The Man from Lisbon, page 49
Everyone agreed that it was the strangest trial in the history of Portugal. The court had been specially constituted to deal with my case under laws which, since they had been written specifically to cover this one particular instance, were new both to accusers and accused. Being a special court, it had no regular meeting place. For some reason I was tried in the Hall of the Military Tribunal at Santa Clara, in Lisbon.
From the beginning our quarters were ridiculously crowded and hot. Batteries of electric fans kept blowing out the fuses. There was no place for any members of the public; it became quickly apparent that not even all the witnesses could be accommodated. The atmosphere in the room was wildly confused.
Dr. Simao was president of the court, and I felt sorry for him. What could he do to impose his will on the cramped room? José, Maria and I were represented by fifteen attorneys. There were six other defendants, all on minor counts, who were paying the price for merely having worked for us. But it was Alves Reis they were really after. José’s fate was bound indivisibly to mine.
“Your Excellency,” one of our counsel complained, his voice shaking with rage, “I have no place to sit! I demand a chair!”
Over the laughter the judge urged patience all around and himself left the room in search of more chairs.
Thirty-nine of Portugal’s most distinguished judges packed the room. From among them seven, in addition to Dr. Simao, would be chosen to hear the case. The method of selection brought a smile to every face: Dr. Simao’s son, nine years old, pulled the names out of a hat.
This procedure was followed by a roll call of the eighty-five witnesses. The room reeked of sweat, cologne, cigarette smoke. There was a steady jumble of conversation; insects buzzed steadily. Electric fans whirred in the corners. I was vaguely sick to my stomach. I had not been able to eat before we’d been called to order at noon. Late in the afternoon an Army major entered the room and explained that the space would be needed at once for a courtmartial! Judge Simao sighed patiently, nodded and announced that the court would stand adjourned until four o’clock on May 8. The twenty reporters leaped up and clogged the doorways.
Looking up, I saw Maria, her fingers knotted in a white handkerchief, her face gray, ravaged by the strain. Her eyes and hair had lost their luster, her face had lost its youth. I sat down beside her, just long enough to hold her hand and kiss her cheek. She looked at me blankly, then forced a smile. “Alves,” she said softly, “are you all right?”
“Of course, my dear,” I said. “Maria, listen to me carefully. Very soon, a couple of weeks at most, you will be free … out of prison. You must take care of yourself, use some makeup, have your hair done, have your parents ready to receive you … if you can hold on just a bit longer.”
“Will you be free then, too?” Her eyes pleaded with me.
“I don’t know.” She wanted me to tell her yes, but I didn’t know. I couldn’t be sure. I kissed her cheek again.
There were twelve charges against me, only one against Maria. I was almost certain that even if she were found guilty Maria would be released, having already served more of a sentence than she would have received from the single guilty verdict.
Alves Reis, the indictment read, was charged with conspiracy, falsifying contracts, forgery of everything from letters to the Oxford diploma, to banknotes, bribery and fraud. …
Eight charges were leveled against José. Maria was charged only with having received stolen property.
Adolf Hennies had five of the charges read against him, but it was irrelevant: he no longer existed.
Since Marang had already been tried and convicted in a foreign court, he was not charged in Lisbon.
The prosecution was conducted on behalf of the public by Dr. Jeronimo de Sousa, on behalf of the bank by Antonio Osorio and Dr. Barbosa de Magalhaes.
I had two more days of waiting. I knew what I had to do. Not even my attorney was aware of my plans.
The trial went much as I expected. After all, they did have rather a weighty case to make, and they made the most of it. I couldn’t blame them. This sort of opportunity came once in a lifetime. They took their time.
Dr. Nobrega Quintal defended me. He was not an eloquent man, but he made the best case possible while I sat and watched, almost certain of the result. I alone knew what I would say to the court at the end.
Dr. Quintal spoke with fervor, kept their attention.
