The square metre of tragedy is on the verge of death. The digital nomad does not land in Lisbon to soak up the sun. He lands to buy our misfortune. Saudade is no longer a hole in the stomach. It has become a luxury property.
In the past, saudade was the only wealth of those who had nowhere to go. Today, it is the security deposit of those who buy blocks of flats outright. The developer figured out the trick. Misery, well polished and with a tiled facade, is worth millions. Sadness is a coveted raw material. The melancholy of a people is sold the same way radiant flooring or air conditioning. The foreigner doesn’t just want a bed. He wants the privilege of sleeping inside our historical defeat.
The problem is that capital demands a sterilised nostalgia. Real pain smells of damp, bleach and cooked cabbage. Consumer nostalgia must smell of handmade soap. The refurbished flat is a brilliant fraud. Nordic wood inside, smooth stone countertops, state-of-the-art Wi-Fi.
You stuff the building, rip out its guts, leave its skin to pretend it’s still suffering. With saudade as decoration. A fado soundtrack plays softly while the American unpacks his bag. The tourist wants an aura of tragedy, but he won’t carry the coffin.
Love always fails us, but the economy is much worse. Capital has no heart, but it fancies itself sensitive. And saudade is always the presence of an absence. It presupposes that someone is missing. It requires people failing, ageing, dragging their slippers along the pavement, dying slowly on the ground floors without light of Alfama or Mouraria. The final irony is perfect. You buy the ruin and call it an investment.
What remains is the echo. An impeccable simulacrum. The investor pays double to inhabit the setting of a play that has dismissed all the actors. It is the execution of the final foreclosure. We liquidated the house to pay off the debts and, in the end, we sold the sadness of losing it. The city is now full of people with a lot of money. And no one lives there.