The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro

by Antonio Tabucchi

  —So how did your friend Monteiro make out?

  He switched on the office lights as if he owned the place and told me to stay where I was, that he’d see to the rest of it. So I didn’t move and took no part in the robbery. He went through the drawers until he found the codes to open the containers and then went out into the yard. I sat at the desk, I was waiting for him and didn’t know what to do, so I thought I would make a free telephone call to Glasgow.

  —Excuse me, but are you telling me you actually called Glasgow from the offices of the Stones of Portugal?

  Yes, I’ve got a sister who emigrated to Glasgow and I hadn’t heard from her for five months. You know, to call Glasgow costs quite a bit, and my sister has a little mongoloid girl, which gives her a lot of problems.

  —Please go on.

  While I was on the phone I heard the noise of a car, so I hung up and nipped into the little storeroom with a folding door where the vacuum cleaner is kept. At that moment Damasceno came in from the back yard and the Green Cricket and his gang entered by the front door.

  —What do you mean by “his gang?”

  Two members of the Guardia Nacional who never leave his side.

  —Did you recognize them?

  One of them yes, his name is Costa, he’s got an enormous swollen belly because he has cirrhosis. The other I don’t know, a young kid, maybe a recent recruit.

  —And what happened.

  Damasceno was carrying four packets of drugs wrapped in plastic. He realized that I’d done a disappearing act and faced up to the Green Cricket.

  —And what did the sergeant do?

  He began to hop on one leg and then the other as he does when he’s mad, then he began to stutter, because as I told you when he’s angry he stutters, and you can’t understand a word that comes out of his mouth.

  —Then what?

  He stuttered away and said: “you son-of-a-bitch that stuff is mine.” I could see him through the crack in the screen door. Then the Green Cricket grabbed the packets of stuff and did an incredible thing.

  —What was that?

  He opened one of them with a clasp-knife, he literally ripped it open, and shook the whole contents out on Damasceno’s head. He said: son-of-a-bitch, I baptize you. Do you realize what that means? He was throwing away millions and millions.

  —What next?

  Damasceno was covered with powder, as if he’d been snowed on, and the Cricket was really nervous, hopping from side to side like a devil, in my opinion he’d had a fix.

  —How d’you mean?

  That he’d had a fix. The Cricket sells the stuff, but every so often he takes it too, and he has bad stuff, like some people have bad wine, and he wanted to bump off Damasceno there and then.

  —Please make yourself clearer: bump off Damasceno in what sense?

  The Cricket had pulled out his pistol, he was hysterical, he pointed it at Damasceno’s temple and then at his belly and yelled: son-of-a-bitch, I’m going to kill you.

  —Did he fire?

  He fired all right but the shot went high, it hit the ceiling, if you go to the offices of the Stones of Portugal I bet you’ll be sure to find a hole in the ceiling, he didn’t kill him because his men intervened and deflected the shot, and he put the pistol back in its holster.

  —What next?

  The Cricket realized he couldn’t kill him there on the spot, but that doesn’t mean he’d cooled off. He gave Damasceno a kick in the balls that doubled him up, then kneed him in the face, just like in the movies, and he started kicking him again and again. Then he ordered his gang to carry Damasceno to the car, they’d reckon up with him when they got him to the station.

  —What about the packets of drugs?

  They tucked them into their jackets, loaded Damasceno into the car and set off for Oporto. They were all mad with rage, like wild beasts that had smelt blood.

  —Do you want to tell us anything else?

  The rest is up to you. Next morning Damasceno’s body was found by a gypsy on a piece of waste ground, he had been beheaded as you know. And now it’s my turn to ask you a question: what conclusions can you draw from all this?

  AND THIS IS THE question your correspondent wishes to put to all his readers.

  Fourteen

  DONA ROSA’S PENSION WAS quiet at that time of day. The few guests had not yet returned. In the lounge the television, at very low volume, was broadcasting a gossip program until it was time for the news.

  “Let’s see if the news mentions it,” growled the lawyer.