“We are not dealing with merely a criminal, Your Excellencies.” He nodded vigorously, agreeing with himself. He fanned himself with several sheets of his notes. “We are dealing with a great man … without offending anyone, I believe I can say he is the greatest man in this room! The man who has dreamed the greatest dreams, dared the greatest adventures and made for himself the largest place in Portugal’s history. He is not unlike the greatest of our navigators, men who straddled the globe in the name of our country.
“But … but … Alves Reis, the Hero of Angola, was born in a smaller and entirely less heroic age. In another day great men saw obstacles and overcame them. But today such men are discouraged, brought to trial. …
“He saw no good reason for Portugal to grow poorer each day, drifting helplessly without leadership. And with his brilliant mind he created the means to scale the mountains again, to sweep power fully and with vision across the seas, to bring Portugal back from the brink of the abyss. … And we bring him to trial. …
“And he was right! You need only look back to the movement in Portugal during his heyday … the burgeoning prosperity, the optimism, the hope! Compare that to the Portugal of today—upon which I will not dwell. … And we bring such a man to trial!” He was trembling with emotion.
He summed up the points in my favor: my previous good character, the important services I had rendered to society, my intention of averting the economic and financial crisis that was bringing Angola into a desperate condition, the long imprisonment I had already undergone, my precarious economic circumstances.
“Oh, yes, by all means,” Dr. Osorio snapped, outraged. “Reis seems to be in desperate straits, all right! But we know he has spent more than one hundred thousand dollars—that is two million escudos, Your Excellencies—in his own defense! We are still uncovering secret bank accounts all over Europe in the name of Alves Reis or his wife—and, frankly, I can’t imagine that we’ll ever find them all! No, not ever. …”
Dr. Quintal pressed on.
“In reality, Senhor Reis was an inflationist, not a counterfeiter, an inflationist who was merely carrying out unofficially the fixed policies of the Bank of Portugal … at no cost to the bank! Remember, Alves Reis and his associates had paid Waterlow’s for printing the banknotes.” He gave me a sidelong glance at the next point: “It is against the law to imitate the banknotes … but the law says nothing about actually duplicating the notes!”
Dr. Osorio rolled his eyes, smiting his forehead.
“And, finally,” Dr. Quintal said, his voice beginning to give way, “may I remind Your Excellencies of the extraordinary measures taken by the Chamber of Deputies in passing retroactive laws solely for the purpose of covering Alves Reis—so that the crime of counterfeiting, which had been punishable by a maximum of three years’ imprisonment, can now bring twenty-five years. …”
I remember him now, years after I last saw him. He did his best for me, and no man can do more than that. I listened to him with interest, but I was thinking about the next day when I would finally have my say.
When it came to my day in court Antonio Ferro recounted the events in Diario de Noticias. I had known Ferro in passing ever since we had been classmates as children. He had turned up again in Angola years later and had written about our final triumphant tour. Years after he covered my appearance in court in 1930, he wrote an enormously popular biography of Salazar. In 1930 he was covering his old schoolmate.
Everyone now knows Alves Reis is a criminal, the best of all. He has confessed it with unique pride, punishing himself publicly. There is no doubt Alves Reis succeeded in impressing—even overwhelming—the court yesterday. Perhaps he failed to convince it of his good intentions, but he unquestionably held all who heard him spellbound—with his intelligence, his eloquence, his ability and his admirable lawyer’s temperament.
There was no defendant, no court, no jury. There was a free man before free men. A minister in the Chamber of Deputies replying to a question, an orator at a rally, a captain of industry explaining his business. There was only admiration when he began speaking, and soon the court was his. Reis related his great adventure, with energy unbelievable in a man who has rotted in prison nearly five years, with a brilliant literary flavor at times—he dazzled everyone with articles and clauses, his overall knowledge of the law.
He related how he committed the fraud, how he discovered the numbers and series of the notes, how he forged the signatures, how he found out there was no “control” of the notes in the Bank of Portugal, explaining all this as an engineer might elucidate an intricate machine.
