eu qu'une lueur, qui s'est éteinte aussitôt que montrée. Cette lueur éclate quelquefois dès leur apparition et disparaît ensuite pour toujours. D'autres, faibles et chancelants, ou diffus, ou monotones en commençant, ont jeté, après une longue carrière presque obscure, un éclat incomparable, tels que Cervantès; il en est qui n'ont pas subi d'éclipse.

Travailler n'est pas seulement pour produire des ouvrages, c'est pour donner du prix au temps: on est plus content de soi et de sa journée quand on a remué des idées, bien commencé ou achevé quelque chose.

Ma passion pour les voyages se refroidit quand je considère qu'ils se composent uniquement de départs et d'arrivées: mais que de plaisirs et d'avantages on achète par cette peine! N'y trouvâ-t-on que la facilité de s'instruire sans étude, on ferait très bien de feuilleter les divers pays de la terre en guise de lecture: d'autant qu'on est toujours forcé d'en joindre quelqu'autre à celle-là. Quand je me sens près de me décourager au milieu de mes pèlerinages, je me dis: si je veux le but, il faut vouloir le moyen, et je continue Je fais plus, à peine revenu chez moi, je pense à recommencer. Le voyage perpétuel serait une douce manière de passer sa vie, surtout pour un homme qui n'est pas d'accord avec les idées qui dominent le monde dans le temps où il vit. Changer de pays équivaut à changer de siècle, etc.

And the last of his paintings I saw, in the Musée des Augustins, in Toulouse:

Mr.Mani, by A.B. Yehoshua

A very interesting book I found in Jerusalem. It's about the story of a Sephardic family, from 1848 until 1982, narrated backwards through a series of dialogues. It's an original method, and very accomplished, because it's simultaneously intriguing and fetching, extremely well written. Through every episode, Jerusalem's presence and magic lingers, as one of the main characters of the book. One gets a sense of Jewish history and the strong connection to Jerusalem, the characters seem alive and real; I'm not sure what the author means with the recurrent theme of a certain fascination with / attraction to death and doom. A very good read, I really enjoy finding new good books by different writers, it's another of travel's joys.

Vies des Dames Galantes, de Brantôme

A picaresquely funny book, in a lovely ancient French. One can see how the joys and pains of sex are eternal - I remember also Ovid's Art of Loving, always up to date - and how little human nature has changed on that regard over the centuries.

What's Left?, by Nick Cohen

There are some things I didn't like much about What's Left?, but it certainly is an important book. The tone is too much of political journalism pamphleteering, his opinions often too simplistic and some comparisons a little far-fetched (regarding Virginia Woolf, for instance; well, one can dislike the working classes but still contribute to make their condition better, which she did). But, some details aside, he's mostly right about the decline of the Left and its causes. And that's very depressing. I consider myself a man of the Left, and that's why I'm so disappointed with the way so many left-wingers lost their way and became embroiled in petty hates and byzantine discussions while letting such important conquers as the welfare state being destroyed by the Right. I hate the silly sense of post-colonial guilt and loss after the collapse of the socialist illusion of the 20th century that led to so many despicable double standards regarding Western policy and the wrong notion of "multiculturalism" that has been so catastrophic to Western societies. And the primal mistrust of Western democracies (embodied in the fierce hate for the US and everything American) is ridiculous and should be laughable, were it not dangerous and disgusting.

I think there's still hope though, and maybe the only good thing out of the present economic crisis will be to remind people the worthiness of the true leftist values that were so hardly fought for and gave us so much prosperity and well-being - unfortunately, they're not guaranteed anymore, and that's what the Left should be worried about.

Winter Journal, by Paul Auster

I always liked Paul Auster's books, ever since I read Leviathan many years ago. Some are better than others, and I wouldn't say he's one the best novelists I read, especially since I tend to forget his books not long after reading them, and to confuse the several plots. But he's still a very good writer, a great story-teller, and I feel especially identified with the way he looks at life, his recurrent themes of chance and serendipity and simultaneous strangeness and familiarity of life. So, I was curious to read his latest memoir. I liked it very much; it's a nostalgic reminiscence of his life and family and places where he has lived, sometimes sweet, sometimes sad, in some points somewhat repetitive, and with several very good stories masterly told as usual. His writing is excellent as usual, even if the choice of the second person becomes sometimes a little tiresome. Something also appeals to me: he's not an astounding writer (meaning the kind whose books change literature or the world) and he hasn't lived a particularly remarkable life, had never influence in politics, society or mores. So it's just an intelligent, sensitive and cultivated man reflecting and reminiscing on his life; somehow I like to think that if ever was to do the same, I would do it that way.

