It's a quintessential fado theme of lost sailors and sad widows: "O waves of the salty sea, where do you get your salt? From the tears shed by the women in black on the sad shores of Portugal." Suddenly it's surround-sound as the diners burst into song, joining the chorus. The man next to me whispers a rough English translation of the words she sings in my ear. I can smell her breath as she drowns out the sizzle of sardines with her plush voice. She's the star: blood-red lipstick, big hair, a mourning shawl over her black dress - but the revealing neckline promises there's life after death. The waiter sets a plate of fish and a pitcher of cheap cask wine on my table and - like a Portuguese Ed Sullivan - proudly introduces the next singer. The kitchen staff peers from a steaming hole in the wall, backlit by their flaming grill. There's not a complete set of teeth in the house.Ī spry grandma does a little jive, balancing a wine bottle on her gray head. An old bald singer croons, looking like a turtle without a shell. I grab the last chair in a tiny place, next to two mustachioed mandolin-pluckers hunched over their instruments, lost in their music. Old-timers gather in restaurants, which serve little more than grilled sardines, to hear and sing Portugal's mournful fado…a traditional lament. It's after dark in Lisbon's ramshackle Alfama neighborhood.
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