His sincerity astounded the court. The surprising thing was that a man who should appear beaten, timid, humiliated following his confession of a terrible crime instead stood with his head up, in a fighting mood, almost jovial, without any cynicism.
He dedicates himself with ardor to a new cause, the defense of his companions, whom he tries to clear of all guilt. This discredited and finished man suddenly became transformed into a terrible defender of his own victims. There is a certain moral grandeur in his attitude to the unfortunate men: “It was I who dragged them in here! Ruined five years of their lives. … Now I shall do everything to free them!” When a judge asked why he had changed his attitude so suddenly, Reis’s answer was simple and moving: “You are here to judge only the men, not their souls!”
Yes, isn’t it time to seek the human truth instead of the judicial truth? To give up the old clichés that a man who lies once is always a liar … 25,000 pages to find the truth! And has it been found? The Alves Reis of the Bank of Angola and Metropole has been tried and will be sentenced. … But this Reis, this great spirit who confronted us today as no judge in the nation’s history has ever been confronted, does not this Alves Reis deserve our respect and our mercy? Our compassion?
Throw stones at him if you will. I cannot.
The days of waiting for the verdict of the judges were long and nervous. I was not in the least afraid of the result. I knew the Portuguese character, the role of law. As Greta wrote to me while I waited: “My love, remember what I’ve always told you. What will be will be. We are given our lines and we must say them.” She still loved me; I wrote her long letters.
Ivar Kreuger had a courier bring me a handwritten note.
“Never forget that greatness is always under attack, Senhor Reis. It is a test of men such as ourselves, how far we rise above it. My thoughts are with you.”
It was, I thought, very kind of him.
The word reached us at midnight that the judges would deliver their verdicts at one o’clock on the morning of July 19. We were all taken to the same cramped room, and after a brief wait the Attorney General entered. The clerk followed and took his seat.
The presiding judge was ushered in, followed by the other members of the tribunal. Our lawyers got the attention of the court, thanked the judges for their fairness in the conduct of the trial and retired from the room as the reporters buzzed among themselves, scribbling.
Dr. Simao calmly read the verdicts.
Maria Luisa Jacobetti Alves Reis was found guilty and sentenced to the time she had already served in prison. My wife was free.
Artur Virgilio Alves Reis, José dos Santos Bandeira and Adolf Hennies (in absentia) were found guilty on all counts, each to serve eight years in prison to be followed by twelve years of exile.
It was over.
Maria recovered her physical health; it was her mind that had suffered the real damage. She moved in with her parents and was allowed to visit me weekly, and more often than not she brought some or all of the children. Her eyes were often distracted, glazed, her face hollowed and wan, her hair dull and uncared for. Sometimes she barely spoke, searching my face with those empty eyes, looking for answers I didn’t have. At other times she babbled uncontrollably about the minutiae of her daily life. Although the meetings were a strain, there was no alternative. Our lives were still bound together … and the children could not be left to forget their unfortunate father.
As her condition slowly improved, she needed to find a job, both for the money and her own state of mind. Left to spend her days lost in reflection, she had little hope for recovery. Jobs were hard to find now that Salazar had embarked on a course of drastic deflation. For the wife of Alves Reis matters were even more difficult. More than once she heard a prospective employer reason: “If I give you a job everyone will say I once got money from your husband.” Eventually she did find work as a clerk in the government navy yard. The pay was twenty dollars a month. The money I had put away in foreign banks had either been found or couldn’t be gotten out. Another irony in an absolute deluge.
The first three years of my sentence were spent in solitary confinement. There were constant rumors of my supporters planning dramatic escapes. To guard against that, an outside spotlight was focused on my cell window every night. Finally I asked to see the warden.
“If I wanted to escape,” I told him, “I would first speak to you. I’m not the type to scale walls. If I get out of here it will only be because I have bribed you. So please, remove the searchlight so I can get some sleep. …”
It was removed.
