Do you want another life?

Preamble

- Good Morning. The question "Do you want another life?" is full of promise but as enigmatic as your novel "White Armchair". From what I glimpsed, the subject is a continuation of this "white chair."

- Indeed. The story have the same acters, with one more. They live together in Portugal, where Manu, the heroine of "White Armchair" had set up another life after the one in Belgium. If you remember, Manu caming from Belgium, was married in her second Portuguese family in the Algarve where she has encountered her father. Its Portuguese half-sister, Luiza is becoming the heroine of this new story introducing this new character. This time the story is moving in the Lisbon area.

- Why Is Portugal the country where you fit what we can call your second volume?

- Portugal is a country that I love. I spent three times good time in the Algarve, twice in Madeira and twice in 1980 and 2014, in the Lisbon area as a certain pilgrimage. Returning to a region reveals differences in time. More occurrences are remote and are becoming more interesting. A lot of water under the bridge must have sunk since my first visit in Lisbon. Alarming articles on the situation in Portugal ruffled me a few hairs on the skin. There was talk of uncontrolled skids, for example.

- So you love the country and its capital.

- Yes I'm living in another city, Brussels. That means that I know the advantages and disadvantages that can make a city. Lisbon's history is a Babel who lived ups and downs dazzling overwhelming for people. Not for nothing that nostalgia is part of his mood. Before the earthquake and tsunami in 1755, Lisbon saw coming wealth of cargo, with colored men often treated as slaves in the shadow of prostitution and begging. It was only fifty years after this natural disaster, under the impulse of the Marquis of Pombal, the city was reborn from the ashes with the taste of the enlightenment. She became a business city and catholic. Lisbon discovers often preceded by a great noise depending on the mood of the day of his visitor. It does offer walkers as patients and not the top of the castle of St. George which gives a beautiful landscape for the tourist photo where you can find nothing but reflected realities of everyday. Built in tiers, the bottom of Lisbon, Baixa district, was restored by the spirit of the famous Marquis with streets at right angles and up, Baioro Alto de Alfama, best preserved, its always kept maze of narrow streets, small trades, greengrocers, fishmongers from. My heroine lived in Alfama, but had taken courses in 2001 in the new Lisbon and continued to exercise its knowledge as laboratory assistant returning in the lower city.

- Did you lear a little about Portuguese history to know its characteristics?

- In fact, during my first visit, I made ​​better by studying its history in detail. I knew after successive kings. But I have lost a few pieces of this long history to retain only that had to do with the needs of the time of my last trip. My book is almost uµin a full actuality, I did not have to go very high in time. It begins on the first day of 2014.

- Why the city continues to interest you?

- As I said, the national anthem of Portugal remains the fado singing melancholy and saudade exile. When the sea for single wasteland, as sang Jacques Brel, only recourse in case of misfortune and that is revolutionary by destiny, singing life, so hard that we can live it, we always end up forget his sorrows. "These are small nations who are more likely. They jump into the water with their few assets and their big ambitions," I read somewhere about it. We are far from the time of the discovery era of Henry the Navigator, Vasco da Gama, Zarco, Cabral. The Manueline art and tiles found at every street corner, reminiscent of the historic heritage.

- Since we are in the news, in Portugal today, what happened according to you during the last decade?

- That exile continued. 250 million people speak Portuguese in the world in a real diaspora. Since 2010, 100,000 young pushed by the crisis, resume sail each year, while expatriates only dream of return. The film Ruben Alvez, "The Gilded Cage" and the book of the Nobel Prize, José Saramego "The Stone Raft" imagine Portugal adrift in the Atlantic. It's saying something. You are aware that the former Prime Minister Jose Socrates was indicted for tax fraud, corruption and money laundering. He ruled the country between 2005 and 2011.

- Indeed.  But Lisbon has kept the charm as tourists return each year.

- Of course. An old-fashioned charm, always loved by tourists. But the average age of the population has aged Lisbon with the houses that inhabit them. Many young people have gone elsewhere if the grass is not greener, hoping one day to return. It would take ten times the national budget to restore everything in the town from what I've read recently. Portugal, which had attracted Manu, my former hero, there was nearly thirteen, lost some feathers on the altar of banks. The country found itself like a ship on the European ocean swaying dangerously. Ship took on water in an austerity regime. A project like the 1998 show is no longer in the program. The crisis led to 500,000 job losses, reduced wages by 12%. Frozen rents have hindered the normal operation of the maintenance of dwellings. So, in an atmosphere of gloom, we deal with the most pressed with an inventiveness found only by necessity. To save the architectural heritage, for the most wealthy tourists occupy new luxury hotels, it sells off prices. The 2014 World football has a low profile in Portugal, although Ronaldo is still ranked number one. The other Portuguese-speaking countries, Brazil is not a shadow of himself, while the huge investments made ​​have had the downside and foreign countries as beneficiaries. Fortunately for the Lisbon native, there saudade which carries this love and death. In its procession in honor of Nossa Senhora da Saude, the Atlantic swells of foam attracts surfers, offshore wind, oil and gas deposits that make you dream and are, as you say, that tourists, but also investors return. Hopefully they fulfill the palaces that remain desperately empty outside the beautiful seasons. Continental Portugal has the sweetness of Madeira.

- All this we may be away from your book.

- No, that explains it. There are no secrets as in the "White Chair". This novel is pure fiction again with fictional characters, but unlike the previous story, we are, within a year, in full today. It is not a story but a reflection of the experiences of the Portuguese. If you hear a little less news than those from Greece, thanks to the retention of the Portuguese population. Heroin, Luiza, lives in Lisbon since the early years of this century, where she followed her life as laboratory assistant. This January 1, 2014. She is 32 years old when my story begins. 32, the age of reason and sometimes of unreason and questions. It does not feel good about herself. She managed his studies and, despite this, finds himself caught up in the turmoil. Everyday situation, perhaps, since this is a very common feeling in the whole Europe. But it all depends on the psychology of his mistress. 

- A story about the poverty of the people?

- I Don't. A story about a meeting with someone very different from Luiza, one of the heroine of the previous novel, which has already lived a lot, which was launched in genetics, which was successful and had failures before. Without him, without a meeting, Luiza who has not the ardor of his half-sister, might have foundered. It was the catalyst for change that will take place in it. Somewhat inspired by gentillet TV movie "Fallen on the head" which featured a pretentious businessman and a full artist sensitivity and candid. Following a shock, this businessman does not remember anything. Luiza is going to have the same disappointment. She will follow this man as if it were a lifeline, a scientist completed her age. A training shock that will not be safe for her.

- You have inspired this TV movie for the background. And form?

- For the form, perhaps the book I talked about in the article "The key to psi ψ" which mixed fiction with proven scientific realities. I gave her first name, Jose eto my new hero of the story.

- Will you introduce yourself in the shoes of one of the characters in the story and talk in the first person?

- I really hesitate to use the word "I". Then I discovered that it was easier to be part of history by not repeating "Jose said," "Luiza did." No, I was neither one nor the other. I do not have the skills of the character, "José" nor the feelings of "Luiza". I had to inform me about some more scientific passages. The "I" will change head in history. Each will speak in turn, on its own behalf. Do not worry, at times, I will be speaking as a spectator or as an observer. I remain master aboard my story (laughs).

- You did not give him a little to the character of "José"?

- Yes, of course, a little. I know my strengths and my through. I know that may shock psychologies that can be encountered in life. It is also more of a psychological analysis of characters of a tourist visit with accompanying description. The decor will take up less space than in my first volume. As I said in the introduction of the first volume, an eternity is it not made of coincidences and anecdotes that take the time they want? (Laughs) But time, age helping, it is that the designs change. No Portuguese words, only "Tudo bem". Magic words, ultimately.

Happy reading ...

01. Wake unusual on a bench.

"Life is a dream, it is the awakening that is killing us.", Virgina Woolf

1 January 2014: Cascais. The day after New Year..

Fireworks went out.

Luiza is lying on a car berth.

The window is open and brings a breath of wind whipping his face.

The first ray of sunshine does not appear again. It is already clear and bright.

She has a terrible headache. With one hand, she felt that big bump on his forehead which can give a reason . However, it did not really hurt this side. She must have fallen head banging somewhere in the night. Her headache comes from elsewhere.

It is unclear whether it is the noise from the street or a cold gust of wind that has awakened. His eyelids are heavy. His clothes are wet and joint  not wanting to relax without this superhuman effort.

Her heart was yet stirred to come out of this lethargy.

To his right, through the window, she's scanning her environment. The immediate horizon she does not recognize.

She turns her head to the left.

There, she realizes that on her side, there is a man she does not know. Never seen..

The first smell that comes out of the fresh air coming this way: a terrible smell of alcohol.

At her feet, a bottle spilled on the floor. She let out a fragrant casting on the carpet.

Given that taste bitter she has in her mouth, she's realizing that she has had to eat too. But she cannot remember. The vacuum was installed in his head. A sidereal space which she doesn't even suspect the extent.

Feeling lost, she tends a little more out of this improvised berth. She's leaning in that direction again to see the hair of the fellow sufferer who doesn't move next to her.

Misfortune, that's what she thinks at first. The long hood of the car, the dashboard forced her to change of mind. She has not had any single accident.

Hair black man with gray temples. It is beautiful, she cannot say otherwise. He pleases without any ostentation. The gray temples leave imply without much error that his age is more advanced than her.

He's resting his head on the headrest. He's still sleeping deeply with some echoes of snoring.

Luiza is realizing she needs to get out of this torpor that keeps this lying down.

Gradually, she's really beginning to awaken, to stir. She's seeking the wheel of her seat to straighten it.

A thought comes to her with the fear with a question:

Have I spent the night with him? Did I give in?

It's becoming almost an obsession with having been sexually abused by him as a result of the drinks she had to swallow.

And other more general questions come in cascade.

What am I doing here?

Did I know this boy yesterday, in a recent or a more distant past?

If she does not know, it does not longer possible to recognize where she is. Nothing around her as if a tragedy had happened or that everything had changed.

Her thoughts stop this finding: she does not remember anything.

A final gesture, lower the visor to candling in the mirror. Find out or navigate to her face, is its first initiative in an attempt to awareness when everything seems different.

Who I am? A panic seized her.

I have lost my memory.

Its headquarters statement, she's puting on a bend.

No woman bag around it, so, no papers any more.

Focus to imagine and try to reconstruct what the immediate past could be.

Once more, nothing to do. The hole.

Reassurance comes to mind. This man, I must have met him the day before by chance. Nothing more. Think of evil is part of my imagination, of, may be, my subconscious.

And it still reek of alcohol and keep it a pasty mouth that is a gene.

We must stop this emptiness, this nothingness.

"This stranger should know more about me and what happened, since I'm next to him", she said.

She must decide to wake him.

She's shaking this unknown driver and launches:

- Wake up. Who are you? What are you doing there?

She does not dare to add "Who am I?" or "What am I doing with you then?".

Proceed in the order and recollection. Especially try to stay calm.

-----------------------

 

2. José clock in the confrontation

"This world in itself is not reasonable, that's all there is to it. But what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and this desperate desire for clarity whose call echoes in the depths of man.", Albert Camus

 

Shaken like a plum tree, I wake up.

That morning, feeling the tense atmosphere next to me on the seat of my car, I throw almost angry.

- Hey, darling, stop there. The night was very short. I still want to sleep. Who am I? Don't you remember?, Jose is seeing.

- I do not remember at least youself?

- Yes, even since we met. Continue in this intimacy, if you prefer.

- Yes, we name terms. Intimacy allow me maybe to get back on our common path and ...

- On our joint track? Do you mean? A bit short this track. I can still also allow me to have this question "who are you?", Then it would be up to you to tell me. But you told me that your firstname was Luiza. But apart from that, I do not know much about you.

- Thanks to reveal my name, go further, do you.

- Okay. To get to know and please you, I begin the presentation by myself. After the steam will be reversed. To the question "Who are you, do you?" To which I could not answer that only a small part. But in order to begin, to know that my name is so, a small one: Jose. I'm seeming to remember that I have told this to you. My name is Alvarez. To serve you, dear Luiza. Nothing very original in my name too. As you can see a normal name in our beautiful country of Portugal.

- So what?

- Okay, so ... When we met last night you were already a little tipsy, just imagine you seemed to run turbo and to travel on a cloud after what you had swallowed as port or other things more alcoholic. You don't know, that early morning when you were left out of the bar in the "Fado", I followed you. You had seemed to me as an unnamed exuberance. See you a little unbridled, I had come to the conclusion that you could throw you into the water accidentally or something similar without even meaning for me to find out. I was afraid for you. I was right. I have saved. In part, at least, because you fell.

- Ah, well, I fell, but I'm still here. Apart from a bump on his forehead that reveals me maybe to remember it...

- Wait, I'm getting there. Fell, fortunately, not in the water but on a very hard floor. When I've recovered, you were passed out cold and numb. I had almost to transport you or even fired. Since I felt myself unable to drive, I did install you in my car waiting for the morning that could not delay. And now this morning, angry, you woke me up and shook me. You're going hard, all the same like women can have as reactions. But, I do not blame you. It was high time to do so and to wake up. Is this explanation will be clarifying the situation for you?

Luiza between agitated and calmed down, listened to me patiently. At the end of my statements, no reaction to tell me more. She's expecting me to pretend to add anything concrete in a chronological sequence of the recent past.

I continue since it seems to have nothing to respond to change or confirm my statements.

- I am Portuguese, like you, I presume. You are young and I have some rods older years than you as you can see. I have 55 who rangs the chime of the clock. I have already given you some information about me. Now be a little less secret. You could try to tell me a little more about you. It's your turn to tell me more.

- Pretend I do not remember because I can not answer you and tell you more from my side. Continue to expose your ego. I like making people's ego.

My ego? Certainly, your humor amuses me. I resume my monologue in one direction.

- So, let's go. I originally trained as a computer engineer. Feeling that the computer was out of favor, I threw myself into the study of neuroscience wherein I became much more then fashionable. I have a newer specialization geneticist. At the outset, I liked it and I became a recognized expert. I always liked the futuristic projects and I am committed to the project "Human Brain Project". You probably dont' know about it, but it does say the aim to know more about the brain. This project is global. This allowed me to begin to travel all around the world. Often in the United States and Japan, but not only. Understand the craze for Japanese robots and American technologies are on the menu. This description will you suit as myself?

- Yes, yes. I try to place myself through you. But it's not getting better. I remain stalled. Gears or changes speed and I will try to follow you in your wake.

