Wandering Lives

By Simone Malacrida

"Wandering Lives" is the exciting tale of seven women who intersect their existences with History and the events characterizing their endless wandering.
Maria, Jana and Agnes, by a strange will of chance, brush past each other's experiences without noticing each other.
Brought together by the tragic course of the 20th Century, they have not lost hope in the future.
Evelyn, Dafina, and Serena find themselves overwhelmed by contemporary society that forces them not to anchor themselves in the past.
Alone in the impetuosity of the present, they will manage to work out personal responses.
All the women will find their own dimension only after going through a series of trials and after finishing a journey that will lead them to the discovery of the self and the other.
Alongside them, there will be a common witness that the reader will discover page after page.
Closing the writing, a timeless figure, a mysterious female entity, will bring each tale and each thought back to a longed-for eternity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookRix
• Release date: Apr 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9783755439264

Simone Malacrida

Simone Malacrida (1977) Ha lavorato nel settore della ricerca (ottica e nanotecnologie) e, in seguito, in quello industriale-impiantistico, in particolare nel Power, nell'Oil&Gas e nelle infrastrutture. E' interessato a problematiche finanziarie ed energetiche. Ha pubblicato un primo ciclo di 21 libri principali (10 divulgativi e didattici e 11 romanzi) + 91 manuali didattici derivati. Un secondo ciclo, sempre di 21 libri, è in corso di elaborazione e sviluppo.

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Table of Contents

Table of Contents

SIMONE MALACRIDA | Wandering Lives

ANALYTICAL INDEX

RED

I | STORIES

II | THOUGHTS

III | DREAMS

WHITE

IV | STORIES

V | THOUGHTS

VI | DREAMS

BLUE

VII | STORIES

VIII | THOUGHTS

IX | DREAMS

SKY

X | STORIES

XI | THOUGHTS

XII | DREAMS

DESERT

XIII | STORIES

XIV | THOUGHTS

XV | DREAMS

OCEAN

XVI | STORIES

XVII | THOUGHTS

XVIII | DREAMS

LIFE

XIX | STORIES

XX | THOUGHTS

XXI | DREAMS

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SIMONE MALACRIDA | Wandering Lives

SIMONE MALACRIDA

Wandering Lives

Wandering Lives is the exciting tale of seven women who intersect their existences with History and the events characterizing their endless wandering.

Maria, Jana and Agnes, by a strange will of chance, brush past each other's experiences without noticing each other.

Brought together by the tragic course of the 20th Century, they have not lost hope in the future.

Evelyn, Dafina, and Serena find themselves overwhelmed by contemporary society that forces them not to anchor themselves in the past.

Alone in the impetuosity of the present, they will manage to work out personal responses.

All the women will find their own dimension only after going through a series of trials and after finishing a journey that will lead them to the discovery of the self and the other.

Alongside them, there will be a common witness that the reader will discover page after page.

Closing the writing, a timeless figure, a mysterious female entity, will bring each tale and each thought back to a longed-for eternity.

––––––––

Simone Malacrida (1977)

Engineer and writer, has worked on research, finance, energy policy and industrial plants.

––––––––

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

In the book there are very specific historical references to facts, events and people. These events and characters really happened and existed.

On the other hand, the main protagonists are the result of the author's pure imagination and do not correspond to real individuals, just as their actions did not actually happen. It goes without saying that, for these characters, any reference to people or things is purely coincidental.

ANALYTICAL INDEX

ANALYTICAL INDEX

RED

I – STORIES

II – THOUGHTS

III – DREAMS

––––––––

WHITE

IV – STORIES

V – THOUGHTS

VI – DREAMS

––––––––

BLU

VII – STORIES

VIII – THOUGHTS

IX – DREAMS

––––––––

SKY

X – STORIES

XI – THOUGHTS

XII – DREAMS

––––––––

DESERT

XIII – STORIES

XIV – THOUGHTS

XV – DREAMS

––––––––

OCEAN

XVI – STORIES

XVII – THOUGHTS

XVIII – DREAMS

––––––––

LIFE

XIX – STORIES

XX – THOUGHTS

XXI – DREAMS

RED

RED

––––––––

"Happiness does not lie in being loved,

this is but a satisfaction of vanity mixed with disgust.