The Bank of Portugal’s case against Waterlow was heard in the late fall. On Monday, December 22, Justice Wright was ready with his judgment. He was sixty-one, a Trinity College man, a vastly successful King’s counsel in his day. He had a dry sense of humor and a well-defined streak of irritability. He had heard the arguments with great care. Obviously a great deal was at stake, in terms of money, the impartiality of English law and the stature of a great London firm. He spent the morning outlining the case, and in the afternoon he was gathering steam.
“This crime is unique. Unique. … It is not a thing that will ever happen again. We may be sure of that. But we must decide this question—who was negligent, if anyone, and to what degree. …
“What damage was done by exchanging the da Gama notes for others? A very great loss, as I see it. These notes are currency in Portugal. They can purchase commodities, including gold; they can buy foreign exchange—and they can do this because they have behind them the credit of the Bank of Portugal.
“I cannot grant the bank interest on its claim. And the realizable assets of the liquidated Bank of Angola and Metropole—nearly half a million pounds—must be deducted from the claim. This leaves, if my arithmetic is correct, a balance of five hundred thirty-one thousand, eight hundred fifty-one pounds, or approximately two million six hundred thousand dollars, for which, in my view, there ought to be a judgment for the plaintiff.”
The bank had won. Of course, Waterlow’s would appeal, but their position was weak.
Greta was vastly amused by the verdict against Waterlow. “Bill was always a great one to overstep himself,” she wrote, “and his natural greed finally got him. Well, my darling Alves, they say that we are each born with the seeds of our fate planted within us. Who are you and I to doubt it? Next month I am going all the way to Hollywood! How I long for your company … your touch, your strong arms around me, your lips—don’t scold me, my love. I’ve not forgotten our pledge and I try not to write such things. But I think of them always and sometimes they flow from my pen onto the paper. … Remember that I am yours forever. … I will write from California.”
Early in July 1931 Sir William was stricken by severe abdominal pains. Following surgery, peritonitis set in. On July 6 he was dead. That great pink-faced Englishman who had found us all such odd little foreigners … Sir William Waterlow was sixty at the time of his death.
His death represented one more remove into the past from what had come to seem in my mind’s eye glorious, disreputable, exciting days. …
The Times carried a full account of the funeral of the onetime Lord Mayor. St. Paul’s Cathedral, great pomp, a personal condolence from the Royal Family; The Times’s guest list was more than a column long. Waterlow and Sons was represented by a very junior chap called Smith. The Times called Sir William’s reign as Lord Mayor “one of the most brilliant of modern times.” He was buried in the Harrow Weald Churchyard, not far from the great house he had once owned.
When I close my eyes now and try to bring him back in my mind the picture I summon is the first. He comes forward, hand extended, booming, “I am Waterlow!” For me he is there, frozen in time. Forever.
In 1932 I also noticed with a kind of wistfulness that is not my custom that with the crash of his economic colossus Ivar Kreuger shot himself to death in his apartment in Paris. I can see him even now, leaning toward me, the large, pale face beaming. “Do you know, Reis, that a hundred million matches are struck every hour. …” Maria still has the jeweled matchstick he gave her, diamonds with rubies at the tip. It was one trinket that somehow survived.
Salazar officially became Premier in 1932, an absolute dictator. His new constitution was full of Fascistlike bits and pieces cribbed from the vile Mussolini. In January 1934 the General Confederation of Labor and the Communists staged a revolution that Salazar ground out in a manner so brutal and bloody that it drew warm approval from Adolf Hitler. At the next elections there were candidates only from the National Union Party, Salazar’s party.
The tyrant did balance Portugal’s budget, and the inflation of the escudo was brought to a halt; but the cost was very high unemployment.
Maria was now visiting me several times each week. She was getting along well enough, though she was never really able to understand how the glories that were ours that one incredible year could vanish so quickly. Her father had died, leaving a decent estate, and now she and her mother and the children lived in a modest but pleasant apartment on the outskirts of Lisbon. We were growing closer again, now that her reason had returned. They allowed her to enter my cell so that we eventually came to embrace rather shyly. We walked in the sunny exercise yard, holding hands, almost with the innocence of our first meeting on the beach at Cascais. I began to see again why I had fallen in love with her. … Her gentle goodness, which I believed I had killed, had returned. She brought tenderness with her to the prison. …
From the beginning our quarters were ridiculously crowded and hot. Batteries of electric fans kept blowing out the fuses. There was no place for any members of the public; it became quickly apparent that not even all the witnesses could be accommodated. The atmosphere in the room was wildly confused.
