The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro Read online

  “Good,” continued the old man, “it’s like Columbus’s egg. The boss sends Estremoz marble to Carrara and they resell it on the Italian market as Carrara marble, and so there you have the atriums of Roman apartment houses and the bathrooms of wealthy Italians tiled with fine Carrara marble which comes from Estremoz in Portugal. And it’s not that the boss has to do the thing on a vast scale, you know, he has simply subleased a firm in Estremoz which cuts the blocks and ships them from Setúbal. However, with the cost of labor in Portugal being as low as it is, do you realize what that means to us?”

  He waited with an air of impatience for Firmino’s answer, which never came.

  “Millions,” he said in answer to his own question, and then went on: “And as one thing leads to another the boss started looking for another market, and he found Hong Kong, because the Chinese also are mad for Carrara marble, and since a thing that leads to another leads to another again, the boss thought that since we were in the export business the moment had come to import as well, so we became an import-export firm, it doesn’t show on the surface, we have these modest premises, but that’s only so as not to flaunt the fact that we have one of the biggest annual turnovers of any firm in Oporto, you who are in business can understand that the financial police have to be kept at arm’s length, but you know my boss has two Ferrari Testarossas, he keeps them out at his farm in the country, and d’you know what he did before this?”

  “I have no idea,” replied Firmino.

  “Worked for the Council,” said the old man with great satisfaction, “in the stewarts’ office, at the Town that means having a flair for business, of course he’s had to play at politics a bit, it’s only logical, without politics you can’t get anywhere in this country, so he got himself made election campaign manager of the aspiring candidate for the mayorship of his town, took him by car to every political meeting in the province of Minho, the mayor was elected and as a reward gave him this piece of land for thruppence and arranged for the license to start up the business. Speaking of which, what exact line is your firm into?”

  “Clothing,” replied Firmino craftily enough.

  The old man lit another Gauloise.

  “And so?” he asked.

  “We’re opening a chain of shops in Algarve,” said Firmino, “mostly jeans and T-shirts, because Algarve is a place for young people, all beaches and discotheques, and we’ve decided to market the most bizarre T-shirts, because the kids nowadays want them as bizarre as you please, if you try and sell a T-shirt saying Harvard University no one would buy it, but with T-shirts like yours maybe they would, and we could mass-produce them.”

  The old man got up, made his way to a closet with a folding door, rummaged around in a big box.

  “Is this what you mean?”

  It was a blue T-shirt bearing the words Stones of Portugal. The very thing described by Manolo.

  The accountant gave him a look and then handed it to him.

  “By all means take it,” he said, “but have a word with the secretary about it next week, I can’t tell you anything.”

  “What is it you import?” asked Firmino.

  “High technology instruments from Hong Kong,” replied the old man, “equipment for hi-fi and for hospitals, and that’s the reason I’m in trouble.”

  “Why is that?” asked Firmino in the most tactful of tones.

  “We had a robbery five days ago,” came the answer, “it was during the night, they disconnected the alarm system and made straight for the container with the equipment in it as if they knew exactly where to look, and they only stole two highly sophisticated components for CAT machinery, do you know what the CAT is?”

  “Computerized axial tomography,” answered Firmino.

  “Our guard dog,” continued the old man “the Alsatian, didn’t notice a thing, and the thieves certainly didn’t drug him.”

  “They’d have some trouble selling components for CAT,” objected Firmino.

  “You’d be surprised,” said the old man, “what with all the private clinics springing up in Portugal like mushrooms, forgive me but do you know anything about our health services?”

  “Vaguely,” said Firmino.

  “It’s sheer piracy,” said the old man with conviction, “that’s why medical equipment is so expensive, but the fact is this theft was really odd, as odd as could be. Just imagine, two electronic switches for CAT machines smoothly removed from our containers and abandoned on the roadside only half a kilometer away.”

  “Abandoned?”

  “As if they’d been chucked out of a car window, but reduced to pulp, as if a car had run over them.”

  “Have you notified the police?” asked Firmino.