- Ok You lie.. Not sure I get there. We have not talked about that last night. It was the festival and we forget to talk about problems, troubles and sulphurous ideas work when it's party. Cultural exchanges are often under the cloak. I forgot, I'm multilingual. Portuguese, I speak English, Italian, Spanish, French and I have Japanese vocabulary basics in my bowl of foreign languages. I have to have an American accent for a Portuguese by birth who has not left the country. I come back from the States.

Ok. The continuous blackout. Still nothing, I continue after regaining my breath.

- At about you, you should give me some clues. You told me so little about you. It was just an impression I had of you. It was as if you wanted to blow you in a great final jump. Printing or intuition. In my view, this finding can not help you anymore to find yourself.

Admiring and interested, Luiza remains bay mouth for a long moment of silence.

I begin again one last time, without delay.

- I came back from the United States, there are some days for year-end holidays. I often take my winter vacation here for a month. On the other side of the Atlantic, I assure you, it is much colder in winter than here. Last night, I was partying on New Years Eve with friends when I met you, Luiza. We had a good time together. From that, I can confirm to you. Not to say, you have a sense of humor and we laughed a lot. Do you really want to give a response to our laughter by your own memories?

- Give you a suite with my own memories? With my hidden humor, do not expect too much. I believe you have said, I do not remember almost anything to me, not to say anything. Alcohol brings humor and fantasy, right?

- Where you live? What is your job? What about your family situation? These are subjects that you did not tell me, and now you do not want or cannot talk either. There, you really amaze me. We could hire you as a secret agent. Search in your memory, the smell of alcohol should have dissipated by this time. If you could answer me a question or two, it would suit me to drive you home or somewhere of your choice.

- Sorry. You will do without.

- Ok Let's get out of the car and let us walk.. At the free, fresh air, it will perhaps refresh your memory to recall certain things you by the surrounding decor.

- OK. I hope so.

The car was parked in the center of Cascais.

We leave the car.

In the sky, a permanent gray kingdom.

The air is colder and wetter than expected. I straightened my collar and I see Luiza shivers and did the same.

She casts a glance at the body of my car and emits a whistle of admiration that I easily noticed.

- Do not get any illusions, this sedan is not for me. This is a car rental. I prefer a 4X4 but there were no ones available at the rental agency.

Non reassured approach begins Luiza morning walk one meter away with me.

Confidence does not seem to be back. It's the least I can say.

The city's central square occurs after crossing the English pubs Harley Davidson and Duke names. The statue of Pedro 1 in the center, looking out to sea in the direction we are headed. Near the citadel, another statue, that of the last King of Portugal, Manuel II.

The city is still asleep. Rare passers and bartender who returns inward few tables and chairs. The blare of the ball gave way to silence after Eve.

Where the fault lies between the known and the unknown to my teammate for a night, Luiza?

I commit myself to ask question after question to determine this.

Maybe she has lost her memory temporarily, lost links with the past and the memory can get her back soon, I told myself.

I'm wrong, though.

- You really recognize anything of where we are? The harbor, boats that float are not familiar to you? Walk up to the citadel ...

- I've never set any foot here.

Pointing my finger at the ramp that leads6 to the citadel, I throw:

- Do you know that this is where you've been walking at that location and that this narrow parapet you did a tightrope? Then, you fell a few meters down? Than worried, I rushed to rescue you when you were passed out and I took it back to you at arm's length into my car. As I could not get behind the wheel with alcohol dose I had swallowed, I decided to stay there to sleep until you woke me up.

- Me, a tightrope? Are you kidding?

- No, no kidding, you played the tightrope in blustering on this railing in the ascent to the fort. Finally, what had to happen happened. You have fallen there, four meters down the nets and cashiers to fishermen molds. I rushed to your rescue. The boxes in which you fell have not suffered. They have no memory them. But you seemed to miraculously not too bad shape. You should have some memory remains. Do not you think?

- Please tell me this. You're right, this would be a beautiful fall, but I still can not remember. It is as if you were telling me the story of a stranger.

A bit shocked by its casualness, I insist. I repeat myself without even realize.

- Good. You annoy me in the end. This is understandable after alcohol you drank, but now awake, having been able to sleep off in peace, you could inform me of what you have done in life before this crazy night.

- I think you're going to stay on your hunger for information and your nervousness. I learn more from you, I can not tell you about me.

- Dig a little. You remember what? How far your memory is present?

- I remind myself from this morning. I was in your car. You were asleep when I woke up and I woke you up, shaking you. That's it. Before, the hole.

I understand that our walk is not going to bring more success.

- And you think you'll make me swallow this, of course. Back. What do you prefer? I then lead you to the cops at the hospital or my mother, where I wanted to go this morning to wish her good wishes for the new year 2014?

- Anything but the police let alone the hospital. They will not believe me to the police or they will put me under observation in a madhouse out of the hospital.

Retracing our steps, Luiza look, again, above the slope before answering.

- It is not possible that I could do this. Now I feel I'm dizzy, just to see the place of my dive.

- You do not get dizzy this morning that I can assure you. Let's say it was a temporary insanity.

- Call it like you want. I should not be in my normal state. It is also safe.

I understand that I must gradually slow down, change in attitude and policy. Soften me with it.

- Dear Luiza, get up in the foot. I am trying to determine what for you is normal or not. Question me again. We'll see where does your 'normal'. I do not know where to start. Your memory seems to be as shabby wall. You do not see that brick building since the overlays are loss.

- I count on you to make me a complete facelift.

- You are certainly not come this far by car, but the train was coming from Lisbon.

- I do not know. But, as you say, it's probable.

- I'm not going to ask again what work you occupied you, but if you had to rebuild your life, according to you, what you could have done and love to do in life?

- Have a farm and raise animals.

The answer was part without hesitation. That surprises me.

I cast a glance at the hands of Luiza. Manicured hands, long nails. It is clear that it was never farmer and it must have an intellectual job. There is no doubt in my mind.

His subconscious must have answered for him.

- Have you family, friends? No memory of that side, either? I guess.

My question to the angry.

- How many times do I have to repeat it. If I had knowledge of my family, I would join them immediately.

- Okay. Do not get excited. I am trying to place you in the space before doing time.

- I have no conscious memory of who I was and where I came from. I can not say more.

- Aware, that the word should be used. The unconscious works perhaps forever. You got a shock when falling agreed. This probably disconnected your memories of your conscious memory. The affect was unchanged from what I can understand. Immediate memory still works from what you tell me this morning.

- What I revealed he has given you clues?

- I told you neuroscience are not unknown to me. Maybe what you wanted to do and be, did not happen. First finding, contrary to what you like to do, you've never been a farmer. I suspect that you have a tertiary education. You have a secret that you have not shared with your loved ones. Who knows? A major regret, maybe.

- But you're a real Madame Soleil, my dear Jose.

I smile.

- Your exuberance of this morning proves it. I am also psycho-physiologist. You have a connection problem between your memory and intellect. Memory is fallible and unreliable. You know.

- What do you suggest me?

- Are you proposing? Your case interests me. If you want it and let me, I'd take care of you, but in this, you risk having to change their lives, to find something else in life. Hence my proposal, if not you afraid to answer. Do you want to risk changing life? There is a risk that you never found the memory. Do not answer right away, but think about it. I'll talk to you later. Reconnect the ends of your hidden memory. Correcting errors appreciations, it may take a long time.

- Make me regain my past from the beginning, in some ways?

- Yes, and who knows, by improving it. I told you, I have been to Japan to study the techniques they use to build their robots. These are machines. They retain all that fits into their circuits. They invent nothing, until now. Tomorrow, maybe. The man has the intelligence and more. The intelligence that does not fail you, I'm sure. I can not say more for now.

- Happy to learn it. I do not demand more than teach me. Lead me to your mother.

Ok This quail with the sea breeze.. Join my car. You'll see, my mother, it's a place in the countryside, full of greenery, not far from here, towards Sintra. This should please you. She always wanted me marries me. My mother will be very happy that I know someone like you. I will put it aware of before you submit so that there is no confusion in our reports. You shall let speak. Talking, she loves it. I was the eldest of four siblings, which means that there is enough room to accommodate you.

____________________________________

 

3: Return to reality

"The reality is stranger than fiction because fiction must contain the likelihood, but not reality." Mark Twain

The road trip is not taking time longer than expected.

Only A few cars on the first day of the year. Partygoers are still sleeping off and those who had partied with them are tired after a night together with family and friends", I told myself.

In the car, the images of the landscape blended with the case of Luiza, parade through my head, and I exchange only a few words with her. About this unusual situation, I'm thinking intensely.

We arrived after half an hour in a very lonely place between Cascais and Sintra.

- We have arrived. Stay in the car. Do not move. I'm coming.

I'm going alone. I have to present Luiza to my mother at the door of the house. To avoid illusions that she can have about the relationship with Luiza.

The presentation of Luiza will be a woman he should be spared because if she hadn't been dropped. Anything else. No...

In makeover, Luiza must be forgotten.

First, the wishes and hugs shared.

- Happy New Year, Mom.

- Thank you, Jose. For you too.

- I'm not alone I'll have to introduce you Luiza.. She stayed in the car. But that's not say what you might think. I stayed and I still love my celibacy. We met last night and she has some memory problems. Do not ask me too many questions.

- But what do you expect from me? She looks right away.

No need to start by talking about her fall in detail.

As an aside, without much detail, I learn a little more of my recent encounter later.

- We'll should get our guest for her.

Fortunately, the meeting of both women could not have gone better. Each one smile and shook hands warmly.

A good omen, I told myself. The main thing is done. The warm welcome makes Luiza confidence.

My mother is an old woman like we see both in the Portuguese countryside. A small woman whose husband could have been in the field but, widow, lives alone in a house with very local color and pictures of the past that hang on walls or rest on the shelves.

- Why not move away from the garden veranda to take the sunshine this afternoon? There's a little less cautious than usual out of the wind?

The conversation begins. I speak little. My mother and Luiza seem to understand with some complicity. I listen in religious silence. Amazed to see that we can talk about so many things in such a situation without memories subjects.

Basically, I think my mother would think that I had found the woman of my life and there was only formalize this.

I do not want to confirm this impression, only intuition. On my guard, I have only one ambition curb both feet if perchance my mother was going in this direction in the conversation.

Although less than an hour together, when my cell phone rings.

The notebook in hand, I left the duo to digress two women before landing.

Refugee in the first interior room, I push the button on my laptop.

At the other end, a familiar voice, the one of Pablo, my colleague who starts to charge.

- Hi Jose. The holidays are going well? The next day's Eve were not too difficult? You've spent in a better time, I guess. At sea, the climate is changing faster and there is more general in a mild microclimate closer to the sea than here.

- Hello Pablo. Could not be better. Time is half fig half grape. Not enough to get in suit, wet and windy but not really cold. And Lisbon?

- This looks like.

- Imagine that I have made a strange encounter with a young lady. For me, it could almost be my daughter.

- A girl? what? And you got it kicked into touch, you who is a confirmed bachelor. You never told me you were a patented seducer. This must be a miracle. You like it? Confesses and tells. It's a fairy tail?

- Dear, it is, unquestionably. But do not box me too fast on this board then, if you want.

- Well, I did not say anything. Forget It. Always says. Tell me.

- It was a rather eventful encounter which occurred early in the night of Christmas Eve. It was in the bar Fado in Cascais where we were a few times together. You remember, we sing fado and we drink all that you find in Portugal. I had a very rude awakening the next day. A bit rushed. But I must explain to you the events chronologically.

- Okay. I'm all ears.

- The day before Christmas Eve, this girl had me strangely appeared on.

- Strange, a spy, a kind of Matahari?

- No, not on that score. Strange, by his attitude, by his exuberance on the contrary, not at all the secret side. It looked like it was playing his last card before making the leap, if you know what I mean.

- The big jump? You mean she gave the impression of wanting to commit suicide?

- Yes. I had this strange feeling at any given moment. We talked a lot without much about her. She said her name Luiza.

- You say "she said her name." This means that you put it back on the right path of life. I know you with your usual Cartesian.

- She had been drinking heavily and obviously she could not take this kind of excess.

- A young idle, probably. There are many currently in Portugal. Unemployment has exceeded the most prescient statistics.

- It is possible, indeed, but perhaps were there other more intimate reasons.

- What did you do? You played the Good Samaritan as I know you?

- I ask you to pass the juicy details that would come to mind. About three o'clock in the morning, we got out of Fado, sets. You remember we spent good times. I say together, at least not until the end of the night. We said goodbye. But intrigued, I followed rather than preceded or putting me at her side. It was staggering. She began to be balancing on the parapet of the pier. remember one that leads to the citadel. A few meters behind her, I tried to keep her before she falls. Not a chance, she fell several meters down the fishermen trays. A beautiful somersault fail.

- Hurt? Ambulance?

- Not really. There must be a god for people who drink too much. Nothing really important apparently. I climbed down to retrieve her and help her. She did not have anything broken, but she was gone. I did not know what to do. Take her home, I did not know her address. At that time, she had no wallet or papers. I do not know where she could have them astray. The lead to the hospital, you might have sent me in so-called emergency and you know what that can represent emergencies ... I would have to do it perhaps and I wanted to make my wishes up to my mother quickly.

- But you carried her.

- Yes I Am. To my car which was parked on the port. It looked like a couple of drunks. I installed next to me in my car. I was not fit to drive. I also had a few drinks too many. I fell asleep and she woke me up with this strange start. This is where the story started again and I went to the radius of surprises.

- There you intrigue me, really. You did not jump, anyway?

- I am wiser than you, we slept together, perhaps, but side by side in the same car without even touching after installing it on the seat. That you could plug in a corner, right?

- Yeah. That's something. I can see it now. Even the most beautiful woman in the world on your side and you'll still remain marble to think and explain how you could put it in the perfume of your scientific experiments.

- Let me think about one day to fire you for having such ideas. You know me too well. No, she woke up and seemed to have lost his memory. I thought she feintaited. Not at all. I had even to remind her of her first name, Luiza, she had given me the day before his accident. She does not know his name, of course. Do you realize?

- It can not already say that you've pushed for compensation or worse than you took advantage of her ... She is not minor anyway?

- Not a real adult. Thirties, apprently. Her memory loss, intrigued me. You think that I questioned. It was a complete blank. Fainting, loss of values, loss of everything. No evidence to say where she came from, what family, what profession she had practiced before. Nothing. The concept of money, home, family never seemed to have touched. But she is smart and looks very sharp.

- You did not ask the question that would be helpful?

- Pedro, I know that our research interest us and that you would do anything to succeed where others have failed, but leaves me a little time. I've always had a problem with you on this point, you have a quick mind too, too technician and your sentimentality seems never to have touched you.