Dr. Simao was president of the court, and I felt sorry for him. What could he do to impose his will on the cramped room? José, Maria and I were represented by fifteen attorneys. There were six other defendants, all on minor counts, who were paying the price for merely having worked for us. But it was Alves Reis they were really after. José’s fate was bound indivisibly to mine.
“Your Excellency,” one of our counsel complained, his voice shaking with rage, “I have no place to sit! I demand a chair!”
Over the laughter the judge urged patience all around and himself left the room in search of more chairs.
Thirty-nine of Portugal’s most distinguished judges packed the room. From among them seven, in addition to Dr. Simao, would be chosen to hear the case. The method of selection brought a smile to every face: Dr. Simao’s son, nine years old, pulled the names out of a hat.
This procedure was followed by a roll call of the eighty-five witnesses. The room reeked of sweat, cologne, cigarette smoke. There was a steady jumble of conversation; insects buzzed steadily. Electric fans whirred in the corners. I was vaguely sick to my stomach. I had not been able to eat before we’d been called to order at noon. Late in the afternoon an Army major entered the room and explained that the space would be needed at once for a courtmartial! Judge Simao sighed patiently, nodded and announced that the court would stand adjourned until four o’clock on May 8. The twenty reporters leaped up and clogged the doorways.
Looking up, I saw Maria, her fingers knotted in a white handkerchief, her face gray, ravaged by the strain. Her eyes and hair had lost their luster, her face had lost its youth. I sat down beside her, just long enough to hold her hand and kiss her cheek. She looked at me blankly, then forced a smile. “Alves,” she said softly, “are you all right?”
“Of course, my dear,” I said. “Maria, listen to me carefully. Very soon, a couple of weeks at most, you will be free … out of prison. You must take care of yourself, use some makeup, have your hair done, have your parents ready to receive you … if you can hold on just a bit longer.”
“Will you be free then, too?” Her eyes pleaded with me.
“I don’t know.” She wanted me to tell her yes, but I didn’t know. I couldn’t be sure. I kissed her cheek again.
There were twelve charges against me, only one against Maria. I was almost certain that even if she were found guilty Maria would be released, having already served more of a sentence than she would have received from the single guilty verdict.
Alves Reis, the indictment read, was charged with conspiracy, falsifying contracts, forgery of everything from letters to the Oxford diploma, to banknotes, bribery and fraud. …
Eight charges were leveled against José. Maria was charged only with having received stolen property.
Adolf Hennies had five of the charges read against him, but it was irrelevant: he no longer existed.
Since Marang had already been tried and convicted in a foreign court, he was not charged in Lisbon.
The prosecution was conducted on behalf of the public by Dr. Jeronimo de Sousa, on behalf of the bank by Antonio Osorio and Dr. Barbosa de Magalhaes.
I had two more days of waiting. I knew what I had to do. Not even my attorney was aware of my plans.
The trial went much as I expected. After all, they did have rather a weighty case to make, and they made the most of it. I couldn’t blame them. This sort of opportunity came once in a lifetime. They took their time.
Dr. Nobrega Quintal defended me. He was not an eloquent man, but he made the best case possible while I sat and watched, almost certain of the result. I alone knew what I would say to the court at the end.
Dr. Quintal spoke with fervor, kept their attention.
“We are not dealing with merely a criminal, Your Excellencies.” He nodded vigorously, agreeing with himself. He fanned himself with several sheets of his notes. “We are dealing with a great man … without offending anyone, I believe I can say he is the greatest man in this room! The man who has dreamed the greatest dreams, dared the greatest adventures and made for himself the largest place in Portugal’s history. He is not unlike the greatest of our navigators, men who straddled the globe in the name of our country.
