So why this writerly excess? Meershank knows immortality lies in a single quatrain, a couplet even, which is why, when he looks at the double shelves of his published books-not including paperbacks or translations-he thinks: silage, ashes. He’s been ready for years to cut back, but doesn’t know how. What would he do with his expendable time? He wakes in the morning with a headful of chat. It feels like a sinus infection coming on, a mosquito army. The pressure is terrible. He doesn’t, has never had, the inclination to relieve the pain with alcohol or tennis. Also out of the question are gardening, long walks, birdwatching, going to the movies, going anywhere in fact. It took Maybelle feats of timing and melodrama to get him to Portugal. She caught him off guard, between books, and held out the only sure-fire temptation she knew: the promise of material. Portugal could be mined. Gawking tourists could be made to wriggle and squeal. The awful little fates and embarrassments of dislocation could be polished up for chortles, ground down fine for guffaws and snorts, made waxy and pointed with winks and nudges. Well, yes.

But then came the humiliation of the Porto banana peel, and a week later the painting of Nuno Gonsalves, Portugal’s treasure.

Meershank, moved by the astonishing work of art, asked Maybelle to show him some more of the artist’s work. He snapped his fingers like a tap dancer; might as well take in the lot while he was in town.

“That’s it,” Maybelle said, stowing the guide book in her woven bag.

“That’s what?”

“It.All there is.”

“You’re kidding. You mean the man painted one picture and quit?’

“As far as anyone knows. That’s what’s so miraculous. He did it once and he did it right.”

His heart winced. Dear cruel Maybelle. She couldn’t know how the words stung. Meershank would have sulked if he hadn’t been so tired. His feet were tired, his head was tired. He was tired of art, tired of travel, tired of the big golden sun shining on his bare head. Enough already. One more week and he could go home.

His brain especially was in bad shape, stuffed up with sadness and red dust. Waking early in strange hotels he found himself running a cheering video through his head: his own bed back home, Maybelle in the kitchen aggressively juicing a pair of oranges, the view from their back window down the long snow-covered slope of yard, the furnace doing its sweet business day in and day out.