The Egg Thief

The Secret Garden is cleaned of brush and seedling laurels and dead trees. One tree was so rotten, only a thin skin of bark held it upright, the remaining stump is more like sponge than wood. It was quite dangerous - someone, even a small someone leaning on it could have knocked it over, crashing into the wall and tumbling onto the sidewalk and street. It’s been a weeklong job, and the deadfall in the campo where all the pruned branches and sawed up tree trunks are thrown is now a massive deadfall more than eight feet high and twenty feet long. Soon a truck will arrive with a giant claw affixed to it, and haul it all away, to be replaced by the shipping containers that (now that we have our residence cards) will soon sail across the Atlantic with all of our worldly goods.

The Sintra municipal truck stopped by as Tiago took down branches, his long flatbed truck parked in the street to catch the falling limbs. We’re glad to see you cleaning this up, they indicated. For years now the trees of the Secret Garden have sent their branches arcing over the road, where they were brushed, bent and bowed by the tops of  passing trucks and busses. Over the years the only attention the trees in this half acre of space have received has been when the bombeiros stopped by to remove anything egregiously hazardous, according to neighbor Alberto whose garden climbs high up a hill across the street, thus ensuring he misses none of the goings-on over at our place. 

Espying the Sintra officials, he hurried down his driveway and across the street to check with Tiago what was up. It’s good to have a crew of Portuguese friends running interference for us with the bureaucracy, stories of which are legion though our experiences have so far have not been negative, merely slow. In fact just last night we received the third message from EDP, the electric company, informing us about a decrease in fees and rates.  Twice those messages have even included unasked-for refunds.

We are taking down all the problem trees and repairing the walls for the owners who are good hardworking people who are fixing this place up, Tiago told the Sintra officials. Very good, they said. We’re glad to see this taken care of.

Tiago has also spread goodwill among the neighbors at the back of the property, walking the property line with the h to survey the where, what, and how of fencing the boundary. What is all of this, neighbors have asked him, gesticulating to the construction materials that have languished there for years. The previous owner of the property was a developer, who granted use of the land to friend who owned a construction company and had an on-gong contract with the municipality to repair calcadas, curbs, streets etc. in the area. Of course the construction company owner took absolutely no care that his drivers/workers keep the space green, so over the years it became a barren quarter acre industrial materials lot, with piles of tiles and sand and bricks and concrete curbing. It’s an ugly view for the apartments that encircle the back of the property, and we will do something about it as soon as we get our living spaces squared away.

Meanwhile Tiago tells the neighbors, that stuff was brought here by a Portuguese company, and left. Now, Americans have bought the place and they are cleaning it up, and repairing the walls. He tells them he has been working for the new owners now for nine months, and that we are good neighbors to have, for we will take care of the property, removing dead trees and keeping the weeds cut. Everyone is happy to hear about it, he tells me. It’s been an eyesore for so long.

I am not super thrilled about fencing the four acres, but rebuilding the wall will take too long and cost too much. However, a barrier will be needed - in the year since we took possession of the place we have had people enter the property from the back, wandering about and taking whatever strikes their fancy - solar lights, tools, clay pots. I’ve walked outside to find a man having a look around my carport; I’ve found another photographing the roosters and heading up the road to the quinta like he owned by the place, until I stopped him and told him that I, in fact, owned the place and he needed to leave. We’ve caught contractors backing their trucks up and loading construction materials. We’ve found horses grazing the land, leaving enormous patches of horse manure and dead grass. And some time before we bought the place, someone or someones entered and chipped tile off the walls in the entryway, hallways, and bathrooms.

And of course, the piles of dog crap are ubiquitous; everyone in the vicinity has been using the wild four acres as a place to walk their dogs for years now, never bothering even to push the poop out of the center of the path they themselves are using.

It’s been deserted for so long, Tiago says, with a what-can-you-do? shrug. We put up a fence, they stop coming on the land.

Alberto sketched for us a few options for different types of fencing, even making some calls to price it out.

