The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro Page 11

  “Good evening sir, have you booked?”

  It was the maître d’: about fifty years old, impeccable dinner-jacket, grey hair that looked blue in that blue light, an imposing stereotyped smile.

  “No,” replied Firmino, “I absolutely forgot to.”

  “No matter,” murmured the other, “I have a good table for you if you would care to step this way.”

  Firmino did so. He reckoned there were thirty tables in the room, almost all of them occupied. Mostly by middle-aged clients, regulars it seemed to him, the ladies rather dressy and their squires on the whole more informal, in light linen jackets and even a few sports shirts. There was a small stage with a proscenium arch at the far end of the room. It was deserted. This was plainly an interval, and through the blue-tinted room filtered some piped music Firmino thought he recognized. He cupped a questioning hand to his ear and the maître d’ murmured to him, “Puccini, sir. Is this table to your liking?”

  The table was in fact not too near the stage and slightly to one side, which gave him a good view of the whole room.

  “Have you already dined sir, or shall I bring you the menu?” asked the maître d’.

  “Can one dine here as well?” asked Firmino, “I thought the restaurant was next door.”

  “Here we serve only snacks,” was the answer, “side dishes.”

  “Such as?”

  “Smoked swordfish,” specified the maître d’, “cold lobster, that sort of thing. But would you care to see the menu or do you simply wish for something to drink?”

  “Well,” said Firmino vaguely, “what do you suggest?”

  “You cannot go wrong with a nice glass of champagne to start with,” responded the maître d’.

  It occurred to Firmino that he had to make an urgent call to the Editor to telegraph more money, he had already run through his advance expenses and was living on a loan from Dona Rosa.

  “Very well,” he replied nonchalantly, “bring me champagne, as long as it’s the best you have.”

  The maître d’ tiptoed away. The Puccini music ceased, the lights were dimmed and a spotlight illuminated the stage. It was bluish, needless to say. In the cone of light appeared a pretty young girl, her hair done up in a chignon, and she began to sing. She sang without accompaniment, and the words were Portuguese but the tune was some kind of blues, and only after a while did Firmino realize that it was an old fado from Coimbra which the girl was performing as if it were a jazz number. There was some very muted applause and the lights went up again. The waiter arrived with the glass of champagne and placed it on the table. Firmino took a sip. He didn’t claim to know much about champagne, but this stuff was terrible, with a sickly sweet taste. He peered around him. Everything was soft and quiet, the atmosphere was padded. The waiters moved between the tables with cat-like tread, the speakers relayed a muted morna by Cesária Évora, the customers chatted in undertones.

  At the next table sat a man on his own, chain-smoking and staring fixedly before him at the ice-bucket with its bottle of champagne. It was genuine French champagne, Firmino noted from the label of a well-known brand. The man became aware that Firmino was staring at him and he stared back. He was about fifty with horn-rim glasses, little mustache and ginger hair. He affected a sporting air, with a mauve sports shirt and crumpled linen jacket. With shaky hand he raised his glass in Firmino’s direction as if drinking his health. Firmino also raised his glass, but did not drink. The other gave him an enquiring look and brought over his chair.

  “Aren’t you drinking?” he asked.

  “The stuff’s no good,” replied Firmino, “but I join with your toast in spirit.”

  “You know the secret?” asked the man winking, “it’s to order a whole bottle, then you know what you’re getting, if you just ask for one glass they give you local bubbly and charge the earth for it.”

  He poured himself another glass and knocked it straight back.

  “I’m down in the dumps,” he murmured in confidential tones, “dear friend I’m way down in the dumps.”

  He heaved a deep sigh and propped his head on his hand. He looked disconsolate. He muttered: “She tells me: pull up. Just like that, without warning: pull up. And this on the road to Guimarães, which is one bend after another. I slow down and look at her and she says: I told you to pull up. She opens the door, rips off the pearl necklace I gave her in the morning, throws it in my face, gets out without a single word and slams the door shut. Have I a right to be down in the dumps?”

  Firmino offered no opinion, but he made a motion that could have been a nod.

  “Twenty-five years’ difference in age if you get me,” confided the man. “Am I right to be down in the dumps?”

  Firmino was on the point of saying something but his companion went on, there was no stopping him: “That’s why I came to ‘Puccini’s,’ it’s just the spot when one’s feeling down in the dumps, don’t you think? It’s just the place to put you right again, as I don’t have to tell you.”

  “Of course,” replied Firmino,” I understand perfectly, it’s just the place.”

  The man gave a tap to the bottle of champagne and then he touched the side of his nose.

  “This,” he said, “we need this, that’s obvious enough, but it’s better through there in the ‘den’.” He made a vague gesture towards the far end of the room.

  “Ah,” murmured Firmino, “the den, yes that’s certainly what we need.”

  The man gave another tap to the side of his nose.

  “It’s the best, the price is reasonable and discretion is guaranteed, but you come after me.”

  “The fact is,” said Firmino, “I’m a bit low myself this evening, but of course I’ll wait my turn.”

  The depressed fifty-year-old made a gesture towards a velvet curtain alongside the stage.