Happiness lies in loving and stealing at most

some illusory instant of closeness to the loved object.

Thomas Mann Tonio Kroger

I | STORIES

I

STORIES

Dilma , what do you want to drink? Do you want some water?

My daughter begins to express herself with increasing clarity. At two and a half years, she already knows a complete vocabulary of many words.

She likes to hear me talk and tell my stories. She must have got it from my grandmother.

There are few people in this bar. A single woman, I'd say in her early thirties, is writing a letter and staring at the sea that can be seen from the tables immediately outside the club. A couple of men, presumably French, are talking to each other over wine, while two other women are sitting in a corner. They look like mother and daughter, they look a lot alike. The daughter will be twenty years old, a few younger than me and she is quite annoyed by what her mother is saying.

It's nice here outdoors, there's an almost summery climate even though it's only the end of May.

On a clear Saturday morning, I can enjoy this small town where I have lived for almost three years. I could not have done otherwise on the previous weekend.

It was all a din of engines and important personalities. The 1977 Formula 1 Grand Prix was held and Jody Scheckter triumphed .

Here in Montecarlo, everything stops for those four days.

Dilma points to the sea.

How I miss the ocean, very different from the quiet cove now known to my eyes.

How I miss the powerful wind, very different from this Mediterranean breeze.

You are like your father, my daughter.

Her father, my only love, was Fabiano Caetano, a lieutenant in the Portuguese Armed Forces.

I met him by chance in the Alfama district in Lisbon.

The panorama was not that of the bay of Montecarlo seen from the Rocca, but the immensity of the city of Lisbon, with the Bairro Alto, the Baixa at our feet and the ocean in the distance.

It was 1972, exactly five years ago and I was twenty years old.

I was wandering through the narrow streets of the Alfama, full of steep ramps and abrupt descents. Hidden by small ravines, the alleys all appeared the same in the eyes of a foreigner, or simply of a person who was not born there, but not for an inhabitant of that neighborhood. Every single stone, every single meter of those streets, carried within it a particular story, known only to a select few.

The threshold of my grandmother, Adelaide Gomes Pinto's house, had been obtained by reducing the entrance to an old shop that traded spices from the eastern colonies.

In that magical world, Fabiano Caetano moved like a stranger, dressed in a white linen suit with shiny black moccasins.

He was evidently lost, but his questioning expression could not erase the natural radiance of his face, which emanated from his delicate features as if they had been painted with a light impressionist touch.

I have to repay, don't you want something to drink?

It was his sentence at the end of the journey, as if I had been his Ariadne and that the labyrinth of the palace of Knossos.

He didn't even know my name, nor did I know his. Perhaps for that reason we used a formal and detached language even though the attitudes were of a completely different nature.

We knew nothing about our lives, but there had been something in those twenty minutes.

A spark and an alchemy.

I didn't have to wait long to see him again. The next day it was still there, in the same place.

I had never trusted anyone so quickly and following only my instinct, but I did it immediately with him.

Come with me to the Guincho , was his first request and our first outing out of town.

Carried on the wings of our understanding, we remained there until after dark. Our first kiss.

My daughter, your father and I loved each other intensely even if briefly. Two years have been worth a lifetime and you are the tangible concreteness of what, otherwise, would have been just a memory.

The lightheartedness of our youth was typical of that period and, perhaps, unrepeatable. Someone will also be able to narrate the life of us twenty-somethings in the early seventies in all the details, but no one will ever be able to grasp those sensations and thoughts if they have not experienced them firsthand.

It was true that Portugal hadn't fully experienced that wave of 1968 that swept across Europe and that there was still a semi-dictatorial authoritarian regime, but controlling the dreams and thoughts of young people was almost impossible.

There was no barrier between me and Fabiano, even though my family was made up of fairly well-to-do traders and my father didn't look kindly on a young man who, in order to emancipate himself from the humble condition of his lineage, had enlisted in the Army becoming in a short time an officer with a rosy future.

Maria, the uniform suits you more than it does me he used to tell me when, as a joke, getting out of bed half naked, I partially put on his uniform and his hat.

Summer and autumn passed quickly and the months chased each other as young and fleeting as adolescent races on the beach.

