Antonio Tabucchi - The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro

And here opens another scene, very different from the smiling and industrious city of Oporto, one for which the pen of the present writer is utterly inadequate, for to describe it one would need to be a sociologist, an anthropologist, which your correspondent obviously is not. This Ribeira, the slummiest part of the city, once the glorious Ribeira, seat of the artisans, the coopers, the humble folk of centuries past, lying on the banks of the Douro; this Ribeira which some superficial guidebooks for tourists attempt to pass off as the most picturesque corner of Oporto; in fact and in truth, is this Ribeira? Your correspondent has no wish to indulge in cheap rhetoric, he has no wish to fall back on illustrious literary allusions, he suspends judgment. He confines himself to describing the home, if such it may be called, of the victim's family, a dwelling like many others in the Ribeira. The hallway serves also as a kitchen, one wretched gas ring and one faucet. A cardboard partition separates the hallway from the cubicle which is the bedroom of Damasceno Monteiro’s parents. Damasceno’s building, and can be entered only by bending low. You find a mattress, a Mexican-type blanket, and on the wall a poster of a Dakota Indian. The lavatory is out in the yard, and is used by everyone in the building.

Your correspondent, the bearer of these terrible tidings, managed to blurt out that he was a journalist from Lisbon who was engaged on the case of the decapitated corpse. He was received by the victim’s mother, a woman some fifty years of age with the air of an invalid. She told him that until last month she was earning a little money by doing washing for a few families in Oporto, but that now she had been forced to give up working because she was suffering from internal hemorrhaging, the doctor had diagnosed a fibroma and she had put herself in the hands of a healer in the Ribeira who made decoctions. But the decoctions had done her no good, in fact her hemorrhaging had increased: now she had to go to hospital, but for the moment there was no free bed so she had to wait. Her husband, Senhor Domingos, was once a basket-maker, but ever since he had stopped working he’d begun to spend every evening in some low dive. Now he was taking “Antabuse” because he was alcoholic. But as he was taking “Antabuse” on doctor’s orders, and at the same time drinking cheap brandy, there were times when he was drunk and vomited all day long. That was him vomiting in the bedroom right now. Damasceno was their only son, said the mother, Senhora Maria de Lourdes. They also had a daughter of twenty-one who had gone off to Brussels to work as a waitress in a bar, but they had had no news of her for quite a while.

Your correspondent then had to inform the poor stunned woman that her son’s head was to be found in the morgue at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, and that she would be obliged to make a formal identification. The luckless mother dashed into the bedroom and returned a moment later wearing high-heeled black sandals and a fringed shawl. She said these had been a present from the singer at a nightclub in Oporto, the “Borboleta Nocturna,” where her son Damasceno used to go to do small electrician's jobs, adding that these were the only decent things she had to wear.

When, after searching in vain for some means of transport, your correspondent and the poor unhappy mother arrived at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, the doctor had just removed his rubber gloves and was eating a sandwich. He was a young, friendly doctor, with a sportive air. He asked if we had come for the identification and added that he was in a hurry because that evening there was an “Invictos” roller-skate hockey-match and he was playing goalie for the “Invictos.” He then took us into the adjoining room and…

And now I come to something I shall refrain from describing to my readers, but which they will certainly be able to imagine, and that is the reaction of the poor wretched mother. A stifled cry: Damasceno! my Damasceno! A kind of sob, a dry rattle in the throat, a thud on the floor the poor woman collapsed before we could come to her aid. The head, that gruesome head, was set erect on a slab of marble like an Amazonian fetish. It was cut off at the neck cleanly and precisely, as if the job had been done with an electric saw. The face was bloated and purple, because it had probably been in the river for several days, but its physiognomy was recognizable: it was that of a young man of strong and regular features in which one could still discern some measure of homespun nobility: the raven-black hair, the well-chiseled nose, the firm jaw. — Damasceno Monteiro

Dona Rosa raised her eyes from the paper, looked at Firmino and said: “You sent shivers up my spine it’s so true to life and at the same time written so stylishly.”

“It’s not exactly my own style,” Firmino tried to explain. But he was interrupted.

“But your Editor thinks the world of it,” exclaimed Dona Rosa, “he says the special edition sold like hot cakes.”

“Umphh,” commented Firmino.

“It was brave of you,” said Dona Rosa with admiration, “that’s what I like, a paper with some guts, not like that rag Vultos that only talks about smart parties.”

“My Editor tells me that our paper is going to support the Monteiro family by instituting civil proceedings in the case, and we shall need a lawyer,” said Firmino. “The trouble is that we’re not rolling in money, we shall need a lawyer who’ll go easy on the fees, and he suggests I should ask you, Dona Rosa, because he says you will certainly know of a lawyer for our case.”

“Of course I know one,” Dona Rosa assured him, “when do you want to meet him?”

“Tomorrow would be fine,” said Firmino.

“What time?”

“I don’t know exactly,” pondered Firmino, “perhaps at lunchtime, I could call on him and invite him out to lunch, but who do you have in mind?”

Dona Rosa smiled and took a deep breath.

“Fernando Diogo Maria de Jesus de Mello Sequeira,” she said.

“Wow!” exclaimed Firmino, “what a name!”

“But if you call him that no one will know who you’re talking about,” added Dona Rosa, “you have to say Attorney Loton, that’s how he’s known to everyone in Oporto.”

“Is that a nickname?” asked Firmino.

“It’s a nickname,” replied Dona Rosa, “because he looks very like that fat English actor who often played lawyer parts.”

“Do you mean Charles Laughton?” asked Firmino.

“In Oporto we pronounce it Loton,” said Dona Rosa. Then she added: “He comes of an old aristocratic family which in centuries past owned almost the whole region, but has now lost nearly everything. He’s a genius. To judge by how he dresses you wouldn’t give two cents for him, but he’s a genius, he studied abroad.”

“Excuse me, Dona Rosa,” said Firmino, “but why should he agree to defend the interests of Damasceno Monteiro’s patents?”

“Because he’s the lawyer of the down-and-outs,” answered Dona Rosa, “in the whole of his life he has defended no one but the really poor, it’s his vocation in life.”

“Well if that’s how it is,” said Firmino, “where can I find him?”

Dona Rosa took a sheet of paper and scribbled an address.

“Don’t worry about the appointment,” she said, “I’ll see to that, you just go and see him at midday.”

At that moment the telephone rang. Dona Rosa went to answer it, looked across at Firmino, and beckoned to him in her usual way.

“Hullo,” said Firmino.

“The head has been recognized,” said the voice, “so you see I was right.”

“Listen,” said Firmino, seizing his chance, “don’t hang up, you need to talk to someone, I feel it in my bones, you have important things to say and you want to say them to me, and I would like you to do so.”