“But … but … Alves Reis, the Hero of Angola, was born in a smaller and entirely less heroic age. In another day great men saw obstacles and overcame them. But today such men are discouraged, brought to trial. …
“He saw no good reason for Portugal to grow poorer each day, drifting helplessly without leadership. And with his brilliant mind he created the means to scale the mountains again, to sweep power fully and with vision across the seas, to bring Portugal back from the brink of the abyss. … And we bring him to trial. …
“And he was right! You need only look back to the movement in Portugal during his heyday … the burgeoning prosperity, the optimism, the hope! Compare that to the Portugal of today—upon which I will not dwell. … And we bring such a man to trial!” He was trembling with emotion.
He summed up the points in my favor: my previous good character, the important services I had rendered to society, my intention of averting the economic and financial crisis that was bringing Angola into a desperate condition, the long imprisonment I had already undergone, my precarious economic circumstances.
“Oh, yes, by all means,” Dr. Osorio snapped, outraged. “Reis seems to be in desperate straits, all right! But we know he has spent more than one hundred thousand dollars—that is two million escudos, Your Excellencies—in his own defense! We are still uncovering secret bank accounts all over Europe in the name of Alves Reis or his wife—and, frankly, I can’t imagine that we’ll ever find them all! No, not ever. …”
Dr. Quintal pressed on.
“In reality, Senhor Reis was an inflationist, not a counterfeiter, an inflationist who was merely carrying out unofficially the fixed policies of the Bank of Portugal … at no cost to the bank! Remember, Alves Reis and his associates had paid Waterlow’s for printing the banknotes.” He gave me a sidelong glance at the next point: “It is against the law to imitate the banknotes … but the law says nothing about actually duplicating the notes!”
Dr. Osorio rolled his eyes, smiting his forehead.
“And, finally,” Dr. Quintal said, his voice beginning to give way, “may I remind Your Excellencies of the extraordinary measures taken by the Chamber of Deputies in passing retroactive laws solely for the purpose of covering Alves Reis—so that the crime of counterfeiting, which had been punishable by a maximum of three years’ imprisonment, can now bring twenty-five years. …”
I remember him now, years after I last saw him. He did his best for me, and no man can do more than that. I listened to him with interest, but I was thinking about the next day when I would finally have my say.
When it came to my day in court Antonio Ferro recounted the events in Diario de Noticias. I had known Ferro in passing ever since we had been classmates as children. He had turned up again in Angola years later and had written about our final triumphant tour. Years after he covered my appearance in court in 1930, he wrote an enormously popular biography of Salazar. In 1930 he was covering his old schoolmate.
Everyone now knows Alves Reis is a criminal, the best of all. He has confessed it with unique pride, punishing himself publicly. There is no doubt Alves Reis succeeded in impressing—even overwhelming—the court yesterday. Perhaps he failed to convince it of his good intentions, but he unquestionably held all who heard him spellbound—with his intelligence, his eloquence, his ability and his admirable lawyer’s temperament.
There was no defendant, no court, no jury. There was a free man before free men. A minister in the Chamber of Deputies replying to a question, an orator at a rally, a captain of industry explaining his business. There was only admiration when he began speaking, and soon the court was his. Reis related his great adventure, with energy unbelievable in a man who has rotted in prison nearly five years, with a brilliant literary flavor at times—he dazzled everyone with articles and clauses, his overall knowledge of the law.
He related how he committed the fraud, how he discovered the numbers and series of the notes, how he forged the signatures, how he found out there was no “control” of the notes in the Bank of Portugal, explaining all this as an engineer might elucidate an intricate machine.
His sincerity astounded the court. The surprising thing was that a man who should appear beaten, timid, humiliated following his confession of a terrible crime instead stood with his head up, in a fighting mood, almost jovial, without any cynicism.
