The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro Read online

  —Leaving Damasceno Monteiro alone?

  Unfortunately, yes. That was our big mistake, for which we assume total responsibility: simply to make him some coffee we left that desperate lad alone for a few moments, and that is how the tragedy happened.

  —What tragedy? Could you explain yourself better?

  We heard a shot and dashed upstairs. Monteiro was lying lifeless on the floor. He had snatched up a revolver that the other officer had thoughtlessly left on the desk and shot himself through the temple.

  —Point-blank?

  When someone shoots themselves through the temple it’s bound to be point-blank, don’t you think?

  —Of course, I only asked in order to get an expert opinion, it’s obvious that any suicide shoots himself point-blank. And then?

  Well, we found ourselves with that corpse on the floor. A thing like that, as you may readily understand, might throw a scare even into policemen thoroughly inured to the horrors of this world. Apart from that, I was on my last legs, I’d been on duty since eight in the morning, I had to get home and take an injection of Zomig.

  —Zomig?

  It’s an American remedy which has only lately come on the market here, it’s the only thing to relieve an unbearable attack of migraine. Attached to my legal statement is a medical certificate attesting to the migraine headaches I have been subject to ever since Angola, where a mine blew up right beside me and burst an eardrum. For that reason and that reason only did I leave my post, and that is the only offense, if it can be called an offense, which I shall have to answer for to the Court: that I fled the field, I who on the battlefield in Africa never left the field.

  —And in so doing you left Damasceno Monteiro lying dead on the floor?

  That’s what happened. I don’t know what my colleagues did after I left.

  —Who were they?

  I don’t wish to give any names. I have already stated them to the examining magistrate and they will be mentioned at the trial.

  —And what about the corpse of Damasceno Monteiro?

  You must understand the anguish, the bewilderment of two poor recruits left with a corpse on the station floor. I make no excuses for them, but I can understand why they removed it.

  —But this is a criminal act, called concealment of a corpse.

  Certainly, I agree with you, it is concealment of a corpse, but I say again that you must understand the anguish of two simple recruits who find themselves in that sort of situation.

  —When Damasceno Monteiro’s body was found it had been decapitated.

  Almost anything can happen in parks these days.

  —You mean that when Damasceno’s body was removed from the station it still had a head on it?

  That is something which will emerge at the trial. As far as I am concerned I will swear by my boys. I can assure you that my subordinate officers are not head-hunters.

  —You mean that in your opinion Monteiro’s head was cut off in the park?

  There’s a lot of odd people around in the parks of this city.

  —It would be difficult to accomplish such a feat in a park, according to the autopsy the beheading was an extraordinarily clean job, as if it had been done with an electric carving knife, and electric knives have to be plugged in.

  If it comes to that there are butcher’s knives that cut far cleaner even than an electric knife.

  —Nevertheless it has come to our knowledge that the body of Damasceno Monteiro bore signs of having been tortured. There were cigarette burns on his chest.

  We do not smoke cigarettes my dear sir, and you can put that down in your paper. No one smokes in my offices, I have expressly forbidden it, I have even put up notices to that effect on the walls. In any case you will have seen what the State has at last decided to print on every package of cigarettes? That smoking is seriously damaging to health.

  Nineteen

  “CONGRATULATIONS, YOUNG MAN, you did a good job there.”

  The lawyer was deep in his armchair under the bookshelves, in the room that morning there was an unusual fresh smell, a mixture of lavender and deodorant.

  “Phew, what a stench,” said Don Fernando, “the concierge has been in, she can’t bear my cigars and I can’t bear her wretched sprays.”

  Firmino noticed that the cards on the card table were all in stacks face upwards.

  “Did you get out your game of patience?” he asked.

  “This morning I did,” replied the lawyer, “every so often I bring it off.”

  “That Titânio is a slimy character,” observed Firmino. “The things he says, and the gall of the man!”