In my time, such a thing would not have been tolerated and know that your mother and I disapprove of your behavior, my father used to scold me about, in his opinion, the licentiousness of our relationship.

I knew well that it was a way to play a part and that my mother didn't share her ideas, but it was enough for me only to be able to see my love every day.

The only limitation to our idyll was what we could hardly trespass on. The governments friends and supportive of Caetano's – Dilma , you don't know how many times that same name with the Prime Minister in office had been a source of misunderstandings for your father – they were very few and the continuing economic crisis did not allow for accumulating savings to think of live like the wealthy.

Even my family came to tighten their belts during those years.

There is more and more discontent. I mean, not only among the people, the workers, workers and traders, but also within the Army, I don't know how it's going to end.

For the first time I glimpsed an expression of doubt about the future on Fabiano's face.

Promise me you won't get into trouble. Swear it.

I was sure that the strength of our bond could have defeated any negative event, simply by not making it happen and by removing it from our destinies.

But there are circumstances that do not ask permission to enter the lives of each of us. There are moments when we feel carried away by a current that is above us and that we cannot resist.

At that time, I could not know these things. I have learned them with time and experience and now I am telling you, my daughter, even if you are only a child. Who knows, listening to them from an early age, you'll be able to understand the unraveling of events better than me.

I knew that the supreme head of Fabiano's unit was General Kaulza de Arriaga and that the latter did not look favorably on President Caetano and his line, defined as soft against socialists and troublemakers.

Something will happen before Christmas, so Fabiano had told me, but I wasn't thinking of an attempted coup d'état within the Armed Forces.

One evening Fabiano didn't show up at home, a modest apartment we had rented in Bairro Alto to enjoy every moment of our love.

I had an uncontrolled tremor. I thought the worst. How would I have done without him?

I didn't sleep and stayed up all night. At dawn he showed up.

I greeted him on the doorstep, weeping bitterly and embracing him:

Luckily you've arrived. And you're safe.

Fabiano didn't seem impressed by that scene.

He let me vent, then he said:

Safe, at least for now. It's all failed. General de Arriaga did not succeed in his attempt. Now we are all in danger, at least as long as Caetano remains in his post.

How was it possible that there was a settlement of accounts within the same Army? How many were negotiating under the table to save their position?

Fabiano understood that he had entered into a very dangerous game and that we could not control.

Besides, there was no choice. Somewhere it was also necessary to take sides: either with President Caetano or with General de Arriaga or with the rioters.

Only one side would have triumphed and the others would have been shipwrecked, perhaps in bloodshed, perhaps in exile, perhaps amnestied but in any case out of contention for the future of Portugal.

We have to be quiet for a while and disappear from sight here in Lisbon. We take advantage of the Christmas break to go to Madeira. When we get back we will tell your family that we are engaged and I will ask your father if I can marry you.

Fabiano immediately knew how to lift the mood and how to give people perspectives. He would make a fine officer who would instill great confidence and a patriotic spirit in his soldiers.

I didn't believe my ears. Was I really about to get engaged to that young man I had noticed a year and a half before?

Suddenly, my life seemed to pale in the face of that occurrence. What had I done for twenty-one years but wait for that moment? How empty and vacuous the moments prior to our meeting seemed to me and everything accomplished without Fabiano's presence.

As expected, my father objected to that holiday, saving up appearances in the family with the classic Christmas Eve dinner.

I tried to talk to my mother, to tell her about our engagement decision. I knew that a clear opposition from my father could also destroy all our plans and I had to somehow soften that position by relying on the most powerful of social institutions: that of marriage.

I don't ask dad to agree with me, it's enough for me that he doesn't oppose it and that he lets me live my life, perhaps even making a mistake. I know how to take responsibility for a choice.

Mum was certainly surprised by my words and, perhaps, she only realized at that moment how much knowing Fabiano had changed me into a woman sure of her own ideas.

Madeira Island is truly that paradise that everyone describes.

A small rock compared to the immensity of the Atlantic Ocean, the same one that divided two worlds for millennia.

Because of that sense of isolation, it quickly became a magical and enchanted place for us.

Let's stay here forever and forget everything: the past, the future, the Army, President Caetano and your general.

