The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico (8 page)

In indicating a place where one might still kill oneself with dignity, in complete liberty and in ways esteemed by our ancestors and now apparently lost, one does not pretend to offer a public service (though it could be that), but to promote reflection, from a purely theoretical point of view, on a liberty: a hypothetical initiative practised upon ourselves which might be carried out without sinking to the more disheartening and vulgar stratagems to which the would-be suicide inevitably seems to be constrained in those countries defined as industrially advanced. (Obviously I am not referring to countries where problems of political, mental or physical survival exist and where suicide presents itself as a form of desperation and thus outside the realm of the kind of suicide here discussed, which is based on freedom of choice.)

From this point of view Lisbon would seem to be a city of considerable resources.

The first confirmation comes upon consultation of the telephone directory, where the undertakers fill a good
sixteen pages. Sixteen pages in the Yellow Pages are a lot, you will have to agree, especially if one considers that Lisbon is not an enormous city; it is a first and very telling indication of the number of companies operating in the area, the only problem being that one is spoilt for choice. A second consideration is that death, in Portugal, does not appear to belong, as it does in other countries, to that ambiguous area of reticence and ‘shame.' There is nothing shameful about dying, and death is justly considered a necessary fact of life; hence the arrangements which have to do with death get the same attention as other useful services to the citizen, such as
Águas, Restaurantes, Transportes, Teatros
(I mention a few at random), all services of public utility which can be contacted by phone. In line with this reasoning, the undertakers of Lisbon do not shun advertising: and in the telephone directory they advertise most forthrightly, with show, with pomp, and undeniable charm. Sober or ornate, and using extremely pertinent slogans, they will often take out a whole page to illustrate their services.

Some of them appeal to tradition:
‘Há mais de meio
século serve meis Lisboa'
(has served half of Lisbon for more than half a century), boasts the advertisement of an undertaker based in Avenida Almirante Reis, and while the adjective
meio
referred to time seems to offer a purely historical piece of information, the
meia Lisboa
suggests something less statistically quantifiable, something warmer and more familiar; ‘half of Lisbon,' in this case, means a majority, almost all, with slight connotations of classlessness. The dead of every social class and level, the announcement implies, are looked after by this traditional and implacable undertaker. Other undertakers, on the contrary, stress efficiency and modernisation.
‘Os únicos auto-fúnebres automáticos'
(the only automatic hearses) claims an agency which boasts four branches covering the whole city. Modernity and mechanisation are powerful attractions, but this advertisement is certainly playing on the customer's curiosity. What on earth might automisation mean when applied to hearses? Worth checking out.

Almost all the undertakers also stress their experience and serious professional approach. To get this over, their
ads in the Yellow Pages are accompanied by the faces of the proprietors and their staff: the unambiguous faces of undertakers with years of honest and respectable work behind them. What matters here is reliability, competence and the division of labour. These people don't disguise the physiognomy of their profession; on the contrary, they display the stereotype with pride. They have sorrowful but shrewd faces, long sideburns and often dark beards, very carefully trimmed. Their shoulders slope a little, they have black jackets, black ties and quite frequently glasses with heavy plastic frames. They know how to manage the business of death, that much is clear, that's what they've always done and they're proud of it. You can feel safe with undertakers like this.

But the most interesting advert for the potential customer comes from a discreet undertaker which stresses its
Serviço Permanente
and offers this copy line:
‘Nos momentos difíceis a opção certa'
(The right choice at a difficult moment). Farther down in the ad, after the reassuring guarantee that the company uses only
flores naturais
, we have another line:
‘Faça do nosso serviço um bom serviço,
preferindo-nos'
(make our service a good service by choosing us). To whom can these lines be directed if not to the interested party him- or herself? The preferred target of this thoughtful undertaker is without doubt the man about to die. It is to
him
that the company wishes to talk, come to an understanding, achieve complicity. There is something of the conjugal in these bare and at the same time anodyne lines: they seem the quintessence of a contract, or a commonplace, they would be entirely plausible in the mouth of Emma Bovary's husband, in the evening in front of the fire. Or again in the mouths of any of us when we sit down to eat our dinner and set up a relationship of reciprocal connivance with what we call living.

Places to die, means of dying – they are so many and so varied one would need to write a whole treatise to cover them. I would rather leave the question up to the user, if only so as not to deprive suicide of that flair and creativity it ought to have. However, one can hardly avoid mentioning the means which, given the city's structure and topography, would seem to be Lisbon's chosen vocation: the leap. I appreciate that the void has always been
a major attraction for spirits on the run. Even when he knows that the ground awaits him below, the man who chooses the void implies his refusal of fullness; he is terrified of the material world and desires to go the way of the Eternal Void, by falling for a few seconds through the physical void. Then the leap is also akin to flight; it involves a sort of rebellion against the human condition as biped; it tends towards space, towards vast distances, towards the horizon. Well, then, when it comes to this noble form of suicide, Lisbon is certainly the location par excellence. Hilly, constantly changing, riddled with stairways, sudden terraces, holes, drops, spaces that open all at once before you, complete with historic places for Historic suicides (try the Aqueducto das Águas Livres, the Castle, the Tower of Belém), sophisticated places for Art Deco suicides (the Elevador de Santa Justa) and mechanical places for Constructivist suicides (the Ponte 25 de Abril), this beautful city offers the eager candidate a range of jumps unrivalled by any other European city. But the spot which lends itself more than any other to the leap is without a doubt the Cristo Rei on the banks
of the Tagus. Undeniably this Christ is an invitation writ in stone, a sculptor's hymn in praise of the leap, a suggestion, a symbol, perhaps an allegory. This Christ offers us the very image of the
plongeur
, his arms outspread on a springboard from which he is ready to hurl himself. He's not an impostor, he's a companion, and that brings a certain comfort. Beneath flows the Tagus. Slow, calm, powerful. Ready to welcome the body of the volunteer and carry him down to the Atlantic, thus rendering superfluous even the most solicitous attentions of Lisbon's undertakers.

For brevity's sake I shall say nothing of other forms of suicide. But before I sign off, one at least, out of a sense of some duty to a whole culture, I must mention. It is an unusual and subtle form, it takes training, constancy, determination. It is death by
Saudade
, originally a category of the spirit, but also an attitude that you can learn if you really want to. The Lisbon city council has always made public benches available in appointed sites in the city: the quays by the harbour, the belvederes, the gardens which look out over the sea. Lots of people sit on them.
They sit silently, looking into the distance. What are they doing? They are practising
Saudade.
Try imitating them. Of course it's a difficult road to take, the effects are not immediate, sometimes you may have to be willing to wait many years. But death, as we all know, is that too.

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