Robert Wilson - A Small Death in Lisbon

Felsen told him about the horseshoes. Abrantes stood stock still, hunched, and Felsen caught a glimpse of the peasant from the Beira-superstitious, pagan, nose turned up to the smell of things not right.

'This is bad,' he said. 'This is very bad. Perhaps you've upset your neighbours.'

'I don't have any neighbours.'

'People from the village, maybe.'

'I don't know anybody from the village apart from the maid and she's happy to take my money.'

'You know what you have to do?'

'I'm hoping you're going to tell me. These are your people.'

'You must go to the Senhora dos Santos.'

'In the Beira?'

'No, no. A local one. Ask in the village. They'll know. This magic is not from the Beira.'

'Magic?'

Abrantes nodded gravely.

Felsen drove back up to Azóia which was still in fog, a stationary, closed, muffled world and freezing after the August sunshine in Estoril. He went to the bar which contained four people, three in black and a barman. Nobody spoke. He asked his question, and a boy, Chico, was called.

Chico led the way into the narrow lanes of the village, the fog so thick that Felsen, in his state, would stop occasionally and rear back as if from a solid wall. The boy took him to a low house on the edge of the village. The moisture had collected on his black hair like morning dew.

A woman came to the door in a blue floral overall wiping her bloody hands on a rag-fresh from killing lunch or maybe an entrail inspection. She was round-faced with very small eyes which only opened to the tiniest slits. She looked at the boy who was her height but: it was Felsen who spoke.

'I have a problem, I'd like you to come and see my house,' he said.

She shooed the boy away. Felsen gave him a coin. They went through to the yard at the back of her house where there was a large domed dovecote the size of a church's cupola. She reached in and the doves flapped and cooed. One came out on her hand, white with brown traces on its wings. She held it to her bosom and stroked it down. Felsen felt strangely calm.

They drove to the house in fog so thick that Felsen stuck his head out of the window to see if it would improve his vision.

The Senhora dos Santos inspected the dead lizard already seething with ants.

'You found it in your bed, you said.'

Felsen nodded, scepticism crouched on his shoulder.

'It would have been better if you hadn't killed it.'

'Why?'

'Let's look in the house.'

As soon as she entered the hallway her breathing became laboured as if she was having a respiratory attack. She walked through the house, struggling with every step, her face reddening and, despite the oceanic cold, sweating. Felsen found himself close to laughing at the absurdity of the spectacle. He walked behind her, unmoved, as if on some vague barracks inspection.

The Senhora dos Santos looked at the bed, which was still bloodstained from his head injury, as if there was a thrice-stabbed body on it. She staggered from the room, down the stairs, and out into the courtyard pursued by Felsen, keen as a ghoulish schoolboy.

Her breathing recovered, her face went back to its natural colour. The dove was not so fortunate. It fell dead and already stiff from her hands. They looked at it, she sad, Felsen affronted by the woman's quackery. He was in no doubt she'd killed it herself.

'What do you make of it?' he asked.

The face that looked up at him was not encouraging. Her eyes were now fully open from the slits they had been before. They were black, all pupil, no iris.

'This is not our magic,' she said.

'But what does it all mean?' he asked. 'The lizard? The horseshoes?'

'You killed the lizard… in your own bed. It means you will destroy yourself.'

'Kill myself?'

'No, no. You will bring yourself down.'

He snorted.

'And the horseshoes?'

'They will stop you from going anywhere. They will…'

'I've just been somewhere. You and I have just been in the car.'

'Not the car, Senhor Felsen,' she said, and he wondered for a moment how she knew his name.

'What then?'

'Your life.'

'What is this… this…' he said, his hand revolving over and over looking for the word.

'This is Macumba.'

'Macumba?'

'Brazilian black magic.'

During those six hard months of controlled fat intake to get myself back into shape, I'd planned to celebrate the end by cooking something exquisitely drenched in fat for Olivia and myself. Somewhere in my body there was a high whining for something like arroz de pato, duck with rice-the fat soaked into the rice, studded with chouriço, the flesh of idle chunks of duck falling apart, the skin crisp-and a deep, cutting, slatey red to wash it down. But the dish took hours to make, it was late, nearly midnight, Olivia wasn't home and there was nothing in the fridge. I tipped the whisky undrunk into the sink. I showered and changed.

I slapped around the kitchen in bare feet and thawed some turkey steaks I'd found in the freezer in warm water. I boiled up some rice, a tin of corn and opened a bottle of Esteva red.

By half-past-midnight I was sitting with a small coffee and an aguardente, smoking my penultimate cigarette. Olivia came in smelling of perfume and beer. She sat down and smoked my last cigarette for me. I complained. She hugged me around the head and kissed me loudly on the ear. I crushed her to me and resisted biting her like I used to when she was small. She squirmed away from me and asked what had happened to my hand.

'A little accident,' I said, not wanting to face that again.

'So,' she said, taking a sip of my coffee, speaking in English as we did from time to time.

'You look happy,' I said.

'I am.'

'You met somebody you liked?'

'Sort of,' she half-lied, automatic at any age. 'How was your day?'

'You heard anything?'

'The girl on the beach, Dad. Paço de Arcos hasn't been talking about anything else.'

'And Cascais?'

'Cascais, too.'

'You stopped talking about the Manic Street Preachers for two seconds.'

'Not that long.'

'Yes, well, she was dead on the beach. Hit on the head and strangled. Not nice. The only thing…'

'How old was she?'

'A bit younger than you.'

'What was "the only thing"?'

My sweet daughter, my little girl. I still saw that under the clothes, the hairstyle, the make-up and perfume. I used to disturb myself at night, because I'm a man and I know men, thinking about all those young guys who wouldn't see that, who saw… who saw what she wanted them to see. I suppose that's it. Girls don't want to be little girls for ever… not even for ten minutes these days.

'Maybe you knew this girl,' I said, deviating.

'Me?'

'Why not? She's the same age. Her parents live in Cascais. She goes to school in Lisbon-Liceu D. Dinis. Her name's Catarina Sousa Oliveira. Privileged kids get murdered too.'

'I don't know anyone at the Liceu D. Dinis. I don't know anyone called Catarina Sousa Oliveira. But that wasn't "the only thing". You changed your mind. I can tell. You don't…'

'I did. The thing was… she was under sixteen and for a kid that age she was getting up to a lot of tricks.'

'Tricks?'

'It's what prostitutes do… they turn tricks.'

'I know that… it's just a weird word for the work.'

'I bet your mother didn't teach you that.'

'Mum and I talked about everything.'

'Turning tricks?'

'It's called "Sex Education". She didn't get any herself so she gave me some.'

'Did she use those words?'

'That's what women do, Dad. When boys are kicking footballs in the park, we're talking about… everything.'