It was a plea as moving as it was impracticable. I knew it myself, but I had to say those words. It was what I felt deep in my heart.

"I would like it as much as you do, but you know we can't. I have duties, we have duties.

Listen Maria...I have a friend from the days of the Military Academy, now he's stationed in the Navy on the frigate Gago Coutinho .

He's always been informed before the others of what was about to happen, maybe I'll try to ask him something."

It seemed like a good idea.

But be careful my love.

Year 1974: what would it have reserved for us? The marriage? Happiness?

They weren't questions we asked ourselves often, caught up in living the present and devouring all the moments. I certainly wasn't thinking of you, Dilma . And I didn't think about the Revolution.

They were two completely unforeseen events that I hadn't taken into account.

In mid-January, everything seemed to turn around for the better.

Fabiano officially went to my family to announce the engagement and to ask permission to marry me.

My mother had worked in the shadows, blunting a lot of my father's natural criticisms. His only request was to wait until the situation had settled down.

The situation? Fabiano asked uncertainly.

Yes, the situation of this blessed country. There are too many contradictions and too many movements right now. Something big is about to happen and before making decisions for life, you need to know in which company you will start a family.

It seemed like an excellent compromise. Waiting a few months, maybe a year, was nothing for us; on the other hand, we had had certainties from my father. There would have been no obstacles to our love.

"Maria, there is excellent news. You know that friend of mine who was in the Navy? It always has first hand updates. They were mobilized for joint NATO exercises and he learned that General de Arriaga allied himself with the President of the Republic, Admiral Tomas, effectively isolating President Caetano.

It means that there will be no summary trials and no one will come looking for us. If anything, it is Caetano and his followers who should be afraid of us."

Fabiano's euphoria was not shared by my family. Probably, being in contact with people for the wholesale and retail trade, they had a better pulse on the social and economic situation.

"People have lost much of their savings and the purchasing power of wages. There is little work and the ongoing crisis has ignited the hotbeds of revolt.

The military junta will hardly be able to hold power, so the question is: what will the Army do? Will he shoot into the crowd while defending Caetano? Will he overthrow it by installing an even harsher regime with more repression? Or will there be a civil war? Nothing good on the horizon."

My father was drastic, as usual, but he wasn't entirely wrong.

Fabiano dreamed of palace alliances, but what would the soldier base do?

Spring would have warmed souls, not just hearts.

Alongside the blossoming of Nature and love, there would have been a shock, but no one knew in which direction.

So everyone waited. And there is nothing more exhausting than waiting.

Let's leave Lisbon for a few days. Let's go south, in search of the first heat.

Thus it was that, listening to my requests, we became estranged in the interior of the Alentejo.

A region left over from the pre-industrial agricultural society. Olive trees and vines, oil and wine.

Expanses of land as far as the eye can see between Sierra towards Spain and the ocean.

It was in that environment that you were conceived, Dilma .

Now my daughter smiles. She has always had a calm character, she almost never cried or got nervous.

She took a lot from Fabiano and from the country life of that unforgettable week.

In mid-March we were back in Lisbon.

The Ides of March, it was at this time that Caesar was betrayed.

That sentence, said halfway between funny and notional, unfortunately turned out to be spot on.

On the morning of March 16, 1974, Fabiano was called in a fury from his headquarters.

Someone is marching on Lisbon, we have to stop them.

I thought it was all over.

Oh my God, the revolutionaries will take over!

But no Maria, what revolutionaries. It is the Army that is marching!

I was dumbfounded.

So part of the Army was with the revolutionaries? Or were they the troops loyal to Caetano who were trying to counterattack de Arriaga's moves?

I have no idea what's going on. Maria, now I have to go to command. Do you understand how important it is? You stay in the house, I'll call you as soon as I know something for sure.

So I did and waited for that phone call that never seemed to arrive.

I didn't know about you then, Dilma. Otherwise I might have acted differently.

Finally the phone rang:

Everything is under control, don't worry, Fabiano's voice on the other end of the phone had a reassuring tone, but deep down I understood how something was bothering him.

The fact that an Infantry Regiment had marched on Lisbon was significant even though the action had gone awry and over two hundred soldiers had been arrested before evening.