Save that, the h commented, handing me the design. I would have anyway, not only because someday it will be like a map of our early days here, but also because it reminded me, in its penciled precision and detail, of my daddy who, like Alberto and the h, was a project man through and through. An engineer, he would have immediately recognized a kindred spirit in Alberto, their shared ability to design solutions to the kinds of problems that are legion in this new home of ours surpassing any language barrier. I still find it hard to believe he is gone; I still cannot encounter the pictures in my iPhone on the day he passed without crying, remembering the urgent drive out of the wilds of backcountry Alaska into the nearest port city for a wifi signal, with his illness progressing always fearing to be out of touch more than a day or two, not knowing I was already too late. How I miss him

The northern flock has been mightily disturbed by all the sawing and trimming and hacking and blowing in the Secret Garden, which has been their safe haven, undisturbed, for decades. The h preserved the low branches on some of the trees so they can still roost more or less where they’ve been accustomed to… only now there is less dense leafy cover. 

Now that the Secret Garden is cleared it is not so secret-looking anymore, but it will be again - now that the sun can penetrate the depths, we will see actual growth, not just stunted undergrowth. The design of the garden is now visible, the bushes planted in such a way to form meandering pathways. It will be beautiful when it all grows in. 

Some of the trees that were not visible in all the chaotic under- and overgrowth now stand out. There is a palm I didn’t even know existed, right in the middle, wearing a crown of fans. The old tree that stands guard at the western entrance to the garden was always very visible but now somehow seems to stand out even more - it looks like an enchantment. As my friend Dennis put it, sometimes things look like they were, and maybe still are, something else. That’s this tree. To me it looks like a woman who has climbed out of the koi pond and is now looking up to the house in longing…or maybe searching for whoever did this to her, planning her revenge.

I found seven eggs in the crook of one tree, and another half dozen in the campo, though the latter had been discovered first by a rato, judging by the broken shells and the hole in one, everything inside neatly cleaned out. What else could do that? 

Last Friday before heading home for the weekend Tiago pointed out a hen sitting in the northeast corner of the driveway, her feather duster butt pushed right up against the stone wall that demarcates the front of the property. Dez ovos! he reported. The hen was so low profile that she looked almost melted, her little red-combed head with eyes closed sunk so low into the feathery boat of her body as to be barely visible. The next morning I went out to leave food and water for her, but she and her eggs were gone, leaving only a pile of weed trimmings matted down into a nest with a depression where the eggs had been. Later the h reported she was back on her empty nest, though later she gave up on it, and rejoined the flock free ranging around the campo and the quinta.

I am supposing the neighbor took the eggs though it is hard to believe. But it is even harder to believe a passer by 1) spotted the hen in the dark, 2)  guessed there were eggs under her, and 3) dared to jump the fence to take them. More likely the lady next door who has nesting boxes noticed one of her hens - there are three that are part of the eastern flock, which numbers twelve -  was missing consistently. I myself have noticed that only one is hanging about now during feeding time, with a gang of seven roosters. I assumed the other two were sitting on eggs somewhere. It wouldn’t have taken much for the neighbor to peer over the wall that separates our properties and see the hen sitting just inches away.

Still, I’d be surprised if it was her - a few weeks ago the h spotted her walking around the campo, squatting and peering around. We hadn’t yet made her acquaintance at that point, so didn’t know who she was.

Go talk to her, he said. Find out if she is one of the Travelers grazing their horses and otherwise wandering around the property at will, ignoring the privada sinais we put everywhere. 

I walked out to see what was up - I had been swatting flies and still held the fly swatter - but the campo was empty. Then I heard group of women from the neighboring backyard calling me over.

Desulpe, they say. Voce vi os nossos gatos?

One of the ladies was missing her cats, a black and white and a white. I puzzled how to answer. I see both cats from time to time - they wander my property with impunity, leaving cat droppings in insolent places such as the middle of the steps that lead from the pool house to the chicken coop, and on the kitchen patio outside the backdoor. Once, I was sitting by an open window working on my PC, the shutters closed but not latched against the evening breeze, and I heard a light thumping. I stood to open the shutters and was startled to see, in the crack between the shutters, a green eye staring at me. 

Hey, I said, and unlocked and opened the shutters in time to see a white cat leap lightly down and saunter away.

I’ve seen the black and white sitting amongst a phalanx of roosters standing in one-footed, motionless tableau; readers might be forgiven for thinking the cat was stalking the roosters, but the roosters are quite a bit bigger than the cat, with long spurs and lighting fast beaks. The cat often sits near them; maybe they are his security detail.

The last time I spotted the tuxedo kitty it was crouched beneath a car, Jake sniffing it out on our daily walk in the neighborhood behind our property. I pulled Jake away and the cat came out from under the car and hairy-eyeballed us all the way up the street.

Sim, I told the ladies. sim, eu conheço estes gatos - mas não os tenho visto ultimamente. Then I noticed the fly swatter still in my hand. I must have seemed slightly crazy to them, marching out of the house with my swatter to…what?

I smiled and introduced myself and the ladies all smiled (in relief, I think) and said their names. Eu sou a mamae de Paulo, one said explaining she is the mother of the young man I saw coming out the front door one day. We came face to face as he opened his gate, me walking Jake. This house to the east of us is our only true neighbor - all other sides of the property have high walls or streets - so I called out to him.

Ola! Estou o seu vizinho, I told him, gesturing at our place next door, a property that has sat vacant and decrepit for what surely must be the entirety of his life - he looked to be between nineteen and twenty four.

He ruffled Jake’s face, which Jake loved. I guessed he was the owner of the dog I hear barking every now and then from within the house.

I was still in the vestibule of politeness, explaining I am just learning Portuguese when he said in perfect English It’s okay, I speak English. Are you British?

I always find it amusing that I’m mistaken for a Brit, that my midwestern accent sounds the same to a Portuguese as the posh Received Pronunciation of Queen’s English. It’s a reasonable assumption for people to make - English have been coming to Portugal in droves forever - though less so since Brexit. Americans by comparison aren’t even in the top ten immigrants, though they are among the fastest growing.

Nos somos das Estados Unidos, I said. Alaska, I added, pronouncing it the Portuguese way: Alashka

Wow, he said. I’ve never been to the US! But I want to. I was born in Porto but I’ve lived here since I was three.

The bus droned past; our property shares the same address as the bus stop just steps away from our front gate. Paulo started to hurry, but turned and waved.

Nice to meet you. You speak Portuguese well!

As I turned to leave the group of women searching for the cat, the one who had been searching the campo apologized again. Desculpe, desculpe, she kept saying. She made a praying gesture with her hands and looked genuinely distressed.

The youngest woman of the group said in halting English, She is sorry for being on your property.

I smiled at her. Nao faz mal, I said, a very valuable phrase that literally translates to you make no evil, the way to say “no problem” here. She beamed at me. Given how embarrassed she seemed to be at being seen on our property without permission - and being observed at that - it would be strange for her to return in the night to take eggs, and even stranger to ask her son to do it for her.

I don’t like the idea of someone climbing the wall or opening the gate in the dead of night to rob a hen of her eggs, but clearly something like that happened.A rat would have eaten its fill and left the broken shells scattered around. Only human predators take everything, leaving nothing.

In the past I would have bought the reasoning that a passerby thought the place deserted and so felt no compunction helping themselves to ovos gratis, despite the No Entrada signs posted by the real estate company on behalf of the previous owner.

But now that the Secret Garden is so thoroughly, visibly, publicly manicured, now that the garage is repaired and repainted, now that the new greenhouse is visible on the hill, now that one long wall bordering the driveway is freshly painted, is very unlikely anyone walking past mistakes this place for vacant. Whoever entered knew they were entering an occupied property - the solar powered lights on the garage, walls, and uplighting the trees make that clear, even in the dark.  