  The sheer bulk of the man overflowed from one of the padded armchairs in Dona Rosa’s sitting-room, he drank water and mopped his brow with a handkerchief. He had only just arrived and had sat down in silence in the lounge, while Dona Rosa rushed off unbidden to fetch him a bottle of fizzy mineral water.

  “I’ve just come from the Public Prosecutor’s offices,” he added, “the first interrogations have already taken place.”

  Firmino said nothing. Dona Rosa, moving on tiptoe, gently adjusted the antimacassars on the armchairs.

  “Do you think the news will mention it?” repeated the lawyer.

  “I think so,” replied Firmino, “but we’ll see how.”

  It was in fact the first item, an informative coverage which really took everything from the press, especially the interview given by Torres to Acontecimento, and stating that this was all they could disclose for now because of the secrecy imposed during preliminary investigations. In the studio was the inevitable sociologist who provided an analysis of violence in Europe, spoke of an American film in which a man was decapitated, and arrived at conclusions verging on psychoanalysis.

  “But what’s all this got to do with it?” asked Firmino.

  “Just chit-chat,” commented the lawyer laconically, “oh yes they’re falling back on the secrecy thing, what do you say to inviting me to dinner? I feel a real need to relax.”

  He turned to Dona Rosa.

  “Dona Rosa, what is the house offering this evening?”

  Dona Rosa showed him the menu. The lawyer made no comment but appeared satisfied, for he got up and beckoned to Firmino to follow him. The dining-room was still in darkness, but the lawyer switched on the lights as if he owned the place and chose the table he wanted.

  “If you have half a bottle of wine left over from lunch,” he said to Firmino, “tell Dona Rosa to chuck it away, I can’t stand those half-finished bottles they put on the table in some pensions. I find them depressing.”

  That evening Dona Rosa’s cook had made meatballs smothered in tomato sauce, and the first course was green-cabbage soup. The little moustached maid entered with the steaming tureen and the lawyer told her to leave it on the table, just in case.

  “You were speaking of the preliminary secrecy,” said Firmino, feeling he had at least to say something.

  “Ah yes,” replied the lawyer, “preliminary secrecy, I’d like to talk to you about this so-called secrecy, but it would inevitably lead on to very weighty matters which might bore you, and I have no wish to bore you.”

  “You’re not boring me in the least,” replied Firmino.

  “Don’t you think this soup is a little too thin?” asked the lawyer, “personally I like it thicker, potatoes and onions are the secret of a good green-cabbage soup.”

  “Anyway you’re not boring me at all,” replied Firmino, “if you want to talk about such things go ahead, I’m all ears.”

  “I’ve lost my thread,” said the lawyer.

  “You were telling me that the matter of preliminary secrecy would have inevitably led to a more boring discussion,” Firmino reminded him.

  “Ah yes, of course,” mumbled the lawyer.

  The maid came in with the dish of meatballs and started to serve them. The lawyer had his positively smothered with tomato sauce. “Ethics,” said the lawyer while stirring a meatball around in the sauce.

  “Ethics meaning?” enquired Firmino.

  “Professional ethical-p
reliminary secrecy,” replied the lawyer, “that is an inseparable binomial, at least apparently.”

  The meatball he was attempting to dissect flew off at a tangent and landed on his shirtfront. The maid saw all and darted over, but with a peremptory gesture the lawyer waved her away.

  “Meatball and shirtfront, that also is a binomial, at least as far as I am concerned. I don’t know whether or not you have realized that the world is binary, nature runs on binary structures, or at least our western culture does, which after all is the one which has catalogued everything, just think of the eighteenth century, the naturalists, Linnaeus for example, but who are we to blame him, for the fact is that this pathetic little ball rolling around in space, and on which we are traveling, is subject to an absolutely simple system, which is the binary system, what do you think about that?”

  “It is,” replied Firmino, “either male or female, just to be simplistic, is that the system you call binary?”

  “That is the general sense,” confirmed the lawyer, “from which stems truth or falsehood, for example, but that would require a really boring conversation, and as I have said I have no wish to weary you, truth or falsehood, forgive me these Pindaric flights, but this is a question of ethics, and obviously the problem of law, but I have no wish to talk about sophisticated treatises on the matter, it’s not worth while.”