  “La Bohème is just the job,” he chuckled, “just the right kind of music to raise your spirits.” And once again he tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger.

  Firmino got casually to his feet and edged his way round the room, keeping close to the wall. Beside the curtain indicated by the depressed fifty-year-old was another with a notice reading “Washrooms,” on which were depicted two young peasants, male and female, in traditional local costume. Firmino slipped into the Gents, washed his hands and studied himself in the mirror. He remembered the lawyer’s advice not to think of himself as Philip Marlowe. Really not his role, but what the depressed fifty-year-old had said was intriguing him. He left the Gents and, still with a nonchalant air, slipped behind the curtain next door. He found himself in a passageway completely muffled with carpeting, both floor and walls. He pushed ahead confidently. To his right was a padded door bearing a silver plaque engraved with the words “La Bohème”. He opened it with a jerk and stuck his head in. It was a small boudoir with blue carpeting and wallpaper, suffused lighting and a divan. On the divan lay a man and the music was Puccini’s, he thought, though he didn’t know offhand which opera it came from. Firmino approached the body stretched out belly upwards and gave him a gentle cuff on the shoulder. Nothing stirred. Firmino shook him by the arm. The man didn’t move. Firmino quickly left the room and closed the door behind him.

  Back at his table the depressed fifty-year-old was still staring fixedly at his champagne bottle.

  “You’ll have to wait a while yet,” Firmino whispered in his ear, “because the den is occupied.”

  “You think so?” asked the other anxiously.

  “I’m dead sure of it,” said Firmino, “there’s a fellow there who’s in the world of dreams.”

  The depressed fifty-year-old's face sagged in desperation.

  “But for me it wouldn’t take a minute, a couple of minutes at the most, maybe I ought to drop in on the manager right there in his office.”

  “Ah, certainly,” said Firmino.

  The man beckoned the maître d’, there was a brief confabulation, and off they went together round the side of the room and disappeared behi
nd the velvet curtain. The lights were dimmed, the girl who had previously sung the blues reappeared on the platform, entertained the public with a couple of jokes and promised to sing a fado of the 1930s if they would just hang on for ten minutes because, she said, the viola-player had had a slight mishap. Firmino kept his eyes riveted on the curtain. The depressed fifty-year-old emerged and passed with sprightly step between the tables. As soon as he sat down he looked at Firmino. He was no longer depressed, his eyes were shining with the light of tremendous vitality. He gave the thumbs-up sign, like a pilot signaling “chocks away.”

  “Feeling fit?” enquired Firmino.

  “Twenty-five years younger than me, but she was a little whore,” mumbled the man, “except that it took a moment’s thought for me to realize it.”

  “A rather expensive moment,” murmured Firmino.

  “Two hundred dollars well spent,” said the bloke, “really cheap at the price, especially considering the secrecy.”

  “As a matter of fact it’s not all that expensive,” said Firmino, “but worse luck I left my roll of dollars at home.”

  “Senhor Titânio accepts nothing but dollars, friend,” said the fifty-year-old, “just think of his position and all the risks he has to run, would you accept Portuguese escudos if you were in his shoes?”

  “Not on your life,” Firmino assured him.

  “Well if you booked for La Bohème,” said the man, “it’s tough luck on you.”

  Firmino looked at his bill and counted out the exact amount. Luckily, payment was in escudos. He had an urge to walk the whole length of the seafront, he was sure that a breath of fresh air would do him a world of good.

  Sixteen

  FIRMINO ENTERED THE COURTYARD of the house in Rua das Flores and passed the concierge’s cubbyhole. The woman gave him a quick glance and plunged back into her knitting. Firmino crossed the corridor and rang the bell. As before, the door clicked open.

  Don Fernando was seated at a green baize table, practically perched on a chair too small to contain his bulk, with a game of patience set out before him. His cigar was alight, but burning itself slowly out in an ashtray. The room smelt of mold and stale tobacco-smoke.

  “I’m playing Spite and Malice,” said Don Fernando, “but it’s not coming out, I’m not on form. Do you know how to play Spite and Malice?”

  Firmino stood stock-still before him with a sheaf of newspapers under his arm, watching the old lawyer in silence.

  “They call them games of patience,” said Don Firmino, “but the definition is inexact, they require instinct and logic, as well as luck of course. This is a variant of Milligan, though perhaps you don’t know Milligan either.”

  “Frankly no,” replied Firmino.

  “Milligan,” explained Don Fernando, “is played with several players and two packs of fifty-two cards and stacks in sequence, the opening is made with the ace or the queen, with the ace the stack goes in ascending order, and in descending order if the queen opens, but that is not the best part, the beauty of it is in the obstacles.”

  The lawyer picked up the cigar, which already had an inch of ash on it, and took a voluptuous puff. “You really ought to study these so-called games of patience,” he resumed, “some of them have mechanisms resembling the intolerable logic that conditions our life, and Milligan is one of them. But do sit down, young man, please take that chair.”

  Firmino sat down and placed his sheaf of newspapers on the floor.

  “This Milligan is very interesting,” said the lawyer, “based as it is on the moves each player makes to set traps and restrict the choices of the next player, and so on round the table, as at international conferences at Geneva.”