- Forgive me. I know you too long. And you're not so different with your very scientific ideas. You're married to science if it is not with a woman. We have an ideology that seeks to break all constraints, all the uncertainties ... From my side it's with technology and more.

- Stop. Okay. You're right, I thought. Nevertheless, gives time to time. I'll talk to him. We sought someone who could help us in our research on intelligence pure. Separate the Darwinian nature and nurture, yes, it enters our remit.

- I'll meet you. Admit it she took you soon caught the eye "scientifically speaking" if not physically. So to summarize, you did not invited in our work, but you'll risk to do so.

- I'm with my mother. It is currently at a few steps from me. Thou hast broken the garden. We know that this is not the memory that leads the world. Intelligence is far more important than memory.

- As you say, "Intelligence is a rough diamond must be cut to get a good head and not a well-filled head, since the diamond consists only of carbon." Have I learned well my lesson, Jose?

- There are pissing me, really.

- I get upset, but what do you do with it?

- It all depends on what she decides. The first step would be to build confidence and security and look how far she wants to work with our research.

- Doing a guinea pig for science and for your experience, what?

- I'm still on vacation some time. I'll ask his opinion and I will begin a more thorough examination.

- A word of advice, do also the course. Women like this during the holidays, more than talking about science.

I want to change the subject quickly.

- Not too much traffic in Lisbon?

- Not too much. But I find that I really do not have good manners. I wish you a good year 2014, Jose.

- For you too. I leave you to more.

I hung up.

Pablo had spent all his studies at MIT in the United States.

That's what I liked when I had committed.

It is the technical collaborator type. I'm pretty service theorist and I associated with my work. We have become accustomed to having our fair spoken and it does take offense over what I can throw it in spades as a tacit agreement.

This time, I was responsible for someone else, more fragile, which I have set myself the task to make her recover her memory.

Rebuilding the spirit of Luiza, orient perhaps towards more foresight it was published during his initial voyage in a previous life.

Correct errors in its use and fill in the missing links without issues she might have had.

With this thought, I return to the garden, thinking.

My mother was still speaking with Luiza. They seem to get along just fine. One series from each other.

I let them continue to the point where the sun declines to the point it does really too cold to stay in the garden.

- We go? It's almost time to prepare dinner. You are my guest", my mother said.

It was then, that I dare to ask Luiza:

- Luiza, I would like to talk to you face to face in my office on the first floor while mom prepares. See my lair student into a small laboratory smoking my ideas.

- Let's go. I am your guest, you obliged me same, I'm not going to look bad from the outset.

We climb to the first floor while my mother is in the kitchen. 

---------------

 

4. My goal showed to Luiza

"In life, we combine a plan;this goal is still subject to what pleases to draw. "Arthur Schopenhauer

 

- Before we go further, top any, I beg you to excuse my lack of understanding about what happened to you. I did not realize it.

- I understand. I don't blame you because I don't even understand my own situation.

- If you met your family today, you should probably not recognize it. I warn you, this memory loss can be temporary or permanent. This fall and your shock by falling had to create a head injury.

- Do not add anything. I begin to get used to it. What do you plan to address it?

- I'll look to rebuild your memory through neuroscience. I'm not a psychologist, I take care of everything that revolves around the brain.

- Yes, I remember, you are sharing the project called "Human brain" or something like that.

- That I admire. You're remembering. This means clustering that your memory has remained intact for all that you learn again from today.

- This is what happened yesterday before the year 2014 is in the fog.

- You're remembering even the year. It has entered quiIt is a miracle.

- No, it is not a miracle. I'm not dumb as to not-have noticed on alls, good wishes for the year 2014. A bump on the forehead that inflated me, but no bump elsewhere.

- Let me talk about my plan in progressive series of details, That you well understand your situation.

- I'm all ears, dear Jose.

- The brain is your most complex part of your body. It is designed in two hemispheres. One of them is for math, pragmatism and the other one for arts and sentimentality. They are merging via a real network of links for transferring informations.

Luiza keys her smiling face.

- I have not lost my two hemispheres. Everything is still in place. I'm not as fragile.

- Your head is still fragile. Your memory is fallible and in addition, often unreliable.

- A little glue will it be enough to repair my sick brain?

- It's not a disease. It doesn't react in networks as they shoulds do. Their paths are blocked. You have only a functional memory of your past without the recognition of your environment and yourself inside it.

- What is left to me?

- The instinctive one and very general knowledge remained to you.

- I have instincts aim to understand the functions.

- A little, yes. Sorry to be a bit technical with terms of scientific jargon. You have what is called "Expired procedural memory" that goal you won't reach the working memory of your experiences before. Disappeared, the so-called "Expired episodic and semantic memory". That allowed you to lean on significant dates and events in your past.

- Is my intelligence affected because of lack of this episodes?

- On the contrary. Your intelligence is perfectly intact. Intelligence is much more difficult to define than the memory process. Consider memory as constructed by learned data and experience as a tool. Your musical intelligence might, manual or emotional. It is plural.

- What should I do to get this beautiful second-order tool in the singular?

- Follow a relatively common procedure in such boxes: trying to gather your brain's neurons by internal called expired "synapses". "Semantic memory" comes back usually but not easily with "Biographical memory".

- Not sure I follow your reasoning to the scientific end. You become more and more technical.

- I doubt it. For simplicity, let's say that your memory consists of an innate part and another gained. The innate part, you still get. Part acquired semantics, perhaps too. You do not have to relearn how to eat, to walk, to speak, to read and to write. And your "Immediate memory" is working fine. You do not forget what you see and do today. The procedural memory is still ingrained somewhere in your subconscious.

- You're right. What happens this morning, remains etched in my memory. Which is above for against it, it's the desert.

- This is exactly the opposite of what happens with patients who suffer from Alzheimer's illness. They remember their ancient past but not what they did five minutes ago before it. This disease happens when the degeneration of neurons at a relatively advanced age. As seen yours, your neurons are not degenerate. A party is disconnected as a disabled invisible as said someone who has suffered the same problem.

- I'm still young. At least, I think from my image I saw in the mirror in your car.

- For me, you are very young. You can have hidden personality disorder and have memorized false conclusions.

- Personality disorders? This means that I might be troubled and store anything other than you by the same event?

- Indeed. I'm older. Normally, I have stored more life experiences. Information stored by my observations, my intuition, my deductions. I will probably have different reactions and conclusions to the same event than you because my biographical memory is different and related to older times.

- For this, we must be aware of what is stored.

- Between consciousness and unconsciousness, with not well defined separation. The unconsciousness is located in the reptilian brain. The hippocampus is the memory registering like a the printer automatically. The consistency of all these memories continues at the temples. You fall on one temple had to bribe your printer circuits.

- Seahorse, machine printer? I hope I'm still different from a machine and an animal.

- Completely. In the future, I do not know about the progress of the machines.

- Okay, but now I'm not a machine.

- The machine is working by following instructions of a program. The process is linear and runs from the beginning to the end while keeping loops when the program logically is required by successive dichotomies.

- The man has the same sense from begin to end too, Isn't it?

- Not quite. When you execute an action, you might think at the same time on other actions like what you did the day before, what you will do next. It is said that the brain is quantum.

- Quantum? What do you mean?

- The quantum brain is a more complex version than the current digital machines. It is as if you had multiple issues to be resolved at the same time and immediately.

- But what does that have to do with my memory?

- That your stored experiences influence your decisions and your future processes. Your questions, your experiences themselves, you choose them according to your personality, your age and life way during which these issues are coming to you.

Luiza laughs singing and I accompany with a smile.

- I'm not a machine, but I'm quantum and by rigor, I'm singing a hymn.

- Do not laugh. In the process, there are similarities of characters between machines and men. They are not opposite one another but have complementarypurposes. Today's research is attempting to reduce this skills gap.

- In most reliable, I hope? It's not a shock that would corrupt the machine all this memories.

- The memory of the machine is always more reliable than that men's one, at least for now. It does not clear the one as but depending on the value it has to be kept or not. In time, the reliability is however not guaranteed.

- Not guaranteed? No insured? What do you mean?

- That will depend on the rapid evolution of technology and if they continue to be compatible and can read the oldest archives. With current digital technology, you can not see anything through the eyes without a conversion software. Without it, forget readable texts or images.

- We are different from the machine through our senses.

- The man represents and interprets the original analog sources. But noisy, they lose acuity between each copy. If you propagated information through a chain of people and you ask to the last of the line to tell it, you'll see that it's not the same story. It's the same thing with analogic films and photos before the numeric way.

- The man, he's forgeting the memories not like machines?

- Yes and happily. The man has a function of oblivion which is not a simple memory wear. It has an active mechanism to avoid saturation and to keep only what is useful to him. Its filters refresh his memory which is, moreover, not infinite. It clears its buffer which has become obsolete for him alike a fsrt in, first out process in a stack. The potential of human memory is important, but we must realize a dynamic equilibrium with the synthesis of this memory if the efficiency decreases rapidly.

- And not the machine?

- If although the machines have huge expandable memory still, they pick up everything that makes them digest if it is not clear what they have in the belly. They never have indigestion, never information diarrhea. But use becomes heavier without consolidation of data. You can have thousands of photos on a flash memory or on a memory stick to the bottom of your pocket. In the clouds, the "cloud" is all the knowledge in the world in texts, images, videos in music via Internet. All that accesses the following few clicks. But all is saved with binary "0" and "1". Search engines are there to try to solve this too full of data and informations.

- And they make mistakes ...

- Not really because of what you think. Errors programs, yes, of course, but not the memories themselves. It's an error rather due to the alteration of the support than due to the memories themeselves. There, with the support, it's a catastrophe. We cannot any more understand all the writings of our ancestors, because we do not know their codes. The Maya writing, are embedded in the stone. Do you begin to determine the different writing techniques and understand? No alphabet, but a symbolic writing that has evolved over time, which is remaining legible and in a thousand years, it will be the same despite the climate.

I see Luiza getting tired of my explanations. I got carried away like I was face to specialists in a conference. I must furnish me in tune with Luiza.

- Ok I get it. But, they also age our poor human neurons.

- You're right. I told you about Alzheimer's disease. But your brain has an unimaginable plasticity. Neurons are regenerated until the end of your life, but can lose their effectiveness if they are not linked between them.

- So my chance, ultimately, it is not to be a machine.

- Yes and no. The chance is that we all have a neural potential to imagine and create, variable, without knowing why. There are also unfortunate people who forget nothing, remember everything, all the time. Bottled by good and bad memories, they can no longer make any decisions. They are too obsessed by their overflow of information. These are so-called "hypermnésiques". This touches on autism. They do not recover and sleep little. There it's more of a disease than a gift. Fortunately, your sleep acts as a repair tool.

- I have only to sleep and everything will come to me or lost without tics or tocks.

- Who knows?

- Then try.

- Watch Out! Your past, you might be well advised to forget. I do not know. If that is the case, I want you to do bad fasses not reappearing.

- While the machine, it is stupid to the point of all remember ...

- Yes. It would sometimes be better not too remember what has becomed an unusable mess. Remember only that your own dead contains the basics of your innate knowledge plus some acquired inculcated by intensive learning during your education. These functions are integrated into your subconscious like you said. Your creativity, your creativity are still unknown for the machine. Early in the history of computing, memory could be seen in dead memory and living one. They were called ROM and RAM, respectively.

Luiza recovers and starts to laugh.

- So I have a terrible potential hidden in my ROM, but without RAM. It must still be my only memory is good for a long live becoming.

- Absolutely. If the fixed memory is poorly built, quicklime follow up will not be better, at least without more effort.

- I'm not aware of my RAM.

- Right. Conscious or your life or prejudice and perhaps more dogmas. RAM does not necessarily contain "the" truth, butonly "a" truth.

- In a way, I'm like a newborn, but in a "adult" format.

- It's a bit like that, yes.

- It did not become a zoo animal as me, anyway.

- No, but you can go to account the interest you could bring to neuroscience and science in a general income as a diamond in the rough without impurities. We are just beginning to understand what happens in the brain through imaging, genetics and biology.

- I don't want to be a guinea pig science.

- I understand. But to rebuild your memory, it will go thru to the source of your subconscious mind and hope that the layers of your past reappear one by one.

- What should I do?

- This is my place to stimulate your memory to reactivate it. I'll take care if you let me. Hypnosis and narcosis are technical. MRI can help to detect where you hide your memories residues. It's your cortex to link areas separated to form a coherent memory.

- Look no doctor, it's all in the head !!!

- Yes, it's almost that. Aided by the olfactory sense, sensory and visual. I repeat, memory and intelligence should compete for the same purpose.

- No brain surgery operation, eh?

- We are very far away from that.

- The brain does everything without heart and without reproach.

- If you want. The heart is the standby pump that provides energy. Without blood, the brain does not survive long. Surgeons are able to determine the portion of the diseased brain to fix it.

- I repeat, do not talk about surgery, please.

- No need in your case, I repeat too.

- Have you ever had a case like mine? With a hidden danger as result?

- No, I Don't. No danger. Your past, I do not know. All my reasoning informs you that your memory can derail your intelligence. That is why I ask you "Do you want to a new life, maybe a created one coming to extent the one of today?

- And you will not manipulate my memories and tamper with my memory?

- In Japan, I talked with a scientist named Susamu Tonegawa. He did it by showing an image associated dictionary testimonials to get to erase fear, false intuitions of his sickly patient. But that could be used if you had a "bad" past, which still remains unproven for you.

- I got enough science courses today. I trust you. I hope one day to find again my family and my friends. Good or bad. That's all I want. As for my potential enemies, I will try to avoid them.

- Good resolution. Do not worry. I only hope that your memories will live up to your expectations. I'm feeling tired with my explanations. If you didn't understand all my explanations which, I admit, are quite technical, ask me questions. I will answer them with pleasure.

-----------------

 

5. Go back to Luiza'past

"Life can only be understood by going back, but we saw that before.", Sören Kierkegaard

Since 2001, the first part of the family history, the situation in Portugal had changed.

In the late 80's, we can read "Lisbon and tagus Queen of the Universe" by talking of the capital on the banks of the estuary of the river as a vast sea. Portugal had experienced boom years crowned by Universal Exhibition of 1998.

Then a difficult period for Portugal had started and was really precipitated during the global crisis of 2008. Since 2011, the crisis had affirmed and unemployment had reached 16% of the population and external debt increased by 120 %.

President Anibal Cavaio Silva faces a political crisis linked to budgetary difficulties of Portugal, which led to the resignation of Prime Minister Jose Socrates.

Europe, including Portugal belongs, was broken, and with no clear molle. The growth outlook could not help as it had done previously if not with a stiff austerity, wanted by Germany .

IMF, EC and ECB efforts required to prevent the bankruptcy of the system.

Portugal sank into an even greater crisis, shared with southern European states. A loan of € 78 billion had been made ​​by Europe to the condition that there be removing bonuses, termination of employment and wage cuts.

Modernism is still reflected in the lower town, while the tradition had taken refuge in the hills of Alfama, with its narrow, winding streets that really began to crack.

As a student, then as a young lab assistant, Luiza lived in this neighborhood.

Her father had sent her to Lisbon to take courses at the university. He had urged and almost forced to leave the village where she was born.

As a reluctant hero, she had obeyed parental authority meanwhile she would have liked to settle in his native Algarve to take care of the operation of a vegetable property.

Modernism, technologies, vials and all that surrounded him were only tools to build a life of laboratory assistant, without enthusiasm. An investment that, for her, was a stage before a secret project: returning to the south in an undefined future.

At the beginning of his studies, the choice seemed to offer opportunities more likely to have a job.

On leaving university, she had found a place quite easily laborantine and the idea of cultivating his garden had almost been lost in her hopes.

The plants they want to grow in the garden, they had been replaced flowerpots installed on the balcony of his small apartment. She was impregnated by ecology, as part of agronomy in which she had thought to start.

One day, in her lab, her boss asked her to attend an international conference. She had to prepare a thesis on the craft lab and to sell his company to an audience of laboratory personalities.

As she did not feel it made ​​the right way, she refused and claimed to have a major impediment. A colleague had been sent in her place.

Luiza had not felt the change that had taken place. Ostensibly, her boss did not held against the refusal. In appearance only, as she entered the black list of people who do not want to progress in the company. For his female colleagues, a pipe head to which they send a smile to all occasions, recalling its mistake of not agreeing.

His boss had felt a lack of interest in Luiza and fired her in 2013. Lack of experience according for the official reason. Younger, lower-paid, so the easiest one to be liquidated.

Since then, depression undermined morale in inactivity.

Looking for another job started for Luiza, but it had proved unsuccessful so far.

Unmarried, living with a partner for nearly a year, no children to these occasional absences occuper. The spouse completed the picture. It was still in successive movements. So busy he would never have had time to take the education of a child. His latest absence had lasted nearly two months.

Luiza assumed increasingly difficult to accept these absences. She was trying to look good and at times, was scolded by the reproaches which tarnished their relationship.

Reduced to what others said to her, had become unbearable.

The edge of the social tragedy when he was there, her marriage became a hell.

She felt trapped and terribly fragile. Fragility she felt increasingly anchored to the bottom of herself.

She began attending social groups, revolutionary groups without making up his life  especially better. Anything to get out of her solitude.

Europe was in the crosshairs of this group of individuals. She cursed. Not being much out of the country, she knew nothing of this Europe.

She had accused person of moral decay and professional turmoil.

Prevent the family in the Algarve? Complain to her?

No, she was too proud to reach this end.

Entry into opposition with his family who had made ​​her realize what she had to do, the absent and patience gave way to disputes which faded with increasing time.

Ask for help to his father who had given her so many times, how would it have helped? The last contact was stormy when she opened a discussion that summarized the situation in Lisbon.

A discussion so banal yet.

Portuguese saudade took over. In his subconscious, luck seemed to have missed it forever.

More troubled than her time by her entourage, her lack of charisma and her lack of confidence in her hiding perhaps behind his troubled psychology and sometimes made ​​messy.

Without admitting her working laboratory assistant was a bad choice. In her meetings, she tried any of the wide air that could have come out of this she could not afford.

It was with Manu that Luiza maintained that complicity links.

Manu, with her belgian origin, had a strong character, more honest than her.

She was her half-sister, and since her marriage, worked with her ​​husband Joao.

In Belgium, Michel, the half-brother of Manu, was divorced three years ago. Always doctor, he now lived there alone.

As for Anthony, the other Belgian half-brother, his company had made ​​the plunge. He was scraping from place to place in search of great new ideas that did not arrive.

The epilogue was approaching about that point.

The crisis dragged on, punctuated by revelations in the press dissension within the ruling groups and older dynastic parties. The rapid succession of events only accentuated the particular instability of Luiza.

In her eyes, everything had conspired against her.

Other horizons did not show up. She had escaped and the life she had forged in her memory.

The advice she received were taken as daily invasions. She felt her misfires and that's all that filled his brain.

In tonight Eve of the new year, 2014, she wanted to celebrate his downfall in Cascais with visiting tourists and let go without limits.

Talking and drinking with people passing and tourists good complexion and who knows, one last trip in a hotel with one of them.

She had drunk more than she had ever been used to.

She had met José who, friendly, had amused.

In the early morning hours, the alcohol, she had wanted to do a bang. Like crazy, not like she wanted to end end his life, but only to his mental suffering.

It was mounted on a pontoon over the sea had fallen, had hit a rock head and fainted.

José, the last guy she had spoken, and who accompanied her at a distance, rushed and jumped to save it.

We're back on the morning of January 1, 2014.

------------------------------

 

6: Intimate thoughts of Jose

"You can get lost or disappear in a big city.Identity can even change and live a new life.", Patrick Modiano 

Luiza now lives in one of the rooms on the second floor of the house of my mother.

The first one is for my office looks more like a bachelor den.

Luiza, what about her?

How to tell?

How to reach my goal with her, I still cannot determine it without a mistake. Too few days for it.

It could be a miracle for me if I succeed in a short term.

Do not lose her in the middle of her fitness treatment of his memory.

Her intelligence, without memory of things learned, was exciting me every day.

Am I opportunist like  Pedro let me understand? Pablo annoys me with his insight. He had discovered myself before my own intentions.

Without having understood everything that had happened after my encounter with a New Year's Eve night with Luiza, he already had the great game of his tricks box and did open one of my desires, my physiological injuries.

Contrary to what was said Pablo, I had known women but I have never been able to hold on to one of them very long.

Beautiful little face, I've known. Not necessarily for my physical but sometimes for my situation. All that was left without sufficient personal resonance.

Colleagues who had approached me in another life, were too much in my line of thought in which I had nothing more to learn. The humor was missing very often, I was not particularly a clown to make people laugh to complete.

I am a scientist first and this has always been my first concern.

Go on to opportunism. I have to admit me. It does not bother me too much.

My scientific reaction appeared without any hesitation, already in Cascais. I'm knowing that now.

I have never been confronted with the case of Luiza. The fix has become a new challenge for me. My past experiences approached Luiza's disability without ever having reached this point as a great opportunity to study it.

My role as a Good Samaritan was it the can?

My good offices operation, was it an excuse to want to protect her against herself or a pure imagination on my part with the intention to wake her memory to avoid her to make back into the same deadly attitude?

Questions I ask myself, suddenly.

I had to hang up Luiza her past, even if it could be lost in advance.

What happened? Her real past or a more custom way built today?

Suicidal impression that I understood her home that fateful night, might be totally wrong.

No doubt, Luiza I liked this evening of 31 December.

I had found Luiza pretty, bubbly. Young for me, of course. At least, twenty years younger were an advantage or a disadvantage in that kind of relationship.

Conquer to find her confidence?

If this could be part of the treatment, if innermost feelings occur, why not?

The idea of love did not displease me. But not brusque. I have always been against lightning strikes.

Thanks to or because of alcohol, I found Luiza, so playful and funny.

If it does not bathed in the joy of living, she knew out funny stories with such derision, with such aplomb that she makes me laugh on Christmas Eve at the Fado. She laughed a few other guests who joined our new couple for a night. They, too, had been seduced by her sometimes harsh aftershocks, but that sounded right.

Now I had to start asking her the same questions under hypnosis leaving keywords that could make it reach her former past and hope that things start to resonate in her memory, sometimes I was afraid to go too fast . Out answers from this ROM to resurrect her past could be distorted.

The question came to me "How to be sure, she did not want to pretend to remember?"

Extrapolations, extensions she made it, perhaps.

Failures are only due to the wrong approach to her problems, the wrong choice of keywords to reconcile with the realities of her past.

In case this does not work, it would seek other words, other images and start again with these nagging questions.

- What do you think about these words and images? You recognize them? This does remind you of anything? If not, what would you do in life with them?

Everything could serve or be served. The smell of the dishes she loved, could determine the area where she lived ...

Time passes and somewhere that reassures me. This allows me to know her better, even without the accompanying memory.

I go back the arrow of time. This reminds me of my courses during which we had been interested in the broken glass on the floor and coming back around on the table where he fell as if he had never been broken.

Ah, if I could do that ...

And sometimes when I least expected it, a positive response that restored my confidence and hope. It was perhaps not the right image that reminded her past but a track that she was more intimately.

The problems of memory, I had studied. That could generate and how to increase capacity. Alzheimer's disease was of course a subject during my studies. In these cases, you should not return completely to zero but only sew memory bits recently lost. Snatches of everybody lived with deficient patient in memory.

I record our conversations on a dictaphone. In the evening, I listen to when she fell asleep to draw my report of the day, made findings in a newspaper in the "Luiza minds".

Sometimes I feel I skidded into a conversation by talking about my own past.

My life in the United States, Japan back in my monologues. She then listen with word carelessly say that I do not feel the shift, the hole that I unconsciously digs with his own life.

Why learn a little more of my own life?

Lucid, she laughs, then pushed spontaneously me to noting.

As a start, I realize that my tirades multiple times, repeat, do not help.

Last night she seemed tired. To entertain, to get her out of his intimate problems I've seen, more firmly, my uncontrolled skid.

She rebelled with my issues and my answers too subtle for her.

Annoyed, she finally started.

- José. There, the United States, hear you, everything is young, ideas and trends. You only have good ideas to develop probably find sponsors and goal. Here we are and It does not help me at all your history or about what are your own problems.

She was right.

She neither left nor throw the carried away by my delusions of my own memories.

My ideas, even enthusiastic, communicative are not. I have seen a little more and want too much.

Another note reported about in the newspaper, partner after the separation.

An unfortunate without any word malice could generate at home, an argument with an argument to the key.

Her character is completely to be called as different from mine.

She is changing, Sometimes irascible. I'm coming to ask me If It was not a bit of a certain bipolarity.

I realized that for her, the anger is a means clustering of expression, a way to externalize a groove bottom It has glad in it in ancient times.

The acerbic humor reserves to her to calm things down and ridiculous Such reports coming out of nowhere and without initiated had a spark better.

A table, when emotion takes over, I watch placid. I Remain with marble replicas with calculated economy.

The strongest, I noticed that this passive and attentive attitude even more angry and made up her explosive temperatures.

I felt she really had to change my tune and it was my mother who overcalls savior to get everything in order.

Not to say I am too Cartesian, too systematic and too quiet. I find it in my supplement temperamental.

Not sure a few grains of psychology can fix things if I do not stalled backwards.

The thing is another application programming psychology a little like a robot. There's still much more to learn and has to incumbent on with men. The way forward for the man gave a framework to social science research my, aim for me what is significant is elsewhere.

In my innermost wishes, I wanna advance human intelligence injustement than artificial intelligence.

Huge budgets Invested in "Human Brain Project" would never-have-been existed If they had Intended only for men. Project sponsors often cam from the army and the technology business.

Seeming nod and continue on the artificial route I take, in secret, the other way to the natural man of flesh and blood.

What is human intelligence?

A question I ask myself a long time ago. I come to regret not having taken courses in anthropology.

The tests of no intelligence IQ who tried to measure it, are worthless.

IQ, proof of having a well-filled head?

What else? Goal full of what?

Memories, learning from teachers other who often their sell junk learned, repeated by heart study for exams.

The intelligence is patiently built over a complete life of the most varied experiences through creativity and experience Some extrapolate to invent and others forget and fall Into the dustbin of history.

Increases the memory over time if it exceeds innate.

When I ask additional issues beyond her present Luiza often replied spontaneously and with a feminine correctness, any intuitively.

The emotion, intuition are among the aspects her personality.

Did she recover her memory?

Luiza has a keen mind. She should obviously not thin words before removing them. Everything she learns, now remains engraved in her brain.

Her curiosity, an important year for me to point out.

It was in my library. Fun to see her favorite readings of storybooks.

It's like a game for her when she tells me what she read. A living memento. She retained until the page numbers of the books.

She's filling her memory with everything that falls Into her hands. But, against, this remains a failure with what was happening before that fateful January 1.

My mother had no TV.

News Lacks. Neither for my mother nor Luiza. When my mother tells her own life during the war, Luiza is listening religiously, Interrupting only to enable her to understand in a better way the story.

The story, That Is, the subject that is Interesting her the most. She devoured a book on the history of Portugal.

I i'm feeling a little lack of success in my goal, thanks to that goal, I remain confident.

It Is likely that her memory works better than expected in the future, if the past can find out no follow up.

Luiza and her hope was the right road to redemption with me and it comforts me even though I have admitted may assistence, is not very conclusive. I despair somewhat about it.

What made her desirable to me, is that she looks like was that the baby is born with her bright intelligence, spontaneous in full possession of the elasticity of her mind. How it was filled.

In summary, Luiza becomes my human subject studies up to forgeting everything else.

Go to the end of my experiences and believe it has year significant future destiny with me and change Perhaps their lives together, touched my mind.

Yes, I hope so, I do not aim let it show.

Tonight, here she strokes my cheek and said.

- You're giving you so much trouble for me to recover my memory. What I done to deserve this?

I approached my mouth to hers and led her know why.

She didn't withdraw. I won reviews another battle.

----------------

 

7: Meanwhile, in Algarve, Manu, Luiza's sister, is Concerned

"The eyes are blind When The Mind Is Elsewhere.", Publius Syrus

January 7, 2014. I'm trying again to reach Luiza by phone. It's been the fourth attempt. My laptop voicemail messages are becoming more stressed, more and more desperate. All sent without return. My concern is growing day by day.

I wanted to wish her the best for the year 2014 as the first introduction, I want to reassure aim my Luiza media as I felt distress. Some points in her voice is our last maintains phone comme back.

I imagine everything.

Is her laptop fell out of power? Is it closed for a more serious reason? In the hospital without being white ble to reach me?

No, this cannot be it. If she was in a hospital, the hospital would have prevented her family.

In previous years, It was Luiza who had become accustomed to contact me when she couldn't visit the Algarve for the holidays. It happened once, I remember now.

That morning, it's freezing cold in the Algarve. The wind accentuates this feeling and secondly the fundamental business with everyone stay home.

In the winter season, my downtime would have-been used to the chat In particular with Luiza.

I redial the number. Once again, without response.

I can not stand. I have first to phone to our father.

- Hello, Dad, did you hear something from Luiza? I tried to reach her several times without success.

- Glad to hear from you. I also tried to call her and no more results. It remains conspicuously absent. It's not in her clothes. Normally she's warning us if she does not come home for the New Year. She came at Christmas Even. We Did not notice anything in her attitude. None about that.

- This is not accurate entirely. Dad. She seemed a little depressed anyway. I'm surprised you didn't feel it.

- A little, maybe, yes. Purpose nothing really disturbing. I tried to give her confidence. She has a good education in a good location and in a good company, isn't it?

About did he not notice. There are different things between woman and men feelings and what happen about it for a girl that she do not tell everything to her father.

- Oh, you think that? I think I remember you were very rational and pragmatic in your monologue. You did not tell her she was going straight Into the wall with gloomy ideas, purpose It could be that way she interpreted.

Surprised, Dad was a moment of hesitation unanswered. Want to reassure someone sensible does not work like a tourist in his hotel, would complain of the time. I continue without waiting the rest of his lack of feelings.

- And her absence her lack of contact, do not you think it disturbing, Dad?

- Yes, of course, I thought to call the police.

Sometimes annoys me Dad. I have importance for the snaps on his war footing. Sometimes Dad realy lacks perception.

- And you about it did do nothing. It must be done, in my opinion or get out there in Lisbon. Do you want me to go?

- If you have time, it would be a good move before notifying the Police. What you can always do, to go there, There, in Lisbon.

- Okay. I'll take a seat on a train and I'm going. I let the car to my husband. I'll phone him immediately to warn him about my absence.

- Okay. Get warmly dressed. There is not too hot. Say, you phone me when you happen to give me the news about her. Time passes and I'm taken by some problems at the hotel. I cannot leave here yet. We have a lot of tourists extending the New Year celebrations. Thank you in advance for all your actions. See you.

I hang up without saying anything else.

I called and Joao reveals my intentions.

He nods without discussion.

- Okay, darling, An order, phone me when you arrive. I'm curious about suites. You will give to your inquiry. I remember that you always had gifts of Sherlock Holmes method.

- Yeah... Stop. I know and they served you more often than my turn. I called my father and he also expects news from me. As soon as I have I phone him and advise you.

I hang up once more. I hope my pic about did not curled her spine. No, he's knowing me. Nothing to take with me ...

Leave the house and take the bus to reach the nearest station. Less than an hour is enough for me to put on the train. No booking. Trere's always room without booking in advance this time of the year. Twenty euro for the ticket.

A little over three hours ride to Lisbon.

During the way, I'm spending the hours ruminating in my thoughts, watching the passing landscape without trace in my memory.

I did so to take this train for over ten years ago. But this time, my mind is restricted and my impatience to reach the destination has been greater.

Arrival in Lisbon a taxi to go to the Luiza's home on the hills of Alfama. The silence haunts the protected places of the wind. A very poor business, unusual.

In the taxi, on the streets at right angles to the bottom of the city are replacing small winding streets climbing, sneaking between traffic, letting a priority. Old yellow trams and some bystanders who protect a light rain under a yellow raincoat. It is only now that I noticed it started to rain.

I already had other good time. In the small apartment occupied by Luiza in a narrow alley has not easily transition to too large vehicle. How many times, did not we laughed together about it. She would laugh because its narrow furnished before saying she did not care royallies.

Check nearby, with a wave of the hand, I propose the taxi driver to drop me at the corner of the Main Street.

I will do the rest of the way by foot.

Home to apartments where Luiza lives appears very quickly.

Nothing has been changed. The name of the bell Luiza is always present.

I'll put to ring several times. No answer.

My attempts wake a neighbor who comes to the window and looks a bit miffed to have been disturbed in his nap.

- Who do you want to me", she's saying angry.

- My sister, Luiza, who lives on the second floor. Do you not have not seen in recent weeks?

- No, I don't. You know your sister goes in and goes out since she lost her place in the laboratory.

The first confidence is falling flat as a surprising new to my ears. Never, Luiza had told me that she had been fired.

- She lost her job I said, echoing a phrase that should be followed by an exclamation point to a sister who would have known.

- You do not know?

- Uh ... no. Thank you to inform me. You have seen her since when?

- More than a week. I don't remember. This must be before to Eve. She was part of small groups of youth. Perhaps, she is left with one of them. As I said, she's often absent. If you believe that we should worry her every time she starts ....

- Do not you have the keys to her apartment?

- No, I do not have any key.

- Thank You.

I feel that I'll not learn anything more about Luiza.

I fall from the clouds. Luiza lost her job. Luiza, a "sorteuse". I go from one discovery to another one.

No keys to the apartment. Not sure that the visit of the apartment, can bring more information, but it could answer the question of whether she had left the scene in a hurry or not.

From the outside, everything seems normal, if there doesn't be the mailbox in the name of Luiza overflowing advertising flyers and proves her absence for several days.

Worried, almost panicked, I take my smartphone to tell Dad.

How not to spend my concern in my voice to not increase the stress?

A few words in summary, very short. I told him that I'll go to the police to report Luiza's disappearance.

A new taxi to get there in the central district of Lisbon. Everything is going to rush. Everything has to be solved. There certainly has a much more trivial reason. I thus gives me courage.  

The Commissioner is to me and asked me a series of questions to determine if I do not affabule. I have to be too excited and he feels my stress.

- Why did not you come earlier? A disappearance is faster resolved when it is known earlier. This may be a fugue.

He tries to calm me or scare me?

- I live in Algarve. I do not have daily contact with my sister.

A fugue. But why run away when you lose your job?

The decision is made. Commissioner ends his report.

- We will take a locksmith to enter the apartment. We will add your sister in the call for tenders. We usually are doing this king of process.

A habit which I know nothing. This often has to happen for him, but for me, everything is new.

I sign the typed minutes.

Before leaving, he's giving me once again to reassure me.

- Go home. Give me your references and a phone number to call you. Do not worry. We'll bring you back your sister.  

He must be right. How can I continue my research?

While I despair that she could do more than the police?

- My mission ends with a confirmation: Luiza is gone and you have to find her.

I decided to take the train until the evening to return to the Algarve.

I manage to smile, saying "You become very rational, dear Manu".

Arrived in the evening, I put my father informed and start to wait for news by not leaving my laptop over an inch.

___________________________________________

 

8: Am I an asshole? 

"Love is blind glare.", Albert Brie

The next day I wake up quietly.

Luiza still sleeping next to me.

I go down to the ground floor and prepared breakfast proud to do it before my mother.

I began to Reflect on our new form of my relationship with Luiza.

Yesterday I got angry with her, I do not have to.

I shoulds control myself.

It seemed to me not want to go further to find out her memory. None of the pictures I passed before her eyes about did not allege something tangible despite exceeded the time that I left him to interpret it. On the back of her hand, she has made clean sweep of my pictures by sending it to the ground.

If this goes well, I'll move on to-have.

The law of immediacy is essential to determine who she is and so determine to blind in who has been in the past.

To change the subject of the conversation That was getting worse, I attacked her about myself.

Words, injustement dry, Then Into surpassed my thoughts extremes. She hung there by her questions.

- Now you know my mother. My father was French initially, They loved but my father was often away on business. He died in 2003.

- Your mother had to find the time long before his death and after his death not a lot of activities append here, right? I suppose you want more than your father as your mother.

- You must be right. I got the feeling. My father was like a sailor returns to dock. Often I am in this issue. Today, I travel a lot, I aim spend most of my holiday here with my mother, and especially during the holidays of years. Another reason I like the quiet of this area outside the busy life of the capital.

Then, in the evening everything was back to normal before that night together.

I used the position in my own scientific goals?

Yesterday, Luiza had That thought this came into my mind, "You give yourself so much trouble to make me recover her memory. What I've done to deserve this?".

It can leave me think It was given to me in thanks.

Altough I am not a doctor, it's like a doctor-patient relationship more than professional. Is this normal? To fall in love while for Luiza obviously, I could be considered as an old fogy. Have I not been more admired love?

Stranger still, our relationships Were more moral than physical.

It Is obvious that she knew to give love, she must have intended had unfortunate experiences the physical side of love.

I know the brain is Involved in the courses of desire, by evaluating the emotion, the motivation, and the act of love. So that would have stadium has escaped this time?

I ponder on issues thesis for him as if they Were clues That I had to take advantage.

Tired with my thoughts. I put the meal prepared on a plate, I return to the room are thinking more. Luiza was still asleep, I put the tray down again and the first in my office to make my postponement.

I confess I do not make her progressing much to recover her memory and it drives me to despair.

The days pass and the holiday even coming soon to an end.

I have to leave for Lisbon and the preference with her.

An hour later, she woke up. She had lunch.

I am prepaid for my departure.

- I need to regain the office for three days. I have to see that Pedro has already returned. I'll come back later and decide what we Will to take and then if you, Darling, come with me or not.

- Good idea. This Will give me vacation too. You sold me. I will walk, I will speak with your mother, "she Said with a smirk.

I end our dialogue.

"Yes, my mother take care of her," I Told myself.

They About did well together and this reassured me.

My  departure take place the next morning around 10 am.

Before leaving, she kissed me tenderly and gives me a hand gesture.

- Atonement, quick. I'll wait.

All goes well, she forgot our little quarrel.

There is not very hot.

In the car, the air conditioning automatic gets underway and quickly warms the cabin.

The road to Lisbon, I have borrowed so much that I could go there with closed eyes. A straight road, along the tagus.

This again allows me to reflect.

This morning, not much traffic out. Only traffic lights hinder the pace of my journey. The closer I get to the capital, They increase in number.

Lisbon soon appears with the bridge going across the river. The Belem district appears next.

I'm almost there, at least I think so. An accident with a truck hinders my progress.

I must cross the bottom of the city, around the hill to get to the new exhibition area 98.

It is already nearly noon.

Before going to the office, I park and walk back through the square Commercio reviews towards the center of the city. A small restaurant area is in front of me. I take one of them for lunch.

Some time later, my order arrived with an army baccalhau. Quickly I slipped with a bottle of water. Pasteis nata of dessert and go again me to the car.

In return, on one of the windows, I came face to face with a poster with pictures of the missing.

No doubt, one of them Is that of Luiza.

Research Undertaken beens had to find her.

I remain troubled, almost annoyed.

Should I tell Him? It bothers me. It's too fast. I have not progressed enough in my memory recovery work.

I am far from reaching my goal. It may be disappointed to meet those who seek it.

I noted the phone number to call and the person must make contacts and that puts it in my wallet, Hoping to forget it quickly.

I will see the return procedures and tell her my discovery.

Somewhere Luiza has become mine.

I am jealous almost that she could have had a family before Me.

I fear that if she returned to her family, our relationships become all different.

A fear of losing exceeds my thinking and I'm ashamed of myself.

I decided to delay again, hopefully I have no problem ask asking him to accompany me on my return to Lisbon.

Then we leave to turn a new page and move to the next chapter of this new life.

The new district of Lisbon is before me. Modernist towers built during the exhibition in the landscape are mixed with pavilions all still took reviews another function in relation to the sea.

Arriving at the office, on the 7th floor of a building, Pedro welcomes me. His first issue reveals that he has guessed my meager income and foreign exchange in my relationship with Luiza.?

- How's Luiza to see your face concerned, you do not get to make it back memory, you aim about did what I advised you: Go to the flirtation phase.

- How do you see this?

- You're a dreamer, you do not aim too depressed sccm.

- I tried to stimulate his brain and his memory, by background sounds, making the feeling of olfactory scent In his sleep purpose without conclusive results.

- And you became lovers. Do you think this cannot be seen? You did not try electromagnetism in the arsenal. Depression negative emotions, anxiety can definitely affect the subconscious. Recreate a happy childhood in retrospect does not always work.

- You and your reasons. Maybe I'm wrong. I wonder if I did not want to create a false memory Luiza.

- There is a risk worth. Taking this is the subject of the movie "Total Recall" in which recorded false Supposed artificial memories coexist with authentic memories in a two-sided mirror.

- Goal. I have not said my last word, and I invite to come to my apartment in Lisbon as soon as I return to my mother. What are your latest finds in our other projects?

Pedro inform me as I continue to daydream, imagining Reviews another way around the problems of Luiza.

Other projects-have taken so little space in my mind.

A matter comes to me: I'm a bastard as Pointed out to me Pedro?

I feel increasingly.

The problem Is that it is not at all the way it will happen and will be in the project risk failing.

-----------------------

9. Intimate thoughts of Luiza.

"It is the thoughts to feed the lyrics, the words to clothe thoughts.", Eastern Proverb

José is in Lisbon and I'm alone. I have to think about these days and nights spent with him together.

I feel that I'm far from my perception of recovering certain points of memory. I'm feel floundering between two waters.

Do Jose wants me, really?

Why does he help me to recover my memory with as much zeal?

Did he attract myself by love or to satisfy his own scientific purposes?

Am I in the center of his investigations for my own interest or for himself?

Become lovers was It a trap to satisfy his passion for science?

His ability to listen seems perfect, but It does not draw conclusions on my progress. Is'it positive or negative to find out the development he's often telling me so much.

When he plays shrink, It does so too scientific and very little emotional. It assesses in secret without providing reassure me for my own goal. Professional secrecy? May be.

What I must admitted, he's a master to coach me.

He is clever and smart all the time.

During our conversations, I could see that often he's taking notes on our meetings with a dictaphone he's using so often times.

I guess a thesis marks their reach fulfillment, gathered in reports.

Jose is not what was called "expired" That can be "funny". His sense of humor is rather a bit feeble, in my opinion.

Often in a hurry, I can feel when a last resort about my answers do not match what he was expecting from me or do not go to it.

Yesterday, I got angry. He was annoying me. He threw me that I was not doing enough efforts to recover my memory. As if this recovering was commanded!

Following his example, without saying it, I'm used to open a diary about myself where I record my innermost thoughts.

Since I lost the memory of old facts, I have this disappearance that will not happen again.

From my room on the second floor, I'm going down to the ground floor to talk to his mother.

To my question about the past of Jose, she tells me everything. I inquired about the episodes of his youth, his childhood, his education, his academic achievements.

For his Mother, it is clear that Jose Is her god. She is very proud of him.

She was visibly happy that I am Interested in the past of her son and hides nothing of what she's knowing. Purpose is ultimately what she knows her more recent? Not much. I can not ask her what his financial position sounds. It is highly likely that she knows. This time immediately fainted thought in my mind. Financial position don't have feminine ideas initiatives.

Two hours later, I'm not much more advanced. She showed me some pictures to media revelations.

For her, life stopped after Jose's studies.

Disappointed, I'm going up to the first floor in the room that he reserves as an office.

I open the drawer desk and I find out his notebook.

I wonder if it was not forgotten by Jose.

Indiscreet, I hasten to read.

I realize that It goes far in investigations and deductions. There are intimate details that do not correspond to a very scientific analysis.

If he had shown me Science that could bring me, the Evolution of Technology, thesis demonstrations. This time his remarks are beyond this framework. I am embarrassed to be entered In his newspaper.

Jose told me that my intelligence is intact.

OK, I have to prove It.

His computer is here. Why not start a new search without purpose.

News is my first encounter with his computer.

Then there comes an idea, a flash, I might say, and if someone was looking for me on the Internet?

I think about the words "missing persons" and launch a search.

A list of people sorted by decreasing order of seniority dates come out before my curious eyes.

The list is long. Several heads with succeeding pictures.

The surprise comes in the 4th page. I was almost skipping it.

It's my photo in fifth spot on the screen.

The picture must be quite old, but there's no doubt, it's me.

Why Jose never gave me the idea to go and see if I was not wanted somewhere?

My suspicions were founded to consolidate with the result: Jose wanted to hold me in as his own laboratory guinea pigs.

I'm his "thing", his object of experience.

My excitement up a notch.

The side of the photo, my first name, Luiza, that should be my name and phone number to call in case a link with the missing person could exist. I noted the number and pick up the phone by dialing.

A female voice on the cam:

- Good Morning. Police office of Lisbon. What can I do for you?

I Was Hoping to come across a familiar voice, someone in my family and It was the Police who played the intermediary.

Surprise, I'm speechless for a long moment, Speechless.

I did not design this.

As in the first meeting with Jose, my fear is waking up. Reveal who I am and that I am the unknown person numbered from whose picture is on the webpage.

If I said that I'm gone, the issue of the policy will be irreparably, "Why About did not you come earlier deliver to the police?"

This question must be biased. The idea of playing comes through.

- Good morning. I consulted the list of missing persons. I know the one that it is your IP address with the number 201.433.

- One moment. I am looking for that number.

Seconds later, the voice resumed.

- Well, I get it . Do you know the missing person as gold personally or is it yourself?

These few prevous times of research are serving me to choose an answer.

- No, it's not me but I have known recently and reviewed the person.

I'm feeling that I goofed somewhere.

- Recently. How long? Days, weeks?

Who cares? It's really ticklish," I told to myself.

- Only a few days. The picture must be old. Hair color is not really alike. I might be wrong. Could you give me a way to contact the person who reported about this missing one?

- In principle, we may not give that information not to give false hope to the family. Do you understand? We are the Intermediaries with it. Give us your name and if you can come visit us at the Police station. If you cannot bother, give us your address and an inspector will visit you.

I'm feeling really trapped this time. An idea ... fast ...

- Sorry, I could not go to your office tomorrow or after tomorrow, and I cannot make me free today. I'm going abroad. Could you not you make an exception and give me the number, I Could reassure relating that she might be alive and healthy .

- Ok Purpose give us your name and address ..

I invented a name and address and the answer comes.

- Take note we-have the phone number is [phone]. Please contact us if it fited and don't say that I have you given thesis references to someone.

- Not suregoal it is done, I'll let you know. Thank you.

The conversation ends there.

I hang up the phone and wonder what actions to take on this conversation.

As I now got the link, I have to use it.

The issue that had with Jose andmyself, I am reminded "Do you want another life?" or something like that.

Did he really want me to find my own memory, real memory and my memory has not manufactured by himself?

Then a new issue troubles me: What Would I do without Him?

-----------------------------------------

 

10: Luiza awareness Resume

"We were aware Before We Become aware Afterwards.", Oscar Wilde

I dial the phone number I previously wrote down on a piece of paper.

Five rings and then a lady voice sounds a bit out of breath on the other end.

- Hello, Manu. Can I do something for you?

- Hello Madam, can I ask you an embarrassing question?

- Yeah, sure, go ahead. This is because I have had to incur my garden, I'm out of breath, That I can not answer you.

- Do you recognize my voice? Does it make you think of anyone?

A time and an anguished voice rightful excited come out.

- Is that you, Luiza? If this is not you, it would be disturbing me. The resemblance is striking.

- The name is Luiza that it was given to me, indeed.

- Where are you? What becomes of you. We are anxious your father and myself. I went to your house in Lisbon and a neighbor told me that you were often missing and that she didn't see uou her since a while. Tell me what happened and where you are. I beg you, Informs me.

- It's a short and long story. For idiots, your voice can not remember anything. Like the rest it's elsewhere. I suffered memory loss since the New Year.

- Loss of memory? You do not recognize me. What has happened?

- What caused it, I do not really know. I learned. It seems that this was a fall during that night. A fall that made a clear in my head.

- And now, where are you I'm coming for bring you back immediately, if I can. You're not on the street anyway?

- No, I was rescued by someone. Jose witnessed my fall and took me in. I can not give any answer to your questions concerned with my life before. He was afraid for me. He said he was likely that I would not recognize my family if I met it today.

- Do you speak and your voice is no longer any doubt in my mind, it's you, Luiza. You know your name anyway?

- Not at all even. When I see myself in the mirror, I do not recognize my face today. I don't know even If It was like this ever. I searched on the Internet, about lost people and I found a picture roughly That was corresponding to my current deal. Almost...

- Yes, I gave one of your old photographs to the Police. Know that your name is da Silva, Luiza da Silva.

- Beautiful name, purpose that does not remember me anything.

- Tell me where you are and I go on the field you seek. Your family loves you is waiting for you. She will be so happy to see you again.

- I find myself between Sintra and Cascais. I am by the mother of Jose Martinez, Who took me in. This is a neurologist or something like that. He's trying to get me recovering my memory. The exact address, I do not know. I can not tell you how to reach me. I came by car so far. The name can help ot find me out. If you could come today, this following me. I have doubts that cam to me with time on Jose. He is not here now, aimed at icts in office Lisbon ...

- Say "you". "vouvoyer" us it seems so difficulty to "vouvoyer" you.

. - OK. Excuse me. It is stille a difficul goal. I'll make an effort.

- I'm coming. My phone has registered your phone number. I will ask to the information desk. Do not worry anymore. I phone your father who is also mine, I'll learn. You're my half-sister goal I've considered my real sister. Just time to arrive. Say in three hours time or a little more.

- At any hour. I'll wait for you. You can not imagine how you make me happy. Brings new confidence in me to regain my memory. I look forward to my present comparing with my real past.

- At any hour.

I hang up the horn and based back the fixed telephone.

The phone at rest, I look before me in the gap and I feel the joy ride my head with a desire to extend my arms above my head.

Maybe It was too much to hope that this is a good family, aim It does not worth to stay there question mark since the beginning of the year without knowing it.

I have a half-sister named Manu. She still has a slight accent in her voice, which I'm sure comes from elsewhere.

The time will sccm to wait long to me. I do not hold up. I must do something to wait.

I abandoned my research on machine Jose and down on the ground floor with his mother to warn her about the visit of someone in my family say they know who I am.

I attacked Jose by his phone call, my subterfuge and my fear of making myself known to the police.

We laugh together.

It seems to his mother as happy as me with the idea  That might be my family that found me.

With her, I feel a total complicity. Complicity between two generations of women. I do not know who and how was my mother, I would have aim liked to have one like Jose's mother.

Somehow Jose will learn of my departure.

I want to find what was my life .Whether it was good or bad.

May I have to change of race. Want to have another life.

Goal I want to be aware of my choices that will not be taxed nor my family nor Jose.

I see this only in the natural order of things.

----------------------------------

11: First family member found 

"Life goes on, fast caravan!Stop your horse and try to be happy."Omar Khayyam

Within three hours as planned, Manu arrived. By taxi. Finally, I think, since it comes in the management of the house.

Through José office window, I watched the comings and goings of the low traffic around the house. Since I'm here, not nany visitors occured.

Excited, I go down to wait on the porch.

This is a lady with black hair coming out of the taxi. She's coming towards me. When she sees me, the so called Manu, released his best smile in my way.

She wears an album under the book from, it's seeming.

Her face tells me nothing. I do not recognize, drank her smile is engaging and I want to know and who knows recognize me.

It's as if I was acting like a high speed controller.

I go back down the furnace by furnace.

Manu speaks to Jose's mother. Calm contrasts with my excitement. Interspersed some smilies when she saw me coming.

Manu understood my trouble, my excitement and hers mobile has already phoned to get reviews another taxi.

Five minutes later, a taxi honks outside the entrance.

I embrace Jose's mother.

- Goodbye, Grandmamy. I'll be back agree you that I call you Granny.

This is the first time so called, but it's responding with a smile.

Obviously she is happy for me and simply said.

- Of course I accept. It honors me. Go. Find your family. Above all, do not forget us. Come back when you can. In a few days, I got to know you. I like the strength of your character and especially your humor.

- I promise. You know, Granny, I do not recognize Manu, my half sister, she knows me and purpose that is for me enough.

Manu and I, we go back to the times a few house with hand signs before reviews entering the taxi.

I'm happy.

I resolved to hunt the past and Will nothing stop me.

In the future, is it not for an after unpredictable and changes need to log by Itself, even without any memory of it?

------------------------------------

12: Back in the space of the past 

"Life goes Entirely To Be Desired ..." Jean de La Bruyère

On the train, Manu asks me to tell my story.

Finally, the one I know, the starting from 1 January 2014.

I only hope that It will complete the story by what comes before.

She listens with great interest about my new story.

Come when its traditional questions:

- I learned through one of your neighbors you lost your job. Why do you not call for help? Why do not you yourself sought to find us sooner?

They had to come. I would do if I was in her place.

The first questions I can answer.

To answer the second question, I have more intimate difficulties. I do not know as much as she. I remain exclusive.

- I trusted José when he offered to help me find the memory. He was not a doctor, he intended seemed to know his stuff. He seemed to have succeeded in life. I was afraid of the other. He proposed solutions to me. As for the loss of my job, I do not know. Excuse me.

- Do not apologize. I understand.

About this out, I understand it doesn't satisfy her answer him. Purpose psychologist, sensing my confusion, from the drop, she  opens the album and she won.

- Look what I brought. I have not had much time to look for shots where you find yourself, there must be some aim in this album. Joao, my husband is a photographer of landscapes, a Portuguese tourist books, does not he aim remain left with portrait photos. This is truly an artist. I love his photos. He Worked for newspapers and tourist books. Well, here he is on it. My favorite artist.

I smile with her.

Then my eyes switched between pictures and Manu.

For each of them, she told me a story that concerned.

Details of the shooting as if she Was showing me pictures of holidays.

Then she gets on a photo of kid.

- Here you are very young with a pacifier in the mouth ", Manu said.

A silly picture for anyone but not for Manu in series.

This picture does not affect me.

Another in the face with a teddy bear in the arm, no more.

Too bad some recordings of voices has not been made as in a movie, at least I could get along with more emotion.

I betrays none of my relative coldness take pictures and I share in the excitement of Manu more to please her.

More Interested, my eyes fell on a picture that represents a older face with my father.

- It's me, that the one I recognize myself ", I said.

Manu gives me the context wherin it was taken.

- Yes., You Were twenty years. It was taken in the Algarve countryside that yoy can senn in the backgroundI Do you not remember what we used.

- Both fail to smile, do not you think?

- You're right. They dad to Be made without your knowledge both.

Not to worry, I told myself.

I have to score goal that does this not tell me anything, it cannot remember anything.

- That's me at my wedding in 2001. I do not know what this picture is there. It should be in the full wedding album.

Manu is beautiful in white, I told myself. So there thirteen years ago and it has not changed much compared the photo with Manu who is next to me.

I'm just happy to exist for someone in the scene. That was my plaisure.

Photos Manu this as my father about did not tell me much about him and myself, I immerse myself in order his face not to look too silly when I'll meet him again. Will it change my mind?.

It's over. The latest album has arrived.

The coil of my youth has reached the end of the scratch tape.

Manu closes the album.

I'll meet them all, obviously.

Photos allowed me to put a name to each character. No further pictures of myself, older ..

Bizarre, Manu does not talk about my mother. No photo of her.

He was my father, was he divorced? Is my mother died?

This shoulds go back on the mat later, purpose I say nothing. I had my own memories this time.

Manu pulls out a photo of her bag. A girl under ten years and present it to me with a particular enthusiasm.

- The album does not contain purpose you see, this is a recent photo, she is my daughter, Rosa. She is ten years old. Always playful.

I dare not leave the question: "As her mom?".

Once again, I forget the passing landscape through the window of the train. This pictures give me more nostalgic characters than the pictures of my family.

I am angry, annoyed to have admitted to it, drank there it is.

Landscapes parade before my eyes just as new to me.

In the great Setubal station, the first stop was long enough. In other stations, smaller, They are held in downtime go short.

. Not many travelers feel Lisbon and Faro. I point it out to Manu who says:

- There's more when other management to Lisbon for commuters in the capital. Might be tonight the opposite. Often I do not make the trip to go to the capital.

I say quietly: José offered me another life with the risk of being build artificially while I just wanted to know my own unadorned, without lies and without infused science and it is this life that comes to me.

Sorry for José hoping perhaps another life for me.

Nothing prevents the lives does full later.

I do not want to anticipate. I prefer to imagine this, minute by minute with their immediate future.

I do not know if I've always been the way I am today.

If I could shut my big mouth over this past unknown to me. What I know is that I like to get people interested by a dark humor to the limit of the understanding as in a game.

Goal this time, I decided to do everything to suit to this position surrounded by my family and me to see through them.

Be among strangers to me If they recognize the unknown I am well and they accept me, that's fine.

I am ready to become a pinball between my family and my own life before tomorrow with this new family in Lisbon.

Rather it that when It passes nothing to expect this memory where Who does not return.

Know in a space and in a specific time, brings the personal comfort with holes in the partial vacuum.

I'm not sure I'll presence and derision enough to have in store for me that they appreciate.

As for Jose and his mother, I'm safe I'll see her soon.

I left my family, we talked about Jose and me on the pillow. I hope they will approve my decision to be a party without warning as quickly Him.

My mind asks the concrete, tangible, and not just a possibility provided by the image of an old memory.

José is a scientist. Sometimes it is too systematic, too systemic to get even with All His knowledge to find my past as it is.

Yet instinctive, irrational fear, indefinable entre pinching my two new lights of my life.

This might be a likely peak for both of them If they knew.

--------------------------------

13: A life form She Would've summary Before? 

"There are times When Everything Succeeds. We must not be afraid. It passes.",Jules Renard 

Along the way of anecdote anecdote in blah blah, the continuous journey as two friends could tell their after shopping on the latest events of the week.

After the train, the taxi.

Finally, we come before to Manu's house. A beautiful white house, without any question.

- In summer, the house reserves as a rural tourist cottage with two rooms for rent along since I'm not working any more.

A man we had to wait for some time and in front of the porch.  He is all smiles ahaid.

I don't have time to look in my book of photographs stored Manu proudly woodworking.

- Luiza, I present to you, Joao.

I notice Manu that is a nod to her husband. It has some gray temples with a beautiful effect. That is to be added to the pictures I saw on the train.

She is lucky, Manu.

Joao, a handsome man, without any question.

I present it, it's really the case.

The song is the plumage, I tell myself. Very affable, Joao, also.

She warned my memory loss.

- I call Dad to warn him about your arrivel ", Manu said.

Presentations will continue with the tour of the property. The small Rosa is at school.

Two hours later, in the evening, my father arrived.

Initially, he is all smiles. Then come the usual questions as a unfinshed symphony.

- Why do not you warned earlier us? We Would come looking for you ...

This issue starts to get irritated. I cut immediately.

- Because I do not know who I am, I did not know who prevent prevention.

A new Manu nod to Joao who understood that one off again in unanswered questions.

- There is nothing untoward to you, I hope, "Attempts father ?.

- No, Dad. Apart from that I do not even remember that you are my father. If all is well, If I had not seen your picture in the Manu album, I would not recognize you and have dared to talk with you. It's crazy, right?

There remains what, without saying anything for a considerable time.

- I guess a little cropped Manu thee in the family. She Had to tell you that you have received a good education. You were working in a laboratory and Manu told us that you had lost your job. Do not you remember what led to more points about this?

Really, it does not include fast, Dad", I said to myself.

The drought of his answer disappoints me deeply. I talk about education in such meeting without much heat, it's a little surprising to me.

As if he thought his father's role limited after giving was this education of standing.

Above all, not to let my trouble in reply and play innocent. Pretending That I stayed a small wise girl.

- No Dad. I apologize. I can not say more. This memory let me go. Fate operated me of my previous life goal I had to take with a little humor and derision because I couldn't imagine otherwise. If you could get Back on the right path of knowledge of myself and my surroundings, this is following me. I would be delighted.

- Excuse me, I landed and I have difficulty imagining your situation. Manu told me that you lost your job. Yet you had a good job in my opinion. You should blind in without much difficulty find out reviews another.

- As long as I still feel today. Manu had to talk to you about Jose who took care of me as a scientist can be, He Told me what happened to me after my fall. Memory loss, goal who knows, maybe a loss of jurisdiction from my old job. I remember that at first he had  me questions that I wanted to do in life. Do you know what I answer?

- No, tell me.

- I'll give you in a thousand. Farmer. This was me out without thinking. Do you realize the difference with someone who works in a laboratory, since this is what from what I was told, was my responsibility. Have you asked at the time what I wanted to do with my life? I guess you pushed me to study.

- For you to become someone that everybody respect. Yes I Am.

- Maybe you believe it. It is aimed sometimes very far from the truth. I guess nobody in the company employed that me, Does my concern disappearance If I still do not recognize anyone and what happened, I now see myself in summary in another mirror, I hope, a new happiness. You are thinking that with a well-formatted education, we automatically become someone and somewhere, naturally a rich bastard?

- No, of course.

- I lived in recent weeks in the Jose's mother house. He had to be born in a poorer environment than in the one he now lives in. It may be worse in your eyes having in mind the tourists in the hotel wherein you are managing.

Another hesitation in finding a suitable response that soes not come.

I repeat.

- When I found myself in the position of this memory loss, I had a real panic. I did not know where to go. Have to relearn all of my past, I do not know if you can have an idea of what it can be as trauma.

- I guess.

- If I'm here, it is not receiving send complaints. And I really hope you will fill me emptyness of my memory, Dad. Not for you to put in step with the way you see things.

- I'll try Give me time, Luiza. Tonight I'm going back to the hotel where I'm working. You stay here with Manu and Joao, this time.

- Of course, Luiza is our guest as much time as she wants ", comes Manu in the conversation.

Manu had understood that there had to be some latent jamming with her Father who floated. In fact, I do not know. My subconscious, Perhaps gave me the impetus to meet my father at the level as he can have.

I say, turning to her.

- Thanks, Manu. That I should add over time, my character had probably changed as well. These days with Jose's mother were magical repairering myself. I am no along. I do not know if the pictures are thesis and tests that Jose made me pass before his Eyes. It was like a revelation, The brainwashing is stillstill ongoing. I wonder about everything. I experienced this in another life? I can not talk about the relationship with Dad, because for me it is still almost abroad. But I'm working. Believe me.

My Father does not add anything.

He kisses me and said:

- See you soon We'll talk now more often.

Later that evening, I was left alone with Manu and Joao.

At one point the front Joao on the computer.

I do not know why, I ask him to seek what is said on the Internet about "José Alvarez" name.

If the font. Given me this desire to know more about me, the Internet could give the same about Jose.

- Ok, let's goIng on Internet. Told me all about my savior, Jose.

I spot beside him and we watch the screen all the answers that can be.

He enters the Jose's name and starts the search of his name.

Quickly he's finding multiple results in the search phase.

José's fame must have been full since there are multiple pages.

In moving from page to page backwards in time, the surprise comes from the fact to find it in boxes some points that had staked his past in computer fields.

Money matters. Big bucks even. Bugs as they are called in computer stories;

José was earlier at the head of an IT start-up that Fell into bankruptcy that bordered the "fraudulent" level.

Fortunately, justice has failed to prove fraud. There was a dismissal and the box fell into oblivion. So the journey of Jose and the reason he has to invoke to have changed jobs. And apparently it succeeded him in his new life and job.

Joao, reassuring to finally told me.

- Do not worry about Jose. There have been many boxes are planted in that field, That Justice has failed to be elucidated. May have been José simply a victim than anything else. Many start-ups have had to put the key under the mat in the early 2000's. I knew that in my job too. That followed Portuguese-has-been more expeditious in the following. I also had a few years when I lived on my reservations. Aim it is better in tourism.

- Thanks Joao. I noticed that Jose lacks nothing today. He has traveled extensively on business, he said.

- Any way, you are now at home here. We have a spare room upstairs and you can stay as long as you recover.

The days pass and I used to live with Manu and Joao.

With Manu I feel better. It is reassuring to. I deal with it the little Rosa, Who is not as playful as the picture presented by Manu. The trick, I see it, is present sometimes with her ​​mother.

Some days later, when i know José returned to her mother, I phone him.

He apparently has no complaints about my hasty departure.

- I found your message. My mother explained everything. You were right to leave to join your family. How you doin? The reconnu have you?

- You had warned me. No, I do not recognize. Not yet perhaps a detail on a day that will jump out at me. But I'm learning a lot about my family and myself. It's almost a makeover. I'm busy with the puzzle of my life. Piece by room. What is funny depending on the person telling anecdotes, There are different versions and assessments and therefore shares that do not fit in one place.

- Like I told, I remember the evening when you came to my mother. We responds each with our own visions and interpretations of events.

- I remember I left with the puzzle parts that do not fit well. When they are redundant, it's worse.

José laughs on the phone.

- I suspect your doubts That have to be stressful. When you come back to Lisbon Now you know where you lived before we met. You'll have to have to decide to revive it a personal life.

- You're right. I'll come back and I have a new project that developed in my head for the trip on the train to the south. I will say no more. I am not sure of myself. I have to find out about it. I'll call you when I return. In Lisbon, my half sister told me I was living in the Alfama district and gave me the address.

- You know where to find me. I think of you often. I already miss you.

- I'm not going to admit it too easily. You'd be too happy with you. I embrace you. I stay over here. It seems that I will meet Manu's half-brother from Belgium. One more opportunity to get to know the whole family.

- Well, I had not wanted to talk to you. In France, there is a story like you. This is the life of Jacques-Michel Huret . He has not regained thirty memory and he told it in a book . He did not even have shock which caused his amnesia. Finally we do not know because he had a huge blue at the base of the neck. At the hospital, they had made ​​him an injection of pentothal, but nothing helped. As I told you, he had also kept almost intact general knowledge. It took him a long time to find a seat in his family after his mental block.

- That's a good idea. Write a book about my life desperate memory.

- Desperate? The are you again?

- No, I have evolved. Manu, if I do not recognize her as a sister, I could very well make a new friend. We understand very well. It has a dry humor as well.

- This is also a good idea. Hang yourself for who you love today and forget those who do not make you happier.

- Thanks for the advice. This is exactly my first project. After I will think about what my future as my past cowardly abandoned me. See you later.

I hung up by being sure that I still have many things to say.

The following days are well filled by Manu and Joao.

There are a few years, Manu left the work she was doing with her ​​husband, Joao Rosa when she and cares intensely and leaves me a little space in his education.

Joao invited me to accompany him to see the Algarve during his work.

I could recognize the places where it led me, and yet I am a spectator of a world that is foreign to me.

Everything becomes interesting. Everything seems fine and prone to enter my brand new memory.

I knew the words common to represent things and now I'm trying to recognize proper names. It became environmental credentials based on what he tells me with what they represent today and yesterday.

In the evening, we are gathered together at the same table. I start to tell what I saw during the day. This becomes a joy and confirms the idea that I have behind the head begins to dawn to take my destiny.

- You gifts to tell, says Joao.

Michel, who arrived from Belgium, recounts his life in Belgium and recalls the past Manu. They laugh together.

Belgium, a country where it's gray, it rains often and where in winter the snow appeared to confuse all the roads where he lives ...

Fascinated, I listen to his stories and Manu reactions carefully.

During the week of presence, it has been five at the table when the little Rosa decides not to quit. We laugh a lot. I feel good with them.

Contacts with my father are rare.

It is from what I'm told, too busy managing the hotel in Albufeira. If they are rare, I feel it is better that they remain so because I feel they are quite cold. I can not say why he remains distant. Maybe me, his daughter had to mature in dejμhors him and he can not find me as he had to build up and no longer matches his own memories.

Will I have to defend it confuses me or find me?

Later, I talk about my father Manu.

No, it recognizes that sometimes Carlos has a character she describes as bizarre, too concerned.   

I am inlays. This can not last long. While Manu and José do let it show, it is clear that I can not enjoy their longer hospitality.  

One day in February, I decided to go home in Lisbon. It will be necessary that I work or I take my destiny.

I have a new project in the head and it annoys me to keep it for me. I want to see their reactions to my revelation.

That night, around me, Manu and Joao.

- I want to thank you for the hospitality you have given me both. I'll have to go home ...  

- You can stay. You do not bother us and our little Rosa like your presents. What are your projects. Do you want to go back to Lisbon to find a new job laboratory assistant ?, asks Joao.

- No, Joao, I want to go back to school benches. In the course of the day or night, whatever. What I know is that I want to do it again to be a laboratory assistant. Even if I had the skills to do it with my degree, I'm not sure I can bear it. I have another project.

- Oh, and what he asks Manu interrupting Joao speed.

- I want to become a guide.

A moment of silence ensues my revelation and I clutched without waiting any blame.

- I do not know if I will succeed. But I feel that I want to know anything else, to meet people, guiding tourists from all backgrounds. I imagined that it must be thrilling.

Manu and Joao look at a little surprised.

- Exciting, but not easier. I'll préviens.Tu must know many things about Portugal to become guide. History, interesting landscapes .... Then your degree will not serve you ...

- Yes I know. If I do not have a memory of my past, I noticed that everything I read is still etched in my new memory. I understand your reaction, but I want to do something in my life that interests me and that I like. Daddy will not be happy with my decision, but that does not stop me. In a lab, I guess these are specimens that I handle all day long without a lot of oral feedback. And it does not enchant me or more. This time, I want to choose myself what I want to become.

- And what do you do to become one?

- I'll leave tomorrow evening. If you want to tell Dad. If he has the time to come here, I see before my departure.

_______________________________

14: The last corner of the veil is torn 

"When the curtain rises, the issue is: shoulds fall?If it goes down, it's a comedy;if It Does not drop, it is a drama.", Marcel Pagnol

Since Reviews arriving in Lisbon, Luiza following day races for becoming a regional guide.

It is integrated with already has begun race. The material to assimilate ranks from history to geography through language, goal aussi psychology courses, natural resources, heritage, world cuisines, group management and unexpected.

The presentations are assisted by computers. Learn to search for information. The rest is done at home. On the weekend, she found Jose. In his car, they browse cities and the countryside to the Portuguese north and south of Lisbon. Saturday night ends with him sitting in a shared love.

By summer, is an opportunity to exercise his knowledge. She accompanies asserted field guides with tourists.

The monitors have time immediately understood that she was inexhaustible about the history of the country and let her talk to tourists.

She has gifts for purpose languages she understood the need to log and go further. In Another Time, she works in a restaurant during the day and fun to talk with tourists at low points. The rent is José who wanted to pay for it.

In her apartment in Alfama, while it reviews progress, she listens to music English, French and Spanish to set the mood of the country she had never visited except Spain.

His desire to learn and motivation is insatiable.

Love is slowly brings autumn quarters after those of the summer.

The holidays are over.

One evening in late october, she resumed his readings languages.

The temperature is still sweltering in the evening on the streets of Lisbon.

She is tired. She slept badly the night before.

During a visit to the gynecologist, she learns she is pregnant.

She told José who was jumping for joy. Their joy was common and complement each other in exchange fiery kisses.

The race ends at 7:00 p.m..

She takes the tram to go home.

José about did not come to get her. He was not available.

Suddenly in the tram, a voice spoke to her.

- So you are not coming along to the meetings, Luiza?

- Excuse me, what meetings, we know each other?

- Of course, we are known. It's me, Maria. It's crazy, less than a year and you do not already know me anymore. We demonstrated a few times ago, in the street and we were together at the meeting in November 2014. You told me you lost your job. Everyone noticed your were depressed following the announcement. It Was as if you wanted to kill yourself at times. I tried to supporting you. I hope you have recovered a better way to take revenge on your boss at the lab wherin you had worked.

Luiza is silent. Captured by this news.

The words "depression ... suicide," echoed in her head.

This knew Maria during this unknown troubled period of my family.

So that was it. Jose was right.

Probably I experienced a dark period at the end of 2014, up wanting to kill myself this January 1st.

What answer? She had become amnesiac? Luiza does not remember anything and goal because she has no desire to repeat this scenario. Accustomed. Now she wants to build another life. This new revelation to complete a puzzle piece in her life. Jose and his family tried to fill other empty boxes.

Confused, she instinctively responds:

- Oh, yes, I remember. No, I do not want to take care of this. I have new projects; Today I am studying to become a guide.

- Good idea. Currently tourism returns to form. More opportunities you may find out more than as a laboratory assistant. You loved touch with us. It is an asset. I guess it will be the same with tourists. The laboratory assistant job  did not sccm to be your hobby. I wish you the best for this new project.

Luiza heads for the exit door of the tram.

- Goodbye, Maria, I arrived at destination. If we want to phone you give me your number.

Maria delves Into her bag and reaches out.

- Of course. This is my business card.

Seized Luiza, without waiting for responses.

Troubled In her thoughts, when she is about to go down the old yellow tram with an already open door, she does not notice que la tram has not stopped completely.

A foot still inside and another already touching the ground of the pavement.

Unbalanced, she misses the last step of the pedal and loses his balance. The crazy fall happens, the banal accident. She rolls on the ground.

Cries in the tram and it stops a Few meters away. On the sidewalk, it's the time immediately crowd around Luiza  not moving.

Maria, immediately was lingµving the tram down to save her. Seeing that she can not recall to make Luiza recovering. she called on her mobile an ambulance. She opens the bag Luiza for clues of contact. She finds out Jose's references. While waiting for rescue, she calls José at the phone number.

Less than a quarter of an hour, Luiza is the carried away lifeless in the hospital.

It has just enough time to prevent prevention José from where Luiza is taken away.

Arrival to emergencies, Luiza is time immediately was put under observation.

Despite some preliminary bruises that do not really sccm to be serious damage, doctors aim follow her make further top investigation.

Then she is treated and installed in a room waiting for her awakening.

José time immediately warned her Father Carlos in Albufeira.

Closer Jose  did not go to the office and stayed at her bedside.

Luiza has not woken up yet. Her head surrounded by a bandage with some superficial scratches that should be on hands. Apparently Nothing serious.

It's all the same anguish. A concussion, maybe a deep coma and prolonged "is José said.

Early in the afternoon, Carlos joined him and speak softly together.

About three o'clock, Luiza finally wakes up.

Both get up to live the momentum. almost suprised

Luiza: has a mine and a fig half smile, half grape.

- What happened to me, she fullfill to say, as whispered.

- You fell from the tram, has does told us one. How do you feel?

- I have a headache, drank I remember. I had an extraordinary dream. I dreamed of my childhood with mom who was caught up in a car. I got seen ...

José Carlos looks, a puzzled air.

- Did you see your mother? Your mother is dead, a long time ago. I do not want to talk to you. She Was hit by a car. I have not witnessed the stage.

- I saw perfectly her accident. It cam back to mind with the details as if It happened yesterday.

- Have you dreamed of other things, ", ask Carlos , puzzled ?

- Yes. Then I saw the thread of my youth unwound before my eyes in a summary successive sequences. It Was crazy to relive it all in a dream, Dad. I remembered a lot of things. The private school, the university benches, the lab where I worked. Colleagues who were laughed about me. The boss called who expired me Into His office to fire me. Yes, I've seen everything.

- It's a miracle, ", said Jose, while her father without anyone noticing blushed.

- I think I found the memory from this long dream. I remember almost everything up to my fall down the tram, I met Maria, who told me that I had fallen Into a depression last year. She was right.

Joao Carlos and stare do not know what to say.

Too many events in cam Too sast, Even for him.

Carlos cam out first from the torpor with a smile mingled with joy.

- My daughter, your memories come back and that's the main thing you can not you realize you could how happiness it brings for us, Jose and me. I'll call the doctor who examined thee. He told us your fall that was not too bad, aim your head  had been dropped and that he had to surround it with bandage. He couldn't imagine that there was a miracle behind the scene and more. I'll tell the rest of the family. Manu is going thrilled to be. I have not been able to prevent before you get here.

The doctor enters the room and asks them to leave the room together.

Without waiting for what he will say, Carlos begins:

- Docter, ùy daughter has recovered her memory.

Without sharing his joy with a more serious face, the doctor replied:

- I did not know she had lost her memory before. This is good news to know that you had was my patient pregnant. Because of her fall, I had fears, she lost her baby. Upon review, this is not the case, fortunately. Her fall has not done too much damage. She had from what you tell me now a double chance.

Joy, fear and then the relief, that's a lot of news in a short time.

The fate and luck play poker entre miracles and spoilers, When the purpose consist two are lucky, is more than a miracle.

- Let her restIt. It will not be long before she will be fine and goes home.

After thanking the doctor, the duo enters the room.

Luiza fell asleep.

Emotions subsidy echoes.

------------------------------------------------

15: Settlement: On Christmas Eve 2014 

"No gifts, Christmas Would not Be Christmas."Louisa May Alcott

December 24, Christmas Eve in Albufeira. In a small room of the hotel Where Carlos Luiza's father always assumes the role of manager.

The whole family is gathered.

The decorations adorn the room around a large table. In one corner, cold dishes are placed on a buffet.

21:00 hours, Luiza is surrounded by all the family.

Luiza, Jose's mother, Pedro and Jose at the wheel arrived by road from Lisbon, left early in the morning. Michel got off the plane from Charleroi since the late morning.

The stories follow the stories in the new ones.

Everyone laughed together too.

Carlos made and back up to the hotel kitchen by arranging the tourists do not lack anything.

Carlos finally arrived. He sits next to Jose, Pedro facing Manu, Joao, Michel and Luiza.

The small Rosa plays with thers Her age kids in the garden of the hotel.

Suddenly Luiza gets up and knocks over a glass for silence.

She takes out a paper written a Few times before Christmas and spreads on the table:

- Here we are all together As you learned, so I refound my memory. The memory of various things, good and bad. What I'll tell, it is not the time perhaps. That Day Eve to talk about that is not really the good moment. Forgive me but there are so few opportunities to do so.

No reply and still all ears expecting mysterious revelations.

Luiza first turns to her Father.

- Today, dear papa, I will dare to say that I have never dared to say. Do not blame me for these Words that can hurt you. Without knowing it, you have somewhat poisoned my youth and therefore what has Followed in my childhood and life. Just before my last fall, my friend Maria, had already revealed partially me of late 2013, I had suicidal desires. I couldn't see how I could get out of the rut I slipped wherin ... and where from you had Introduced me. Following the accident of my mother, I thought you wanted to punish me for her death. As I had witnessed live. You Mom died revenge on me. Do you realize. You, Dad, who was that time, my reference about god. I Mom knew was all for you. This created a disappointment. This drama, I have kept in my heart not to add to your suffering, to our common suffering.

Luiza mark a break by watching her father, Carlos and diners around Him. Without feedback, she resumes.

- Then, to me, Dad, you seemed to prefer the sound Mom was before. You, Joao. I do not know If It Was true I felt as such. A kind of jealousy settled in my mind kid. I 'm not proud of it today.

Luiza turned round to alternately Joao and Carlos. Both remain, dumb.

- I cried Mom and hates the drunk driver even stronger, As if you wanted to exonerate you of this drama, you have had to give me good education in a private boarding school in the nearest town. I've obeyed. Goal I was so cut off from the family. Later older, I understood your goal to make me someone while you couldn't assume with your office at the hotel. And a laboratory assistant was born, as you wanted. When I was fired, I was a shame that you cannot imagine the importance. It seemed for me to break your dream.

New stop for breath with voice halted sometimes.

New interlude no return.

New stop for breath with voice halted sometimes by lack due to emotion.

New interlude no return.

- I say your dream "Laboratory Assistant" may be a great job, it aimed about did not fit my personality and my way of being white. I've always loved the outdoors, the countryside, the nature. I realized I did this in held this position in the pharmaceutical company. When I got fired, I thought about suicide. As if I'd missed my life. When it was Eve 2014, I did not really want to continue to live. I made the foolish .I crashed.Then I gathered from José and Mamy, saved me from my distress following my memory loss. He offered the risk of testing a new life. He did not know how, his goal was to be placed heightened.

The guests are watching, do not order anything and dare add Luiza resumes with conclusions.

- You see, Dad, Such memory may be dangerous. It provides findings on others and oneself. No forgiveness Life often built coincidences, Misunderstandings and nonsense.

Luiza is prepaid to sit down, Moved by his own revelations, aim it stops movements.

- I forgot. There still has good sides inform you that Jose and I set a date to get married next year and I'm going to give birth in April.

Luiza, emptied by her own words, sweaty, sits down.

Joao is the first to finaly answer.

- My dear Luiza, I knew nothing of your torment. You knew too well hide your feelings. I have not seen Mom's accident. Know that you have been to me like a real sister even though we about did not have the same illusion about a father. Aim you're right, We were often separated.

Carlos, he felt trapped in the crossfire.

He had to answer, confirm or intuition Luiza,that he Joao preferred.

- You may be right, Luiza. I was ungrateful unknowingly That does not apologize. I was stupid, being white Joao older, I thought he Fairly Quickly Could assist me at the hotel.It Was selfishness somewhere.If you HAD-have suicidal feelings , I Had aussi the death of your mother.I do not know why I needed a sin Offering, responsible and I've designated.This Should Be That our religion wants this and who needs to find a willing-victim Often female.I've neglected to His advantage as we can hope for a successor to the male.I couldn't make You Suffer my distress, my depression at the death of my wife and I made worse by thy revelations and your faith.You away from me Was to Give you a good education in a good school.A Pretext, Perhaps.I am very sorry.The damage is done.I can not go back.Proud, I rebuilt myself, alone, in silence.You were, both, of my pride, as I Told Manu When she came to me in 2001. I beg you to forgive me one day Luiza.

Luiza folded the paper the speech she placed before her. She had not cast the slightest glance at her.Everything was left unaided, naturally, in the emotion.she gets up to say:

. - Dad, I have forgiven you willingly today. Since my fall from January 1st, I have changed a lot.I am no along. I aged in very little time. I took reviews another personality, more candid, Perhaps Stronger. José can talk.There are nearly a year, When he presented me if I wanted another life, he warned me that there could be risks to regain my memory. He was not wrong.The past is not made only of happy nostalgia.

José's mother speaks without getting up.

- I have loved you, Luiza. I'm glad you will be my stepdaughter you ever call me Grandma. On this Christmas Eve, I wanna thank all of you for inviting us here in the Algarve.The past is hard to learn about.The life of my son, Jose, I have known the first time.

Manu finally spoke.

. - Thank you, Luiza taught us have this. You're rightproud of you Carlos was when I first tante.Thank you to you too, Michel, to thee moved from Belgium and telling me the last Belgian stories, absolutely crisp, thou hast me surreal. A country that I'm knowing to be born there. Since 2001, the position in Portugal is still thriving, aim it gets better.

José rises in turn to close.

- Since we are in broad denominations in Christmas Day I'll give mine.First I will tell you, thank you, Luiza, of trusting me.I had, before You, a long series of events That have not been happier.I Went through a bankruptcy in another life, I've never intended to-have-been suicidal thoughts. I knew what could be  a period of turmoil in the qui desire to end is not far away, I was just aim stronger than you.I changed lanes like you.No glory to be found in this.When we met, science and pragmatism of my hand were conduite.I was not what we can call a hoot.Pedro called expired me "Mr. Science" and Mr. Science does not think of was merry. So, Luiza, you made me laugh and surprised at the time.I have not told you, I loved you from the first minute we met. Purpose I do not allow myself to think given our age difference.

-Your bankruptcy, José, I must admit, I did discover it with the help of Joao. Your love, you did maintain too well hidden. I have felt it the day you dare kiss me. Today we are going to have a little girl. We decided to call her Mihaela. She is the survivor of another life accident. Our lives are marked and build by a series of accidents, incidents and various misunderstandings", Luiza answers almost relieved.

Carlos gets up a little poopers.

- You want to become a guide and you will have a child. You're going to need us to pass your exams. Do not forget I'm here this time.

Luiza bursts with a smile.

- I know, goal I do not think it's NecessaryEven if it does not work as a guide.Jose Told me about a man Who has Experienced la même problems gave me memories.He wrote a book about His Story.I can write a book with mine, right?

- I told you that is great Luiza Since I've known her, She has plenty of projects in the head. It is not only cured by her own memory, aim cured of all her childhood problems. I hope I will be share of your book, Luiza", said José smiling.

- Altough knowing that you will be share of ", Luiza interrupted before José resumes.

- Imagine, I have never written as programs and scientific reports without much imagination, I wrote something for you. Not much, an exercise for you and for all who are there. A French exercise.Manu must remember the song of Gilbert Becaud, "Nathalie". All you are young Students with Luiza, certainly won't know it.This french singer died in December 2001, at the time exactly when Manu and Joao married here in Portugal.I adapted this song for the occasion. Here is a copy of the lyrics I ask you to distribute while  I get that old 45 record on the board. We'll sing karaoke together.

José rises, stops the CD sound broadcasts a current air, well known in Portugal to install an old 45s plate on the board.

When the song finally beginning, after Some hesitation, sing in chorus above the original lyrics.

Place was empty Commercio

Luiza Walked Before Me

He Had a pretty name, my guide

Luiza

Place was great Commercio

To the right Was the Alfama

A town with a sloping hill

Luiza

You spoke in single sentences

The Carnation Revolution

I thought perky

After the visit of Castelo

We would go to the coffee Fado

Drinking has long porto

Place was great Commercio

I smile, You Took my arm

I offers you this song

Luiza Luiza ...

As a group of tourists

You were very optimistic

I Waited impatiently

Whether you finish talking

I did not want to know everything

And you wanted to tell me

I Knew the Tagus valley

With Lisbon and Its beautiful pictures

I wanted to mix everything

and I wanted to sing you

My love led

Laughing in advance

It has series of romances

And danced

When your memory Was empty

Were your memories in a beyond

I Remained alone with my guide

Luiza

No more sober sentences

Or Carnation Revolution

It Was There No follow

Gone is the view of the Castello

The great harbor of Fado

That is, It Was already far

The memories come back to you

Goal I know one day round

I will show the world

I will-have the opportunity That You Will Be Mine

Luiza Luiza

The evening ended around 2 am.

Everyone returns to the room booked by the owner, Carlos.

The next day at breakfast, no one would have had the desire to lose the memory of the renaissance that happened in this Christmas Eve ...

 

END