  “Of course,” said the accountant, “because though it’s a matter of two tiny little components, they’re worth a lot of money.”

  “Really?” said Firmino.

  “And what’s more with the boss in Hong Kong and the secretary on holiday,” grumbled the old boy with some exasperation, “the whole thing falls on my shoulders, even the errand-boy seems to have fallen ill.”

  “What errand-boy?” asked Firmino.

  “The errand-boy who make deliveries,” replied the old man, “at least I had an underling to send off on errands, but he hasn’t come to work for five days.”

  “A young fellow?” asked Firmino.

  “That’s right,” confirmed the old man, “a temporary, he came here a couple of months ago looking for work and the boss took him on as an errand-boy.”

  Firmino had a sudden mental short circuit.

  “What’s his name?” he asked.

  “What’s that to you?” the old man asked.

  In his eyes there was a hint of suspicion.

  “Oh, just a question, it isn’t important,” said Firmino in an attempt to pass it off.

  “Well, he likes to be called Dakota,” said the old man, “because he’s mad about anything and everything American, and I’ve always called him Dakota, but I don’t know his real name, in fact it doesn’t even appear in the register, as I said he’s a temporary. Excuse me asking, but why are you so keen to know?”

  “No particular reason,” replied Firmino, “just a question.”

  “Very well then,” concluded the old man, “now you must forgive me but I have to get back to these accounts, this evening I have to get off a fax to Hong Kong, it’s an urgent invoice, if you want further information come back in a week's time, I can’t guarantee that the boss will be here but the secretary will have definitely come back.”

  Seven

  “HULLO, EDITOR?” said Firmino, “I’m on the trail, I think I’ve found the right track. I’ve traced the corpse’s T-shirt, it comes from an import-export firm in Vila Nova de Gaia, they make T-shirts identical to the one Manolo described to me.”

  “Anything else?” asked the Editor impassably.

  “They had an errand-boy,” replied Firmino, “a young chap, and he hasn’t turned up for work for the last five days. However, I didn’t manage to find out his name. Shall we print this?”

  “Anything else?” insisted the Editor.

  “The firm was burgled five days ago, the thieves got away with two high-tech instruments which they then abandoned at the roadside and squashed under the wheels of their car. The firm is Stones of Portugal, import-export, shall we print this?”

  There was a brief silence and then the Editor said: “Take it easy. Let’s wait.”

  “But this looks like a real scoop,” exclaimed Firmino.

  “Consult with Dona Rosa,” ordered the Editor.

  “Excuse my asking sir,” said Firmino, “but how come that Dona Rosa is so well informed?”

  “Dona Rosa knows the kind of people who can be of use to us,” explained the Editor, “and in fact in a certain sense she’s the queen of Oporto.”

  “Sorry, but in what sense?” asked Firmino.

  “Doesn’t she strike you as a pretty classy woman?” insisted the Editor.

&n
bsp; “Too much so for a pension like this,” replied Firmino.

  “Have you ever heard of the Bachus?” asked the Editor.

  Firmino said nothing.

  “In the old days,” said the Editor, “the Bachus was a legendary bar, frequented by everyone who mattered in Oporto, and even those who didn’t. And late at night, when being stewed to the gills tends to make people sorry for themselves, everyone to some extent had a good cry on the shoulder of the owner. Who was Dona Rosa.”

  “And she ended up in this place?” exclaimed Firmino.

  “Look here Firmino,” burst out the Editor, “just keep calm and don’t make such a pest of yourself, stick in there for the moment and see how things work out.”

  “Yes,” said Firmino, “but it’s Saturday, and this evening I could catch a train and spend Sunday and Monday morning in Lisbon, don’t you think?”

  “Forgive me asking, young man, but what would you be doing in Lisbon on Sunday and on Monday morning?”

  “That seems obvious,” replied Firmino heatedly. “Sunday I’ll spend with my fiancée because I think I have a right to, and on Monday morning I’ll go to the National Library.”