Dancing Arabs, by Sayed Kashua

A nice book by an Arab Israeli author, about the tribulations of a young Arab growing up in Israel, caught between the two cultures of his land, desperately trying to become like a Jew, since he thinks it's the only way to better his life and self-esteem. Through a series of small chapters, very well written in a dry and ironic humor, one gets the sense of the plight of the poor Arab citizens, their difficult situation and the many obstacles they have to surmount until they can become full citizens of Israel. Besides the problems of poverty, lack of education and being an ethnic minority, and the consequent sense of inadequacy and frustration, common to many other disadvantaged minorities in many countries, there's above all a problem of troubled identity, due to the particular history and politics of the region, the sense of being betrayed by the other Arabs that have kept them in an intolerable situation for decades and don't do anything to really help them. There are no answers or solutions in the book, only questions and a vivid portrayal of the situation, through characters sometimes endearing, sometimes despicable, not always likeable, but eminently believable.

Professional joys...

"Hey, doctor, how are you?"; I turned around, and there he was, a young man, smiling at me, Simon. And I was so happy to see him, a young man looking good. I remember the first time I saw him, a 17-year-old boy, so lost and desperate, not understanding what was happening to him, asking from some kind of reassurance. He landed in the hospital Nephrology clinic, sent from another hospital, where they had nonchalantly told him he had to start dialysis and hinted he should be a drug addict, since he was HCV positive. He was angry, he had never used drugs and he didn't understand what was happening to him. It turned out he had a congenital disease, that had caused him to have hearing impairment and severe low platelet counts since childhood, reason why he had received multiple blood transfusions as a child (and caught the hepatitis C virus), and progressive renal failure, that had been overlooked then and had just been detected in the near end-stage phase. And that's where I met him, this dirty-blond kid dressed in black, in a grungy urban-depressive look. He went by himself to the hospital, and it was extremely delicate to explain him about his condition, the imminence of dialysis, etc. He didn't seem to understand, didn't want to understand, and, even if it's relatively common to have to explain this kind of situation to people who never knew they had any kidney problem (it's very frequently undiagnosed until the end-stage), it was particularly hard to tell it to this fragile, upset and lonely kid. I asked him in the end to bring his parents to the next appointment.

But he came back alone; his condition was getting worse, we had to make some treatment decisions, and he was not even of legal age. I pressed him, asking about his parents, finally he told me his mother was severely bi-polar and his father was deaf and aloof and he couldn't count on them. There was an older twenty-something brother though, and I urged him to bring him with him as soon as possible.

Then, what I feared happened: he turned up an afternoon severely uremic in need of immediate dialysis. His brother was with him then, totally bewildered, he hadn't told him anything until then. I was glad it was me the nephrologist on duty, at least I was familiar with the situation and the boy seemed to trust me. I tried to comfort him and the brother as best I could, and silently thanked I was experienced enough - one doesn't put a dialysis catheter in a patient with 9000 platelets with a relaxed mood... Fortunately, everything went smoothly, and in a few days he was feeling much better. His father showed up, and things became calmer. He then opted for peritoneal dialysis, and didn't see much of him for a couple of years, since I was not in that department.

By chance, it was again when I was on duty that a kidney turned up; I was glad to call Simon and to assist him after the procedure. It was successful and, as I was working then at the transplantation unit, I saw him very often for a few years. By then I knew him pretty well, and it was a pleasure to watch him grow. He played the drums in a rock and roll band - he gave me the link to their musics, which were an extremely noisy kind of punk rock, and I joked they were like that because he was half-deaf - then he studied computers and started to work. From a depressed and mixed-up kid he turned into a self-assured young man and, being so used to care for old people, he's one of the patients for whom I always had this kind of paternal feelings.

A few years ago I left the transplantation team, so now I only see him if by chance we meet when he goes to the hospital for blood tests or appointments. I'm glad his transplanted kidney is working well 11 years later, he's now about 30 and leading a full productive life. I really feel professionally and personally fulfilled when I meet him, and just hope he keeps being well and I won't have to put him on dialysis again.

