The National Guard
In the olden days, policemen and national guards weren’t all metrosexual beefcakes, with their tightly trimmed beards and biceps. They were old school.
The GNR, the Guarda Nacional Republicana, that is, the National Guard, act as the police force outside of the larger towns and cities (those are policed by the PSP, the Polícia de Segurança Pública).
Back then, GNR guards tended to be stuffed into their grey blue uniforms. not because of their muscles, but because of their puffed out chests and their fat tummies. The guard who strutted up and down the main street of Perão, where nothing ever happened except parking violations, looked, and acted, like a South American dictator of the 1970s, tightly packed into his uniform, a heavy moustache, a pair of aviators nestled between the moustache and the peak of his cap with its teal-green flash, and a pair of dashing riding boots. Guard Pereira was scary.
Most people were reasonably averse to the idea of getting into trouble with the GNR, but Guard Pereira was the person we didn’t want to upset. He had never been seen to throw anyone from a helicopter into the sea, had only ever arrested someone for very good reason, had never been seen to be violent. It was just his demeanour. He strutted like a peacock, slowly, confidently, menacingly.
Clare, who lived next to Perão, was terrified of Guard Pereira. She was stopped in an Operation Stop one morning. Operation Stops are set up from time to time to catch drunk drivers and wrong paperwork. The cynical amongst us think it’s just for them to make money from fines, but they do catch an awful lot of drunks so, on balance, they’re a good thing.
This Operation Stop was set up, as they mostly are, in a position that you couldn’t avoid by taking a back road. Clare was waved down, and she froze. She didn’t drive very much, and had never been stopped before, never had any dealing with the guards. She was pretty sure she had everything in order, but maybe she’d missed something, just as we all feel guilty when passing a policeman.
Three guards were running the stop, and one of them was Guard Pereira. She watched in her rear view mirror as he approached her car and her heart stopped.
She jumped at a sharp tap on her window, as Guard Pereira walked straight past her car and onto the next. The window tapper was a different guard. This one was a bit younger, maybe mid-forties, with less of a vibe of South American dictator, no moustache or sunglasses, though he had the tummy and the riding boots.
She wound down the window and said “bom dia” like a rabbit caught in the headlights.
“Bom dia, menina” he said. In the north, you get called menina (girl) long beyond girlhood, and it’s just polite. In the south, you get called menina for other reasons, usually for condescension.
He asked for her documents and she passed him her wad of papers and cards. ID, driving license, car ownership, car insurance.
“A menina vive em Portugal há quanto tempo?” he asked. “How long has the young lady lived in Portugal?”
“Er… algum tempo…” she replied. “…some time…”
“And you’re not a citizen yet? Why not?”
Sometimes people ask that as if the process is as simple as popping into the post office.
“I can help you if you like,” he offered, with a smile, studying her papers, then handing them back.
Clare, still flustered, said that that was very kind of him, thank you, but really it wasn’t a problem, that she’d get round to it one day, that she was just a bit too busy right now.
“Alright, menina, have a good day”, he said, and waved her off.
Clare drove away and went about her morning, relieved that she wasn’t going to be thrown into jail and had avoided Guard Pereira.
That night, she was sitting a her laptop when a facebook friend request appeared. A man whose name didn’t ring any bells. Who the hell is that, she wondered, and clicked on the photo. It was the guard from the morning… and in her panic, she pressed the accept friend button.
“Olá menina! Tudo bem?”
“Boa noite. Tudo ok, obrigada.”
“Do you want me to help you with citizenship? Let’s have a coffee one of these days, and fix the problem.”
Oh shit, thought Clare, and slammed her laptop shut.
What to do? He’s a guard. If I block him, he knows who I am now and can get me in trouble. If I keep talking to him, he’ll take that as a come on. Or is he just very naïve and friendly? She went through all the possibilities she could imagine.
A quick scan of his page showed that he was single, ostentatiously so. Probably recently divorced… he had that look about him. A bit flabby, but trying to tidy himself up. He was definitely flirting.
She responded in as non-committal a way as possible. “No problem, I’ll get it sorted! thanks!”
But the offers of help and coffee continued. Every couple of days, the messages would arrive, and she would have to bat them away, without telling him to fuck off, so as not to attract the wrath of the National Guard.
In her local café, Clare confided in Nela as she served her her coffee that she thought a guard was flirting with her.
“Ai, filha, isso é simples!” she said… and gave Clare her instructions to end the attention.
By the time next message arrived, Clare had invented a husband, a jealous man of whom she was terrified. She invented a back story, in case the guard asked why he didn’t appear on her facebook and why she had never mentioned him. She made up a job for him which meant he was a tough guy. She even imagined a scenario in which she had had to go to the hospital when they had lived in a different country and had almost pressed charges against him.
Most of that was unnecessary. “How about that coffee, menina?” said the message. “hello,” Clare responded an hour later. “my husband is very angry…”. and before she could write another word, Clare was unfriended by the guard.
The next day, Clare was walking down the street of Perão and walked past Guard Pereira. “Bom dia”, she nodded at him, with a smile. Guard Pereira stopped in his tracks, clicked his heels, bowed slightly towards her, smiled and said “Muito bom dia, minha senhora. Como está?” and her fear of the GNR evaporated for good.
I worked on the construction of the Lindoso Dam, and at the time, that place was one of those forgotten by God.
Every now and then we’d go to Spain (we were 500 meters from the border) to have dinner and forget about that godforsaken place.
The problem was that the border closed at 9 p.m., but that was nothing we couldn’t get around by leaving our cars on the Spanish side and sneaking across on foot.
One day, one of the GNR guards got it into his head that he’d arrest us if we did that. So we explained to them that the firewood they used to keep warm (especially during those freezing winter nights) was sent by us—for free.
Problem solved
Ha ha! I think I know a guarda Pereira!