He dedicates himself with ardor to a new cause, the defense of his companions, whom he tries to clear of all guilt. This discredited and finished man suddenly became transformed into a terrible defender of his own victims. There is a certain moral grandeur in his attitude to the unfortunate men: “It was I who dragged them in here! Ruined five years of their lives. … Now I shall do everything to free them!” When a judge asked why he had changed his attitude so suddenly, Reis’s answer was simple and moving: “You are here to judge only the men, not their souls!”
Yes, isn’t it time to seek the human truth instead of the judicial truth? To give up the old clichés that a man who lies once is always a liar … 25,000 pages to find the truth! And has it been found? The Alves Reis of the Bank of Angola and Metropole has been tried and will be sentenced. … But this Reis, this great spirit who confronted us today as no judge in the nation’s history has ever been confronted, does not this Alves Reis deserve our respect and our mercy? Our compassion?
Throw stones at him if you will. I cannot.
The days of waiting for the verdict of the judges were long and nervous. I was not in the least afraid of the result. I knew the Portuguese character, the role of law. As Greta wrote to me while I waited: “My love, remember what I’ve always told you. What will be will be. We are given our lines and we must say them.” She still loved me; I wrote her long letters.
Ivar Kreuger had a courier bring me a handwritten note.
“Never forget that greatness is always under attack, Senhor Reis. It is a test of men such as ourselves, how far we rise above it. My thoughts are with you.”
It was, I thought, very kind of him.
The word reached us at midnight that the judges would deliver their verdicts at one o’clock on the morning of July 19. We were all taken to the same cramped room, and after a brief wait the Attorney General entered. The clerk followed and took his seat.
The presiding judge was ushered in, followed by the other members of the tribunal. Our lawyers got the attention of the court, thanked the judges for their fairness in the conduct of the trial and retired from the room as the reporters buzzed among themselves, scribbling.
Dr. Simao calmly read the verdicts.
Maria Luisa Jacobetti Alves Reis was found guilty and sentenced to the time she had already served in prison. My wife was free.
Artur Virgilio Alves Reis, José dos Santos Bandeira and Adolf Hennies (in absentia) were found guilty on all counts, each to serve eight years in prison to be followed by twelve years of exile.
It was over.
Maria recovered her physical health; it was her mind that had suffered the real damage. She moved in with her parents and was allowed to visit me weekly, and more often than not she brought some or all of the children. Her eyes were often distracted, glazed, her face hollowed and wan, her hair dull and uncared for. Sometimes she barely spoke, searching my face with those empty eyes, looking for answers I didn’t have. At other times she babbled uncontrollably about the minutiae of her daily life. Although the meetings were a strain, there was no alternative. Our lives were still bound together … and the children could not be left to forget their unfortunate father.
As her condition slowly improved, she needed to find a job, both for the money and her own state of mind. Left to spend her days lost in reflection, she had little hope for recovery. Jobs were hard to find now that Salazar had embarked on a course of drastic deflation. For the wife of Alves Reis matters were even more difficult. More than once she heard a prospective employer reason: “If I give you a job everyone will say I once got money from your husband.” Eventually she did find work as a clerk in the government navy yard. The pay was twenty dollars a month. The money I had put away in foreign banks had either been found or couldn’t be gotten out. Another irony in an absolute deluge.
The first three years of my sentence were spent in solitary confinement. There were constant rumors of my supporters planning dramatic escapes. To guard against that, an outside spotlight was focused on my cell window every night. Finally I asked to see the warden.
“If I wanted to escape,” I told him, “I would first speak to you. I’m not the type to scale walls. If I get out of here it will only be because I have bribed you. So please, remove the searchlight so I can get some sleep. …”
It was removed.
The Bank of Portugal’s case against Waterlow was heard in the late fall. On Monday, December 22, Justice Wright was ready with his judgment. He was sixty-one, a Trinity College man, a vastly successful King’s counsel in his day. He had a dry sense of humor and a well-defined streak of irritability. He had heard the arguments with great care. Obviously a great deal was at stake, in terms of money, the impartiality of English law and the stature of a great London firm. He spent the morning outlining the case, and in the afternoon he was gathering steam.