  He snorted as if in vexation, but appeared to be vexed chiefly with himself.

  “Do you believe that the whole universe is also binary?” he suddenly whispered.

  Firmino regarded him with astonishment.

  “In what sense?” he asked.

  “Binary in the way the Earth is,” repeated the lawyer, “in your opinion is it binary like the Earth?”

  Firmino had no notion what to answer, so he decided to hand the question back.

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t think so,” replied the lawyer, “at least I hope not, let’s say I hope not.”

  He caught the maid’s eye and motioned to his empty glass.

  “It’s merely a hope,” he went on, “a hope for the human race to which we belong, though a hope that in the long run doesn’t concern us directly because neither you nor I will live long enough to learn what Andromeda is made of, for example, or what goes on around those parts. Just think of all those scientists in NASA and so on, working like beavers to enable our descendants in a century or two to reach places we think of as the limits of our solar system, and just imagine the faces of our poor descendants when after such a long journey they disembark from their spaceship up there and find a great big binary structure: male or female, truth or falsehood, even vice or virtue, ah yes! because the binary system, even if they weren’t expecting it, calls for a priest, whether Catholic or of any other religion, to tell them: that is sinful, this is virtuous. Yes, can you just imagine their faces?”

  Firmino felt the urge to laugh, but managed to confine himself to a smile.

  “I don’t think science fiction has ever come up with that hypothesis,” he said, “I read a lot of science fiction but I don’t think I’ve come across that one.”

  “Ah,” said the lawyer, “I’d never have suspected you liked science fiction.”

  “I like it a lot,” said Firmino, “it’s my favorite reading.”

  The lawyer produced another of those little coughs of his that sounded like a chortle.

  “Very well,” he muttered, “and what has your friend Lukács got to do with this favorite reading?”

  Firmino felt himself starting to blush. He realized that he had fallen into a trap and reacted with some pride.

  “Lukács is useful to me for the study of post-war Portuguese literature,” said he, “science fiction belongs to the realm of fantasy.”

  “That’s what I wanted,” rejoined the lawyer, “fantasy. It’s a fine word, and also a concept to meditate upon, so meditate on it if you can spare the time. As far as I’m concerned I was fantasizing about the dessert Dona Rosa has prepared for us this evening, it’s a flan brûlé, but maybe we’d better give up on it, just another drop of wine and I’ll be off to bed because my day is over, though perhaps yours might keep going and achieve something really useful.”

  “Anything I can,” said Firmino. “For example?”

  “For example a look in at ‘Puccini's Butterfly,’ that’s a place that might give us some interesting information. That’s all. Just a little look around.”

  He drained his glass and lit one of his gigantic cigars.

  “Use your own discretion,” he went on while a match was scorching his fingertips, “take note of the people there, the employees, see whether the Green Cricket is around the place, since they’ve told me he keeps an office there, a chat with him might be interesting, it’s really a job for the police, but can you see the police going into ‘Puccini's Butterfly’?”

  “No indeed,” agreed Firmino.

  “Right you are then,” said the lawyer, “I don’t want you to think of yourself as Philip Marlowe, but concerning this Green Cricket we might be able to discover something on the side, a few minor offenses, because you know what De Quincey said, don’t you?”

  “What did he say?” enquired Firmino.

  “What he said in effect was that once a man has allowed himself to commit murder, it won’t be long before he thinks it a small matter to steal, and then he’ll proceed to getting drunk and to not observing the Sabbath, then to behaving like a boor and breaking his word. Once he’s on that slippery slope there’s no knowing where he’ll end, and there are many who have to blame their ruin on some murder or other to which they had paid little heed at the time. That’s what he said.”