  Firmino stared at him, his face taking on an expression of bewilderment. He made a rapid, fruitless attempt to decipher the lawyer’s meaning.

  “Conferences at Geneva?” he queried.

  “The fact is that a few years ago,” said the lawyer, “I asked to be an observer at the discussions on nuclear disarmament which regularly took place at the United Nations Headquarters in Geneva. I struck up a friendship with a certain lady, the ambassadress of a country in favor of disarmament. So I came to learn that her country, at that time carrying out nuclear experiments, was also committed to worldwide abolition of atomic weapons, do you grasp the concept?”

  “I grasp it,” said Firmino, “it’s a paradox.”

  “Well then,” continued the lawyer, “this was a lady of considerable culture and knowledge, as you may suppose, but above all she was a passionate card-player. One day I asked her to explain to me the mechanism of those negotiations, since this eluded my sense of logic. Do you know what she answered?”

  “I can’t imagine,” replied Firmino.

  “That I should study Milligan,” said Don Fernando, “because the logic was the same, and that is that every player who pretends to be collaborating with another is in fact constructing a sequence of cards which will trap his opponent and limit his choices. What do you think of that?”

  “Some game,” replied Firmino.

  “You’ve said it,” agreed Don Fernando, “but that’s what the nuclear balance of our planet rests on—on Milligan.

  He tapped the top of one of the stacks of cards.

  “But I play it on my own, introducing the variant of Spite and Malice, it seems to me more appropriate.”

  “Meaning what?” asked Firmino.

  “That I play a game of patience in such a way as to be at the same time myself and my opponent, I think the situation requires it, being concerned with missiles to be launched and others to be avoided.”

  “One missile we have got,” declared Firmino, evidently pleased with himself, “it hasn’t got a nuclear warhead but it’s better than nothing.”

  Don Fernando broke up his game of patience and collected the cards one by one. “You interest me, young man,” he said.

  “At ‘Puccini's Butterfly,’” said Firmino, “drugs are not only peddled but consumed on the premises. In the corridor at the back there are private rooms, complete with comfortable sofas and operatic music, I think it is mostly cocaine but there could be other stuff as well, a sniff costs two hundred dollars, and the man who runs the show is certainly Titânio Silva. Shall I shoot him down in our paper?”

  The lawyer got to his feet and crossed the room unsteadily. He stopped near an Empire-style console on which stood a framed photograph which Firmino had not noticed before. He propped an elbow on the marble top of the console, assuming an attitude which to Firmino appeared theatrical and almost as if he were addressing a court of law.

  “You are a good reporter, young man,” he exclaimed, “within certain limits of course, but don’t go doing a Don Quixote on me, because Sergeant Titânio Silva is a very dangerous windmill. And since we well know that our gallant Don Quixote got the worst of it when he was caught up in the sails of the windmill, and since I cannot and have no wish to be his Sancho Panza anointing his poor bruised body with balsamic oils, I will tell you one thing only, so listen carefully. Listen carefully because it’s of basic importance as a move in our game of Milligan. You will now proceed to draw up an exhaustive statement to send to a press agency, describing ‘Puccini's Butterfly’ in the minutest detail, with its little cozy dens, its operatic music, its packets of various substances and dollars accurately added up by the efficient cashier Titânio Silva, all this, I say, will be reported en bloc by the Portuguese press, all the papers possible or imaginable, that part of it which espouses the magnificent and progressive destinies of the human race and also the sector devoted to the sports cars owned by the petty manufacturers of the North, which after all just means another way of conceiving the magnificent and progressive destinies, in short, every paper in its own way will be forced to publish this story, some with savage rage, others scandalized, others again with reservations, but they will all have to write that probably, and I repeat probably, in the face of incontestable evidence, on those premises, with perfect impunity, on
account of the curious forgetfulness of the Republican Guardia Nacional, which has never taken it into its head to search them, are peddled certain oneirizing powders, how’s that for a description? at the modest price of two hundred dollars a sniff, which is to say a third of the monthly wage of the average Portuguese worker. In this way we will bestow on ‘Puccini’s Butterfly,’ and obviously also on Senhor Titânio, the privilege of a search by the criminal investigation department.”

  The lawyer paused as if to draw breath. And draw it he did, like a drowning man, and the sound he made was like a pair of old bellows.

  “It’s all the fault of these puros,” said he, “I have to smoke these Spanish puros because you can’t get Havanas any more, they’ve become a memory, but perhaps that island itself has become a mere memory.” Then he continued: “We are straying from the point, though in fact it is only I who am straying from the point, please forgive me, I have too many things buzzing about in my head today.”

  The hand on which his chin was resting was all the while fingering his flabby cheek.

  “And then I slept badly, I have too many sleepless nights, and sleepless nights bring ghosts with them and make time recoil. Do you know what it means when time recoils?”

  He looked questioningly at Firmino, and Firmino once again felt nettled and embarrassed. He didn’t at all like the way Don Fernando treated him, and perhaps others, as if he were looking for an accomplice, as if expecting a confirmation of his doubts, but in an almost threatening manner.