In 1988 the author with his wife and daughter sailed to Portugal on a container ship. One year in the country still haunted by Salazar fifteen years after the dictator’s overthrow, led to this description of reversed fortunes. Two families struggle over the revolution’s spoils, one wealthy, one not, each stunted in its own way by a half-century of tyranny in which everyone, from government functionary to school teacher and Post Office sweeper, was an obliged informer for the regime.