15 November - Obituary: Our Lady of the Carnations

[mike carey]

Celeste Caeiro’s small gesture named a revolution

The Portuguese restaurant worker and single mother died on November 15th, aged 91

Photograph: Getty Images

People told all sorts of stories about carnations. That they were a divine flower. That they sprang from the eyes of a shepherd whom the Goddess Diana blinded for being too handsome, or from the tears of Our Lady as she stood by the cross. The only thing that Celeste Caeiro knew for sure about carnations, that morning of April 25th 1974, was that an awful lot of them were waiting in the warehouse in buckets, and that she and the rest of the staff at Sir Restaurant would have to fetch them and put them on all the tables, because the bosses wanted to throw a party.

That was what bosses did. Extra work for the staff, but did that mean extra pay? Not likely. As it was, her pay for a basic 14-hour day of clearing tables, mopping, taking coats, etc, etc, barely covered the rent of the one-bedroom flat that she shared with her mother and her daughter Helena, who was five. But Mr Chaves, the owner, told Mr Ramos, the manager, to put on a special menu for the restaurant’s first birthday, with a free glass of port for the men and a flower for the ladies. There was no particular reason, as far as Celeste knew, for carnations. Probably Mr Ramos had found they were the cheapest flowers in the market.

The restaurant deserved some celebration, however. It was huge, with seating for 300, and had self-service as well as sit-down, which was unheard-of in Portugal then. It made up the ground floor of an office building called Franjinhas, which had a rippling façade with fringes of concrete hanging down over the windows. People were horrified by it, but in 1971 it had actually won a prize. Between them, restaurant and building were signs that the modern world was beginning to creep in on Portugal, crushed as it was by the hard-right “New State” of António de Oliveira Salazar. Dictators in Germany and Italy had been brought down by the war. Not he. He had ruled for 36 long years. After him, in 1968, Marcelo Caetano had taken over and was as bad, despite his glasses and his mild plump face, like a banker’s. Celeste was 40, so she had never known any other prime ministers or any other regime.

She had dreamed of others, though. Secretly she was a communist, like her uncle and aunt in Amareleja, 200km east of Lisbon, which was called the reddest village in Portugal. When she stayed there as a child she witnessed meetings at night, and was sworn to silence about them. Later, back in Lisbon, she worked for a tobacconist who also dealt in banned books, like the works of José Vilhena; she would hide them in tobacco sacks. Too many voices were prohibited, including any TV or radio that was not run by the state. So though she was too poor to have a TV set, a radio or even a telephone in her flat, she wasn’t missing much.

Except on that morning in April. Then, Mr Chaves met the staff at the door with the news that Sir was closed and the party was off. Some army captains had launched a coup, objecting especially to Portugal’s costly wars to hang on to its colonies in Africa. Caetano had fled and was holed up in the Largo do Carmo, right beside the ruins of the medieval Carmelite convent. That had been destroyed in the terrible earthquake of 1755, after which most of Lisbon had needed rebuilding. Now another earthquake was happening. “And we’ll let you know”, added Mr Chaves, “whether it turns out well or badly.” They were told to go home, and to pick up bunches of carnations from the warehouse on the way. He didn’t want them going to waste.

She, however, could not possibly go home. This was the moment she had wanted for years. Already ordinary citizens were streaming towards Carmo. Tiny as she was, she showed up in the crowd with her brisk, determined walk and her big sheaf of bright red flowers. Tanks and armoured personnel carriers stood in the square; soldiers on the tanks told her they had been there, waiting for Caetano to surrender, since three in the morning. Not surprisingly one of them, calling her “Ma’am” most politely, asked her for a cigarette. He looked exhausted. She felt sorry for him, but she didn’t smoke and never had, because she was so chesty. Perhaps she could buy him a sandwich? No, everywhere was closed. So, reaching up on tiptoe, she gave him a carnation.

He did not have to accept it. He could have laughed at her, or tossed it away. Many men would have done: her own father, or Helena’s father, the ones who walked out on women. But he took it gladly, and put it in the barrel of his rifle. That meant he could not shoot now; and suddenly, his comrades also wanted one. They would be an army of peace. Her flowers ran out, but soon other people brought carnations too, including all the florists who worried, like Mr Chaves, that their stock would die otherwise.

Back in the flat in Criada later, she stood at the window watching. People filled the streets, and many had carnations. It made her smile. By the evening, Caetano had surrendered. Her mother cried “You could have been shot!”, but she had never thought that. The whole thing seemed almost accidental. She had offered a soldier a flower. He had stuck it into his gun. This had turned into a statement that grew stronger and stronger. Peace against war (only four people died in this revolution); good against evil; freedom against oppression; new versus old. It was a statement that resonated far beyond Portugal, especially in Africa, where one by one the former colonies gained their independence.

She would have liked more recognition from the kinder governments that followed. In 1988, when a fire in Criada destroyed her flat, she was rehoused at first in run-down, dangerous Chelas before they found her somewhere nicer. She still struggled to get by, living on a pension of 370 euros a month. But the people made her their heroine. She was on posters and murals and, at the 50th-anniversary celebrations in April, the centre of attention. As for red carnations, they no longer popped up on browsers as the flowers firstly of Diana or the Virgin Mary. They belonged to Celeste and the Portuguese revolution. They were hers. ■

This article appeared in the Obituary section of the print edition under the headline “Celeste Caeiro”

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