Carnation

April 2021

‘Time for bed children.’

Tomas ran around the cosy pink and white bedroom, his tiny chest thrust forward and his head flung back whilst his arms moved up and down like a plane fighting against the wind. His lips puckered in protest.

His sister, Gabriela, just a few years’ older, looked up from her book and noted the faded, watery eyes behind the rims of her grandmother’s glasses. She pulled at her grandmother’s dressing gown sleeve with affection. ‘Avo Cravo, will you tell us a story?’

Tomas’s plane fizzed and dived, before hitting the ground and exploding into a fit of giggles. ‘Yes Avo Cravo, a story please,’ he said. ‘Mama always reads us a story before bed.’

The grandmother’s eyes twinkled, the deep etches of her face deepened while her lips curved at the corners.

‘Come close children and sit with me.’ She turned the bedside lamp on, illuminating the room in a warm orange light, and swept her grandchildren up towards her enveloping them in a red, woven blanket. Both Tomas and Gabriela snuggled up to the old woman and rested their heads on her shoulders.

‘I will tell you a story about when I was young,’ she said.

‘A fairy tale?’ Gabriela asked shyly, nestling into her grandmother’s frail arms.

‘A fairy tale,’ her grandmother agreed. Gabriela smiled happily, displaying a perfect row of white milk teeth.

‘Once upon time there was a beautiful land, the sea was as blue as sapphires, and the sun shone warmly in the sky…’ the grandmother started.

‘The land is Portugal right?’ Tomas asked. ‘The most beautiful land in the world’.

‘Shhh…’ said his sister. ‘Don’t interrupt. Let Avo tell the story.’

‘Yes Tomas. But not the Portugal we know…’ The grandmother closed her thin, translucent eyelids and hugged her children tightly to her as she remembered. She could still smell the musty scent of the wooden tables and the mouthwatering aroma of grilled chicken at the Franjinhas restaurant where she had once worked. Her face was not so cracked and withered then as it was now. It hadn’t hurt to walk then either – or even run, as she was often late for work.

She was running again, and life was one great adventure. That morning, in particular, the air was humming with hope…

April 1974

‘Late again Celeste?’ the restaurant manager asked her as she rushed through the door, out of breath and with windswept hair across her face as usual. ‘You really are the worst waitress in Lisbon. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t fire you?’

Celeste grinned, with the natural self-assurance of the young and beautiful. ‘You’d miss me Joao – you know you would.’

The girl looked around, noticing that the chairs were still stacked on the tables and the restaurant was uncharacteristically quiet. They usually opened for breakfast at this time of day but none of the other staff could be seen.

‘Looks like I’m not the only one who’s late huh?’ Celeste raised a curious eyebrow at her boss. ‘Where’s everyone else? Isn’t today the grand opening?’

They’d had been planning the celebration for weeks – it was exactly a year since Joao’s restaurant had opened. Extra wine and cigars had been purchased for the customers and a special menu had been created specifically for the occasion. Each table was also to be adorned with a blood red carnation in a vase.

‘Turns out you’re in luck – you’re not fired yet. Not today anyway. The restaurant’s closed.’

Joao started to take the flowers out of the glass vases which had already been laid out on bar ready for the morning. He looked at the slender girl in front of him, his face serious.

‘Revolution,’ he said.

Celeste mirrored his seriousness – she’d guessed as much when she’d seen the banners and the solders on her way into the city but she’d been so anxious about being late, she hadn’t stopped to ask what was going on.

She inhaled sharply. ‘Is it really happening, Joao?’

‘Yes Celeste – it really is. I saw the tanks’.

Joao knew how much a change of government meant to the waitress. Celeste spent any time she wasn’t working caring for her small daughter and elderly mother. She scrimped, worked and saved for a better life, but felt trapped by the low wages and pensions set by the authoritarian government which had ruled Portugal for half a century. Like many young people in the country, the girl ached for freedom and democracy.

‘But tanks, Joao?’ Celeste looked sombre.

‘Yes – I know how it looks. But this time they’re on our side. There’s a group of young rebel soldiers leading the thing – the April Captains they call themselves.’

Even so tanks trundling down the narrow cobbled streets was nothing less than intimidating. The revolution wasn’t wholly unexpected – there had been rumours about a military coup for weeks and Celeste had felt the tension permeating the city. the whole of Lisbon was in a fervour.

‘A new government, Joao? That would be wonderful. I just hope there won’t be violence.’

Joao shrugged, ‘You know what people are like. All it takes is one gun…’ He gathered up the last of the scarlet carnations and laid them on the bar. ‘What a waste,’ he said sadly. He held up one of the flowers, spinning the stem in his fingers, and surveyed its delicate petals. ‘They’ll be dead by tomorrow.’

‘They’re so beautiful,’ Celeste agreed sadly.

Joao gathered up the pile of blossoms into his arms and thrust the bouquet at the waitress.

‘Take them,’ he said, ‘there’s no point keeping them here. Take them for your mother and daughter.’

The fresh floral scent of the petals was heavenly. Celeste held the bouquet carefully so as not to break the fragile stalks. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course’, Joao said, ‘now go home and stay out of trouble. Like I say idiots with guns and all that…’

While Celeste had been speaking to Joao in the restaurant, Lisbon had woken up. She could hear distant calls and cries from every direction, as protesters clustered together and stamped their way through the city’s narrow streets.

‘Fascism, never again!’ they declared.