  “Were you expecting anything better?” asked the lawyer, “It’s the version he will stick to in court, and in those selfsame words, because this Titânio can plainly operate on only one stylistic level, however the records of trials are not published in the newspapers, but you have already let the reader know how the Green Cricket talks. And with this in my opinion your task is finished.”

  “Really finished?” asked Firmino.

  “At least for the moment,” replied the lawyer, “all the documents have been registered and the preliminary examination is closed, so we only have to wait for the trial. Which will be soon, perhaps sooner than you imagine, perhaps we will have occasion to meet again at the trial, who knows.”

  “You think it will come off so quickly?” asked Firmino.

  “In cases such as this there are two possibilities,” replied the lawyer, “the first is that they put off the trial until doomsday, so that people will forget, in the hope that some great national or international scandal will come along to occupy the whole attention of the press. The second is to resolve matters as soon as possible, and I think they will choose this second course, because they have to demonstrate that the course of justice is swift and efficient and that the public services, in this case the police, are transparently honest and above all democratic. You get the idea?”

  “I get the idea,” replied Firmino.

  “Besides, you have a fiancée,” continued the lawyer, “and one can’t leave fiancées alone too long, otherwise they get dejected and pine. Go off and make love, it’s one of the best things you can do at your time of life.”

  He turned his inquisitorial little eyes on Firmino as if expecting confirmation. Firmino felt himself blushing and gave a nod.

  “And then there’s your study of the post-war Portuguese novel, that’s another task awaiting you, isn’t it? Go back to Dona Rosa’s and pack your bags, if you hurry there’s a train at 2:18, but it’s no great shakes, it stops even at Espinho, the next train is at 3:24, or else there are the 4:12 and the 6:10, take your pick.”

  “You certainly have the train times at your fingertips,” said Firmino, “I imagine you travel that line pretty often.”

  “It’s twenty-five years since I did so,” replied the lawyer, “but I like train timetables, I find they have an intrinsic interest.”

  He got up and made for the bookshelves on one side of the room, where there were old books lavishly bound. He took out a slender volume bound in fine leather with silver-tipped corners, and held it out to Firmino. On the parchment fly-leaf was stamped the name of the bookbinder and a date: “Oficina Sampayo, Porto 1956.” Firmino leafed through it. The cover of the original volume, which the binder had retained, was of stiffish paper, but yellowed with time, said in French, German, and Italian: Timetable of the Swiss Railways. Firmino examined it quickly and looked inquiringly at the lawyer.

  “Many years ago,” said Don Fernando, “when I was studying in Geneva, I bought that timetable, it was a commemorative publication of the Swiss railways, and the Swiss railways run on the dot as only the Swiss can make them, but the best of it is that they consider Zurich the center of the world, for example, turn to page four, after the advertisements for hotels and watches.”

  Firmino looked up page four.

  “It’s a map of Europe,” he said.

  “With all the railway lines,” a
dded Don Fernando, “each with its number, and each number refers to the lines in every country in Europe and the appropriate page. From Zurich you can reach the whole of Europe by train, and the Swiss railways indicate all the times for making your connection. For example, do you wish to go to Budapest? Turn to page sixteen.”

  Firmino looked for page sixteen.

  “The train for Vienna leaves Zurich at 9:15 from platform 4, am I right?” said the lawyer. “The connection for Budapest, the best one, which is marked with an asterisk, is at 9 PM, it is the best because it enables one to catch the train coming from Venice, the timetable informs us of the services available, in this case couchettes for four persons (the cheapest), wagonslits for two or private for one, restaurant car and possible light refreshments for the night. However, if you wish to go on to Prague, which is on the next page, you have only to choose between the various possibilities offered by the Hungarian railways, are you checking the text?”

  “I’m checking it,” said Firmino.

  “Do you wish to visit the great northlands of Europe?” continued Don Fernando. “Oslo, for example, the city of the midnight sun and the Nobel Peace Prize: page nineteen, leaving Zurich at 12:21 from platform 7, the ferryboat timetable is provided in a footnote. Or, take your pick, it might be Magna Grecia, the Greek theater at Syracuse, the ancient culture of the Mediterranean, to get to Syracuse you only have to turn to page twenty-one, you leave Zurich at exactly 11 o’clock, and there you will find all the possible connections on the Italian railways.”