  The Editor’s voice took on a tone of slight irritation.

  “Well I’ll accept the excuse of your fiancée, we’ve all of us had a romantic phase in our lives, but just tell me what you’d be doing on Monday morning at the National Library?”

  Firmino braced himself to give a plausible explanation. He well knew that with his Editor you needed tact.

  “In the manuscript section there’s a letter from Elio Vittorini to a Portuguese writer,” he said, “I was told so by Dr. Luis Braz Ferreira.”

  The Editor was silent for a moment then coughed briefly into the mouthpiece.

  “And who might this Dr. Luis Braz Ferreira be?”

  “He’s a leading expert in manuscripts at the National Library,” replied Firmino.

  “Hard cheese,” said the Editor in contemptuous tones. “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Firmino, dumbfounded.

  “That it’s his bad luck, his business,” repeated the Editor.

  “Excuse me, sir,” insisted Firmino, forcing himself to be polite, “but Dr. Braz Ferreira knows every twentieth-century manuscript in the National Library.”

  “Does he know any headless bodies?” asked the Editor.

  “They’re not in his field,” said Firmino.

  “That’s his bad luck,” concluded the Editor, “I am interested in headless bodies, and at this moment so are you.”

  “Yes,” agreed Firmino, “I see that, but you must realize that the letter in question refers to the books of the ‘Três Abelhas’ and, whether it interests you or not, these books were absolutely essential to Portuguese culture in the later 1950s, because they published Americans and they all came through Vittorini, on account of an anthology he had published in Italy, called Americana.”

  “Listen young man,” broke in the Editor, “you work for Acontecimento, which means me, and Acontecimento pays your wages. And I want you to stay in Oporto, and above all stay in Dona Rosa’s pension. Don’t go for too many walks and don’t think about the big picture, as for literature, you can devote yourself to it when you get the chance, but for the moment just sit on the sofa and tell jokes to Dona Rosa, and especially listen to hers, they’re some of the best and very clean, so goodbye for now.”

  The receiver went click and Firmino cast a disconsolate look at Dona Rosa, who was coming through from the dining-room.

  “Why such a gloomy face, young man?” Dona Rosa smiled at him as if she had overheard every word, “don’t take it to heart, that’s the way bosses are, arrogant. I’ve met a lot of overbearing people in the course of my life but one must grin and bear it, one of these days we’ll sit here and I’ll tell you how to deal with overbearing people, but the great thing is to do a good job of work.” Then in motherly fashion she added: “Why don’t you go and have a nap? You’ve got bags under your eyes, your room is cool and the sheets are spodess, I have them changed every three days.”

  Firmino went to his room. He fell into a lovely sleep as he had hoped to and dreamt about a beach in Madeira, a blue blue sea, and his fiancée. When he woke it was time for dinner, so he put on a jacket and went downstairs. He was lucky enough to find that dinner that evening was a favorite childhood dish, fried hake. He ate ravenously, waited on hand and foot by the young waitress, a hefty lass with a pronounced mustache. The Italian at the next table tried to start a conversation about cuisine, and described a dish of sweet peppers and anchovies which he said came from Piedmont. Firmino courteously pretended to be interested. At that moment Dona Rosa approached him and bent down to whisper in his ear.

  “The head has been found,” she said sweetly.

  Firmino was looking at the heads of the hake which were left on his plate.

  “Head,” he asked like an idiot, “what head?”

  “The head missing-from the corpse,” said Dona Rosa amiably, “but there’s no hurry, first finish eating your dinner, then I’ll tell you all about it and what to do. I’ll expect you in the lounge.”

  Firmino was unable to restrain his impatience and rushed after her.

  “It was found by Senhor Diocleciano,” said Dona Rosa calmly, “he fished it out of the Douro, so now sit down and listen carefully, come and sit by me.”

  And she gave two little taps on the sofa as usual, as if inviting him to have a cup of tea.

