I Can't Remember #5

I can't remember the name of that restaurant where Pedro Faria and me ate fish while Eusebio's death was on telly. It had no one else around apart from Pedro and me, the host and someone in a corner enjoying fish as well. Rain pleasantly dwelled through the streets of Lisbon.

I can't remember, someone says, the taste of table stout. At home, before he got to the age of ten, they used to serve Piedboeuf, its dark variety, barely alcoholic.

I can't remember how many of the exams I did and eventually how many I refused to do, during second-year at art school. It had good reason, I guess, to release from the pathetic theoretical and religious matter they had served during the year, but in the end I refused most of the other exams as well. Around X-mas, months before the final exam, I had tried to persuade other students to go for a general strike, apparently without that much of a result. So the only remark to be filled in was that I didn't care to answer any of the questions of the questionnaire and, feeling generous about it though, noted the reason why I objected to the exam. I can't remember what I wrote. I can't remember if it was a short note on the reason why I didn't care to answer the questions or a drawn-out statement against the state of things. Failure had to be confronted and I couldn't care less. Unexpectedly it took a different turn as at least three teachers defended the insubordination of one of their favourite students.

I can't remember how often I forgot to take notice, at the Louvre, of the Mona Lisa. As too many Japanese and American tourists stood in front of it, I swiftly went for the Titian portrait a half a second further on.

I can't remember how long it took from Ostend to Dover.

I can't remember the first phrase of Ulysses. I can't remember the first phrase of many other books. But I do remember Virginia Woolf's last diary wrote: L. is doing the rhododendrons...

I can't remember the name of the gentleman entitled to inform us on anatomy. He had a tailored suit, which comforted his impertinent lines on the sexual morals of sixties and seventies. He loved it to be rude, and to be hated, and ran a shop where one could buy prosthetic devices and wheelchairs.

I can't remember my first Chandler novel. In Cafe con Libros, situated near Plaza Merced in Calle Granada, Màlaga centro, they used to have books and magazines. Drinking tea and enjoying the buttered toasties they served I discovered not one but several Chandler novels, which I at once began to read, one after the other, until I had read all the Chandler novels they had. After having read at least three, The High Window may have been one of them, I started to look around in English Bookshops. They had one on Plaza Merced where I traced two more titles.

I can't remember any of the quotes of Jasper Rigole on the things he had forgotten and couldn't fancy to remember ever again.

I can't remember how many pipes I used to have at the age of nineteen.

I can't remember if I read all the additional notes in the P.O.L. edition of "53 jours".