The atmosphere was more like a festival than a revolution, and instead of heeding Joao’s advice she decided to walk downtown.

Fooled by the party spirit of the streets, Celeste was surprised when she turned the corner and found herself face-to-face with a row of stern army officers, all wearing military uniforms and holding rifles. A row of ugly tanks was also parked on the other side of the road.

After fifty years of military dictatorship, Celeste did not trust the army officers or the menacing artillery they carried. She started to back away slowly, hoping to escape unseen, but one of the younger army officers caught her eye.

‘Senhora, Senhora,’ he called. He ran to catch up with Celeste.

‘What is it?’ she spat, invoking all her loathing of the government and the violence they had caused with their lies and their empty promises. ‘Are you going to arrest me?’

The officer just laughed and Celeste realised how smooth and young the boy’s skin was. She remembered what Joao had said and wondered if this was one of the ‘April Captains.’

‘No Senhora – today is a day of celebration. I just wanted to ask if you had a cigarette?’

Despite the boy’s youth and lack of guile, Celeste was still sceptical. ‘If you just want a cigarette, then what are all those guns for? Don’t you know that violence never works – it only leads to more hatred and anger. Have the last fifty years taught you nothing?’

The young boy looked abashed. ‘You are right Senhora – but we are on our way to Largo do Carmo to stop Marcello Caetano. The revolution is here!’

Celeste breathed a sigh of relief. She realised then that the officers would not hurt her – they were on the side of the revolution. Although, it did feel very strange to think of the military intervening on behalf of democracy. Usually it was the other way around.

The chilling sight of the army officers and the threat of their weapons still disturbed her. Celeste looked at the scarlet flowers in her arms and had an inspiration.

‘Here – take this!’ Celeste said to the boy, and fed the stem of the carnation into the barrel of the gun. ‘This way people will know you come in peace’. As the officer pointed the rifle towards the sky, it acted as a makeshift vase for the crimson flower.

Overcoming her fear of the weapons, Celeste walked over to the cluster of soldiers who’d accompanied the boy she had spoken to.

‘Here,’ she said, and handed a flower to each of them. Mimicking their companion they also stuck the stems in their gun muzzles.

‘It looks better like this’, one of them joked.

As Celeste carried on her way into town she gave carnations to each of the soldiers she met. So many of the officers were wearing flowers now, and she spotted a florist on the other side of the street start handing out flowers too.

One by one she gave the carnations away. ‘A symbol of peace,’ she said, if people asked.

She was nearly home by the time she ran out of stems, and walked the rest of the way empty-handed. She could hear the chanting in the distance, ‘no more fascism, democracy!’ 

Just before she reached the door of her house, a young woman stopped her in the road.

‘Here, have a carnation,’ the woman said, and handed Celeste a crimson flower. ‘It’s a symbol of peace.’

Celeste was momentarily confused to have her own words repeated back to her, but when she looked at the street behind her she saw that it was a sea of red. She couldn’t understand – after all she had started out with a bouquet of only two dozen flowers, but now everyone she saw was decorated with a carnation.

It was a glorious public display of people power. Instead of the streets being awash with bloodshed of the revolution, the scarlet petals burned brighter than blood in the daylight, heralding peace not murder, and unity over violence.

In that moment Celeste, an ordinary waitress paid minimum wage, felt more powerful than the whole army of Portugal.

April 2021

The children were sleeping soundly, and the grandmother lifted their tiny arms up carefully so as not to wake them as she extricated herself from their embrace. They’d not been able to stay awake until the end of her fairy tale in which the good fairy turned all the guns into flowers, but she knew that they’d come to understand the importance of the story as they grew older.

The grandmother had only truly understood the significance of her actions after the revolution was over. It had just been a simple gesture, and at the time she’d never imagined that one small act of spontaneity could have such an impact.

But the carnation had ignited the hopes of the people with its peaceful imagery. Long after Celeste had run out of carnations, the flower vendors of the city were still trying their best to ensure to ensure that no one was left without a flower. The Carnation Revolution – or the Revolução dos Cravos as it came to be known – would be remembered as one of the most peaceful military coups in history. Almost no shots were fired during the resistance and, after that day, the humble carnation would be recognised as an eternal symbol of freedom throughout the country.

The grandmother ignored the constant ache in her joints as she walked over to the bookcase and extracted a large photo album. Her thin fingers trembled as she turned to the back of the book, but she found what she was looking for.

The flower was no longer the same vivid colour as it had been on that magical April morning in 1974. The petals had since dried and flattened under the album cellophane. However, the carnation which had been offered to Celeste on the day of the revolution had been preserved and treasured over the years. She would never forget the promise of that morning, or the first taste of a democratic Portugal.

True – the coup hadn’t been an overnight cure, and some promises had not been kept. But she had won the right to speak freely, and also the freedom of her children and her grandchildren to live in a world where their voices would be heard.

As Celeste looked at the children sleeping peacefully, she knew that they'd likely take for granted the civil liberties and democracy which they’d enjoy as they grew into adults. And for that she was eternally grateful.

Author note: This story was inspired by the actions of Celeste Caeiro who offered carnations to the soldiers during the Portuguese military coup in 1974 (also known as the Carnation Revolution). However, although based on real events, it should be stressed that this is a work of fiction rather than that of a historical expert.

Celeste was quoted as saying afterwards, ‘it was such a simple gesture. I never dreamt it would be something important’.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/shy-rebel-put-carnations-into-portugal-s-revolution-1089785.html