I rushed out of the house to go and tell my parents. Almost running, I got off the Bairro Alto, crossed the few streets of the Baixa and then immediately slipped onto the steep ascent that passes next to the Cathedral.

In a short time, I found myself in my familiar alleys of Alfama. There, not even a surveillance patrol could have followed me.

I could have entered any door and disappeared from the view of passers-by for tens of minutes.

When I communicated what happened to my family, there was no big surprise.

It was to be expected, said my father who then went on to ask me pressing questions:

Do you know who they were? Did Fabiano tell you? The movement of captains or that of the Armed Forces?

Besides not knowing any of this through my fiancé, I was unaware of it myself.

In the last two years I had lived only on love, estranging myself from political and social reality.

My father, on the other hand, seemed very knowledgeable.

I let him speak and understood that there were three main issues on the table of these revolutionaries: the end of the colonial war in Africa which had now lasted for over twenty years and which no one had yet resolved in an acceptable way, greater democracy through free elections and the loss of political power by the military.

All of this was seen as a necessary step to implement those reforms that would revive the economy and work.

And these revolutionaries, to my surprise, were largely backed by branches within the military.

It seemed strange to me that Fabiano knew nothing about it.

As soon as I learned that information, I tried to reach the headquarters where he served.

There were numerous checkpoints and as I got closer to it, I had to explain why I wanted to enter that place.

At first, a simple:

I am the girlfriend of Lieutenant Fabiano Caetano, then I increased the dose by replacing the word girlfriend with that of wife.

I entered the command and they made me settle in a waiting room not far from one of the side entrances, guarded by at least a dozen soldiers.

Ten minutes later Fabiano arrived.

What are you doing here?

I wanted to see you with my own eyes and make sure everything was okay.

We embraced and kissed.

Just think that a fellow soldier announced you as my wife...

That's what I said. To make sure I see you and then..., you hesitated for a moment but then blurted out, ...and then that's what I want.

We sat down and I explained to him everything I had learned from my father.

I only found out about it today. Until now I hadn't paid attention to what was happening because I was totally immersed in our relationship. It is all so absurd... General de Arriaga will have to move in advance if he is to implement his plan.

It was now clear that President Caetano no longer counted for anything and that, in a short time, he would be deposed by an action similar to a coup d'état perpetrated by the Armed Forces themselves.

But who would assume power?

The troops loyal to General de Arriaga and the President of the Republic Tomas or the revolutionary movements?

And then what would happen?

In the first case, the military would have strengthened controls and political repression, concentrating even more power in their hands. Perhaps Fabiano would have become a big shot, perhaps in some ministry.

But I could not understand if instead the revolutionaries had won. I knew so little about them that I could not make any predictions.

I didn't even know if the coup would lead to clashes with thousands of dead.

Dilma , I did not have a clear view of events then. A few years later, it was so clear that the attempts supported by me and Fabiano were unrealistic and wrong. Paradoxically, we are paying for the mistakes we have made due to a manifest lack of knowledge of the facts.

For a week, Fabiano went back and forth between headquarters day and night.

I can't trust anyone except those who report directly to General de Arriaga. We know that there are two high-ranking soldiers at the head of the revolutionary movements, General Spinola and General Costa Gomez, supported by operational elements such as Otelo de Carvalho and Antonio Ramalho Eanes . They probably hope to get something out of it in terms of political office, but we have to get ahead of them.

We ran into the unknown without being aware of the consequences.

We had the typical certainty of young people: that of never making mistakes.

In early April, it became clear that this would be the decisive month.

We have information that everything will happen in the second half of this month, but our plan will anticipate every move. We are in much smaller forces, but timing will be on our side.

Fabiano's safety clashed with what my family reported.

"De Arriaga's attempt will not change the course of events.

The only real obstacle to the Revolution taking power is how loyalist troops are really loyal to the government and to Caetano. Finally, there is the police. You would do well to talk to your boyfriend and make him give up this absurd attempt.

As long as you are in time, avoid harmful consequences for your future."

I didn't listen to my father's advice, thinking it was dictated by hatred towards Fabiano.

Maybe if I had said those words, we wouldn't have exposed ourselves so much and now everything would have been different.

I received an important task directly from General de Arriaga. I must take note of the military rioters. When we implement the plan, they will have to be incarcerated.