  “My friend Diocleciano is eighty years old,” Dona Rosa went on, “he’s been a peddler, a boatman, and he is a fisherman of corpses and suicides in the Douro. Rumor has it that in his life he has fished over seven hundred bodies out of the river. He hands the bodies over to the morgue and the morgue pays him a wage. It’s his job. However, this case he knew about in advance, so he has not yet turned the head over to the authorities. He is also the guardian of souls in the Arco dal Alminhas, in the sense that he concerns himself not simply with bodies but also their eternal repose, he lights candles in that holy place, says prayers for them and so on. He has the head at home, he pulled it out of the river a couple of hours ago and let me know, here’s his address. But on your way back don’t forget to call in at the Arco das Alminhas and say a prayer for the dead. Meanwhile don’t forget to take your camera, before the head ends up in the morgue.”

  Firmino went up to his room, fetched his camera and went out in search of a taxi, giving no thought to the carpings of an envious colleague who wrote in his paper that the staff of Acontecimento took too many taxis. The ride was brief through the narrow streets of the old city. Senhor Diocleciano lived in a house with a crumbling entrance-way. The door was opened by a plump elderly woman.

  “Diocleciano is expecting you in the living-room,” she said, leading the way.

  Diocleciano’s family living-room was a spacious apartment lit by a chandelier. The furniture, evidently bought at some discount store, was fake antique, with gilded legs and tops covered with sheets of glass. On the table in the middle of the room was a head on a dish, as in the Bible story. Firmino gave it a brief nauseated glance and turned to Senhor Diocleciano, who was seated at the head of the table as if playing host at a formal dinner.

  “I fished it up at the mouth of the Douro,” he told Firmino. “I had hooks out for chub and a small net for shrimp, and it got stuck on the hooks.”

  Firmino looked at the head on its dish, trying to overcome his repugnance. It must have been in the river some days. It was swollen and purple, one eye had been eaten by fish. He tried to give it an age, but failed. It might have been twenty, but the man could even have been forty.

  “I have to turn it in at the morgue,” said Senhor Diocleciano as if it were the most natural thing in the world, “so if you want to take pictures of it make it quick, because I found it at five o’clock and there’s a limit to how much I can lie.”

  Firmino took out his camera and got busy, photographing the head full face and in profile.


  “Have you noticed this?” asked Senhor Diocleciano, “come closer.”

  Firmino did not move. The old man was pointing a finger at one temple.

  “Take a look at that.”

  Firmino at last brought himself to approach, and saw the hole.

  “It’s a hole,” he said.

  “A bullet hole,” specified Senhor Diocleciano.

  Firmino asked Senhor Diocleciano if he might make a telephone call, it would be a short one. He was taken to the telephone in the hall. At the office he got the answering service. Firmino left a message for the Editor.

  “Firmino here, the severed head has been found in the river by a fisherman of corpses. I have photographed it. It has a bullet hole in the left temple. I’ll send the photos at once by fax or somehow, I’ll call by the Luso Agency, perhaps we can bring out a special edition, I’m not thinking of writing anything for the moment, comments are superfluous, I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

  He went out into the warm Oporto night. This time he had no desire whatever for a taxi, a good walk was what he needed. But not down to the river, even though it was close by. He had no wish even to look at the river that evening.

  Eight

  AT EIGHT O’CLOCK FIRMINO WAS awakened by the house telephone. It was the mannish voice of the moustached maid.

  “Your Editor wants you on the telephone, he says it’s urgent.”

  Firmino dashed downstairs in his dressing-gown. The pension was still sleeping.

  “The presses start rolling in half an hour,” said the Editor, “I’m getting out a special edition today, just a couple of pages but with all your shots, no need for a text, for the moment it’s better for you to keep quiet, at three this afternoon the mystery face will be spread all over the country.”

  “How did the photos come out?” asked Firmino.

  “Hideous,” replied the Editor, “but anyone who wants to recognize them will recognize them.”

  Firmino felt a shiver run down his spine as he thought of the impact the paper would make: worse than a horror film. He plucked up courage and timidly enquired how the various photos would be arranged.