The Yellow Wind, by David Grossman

As usual when I visit a country with whose literature I’m not familiar, I go to bookstores and search for books by national authors that can help me to get into the national mood and preferably enjoying good reading at the same time. And I’m very unfamiliar with Israeli literature, of which I only know Amos Oz, from several essays and the beautiful A Tale of Love and Darkness. So I perused the shelves of a couple of bookstores in Jerusalem, and bought three books, two by Jewish Israelis and one by an Arab Israeli.

The Yellow Wind, by David Grossman, is an impressive and disturbing account of the author’s dealings with people in the Occupied Territories in the late ‘80s, but probably it still applies to the present day. I had my opinion about the Israeli-Palestinian question before, and it hasn’t changed much after going to Israel or reading this book. But it’s always interesting and enlightening to read from different sources and to see some of the places one reads about.

I don’t feel like I have the right to take too strongly sides in complex questions that don’t concern me directly and about which my knowledge is always second or third-hand, and the Israeli-Palestinian problem is certainly one of those. But I have my opinions nonetheless. I think that, historically, and today, the main responsibility for not reaching a reasonable solution lies with the Arabs – from the unspeakably vain and conceited Al-Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem, who maybe bears the greatest responsibility for the present situation, to the murderous and foolish Arafat and the terrorist Islamic organization Fatah, and a series of ambitious Islamic leaders, who undermined and lost a succession of opportunities through the years. Their intolerance never allowed for a reasonable solution, they keep denying to recognize the State of Israel, they were the ones who started all the wars, and they never did anything to improve the situation and lives of the Palestinian refugees, preferring to kindle their misery and hatred, which they use to their own political purposes. There is no “right to return”; especially after wars who were started by them – what about the millions of displaced persons after World War II? Should they have demanded the right to return to their former homelands? To think that millions were displaced, and the last refugee camps were closed in the early ‘50s, and the Palestinians keep living in camps 40 years after 1967… War is awful, but obviously the effects of their war are purposefully prolonged, and that’s unforgivable.

But I also stand here […] as a human being, rising up against this education in blind hatred, and against such tremendous energy being expended for the preservation of malice, instead of being spent in an effort to get out of this barrenness, this ugliness in which this kindergarten lies, these little children who are so good at hating me.

But I cannot condone either the prolonged Israeli occupation of the Territories, and certainly not the policy of the settlements. Israel is a democratic and admirable country, and it’s being corrupted by its behavior as an occupying power. In my opinion, they should annex whatever land they deem indispensable for their security and let go of the rest. I cannot believe it would be more difficult to defend the country, and their moral standing would be much better, and I believe they would actually be a model for the region, since I’m sure that Israeli Arabs live better than Arabs in any other country of the Middle East. I sincerely hope the younger Israeli generation will steer away from Jewish religious intolerant bigots and support the reasonable and morally right conduct – to end the occupation. I know it won’t be easy, no less for the absence of any credible and reasonable Arab Palestinian organization to deal with, but one of the things this book shows is we’re dealing with people, and human beings are much the same everywhere, and we must struggle for the basic rights of everyone to happiness and well-being.

… and that in any case I cannot be responsible for what was done before I was born, and that on the contrary, since today we see the results of earlier wars, we must take care not to bring about further injustice.

The pregnancy that wasn't

It’s not her in the photo, but it could well be. She’s also from Guinea-Bissao, a petite very black woman, usually quiet and seldom smiling, when she does her very white teeth and suddenly bright eyes lighten her face. I’ve known her, and been her doctor, for a little over 10 years now. As many others, she had just arrived from Guinea, evacuated to Lisbon due to needing dialysis, unavailable in her country. That meant she had to leave home and family (she had a little daughter) overnight, to live in Lisbon, where she had to make a living, since the agreements between Guinea and Portugal cover just the medical treatments, and the patients have no support whatsoever from their government. It’s the plight of several people from former Portuguese African colonies – Cape Vert, Guinea-Bissao, São Tomé, Angola – who need dialysis to survive and so have to make a living in our country.

So, this girl, who was 26 at the time, found some work as cleaning woman and eventually built herself a new life, with a new partner, sending money home to her old mother and her daughter, who later emigrated herself to France. I always liked this woman; she was never very compliant with therapy, she was always stubborn and sometimes silly, but she was hard-working, she never complained, and she cared about her family. Once, when I complained about the amount of anti-hypertensive medication she kept asking for, she told me: “My mother takes Norvax… I send it to her”. – By the way, that’s not the only time I faced this situation, I remember a man from Guinea who sent his HIV medications to his wife because she wrote him she was ill.