  “Have you made all these journeys?” asked Firmino.

  Don Fernando smiled. He selected a cigar but did not light it.

  “Naturally not,” he replied, “I have simply confined myself to imagining them. After which I return to Oporto.”

  Firmino passed him the volume. Don Fernando took it, gave it a swift glance without opening it and handed it back.

  “I know it by heart,” he said, “I make you a present of it.”

  “But you may be attached to it,” said Firmino, not knowing what else to say.

  “Oh,” said Don Fernando, “none of those trains run any more, that precise Swiss timing has been swallowed up by time itself. I give it to you as a souvenir of these days we’ve spent together, and a personal souvenir as well, if it is not presumptuous on my part to think that you might like to have something to remember me by.”

  “I shall keep it as a souvenir,” replied Firmino. “And now please excuse me, Don Fernando, I have to get something, I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  “Leave the door on the latch,” said the lawyer, “don’t make me get up again to press the button.”

  FIRMINO RETURNED WITH A package under his arm. He undid it carefully and placed a bottle on the table.

  “Before leaving I would like to drink a toast with you,” he explained, “unfortunately the bottle isn’t chilled.”

  “Champagne,” observed Don Fernando, “it must have cost you a fortune.”

  “I chalked it up to my newspaper,” admitted Firmino.

  “I suspend judgment,” said Don Fernando.

  “With all the special editions they’ve printed thanks to our articles I think that the paper can treat us to a bottle of champagne.”

  “Your articles,” specified Don Fernando as he fetched two glasses, “they were your articles.”

  “Well, anyway,” murmured Firmino.

  They raised their glasses.

  “I propose we drink to the success of the trial,” said Firmino.

  Don Fernando took a sip and said nothing for the moment.

  “Don’t cherish too many hopes,” he said as he put down his glass, “I’m prepared to bet it will be a military court.”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” exclaimed Firmino.

  “It’s logical according to the lawbooks,” replied the lawyer phlegmatically, “the Guardia Nacional is a military body, I will do my best to challenge this logic, but I don’t have too many hopes on that score.”

  “But this is a brutal murder,” said Firmino, “a question of torture, of drug peddling, of corruption, it’s got nothing to do with war.”

  “Of course, of course,” murmured the lawyer, “and tell me, what’s your fiancée called?”

  “Catarina.”

  “A beautiful name,” said the lawyer, “and what does she do in life?”

  “She’s just taken an exam for a post at the city library,” said Firmino, “she’s a graduate of library sciences, and a qualified archivist, but she’s still waiting for the results.”

  “Working with books is a wonderful way of life,” murmured the lawyer.

  Firmino refilled the glasses. They sipped away in silence.

  Finally Firmino picked up the bound volume and got to his feet.

  “I think it’s time I was going,” he said.

  They shook hands briefly.

  “Give my best to Dona Rosa,” Don Fernando called after him.

  Firmino went out into Rua das Flores. A fresh breeze had sprung up, it almost had a nip in it. The air was as clear as crystal, he noted that the leaves of the plane-trees were patched here and there with yellow. It was the first sign of autumn.

  Twenty

  OF THAT DAY FIRMINO WAS destined to remember chiefly his physical sensations, lucid enough but as foreign to him as if he hadn’t been involved at all, as if a protective film had cocooned him in a state between sleep and waking, where sensory perceptions are registered in the consciousness but the brain is powerless to organize them rationally, leaving them floating around as vague states of mind: that misty late-December morning when he arrived shivering with cold at the station in Oporto, the local trains unloading the early commuters with their faces still puffy with sleep, the taxi-ride by those sullen buildings of that damp and gloomy city. The whole place depressed him immensely. And then his arrival at the Law Courts, all that red tape at the entrance, the block-headed objections of the policeman at the door, who frisked him and wouldn’t let him in with his pocket tape-recorder, his Union of Journalists’ card which finally did the trick, his admittance to that tiny courtroom where all the seats were taken. He wondered why, for such an important trial, they had chosen such a small room, of course he knew the answer, although in that state of mingled insentience and hyper-awareness he was unable to articulate it mentally, and went no further than registering the fact.