With those dry words, Fabiano communicated to me the decision that would change our lives forever.

Only now do I understand that, somehow, he betrayed the trust of his department, his superiors and his subordinates and betrayal is certainly not something easily bearable for the military hierarchy.

They will attack on April 25 or 26, we have the counter-moves ready. We know that their general command will be in Pontinha, at the barracks of the 1st Engineer Regiment.

But, despite all the efforts, neither Fabiano nor others had managed to grasp what would have been the decisive signal.

Dilma , you and your generation must always have your ears pricked to hear. The noises, the people and the songs.

Yes...just a song, popular and working-class, was the signal.

While we slept embraced, Radio Renascença , just after midnight, kicked off the longest day of my life.

At two in the morning the phone rang.

It happened, we have to move.

It was those few words from an orderly of General de Arriaga that pierced the veil on reality.

Only later did we know that there was no longer any hope for that attempt. The Armed Forces Movement had already arrested officers loyal to Caetano and occupied the Lisbon airport.

Shortly thereafter, television and radio fell into their hands.

Fabiano was called back to the Terreiro do Paco headquarters, where the government institutions were located.

The moment indicated by de Arriaga had arrived.

To his surprise, only a small number of officers followed that choice. Many had disappeared, probably the same ones who supported the revolutionary movement. Few remained at Caetano's side and very few with de Arriaga.

I stayed at home, immediately after notifying my family.

Dad was over the moon, not understanding the consequences this coup d'état would have on my future with Fabiano.

At four in the morning, it all became official. A communiqué announcing the coup d'état was broadcast over the radio. The population was invited to stay at home, in order to avoid street clashes.

That message would be broadcast countless times during that day.

The events of April 25 were obscure to me, only with the time I've had in these three years have I managed to reconstruct them.

Fabiano left the general command as soon as he had the feeling that this was going to become a trap. Indeed, both loyalist troops sent to break the siege, and the frigate Gago Coutinho who had been ordered to open fire on the rebels , refused to carry out what the commanders decided and joined the Revolution.

During that day, the majority of officers and soldiers disobeyed the military hierarchy.

It was a great civil disobedience movement carried out by the military. Incredible to think of it up until a few years earlier.

At noon, the Armed Forces Movement announced that it had taken control of Portugal.

At that point, what would the few loyalist forces do?

Would there have been a settlement of accounts?

But the pressing question for me was only one: where was Fabiano and how was he?

I hadn't known anything about him for about ten hours which, on a day like that, was really a lot.

I couldn't stay at home, I ran out in a hurry without having a precise idea of where to go.

I soon realized that the thought had spread rapidly; a huge crowd stood in the streets and one could do nothing but go with the flow.

In that whirlwind of people I felt safe.

No one will ever hurt us, I thought.

At the same time, however, I was confused. The confusion had gone to my head.

At one point I felt pulled.

They were my parents, evidently exalted:

We've been waiting for this day for forty years, my father began.

Then he pointed out to me a curious scene.

A flower girl was distributing carnations to the soldiers who had joined the population and invited them to place those colorful spring flowers in the barrels of their rifles, so as to simulate a joyful demonstration and not an armed revolution.

Put flowers in your guns hadn't happened in the United States, although the slogans had been coined there a few years earlier, but here in Lisbon.

In the afternoon there were clashes with Police, the last institutional body that remained loyal to Caetano.

Everything was resolved in a short time and the dead were less than ten.

A Revolution had been made in one day with little bloodshed. It was all over before sunset, only a few hotbeds of loyalist troops remained.

Everyone was waiting for an announcement from the Armed Forces Movement.

I went home, waiting to see Fabiano arrive.

Twenty hours after leaving that apartment, he reappeared looking disconsolate.

It's all done. Caetano surrendered and the military junta fell. Our attempt at counter-revolution has been a failure. They will come looking for us in the next few days, I don't know how it will end.

I had passed in a short time from a timid hope to an immediate terror.

I imagined revolutionary troops climbing the stairs, breaking down our door and forcibly taking Fabiano amidst my desperate cries.

Before midnight, General Spinola approved law number 1, the one that dismissed all fascist leaders such as the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the National Assembly, the Council of State, the Single Party, the Civil Governors, Police and Portuguese Legion.

