Lisbon has a lot going for it, but its taxi drivers are not included. (I’m not talking Uber, because Ubering in Lisbon is a luxury experience. How is the ambient temperature? Do you have any music preferences? Please help yourself to bottled water and a mint.) Not to rag on Lisbon taxi drivers, but taking a cab in the city can leave you wishing you’d opted for public transportation or the pedestrian route.

I’ve become acquainted with some of the taxi driver archetypes: the motorist with clinical road rage, the Formula 1 hopeful, the politically disenchanted (“O governo é corrupto!”), the Benfica fanatic listening to the evening’s soccer match over the radio, the chatterbox who simply refuses silence. Often I hear self-deprecating laments that are all doom and gloom, things like “Only in Lisbon.” I am almost always nauseous by the end.

In taxi cabs as in movie theatres, I have been known to walk out. Most recently, I had an incident leaving the Lisbon airport via cab. The ride was brief, and I asked to be let off before we’d cleared the arrivals terminal. The driver had refused to expose the doctored meter hiding in the glove compartment, so I hit the metaphorical eject button and asked to be let out. As I pulled my roller bag out of the trunk, the driver yelled at my husband – “Get your woman under control,” as if this were naturally a thing he did, as if this were even possible.

So I taxi with apprehension.

Which takes me to yesterday.

The weather has finally turned in Lisbon. The air has that quality of fall that can make you fold into yourself. The light has softened, and I find myself welcoming a respite from the intensity of summer sun.

I find myself in the middle of Chiado, running late to a meeting. I hail a taxi and hop in.

In the background is Etta James.

I’m heading to Saldanha, I tell the driver. He turns around as I give him the address. He’s wearing black leather and has a cigarette tucked behind his ear, like a Portuguese taxi-driving cross between Don Draper and Marlon Brando.

We sit in standstill traffic. He makes no effort to speak with me. The sun is sitting lower on the horizon, warming my face through the dash window. He grabs a newspaper from the passenger seat and unfolds it over the steering wheel, acknowledging there is literally nothing better to do in this moment.  Somehow I feel disconnected with place and time. I close my eyes and listen to Etta and enjoy this cool moment of fall.

Etta grows silent, now replaced by Elvis Presley.

Traffic moves ahead, and so do we. The windows roll down and the volume goes up to the level I reserve for when I’m driving solo. The car is filled with the voice of the King.

Wise men say

And then there is a second voice. At first, it is barely audible. The driver sings along, almost as if inwardly to himself.

The voice grows louder and I’m incapable of resisting the largest of smiles. I’m embarrassed by it, the type of parasympathetic beam you get from an experience that is both unexpected and unadulterated.

At the top of his lungs and from the base of his chest, in a velvet voice the driver sings with feeling. Did I sense sadness?

Like a river flows
Surely to the sea
Darling, so it goes
Some things are meant to be.

I briefly wonder if the driver is messing with me, but the question resolves itself quickly. He seems oblivious to my presence in his car. In the moment it was him and Elvis and the sun setting over Lisbon’s cobblestones.

He pulls up to the address.  We’ve arrived at the place. I say thank you and pay.

As he hands me my change, I see the tattoo written in Spanish on his wrist. “Buscar el placer de estar vivo.”