  He finally managed to find a place on the narrow dais reserved for the Press, segregated by a dark-stained, pot-bellied-columned balustrade. He had expected a crowd of reporters, photographers, flash-bulbs. But there was nothing of the sort. He recognized two or three colleagues, with whom he exchanged brief nods, but the rest were quite unknown to him, probably specialists in law cases. He realized that a lot of the newspapers would be falling back on information from press agencies.

  In the front row he spotted Damasceno’s parents. The mother was swathed in a grey coat and dabbed her eyes every so often with a crumpled handkerchief. The father was wearing an unbelievable red-and-black checked jacket, American style. To the right, at the table where the lawyers sat, he spotted Don Fernando. He had dumped his lawyer’s gown on the table and was busy studying documents. He was wearing a black jacket and a white bow-tie. There were deep circles under his eyes and his lower lip drooped even more than usual. Between his fingers he was twisting an unlit cigar.

  Leonel Torres was sitting practically huddled in his seat, looking scared out of his wits. Beside him sat a frail blonde who was presumably his wife. Sergeant Titânio Silva himself was seated with his two deputies. The latter were in uniform, whereas Titânio Silva, in mufti, was wearing a pin-striped suit and a silk tie. His hair was gleaming with brilliantine.

  The Court entered and the proceedings began. Firmino thought of switching on his tape-recorder, but he had second thoughts because the courthouse had hopeless acoustics and the recording was sure to come out badly. Far better to take notes. He drew forth his notebook and wrote: The Missing Head of
Damasceno Monteiro. After which he wrote no more, he just listened. He wrote nothing because he already knew all that was being said: the reading of Manolo the Gypsy’s testimony about finding the body, the fisherman’s statement that he had fished up the head on the line he had out for chub, and the results of the two autopsies. As to what Leonel Torres had to say, he knew that as well, because the Judge simply asked him if he confirmed what he had said during the preliminary investigations, and Torres confirmed it. And when it came to Titânio Silva he too confirmed his previous statement. His raven-black hair glistened, his hair-line mustache kept time with the motion of his thin lips. Of course, he said, his first statement to the examining magistrates was the result of a misunderstanding, because the young recruit who was with him in the car was sleepy, very sleepy, poor lad, he had come on duty at six in the morning and was only twenty years old, and at that age the body needs its sleep, but yes, in fact they had taken Monteiro to the station, and he was beside himself, at the end of his tether, he had broken down and cried like a child, he was a small-time crook, but even crooks can sometimes touch the heart, so that he himself and one of the deputies had gone down to the kitchenette on the floor below to make him a cup of coffee.

  The Judge remarked that for making a cup of coffee two people seemed a little excessive. Well, true enough, or at least it might seem to be true, replied the self-assured lips of Titânio Silva in a sort of confidential whisper, but on the other hand we have to consider the type of equipment the State supplies to its commissariats, not that he wished to criticize the State, he understood the difficulties of the State, the meager funds at the disposal of the responsible ministry, but the fact was that that coffee machine had been supplied nine years before, if the Court wished to consult the Accounts Department it would find all the invoices in the archives, and since for understandable reasons a nine-year-old coffee machine does not function perfectly one has to work away at it, one has to turn up the gas or turn down the gas, and so it happened that while he and the deputy were working away at the machine, simply to get poor Monteiro a cup of coffee, they heard a shot. They rushed upstairs, Monteiro was lying dead on the floor beside the desk, with a pistol in his hand, the regulation pistol which the new recruit Ferro had thoughtlessly left on the desk. Yes indeed, because even a police officer is not an automaton, even a police officer can leave a pistol lying on a desk.