I suppose I’m disturbed due to the history of theft we’ve had here - the man who entered our house in our first week here, stealing backpacks and tools, left more than just open shutters in his wake. The ladrao disturbed our peace in a very fundamental way. Waking up in the middle of the night in a not-yet-familiar place, thinking you hear someone walking downstairs, telling yourself it’s just the heebie jeebies staying in a tent in a looks-like-its-haunted house with no electricity…then waking to find that your ears did not deceive you, there was in fact a man prowling about in your house as you slept and he took everything of value you brought with you to this country you plan on making your home - well, it changes you. Even after the thief is located (thank you, AirTags) and much (but not all) of the stolen stuff recovered (thank you, policia), the changes he wrought stay in the pit of your stomach and the back of your mind.

Stolen eggs aren’t a big deal, but daring to cross a boundary of privacy to take them - that kind of is. Especially since I would have happily given the eggs to whoever asked, if only to spare the hen the trauma of being disturbed in such a way. I hate to imagine how it was for her, the sound of the gate opening waking her, staying as still as she could as the sounds of gravel crunching underfoot got louder, the predator looming over her, forcing her to flee with a great flapping of wings, helplessly watching from a distance away.

If it’s not nailed down, people feel free to take things, Tiago told us. You need not just fences but cameras. 

I have to remind myself that theft is certainly not unique to Portugal. In San Francisco, I never had a car that wasn’t broken into. We’ve also had tools and ski and motorcycle gear stolen out of our garage, and plants and packages stolen off of our porch. Once, someone dumped all the plants and just took the clay pots. Philistines. People can be so disappointing. 

Once, I walked up to my car to find a man inside rifling through my glove box. I bent low to look in through the window.

Can I help you find something? I asked him. He just stared at me.

I’m going inside to get my baseball bat, I said pleasantly. I played NCAA Division one fastpitch softball and your head won’t be moving as fast as what I’m used to. I ran up the steps to my door.

He took off but not before I did in fact return with my bat and take a few practice air swings. COME BACK ANY TIME, I bellowed after him. Childish, I know - it’s highly doubtful I’d attack someone with a bat for the theft of change and whatnot out of my car, but it made me feel less powerless. 

After struggling through the explanation to Tiago regarding what happened to the eggs, he speculated it could be one of the owners of the two cars more or less permanently parked in front of our gate. We should lock it, he said, meaning the gate, and I agree.  He told me about the man who came to the door while my friend Linda was visiting, asking to buy a rooster. Linda told him No, and when he pleaded she yelled “They are familia, familia!”  He got the message, she said. Tiago had observed the entire interaction and told me, they want the rooster for his….he paused and indicated slicing the neck. 

Sangue? I asked. He looked surprised I knew the word, and I reminded him I am after all an escritora dos livros de terror (thanks to my Portuguese instructor I also know the words for kill, werewolf, and assorted other horrory-type words).

It turns out that there is a traditional Portuguese rice dish with  a sauce made with the blood of a rooster mixed red wine vinegar - I’m pretty sure I understood Tiago correctly. I wrinkled my nose and Tiago assured me it is a very good dish. But it is hard to find a live rooster, he said. So people who like this dish, they will ask you to buy a rooster. 

I wonder if that’s the fate that my poor stolen rooster met. It sounds like a horror story - Blood of the Rooster. perhaps I’ll write that one of these days.

At any rate there is no use crying over stolen eggs. This afternoon Tiago called to me from the driveway and pointed at the place where the hen had been sitting on the eggs that were stolen. There, in the middle of the depression she had formed in the corner the driveway made with the stone muro, sat another egg, gleaming whitely in the shade of the wall and still warm to the touch.

Tiago said something in rapid Portuguese I didn’t quite catch. I heard maquina, but it seemed out of context. But I was wrong - or rather, right; Tiago repeated himself into his phone translator and showed me: She is an egg-laying machine!

It’s good! he said. I laughed and agreed and took the egg into the house.