We were fairly intimate in Goa,
which is why when she came to Lisbon, we spent a good amount of time together.
It was in the course of these meetings; long, languid summer afternoons in the
park, that she, a regular visitor to Lisbon, felt the need to educate me in the
subtle manners of Portuguese society.
‘When you meet a
fidalguia’ she informed me, ‘you don’t
kiss her twice as you would do with other women. You kiss her just once’. My
eyes opened up wide, confused and perplexed. ‘But
mana,’ I responded ‘how will I know if she is a
fidalguia?’ She just smiled at me
nonplussed, ‘Don’t worry, you will!’ The conversation turned then, to this and
that and other matters.
Given the multiple, and fine
gradations of elite Portuguese society, the issue of what exactly is a fidalguia is still one of the mysteries
that I am struggling to decipher. However, it should suffice us for now to know
that a fidalguia is a lady of the
upper strata. In the interim however, I
had still not figured out how I was to locate a fidalguia from a crowd of mudbloods, and how was I to respond to
such a lady when greeting her.
The opportunity arrived at a
party one evening when introduced to a venerable older lady who had obviously
heard of me before our meeting. ‘Jason!’ she tinkled, wafting over to me, ‘I’ve
heard so much about you!’ It should have been the bouquet of aromas that wafted
before her, and the baubles around her neck that should have given it away, but
the little wheels still did not click into place. The tinkle, the wafting and
the scented breeze the gusted before her had me primed for a double kiss in the
air. It was only when I was locked into cheek-grazing embrace, when I tried to
disengage after the first formal peck and move to the other cheek that I
realized I was still being firmly held on to! The nice old lady was not letting
go of me! A few seconds later, she let go and with her right hand that held my
own right palm steered me away from her.
I had apparently met, greeted and embraced my first
fidalguia, and as it turned out, received one more lesson in my
continuing education in the customs and manners of the Portuguese gentry.
It turns out that it is not so
difficult to figure out which woman one kisses once, and which woman twice. It
is apparently not the baubles, or fancy perfume that one must watch out for,
since as everyone laments, the ‘real’ old families in Portugal are now quite
impoverished.
What one has to be alert
to in this greeting ritual is the body language of the woman that you bend
forward to greet. While with most women one moves forward for the perfunctory
kiss on the first cheek before moving on rapidly to the other; these ‘ladies’
hold onto that single kiss a few moments longer than would be necessary in the
case of the regular double kiss. The pressure that they apply on your arm as
you bend in for the kiss also seems that much more firmer, than in the case of
the regular touch-and-go. In the poor language of one unused to such elaborate
ritual, I would surmise that given that they are denied the opportunity to go
for the double-kiss, the time they take to effect the single kiss is as long as
that taken by more ‘regular’ people. The key to the ritual it appears is in
being aware of the oh-so-subtle messages that are being communicated in the
course of the otherwise quotidian and banal gesture.
Thus armed, onward then, to future adventures!
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