Portugal was founded again and the transition phase would be managed by the National Salvation Junta.

In the following days, the situation seemed more and more evident.

Political prisoners were freed, other charismatic leaders returned from exile while Caetano and his faithful were forced to leave.

On May Day there was a big demonstration in Lisbon for 1st May. Someone said there were more than a million.

There was my family, but not me and Fabiano.

We were too afraid of what might happen.

Some questions remained open in the background: what would happen to the colonial war? Most likely the new rulers would have dealt with the colonies quickly and guaranteed immediate autonomy.

So they will bring dishonor on our country, commented Fabiano.

The guild system was abolished and a new economic and working model was established.

We will become a capitalist state with socialist orientations, I thought.

Exactly, everything against which we have fought for forty years.

Fabiano did not accept the new state of things. In his eyes, it was as if the entire Portuguese people had betrayed their history.

Perhaps that was why that charge hurt him so much.

By mid-May the first trials began against those who had obstructed Revolution, in particular against those who had obtained information on the rebels and had them imprisoned.

They will not defame me with treason charges. I have always done my duty, so Fabiano refused the lawyer's advice to plead guilty and to negotiate a small sentence, perhaps exile for a few years.

But don't you think about us and our future? I asked him directly.

At the time, I was still not sure if I was pregnant. A ten day delay didn't seem like a clear signal to me. Perhaps, if I had spoken to my mother earlier and if I had told Fabiano the truth, we would not have reached that point.

What intentions do you have?

I made myself more accommodating to get him to open up to me.

These trials don't last long, they have other things to do. There are urgencies on all fronts. I will prepare a memorial which will highlight my exemplary conduct towards Portugal and my absolute fidelity towards the homeland. Then they won't be able to convict me.

It didn't seem like a great idea to me. What one could be proud of up to a month ago, had now become something to hide while those who were considered a danger by society now managed positions of power.

Revolutions are like this: they suddenly change the social and political state and they do it irreversibly.

After two days, the defense brief was drawn up. In it, Fabiano proudly claimed his work, always based on the utmost loyalty to the institutions.

The Military Tribunal did not like this attitude at all.

The normalization process of Portugal was still in its infancy and they knew very well that there could be counter-revolutionary resurgences, especially since the Armed Forces Movement was by no means a compact coalition.

The military was divided into three different branches, while in the political parties there was strong uncertainty on the left, especially between socialists and communists.

Those written memoirs were used against Fabiano as if he himself had signed his own sentence.

The Military Tribunal imposed a very harsh sentence on him: life imprisonment for high treason which could be converted into exile for life only if he gave the names of all the conspirators, as General de Arriaga's loyalists were called at that time.

I will never betray my fellow soldiers, were his only words towards me.

It had been a month since the Revolution and now I knew I was pregnant.

I could have told him, but I didn't.

Dilma , one day I'll have to explain to you why I kept silent.

I didn't want to inflict such great pain on Fabiano. I knew his stubbornness and I knew he would never speak and that he would remain in prison, perhaps forever.

How to give him the best news there could be, that of becoming a parent, at a time when he saw his freedom deprived?

How would he have lived knowing that out there, in a society free to see the sky and the ocean, a child wholly alien to him would be born? She wouldn't have seen him grow up, start walking and talking. Fabiano would have remained imprisoned in a cell without witnessing anything.

I asked my family for help.

Psychological and economic support in view of your birth, Dilma .

Mom didn't ask any questions and gave me unconditional support while dad, always very thoughtful and with a far-sighted gaze, told me right away:

It won't be easy for you in this country if we don't manage to rehabilitate Fabiano. A wife of a traitorous military man sentenced to life imprisonment will not get very far and I dare not imagine her son or daughter. We have to find a mediation using some channels known to me.

Only in that instant did I realize that my father was offering immense help and that his resistance to Fabiano had been motivated more by political reasons than by personal grudges.

He had probably understood as early as 1972 what was going to happen in terms of the general situation in Portugal and, probing Fabiano's ideas, he had drawn the conclusion that that young lieutenant would have sided with the wrong side.

So why didn't he warn me openly years ago?

Why were events allowed to unfold in