Marta arrived from the train with a suitcase that creaked as if it, too, carried stories. She had come to Aveiro because the map on her phone had called it “the Venice of Portugal,” and because her grandmother had once lived here and left behind, in a faded letter, the promise of a key. Marta walked through low streets of white houses trimmed in azulejo, the blue tiles catching light like fragments of sky. Children chased a stray dog; a baker slid a tray of pastel de nata into the window display and the warm, eggy scent poured into the street.