  The lawyer chuckled to himself and added: “My dear young man, as I said before I have no wish to bore you, but let us suppose that I, who have just spoken to you about professional ethics, should ask for your help in piercing the so-called veil of ignorance. I’m not going to go on about it, it’s the phrase of an American jurist, and it’s a purely theoretical matter existing in a sort of Plato’s Cave. But supposing that with my Pindaric flights I might be able to bring this concept down to the purely practical, let us say the factual level, something that no juridical theorist would ever forgive me for, and let us say that I wouldn’t give a damn, what would you think?”

  “That the end justifies the means,” replied Firmino promptly.

  “Not exactly my own conclusion,” replied the lawyer, “and please don’t utter that cliché again, I detest it, in its name mankind has committed the most appalling atrocities, let us merely say that I am shamelessly exploiting you, which is to say your newspaper, is that clear?”

  “As clear as daylight,” replied Firmino.

  “And let us say that I could always justify myself with definitions provided by the theory of law, that not without some measure of cynicism I could claim to belong to the school of those who believe in the so-called intuitionist concept, but no, let us go so far as to call it an act of arbitrary fantasy, how do you like the definition?”

  “I like it,” said Firmino.

  “In that case,” said the lawyer, “with our act of arbitrary fantasy we shall work De Quincey’s paradox backwards, which is to say: since I am absolutely convinced that it will not be easy to prove that the Green Cricket cuts people’s heads off with electric carving knives, we shall attempt to show that he behaves anti-socially, for example that he smashes plates over his wife’s head, do I make myself clear?”

  “Perfectly,” replied Firmino.

  The lawyer seemed content. He leant back in his chair. A dreamy look came into his eyes.

  “And at this point we might even introduce your friend Lukács,” said he.

  “Lukács?” queried Firmino.

  “The principle of reality,” replied the lawyer, “the principle of reality, I wouldn’t be surprised if in spite of everything it might not prove useful to you this evening. But now I think you’d better be off, young man, in fact it seems to me just
the right time of night for a place such as ‘Puccini’s Butterfly,’ after which you will report everything to me in minute detail, but keep your mind concentrated on that principle of reality, I think it might be useful to you.”

  Fifteen

  AVENIDA DE MONTEVIDEU, together with the Avenida do Brasil, combined to form an interminable seafront, far longer than Firmino had bargained for, but he had no choice but to trudge along it until he came to the nightclub, because he didn’t know the number. A fresh breeze off the Atlantic ruffled the flags outside a big hotel. At first the seafront was swarming with people, mostly young families outside ice-cream parlors, with children nodding off to sleep as they sucked wearily at their ices. It occurred to Firmino that his compatriots put their children to bed far too late and maybe had too many children anyway. But then it occurred to him that that was a cretinous thing to think. He noticed that the first, crowded stretch of seafront gradually gave way to a less frequented, more classy area of austere villas and early twentieth-century buildings with iron-balustraded balconies and stuccoed façades. The ocean was pretty rough and its violent waves crashed against the cliffs.

  ‘Puccini’s Butterfly’ occupied the whole of a detached building which Firmino off the cuff dated to be from the 1920s, a fine construction in the Art Nouveau style, with green-tiled cornices and verandas with small tympana in imitation of the Manueline Style of architecture. On the first-floor balcony a violet neon sign with rococo flourishes, read: ‘Puccini’s Butterfly.’ And over each of the three entrances of the club were other and less glaring signs indicating respectively the Butterfly Restaurant, the Butterfly Nightclub and the Butterfly Discotheque. The discotheque was the only entrance which didn’t have a red carpet. The others did and were attended quite smartly by a uniformed doorman. Firmino decided that the discotheque was not the one to aim for. It would certainly be a place impossible to talk in, with psychedelic lights and deafening music. There seemed no point in the restaurant, those meatballs would see him through the evening. There was nothing for it but the nightclub. The doorman let him in and gave an imperceptible bow. The light inside had a bluish hue. Further down the lobby was a small bar in old-fashioned English style, with a solid wooden counter and red leather chairs. It was completely empty. Firmino went through it, drew aside a velvet curtain and entered the nightclub proper. Here also the light had a bluish hue. Like a stage servant awaiting his cue in the wings, a solicitous figure murmured in a faintly off-putting tone of voice: