"The hues and the blues of being happy"

  Porto is a city of splendors. It holds, along the banks of the Douro, that romantic space perfectly suited for celebrating those milestone birthdays ending in a round number — the forties through the nineties. This time, it was my wife's. We celebrated joyfully alongside family, listening to whatever the cobblestones of the Ribeira had to offer that spring evening, the dark river before us and the cheerful chatter of tables full of French tourists behind us. The occasion called for exactly that: a pleasant setting and lively people, both from near and far.

  Seated, savoring a red wine from the Alentejo, she gets up and heads to the restroom. At that precise moment, a flower seller appears before me — I suspect with a little help from Mr. Vasco, a waiter who carries in his mouth the mortal remains of a set of teeth from the days of the Carnation Revolution, yet possessed of an uncommon and genuinely Portuguese warmth that more than compensates for any gap in the dental arch. I bought a splendid pink rose for just a few euros. It was the least the occasion, the river, and the wine were asking for.

  A young blonde woman, fine-featured and lovely, sitting nearby, notices the gesture and hints to her boyfriend that she'd like the same. It didn't take long. He gave her two, in matching pink. The one-upmanship earned a delighted smile from her and a knuckle bump — at the metacarpophalangeal joints, as we say — between him and me, the way people greet each other when they understand without needing words. I said: *clever of you — you took advantage of my opening.*

   We couldn't help but notice his smile. His teeth were entirely disordered, yellowed, and decayed — partly, no doubt, thanks to the pack of cigarettes on the table. After a brief exchange, in which he told us about his trip to São Paulo, we said our goodbyes by the Douro, while he was still drawing in the slow-death tar. I wished him well and suggested he take better care of his health, being so young. A reflex remark from a surgeon — even on holiday, even without a white coat and far from any scalpel.

  Ten or fifteen steps later, I regretted it. I turned back to apologize for having commented on the habit. It was none of my business. Nobody there had asked for a clinical opinion on the banks of the Douro.

 I'm glad I went back. With good humor, the Englishman replied: *Don't worry about it. I was cured of a lymphoma a few years ago, and I've been living with a colostomy since then.* He lifted his jacket and showed us the bag he carries on the left side of his abdomen, a wide support band wrapped around his torso, bearing witness to an abdominal infection. He spoke with a quiet naturalness, the ease of a man who has already made peace with his own body and his own story.

  I walked away carrying a lesson I hadn't expected to take from that evening.

  The regret came before his reply — in those ten or fifteen steps back. The lesson wasn't taught by the Englishman. I had already arrived at it on my own. He merely confirmed, with a disarming grace, what he must have taught so many others before. That says something about what happens when you step out of the role of physician, fold the white coat into your suitcase, and become, simply, a person among many others.

  There is a quiet irony that runs through the whole scene: a man who has spent his life protecting lungs, apologizing to a lymphoma survivor for having brought up the subject of cigarettes. And on top of that, the survivor smiles. Not from indifference to his health, but because he has already negotiated with death in a way that renders any well-meaning advice small — almost naïve — against the scale of what he has already lived through and still carries in his body and his memory. His smile was not denial. It was his own scale of values, forged in chemotherapy and surgery.