“This crime is unique. Unique. … It is not a thing that will ever happen again. We may be sure of that. But we must decide this question—who was negligent, if anyone, and to what degree. …
“What damage was done by exchanging the da Gama notes for others? A very great loss, as I see it. These notes are currency in Portugal. They can purchase commodities, including gold; they can buy foreign exchange—and they can do this because they have behind them the credit of the Bank of Portugal.
“I cannot grant the bank interest on its claim. And the realizable assets of the liquidated Bank of Angola and Metropole—nearly half a million pounds—must be deducted from the claim. This leaves, if my arithmetic is correct, a balance of five hundred thirty-one thousand, eight hundred fifty-one pounds, or approximately two million six hundred thousand dollars, for which, in my view, there ought to be a judgment for the plaintiff.”
The bank had won. Of course, Waterlow’s would appeal, but their position was weak.
Greta was vastly amused by the verdict against Waterlow. “Bill was always a great one to overstep himself,” she wrote, “and his natural greed finally got him. Well, my darling Alves, they say that we are each born with the seeds of our fate planted within us. Who are you and I to doubt it? Next month I am going all the way to Hollywood! How I long for your company … your touch, your strong arms around me, your lips—don’t scold me, my love. I’ve not forgotten our pledge and I try not to write such things. But I think of them always and sometimes they flow from my pen onto the paper. … Remember that I am yours forever. … I will write from California.”
Early in July 1931 Sir William was stricken by severe abdominal pains. Following surgery, peritonitis set in. On July 6 he was dead. That great pink-faced Englishman who had found us all such odd little foreigners … Sir William Waterlow was sixty at the time of his death.
His death represented one more remove into the past from what had come to seem in my mind’s eye glorious, disreputable, exciting days. …
The Times carried a full account of the funeral of the onetime Lord Mayor. St. Paul’s Cathedral, great pomp, a personal condolence from the Royal Family; The Times’s guest list was more than a column long. Waterlow and Sons was represented by a very junior chap called Smith. The Times called Sir William’s reign as Lord Mayor “one of the most brilliant of modern times.” He was buried in the Harrow Weald Churchyard, not far from the great house he had once owned.
When I close my eyes now and try to bring him back in my mind the picture I summon is the first. He comes forward, hand extended, booming, “I am Waterlow!” For me he is there, frozen in time. Forever.
In 1932 I also noticed with a kind of wistfulness that is not my custom that with the crash of his economic colossus Ivar Kreuger shot himself to death in his apartment in Paris. I can see him even now, leaning toward me, the large, pale face beaming. “Do you know, Reis, that a hundred million matches are struck every hour. …” Maria still has the jeweled matchstick he gave her, diamonds with rubies at the tip. It was one trinket that somehow survived.
Salazar officially became Premier in 1932, an absolute dictator. His new constitution was full of Fascistlike bits and pieces cribbed from the vile Mussolini. In January 1934 the General Confederation of Labor and the Communists staged a revolution that Salazar ground out in a manner so brutal and bloody that it drew warm approval from Adolf Hitler. At the next elections there were candidates only from the National Union Party, Salazar’s party.
The tyrant did balance Portugal’s budget, and the inflation of the escudo was brought to a halt; but the cost was very high unemployment.
Maria was now visiting me several times each week. She was getting along well enough, though she was never really able to understand how the glories that were ours that one incredible year could vanish so quickly. Her father had died, leaving a decent estate, and now she and her mother and the children lived in a modest but pleasant apartment on the outskirts of Lisbon. We were growing closer again, now that her reason had returned. They allowed her to enter my cell so that we eventually came to embrace rather shyly. We walked in the sunny exercise yard, holding hands, almost with the innocence of our first meeting on the beach at Cascais. I began to see again why I had fallen in love with her. … Her gentle goodness, which I believed I had killed, had returned. She brought tenderness with her to the prison. …