She had lots of problems – hepatitis C, an abortion, a renal carcinoma – but she kept on working and looked always the same. And then, recently, she told me she had missed her period. Women with end-stage renal disease rarely become pregnant, but I have seen a few cases, so I ordered a pregnancy test, and it was positive. I was worried – the chances of a successful pregnancy on dialysis are thin, and this particular patient had a lot of risk factors besides her renal disease – hypertension, hepatitis C, previous miscarriage… I asked her if she wanted the baby, hoping she wouldn’t, but she said she did. Probably because it would be a child by her new partner, I don’t know. So, I changed her treatment plan, changed her medication, sent her to the Obstetrics high-risk clinic. I’ve had a couple of successful pregnancies on dialysis, but I had a bad feeling about this one, too many problems, and I feared it would all end in her losing the baby and getting worse in the way. But I complied to her wishes, and we would try.

Then the obstetric ultrasound was inconclusive, and so was the confirmation blood test, they thought she might have an ectopic pregnancy, then an ovarian tumor, then finally she bled again and it had all been false positives. I must say I was relieved by it – I knew it wouldn’t end well, and it was good she wasn’t pregnant after all.

I don’t know if she felt sorry for not being pregnant. She just looks the same, I talked to her and resumed her usual medication. I’m glad she was spared an almost certainly unsuccessful pregnancy, but I don’t know if she understands it, I don’t know how she feels. She just looks the same.

Down Under, by Bill Bryson

I always wanted to visit Australia, and I hope to do so this year. So, to get some information and the feeling of the place, I ordered Down Under from Amazon. It was the first book I read by Bill Bryson. He's funny, sometimes a little too conscienciously so, but I was glad an Australian friend of mine told me the book was "pretty accurate". Anyway, I think my goal was fulfilled, I ended the book wanting more than ever to go, and with some ideas of what I wish to see. I hope I'll have some experiences of my own to share after I've been there. Until then, I leave you with some funny quotes of this book.

I am thus able to report that the following are all real places: Wee Waa, Poowong, Burrumbuttock, Suggan Buggan, Boomahnoomoonah, Waaia, Mullumbimby, Ewlyamartup, Jiggalong and the supremely satisfying Tittybong.

One of the most cherishable peculiarities of Australians is that they like to build big things in the shape of other things. Give them a bale of chicken wire, some fibreglass and a pot of paint and they will make you, say, an enormous pineapple or strawberry or, as here, a lobster. Then they put a café and a gift shop inside, erect a big sign beside the highway (for the benefit of people whose acuity evidently does not extend to spotting a fifty-foot high piece of fruit standing beside an otherwise empty highway), then sit back and wait for the money to roll in. [...] You can, if you have sufficient petrol, money and nothing approaching a real life, visit a Big Prawn, a Big Koala, a Big Oyster (with searchlights for eyes, apparently), a Big Lawnmower, a Big Marlin, a Big Orange and a Big Merino Ram, among many others.

Australians [...] spend half of any conversation insisting that the country's dangers are vastly overrated and that there's nothing to worry about, and the other half telling you how six months ago their Uncle Bob was driving to Mudgee when a tiger snake slid out from under the dashboard and bit him on the groin, but that it's OK now because he's off the life-support machine and they've discovered he can communicate with eye blinks.

Australia is mostly empty and a long way away. Its population is small and its role in the world consequently peripheral. It doesn't have coups, recklessly overfish, arm disagreeable despots, grow coca in provocative quantities or throw its weight around in a brash and unseemly manner. It is stable and peaceful and good. It doesn't need watching, and so we don't. But I will tell you this: the loss is entirely ours.

I really want to go there.

A week in Israel

Israel is one of those places that leaves no one indifferent. It arouses all kind of passions, both pro and against it; its geography and History is deeply embedded in our culture, and its modern politics has been used as a proxy for other debates for decades. So, there are a number of motives to go there; mine were mostly to visit a historic place so important for our own history and culture and to get to know its present-day reality first hand. Of course it’s not possible to become sufficiently knowledgeable about a country after a one week visit, but I came back certainly more aware of the real Israel than I was. I had my opinions about it, and they are not much changed, but they are somewhat more solid now.



We arrived at night, and after a surprisingly quick control at the airport (we had been warned they were worse than the US immigration, but it was not our experience, maybe because we were Portuguese Caucasian tourists), spent a night in Tel Aviv and collected a rental car in the morning. We left the city and headed North by the coast.



The first impression one gets from Israel, from Tel Aviv, its suburbs and the villages along the road (and later confirmed in the countryside) is how new and dynamic it looks. There’s building everywhere, houses and apartment blocks, the roads are in excellent state, everybody is rushing about their business. The new buildings are usually ugly, one gets the impression of people caring about practicality over esthetics, a little like Portugal in the 70s and 80s. The driving is aggressive and careless, worse than here, and it didn’t surprise me to pass several road accidents, some of them quite serious.



The first touristic stop was at the ruins of Caesarea, by the Mediterranean, a small site well preserved, with a beautiful aqueduct and lots of tourist excursions. We also passed a few luxury villas neighborhoods – as someone from facebook had put it: “where the rich and famous live” – and then met for a coffee a very nice and interesting Israeli lady living at Binyamina. It was our first long conversation with an Israeli citizen and, as later meetings with others would confirm, they often have very eventful life histories and experiences that are so alien to our own “normal” and protected lives, and help to understand the meaning of the state of Israel.



We then crossed the Carmel hills on the way to Haifa, passing several lively Druze villages – again the sensation of new and old mixed, the simultaneous strangeness and familiarity of a Western Mediterranean country with Middle Eastern touches. Haifa is a busy modern city with a big harbor, we just passed it and headed towards Akko.



We arrived after dark – in Israel the sun sets too early for the season, we later learned it was because the religious conservatives don’t want to change the time zone – and wondered through the narrow streets of the old city until we sat in a small Arab restaurant by an arcaded square and treated ourselves to a gorgeous Middle Eastern meal – the food in Israel is delicious, a combination of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine, with some influences from Northern Eastern Europe.



The next morning, we strolled along the old city of Akko – Acre of the Crusaders, the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem after the fall of Jerusalem. It’s an incredible place, a maze of narrow cobbled streets, shady arcaded squares, restaurants and cafés, minarets and small mosques, a lively souk and a beautiful harbor. The most impressive thing is that, unlike other well preserved medieval cities I’ve been to, this one is totally lively and lived in; you see the people going around on their daily chores, poor houses, ruined and renewed ones, and all the bustle of a busy neighborhood, which probably gives a more true sense of how life was in these cities centuries ago than the cleaned versions we see elsewhere. I loved Akko.



Leaving Akko, a careless driver bumped into our car while unparking; “in Israel we never call the police for things like these!” he said, and after settling the affair with the car rental company, we went on to Tsfat. It was extremely interesting leaving a lively predominantly Arab city and arriving in a lively predominantly Jewish one. Tsfat, the ancient Safed, has been for centuries the capital of Kabballah studies, and so it’s a center of Jewish Orthodox students and latter-days/New Age American hippies. Perched on a hill, with beautiful panoramic views all around, Tsfat is a beautiful place. We strolled through the Artists Quarter with its cafés, modern sculptures and American tourist/hippies, then the old Jewish quarter with souvenir shops and the old synagogues – we visited one of them, the Ari Ashkenazy synagogue. It was funny, after the Arab souk in Akko a few hours before, the Jewish souvenir shops, and the flock of Jewish kids, students at some Yeshiva, in his black hats and with their characteristic hairdos rushing for a fast food meal after class, as in any other Western city.



From Tsfat, we took a road along the Jordan valley, green and peaceful in Spring weather, towards the Golan Heights, where we stayed at the Merom Golan, formerly a kibbutz, now an inn. After an excellent dinner at the local restaurant and a good night’s sleep, we watched the landscape over the Syrian border and towards Mount Hermon, a beautiful green country. We then travelled across the Golan Heights, passing the imposing old Crusader castle Nimrod Fortress, adequately named Belvoir in the old days, until Metula, the northernmost city of Israel by the Lebanese border.



From Metula we drove south towards the Sea of Galilee, passing the village of Rosh Pinna, where we stopped for a lemonade and some sightseeing. At the margins of the Sea of Galilee, we passed the ugly Tiberias, a tacky summer resort, and continued south until the Roman ruins of Bet She’an, by the Jordanian border. It’s an impressive site, the old Roman city of Scythopolis, destroyed by an earthquake in 749, one of the best Roman ruins I’ve seen so far. From Bet She’an, we drove directly to Jerusalem, where we arrived at night after a huge traffic jam.



Jerusalem, at last, the uberfamous city. It was different than I imagined it, for the better. Old and modern, a cauldron of different cultures and religions – a cliché, but true. The first day, we went to visit the Yad Vashem, the impressive memorial to the Holocaust. An excellent museum, and the eerie Children’s Memorial, I went out overwhelmed as always with the enormous pointlessness of such atrocities, and wondering how on Earth anyone could still believe in a God of justice after what had happened. We met then another Israeli lady from Ashquelon, after a pleasant stroll in Mount Herzl, she treated us to a nice lunch in the beautiful neighborhood of Ein Kerem. We went back to the city center and took a stroll along the lively Jaffa Road, before meeting two Israeli guys for a beer, and another pleasant conversation.



The next day, we headed to the Old City. Traditionally, we went in through the Jaffa Gate, and walked along the touristy King David Street, a mix of Arab souk and souvenir shop street. The Old City is an incredible place, a maze of narrow streets, where in a few hundred meters one goes from a Muslim neighborhood to a Jewish one, and with churches and monks and nuns in the middle. Crowdy and touristy as it is, it still keeps the atmosphere of a cultural, religious and ethnic melting pot, very lively and surprisingly clean. We headed towards the Western Wall, the holiest of the Jewish places. It was full of people, mostly Jews and a lot of tourists. I don’t know if it was a special day, because there were a lot of Jews celebrating some religious initiating ceremony for young kids – they arrived chanting and dancing, then dressed them in religious garb and walked around chanting and taking pictures. I’m totally non-religious, but enjoyed watching the sight of happy people celebrating their culture, particularly meaningful after the morning at Yad Vashem the day before.



We left the Old City through the Dung Gate and climbed the stairway up the Mount of Olives, from where we enjoyed the spectacular view over Jerusalem, with the beautiful Dome of the Rock – the most beautiful building in the city – dominating the sights. On the top of the Mount of Olives we visited the small and neglected chapel of the Ascension, and then went back down and reentered the Old City by the Lions Gate.



I had not noticed the Temple Mount had a visiting schedule, so we got there just after closing time, and since the next day was a Friday, I wasn’t able to visit the Dome of the Rock or the Al-Aqsa Mosque – a good reason to go back to Jerusalem! But I saw the golden Dome of the Rock, and it’s as beautiful as I ever imagined it. So we wondered through the Muslim Quarter and the Via Dolorosa until the church of the Holy Sepulchre.



It is not a particularly beautiful church, but it is an impressive one. We watched the pilgrims kissing the Stone of Unction and queuing for the Sepulchre, and visited the deep Saint Helena’s chapel. I dreamt about the old times and the riots brought by the Holy Fire ceremony in the old days. We then had a pomegranate juice at a café nearby and headed towards the Jewish Quarter, with its Roman ruins, synagogues and tourist shops, and had a cappuccino at the Hurva Square.



The next day, we walked through the new city of Jerusalem – Rehavia, the Knesset, Jaffa Road, and the Mahane Yehude Market. It is a lively and cosmopolitan city.



From Jerusalem, we took the bus to Tel Aviv. It is a very modern city, no men in kipas as in Jerusalem, lots of café terraces and people walking their dogs; it was Shabbat, so most of the stores were closed. We crossed a quiet city and spent the morning in Neve Tzedek, an old European quarter founded in 1887 near Jaffa, with some interesting buildings and nice cafés; and HaTachana, the old railway station turned a pleasant zone of cafés and street performances. Then we walked along the seaside to Jaffa, the ancient harbor – again lots of café terraces, the marina, and the old quarter. Then, back to the city center, spotting some of the numerous Bauhaus buildings on the way.



We spent the last morning in Israel enjoying the café terraces and taking a look at the Carmel Market; then the taxi driver that drove us to the airport was a fitting final meeting – a talkative 40-something from Be’er-Sheva who had been all around the world in a series of jobs from trucker to male strippers manager.



All in all, it was a very interesting trip, and I liked the country very much. It was a good experience being in a young country where people are patriotic, so unlike this old and decadent Portugal, where history and the present are both so intense and all pervading. I sincerely wish them to solve the problem of the Occupied Territories, they’re such an indomitable and admirable country in so many ways, its very existence and democratic character quite a feat in such a troubled area, the occupation in its present form is hardly worthy of them. Guess things are changing though, with the coming of age of a mostly secular youth. I hope to go back – and still there is Petra, another place I always wanted to see.