Antonio Tabucchi - The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro

“The witness I spoke to this morning,” said Firmino to charge the subject, “is certain that Damasceno was murdered by the Guardia Nacionale.”

The lawyer gave a tired smile and glanced at his watch.

“Oh,” said he, “now the Guardia Nacionale is a military institution, it’s the very incarnation of the Grundnorm , this business is beginning to interest me, also because you have no idea how many people have recently been killed or tortured in our charming police stations.”

“I think I have as good an idea as you do,” Firmino pointed out, “the last four cases have been covered by my paper.”

“Of course,” murmured the lawyer, “and all the culprits acquitted, all of them comfortably back in service, this business is really beginning to interest me, but what would you say to a bite of lunch? It’s half-past one and I feel a little peckish, there’s a restaurant almost next door which I heartily recommend. Incidentally, do you like tripe?”

“Moderately,” replied Firmino with misgiving.

“UNFORTUNATELY, MANUEL, this young man doesn’t like tripe,” said the lawyer to the owner when they reached the restaurant, “so please inform him of the other specialties of the house.”

The owner put his fists on his hips and gave Firmino such a look that he lowered his eyes for shame.

“Don Fernando,” said the owner in easy tones, “if I do not manage to meet your guest’s requirements then I will offer the meal free of charge. Is he a foreigner?”

“Almost,” replied the lawyer, “but he is beginning to get used to the ways of this city.”

“Then I might suggest our rice with red beans and fried bass,” said the owner, “or else the roulade of salt cod.”

Firmino cast his companion a bewildered glance, wishing to indicate that either dish would suit him fine.

“Let’s have both,” decided the lawyer, “then we can nibble here and there. And for me the tripe, of course.”

The restaurant, which was not so much a restaurant as a cellar lined with barrels, was at the end of an apparently nameless alleyway next to Rua das Flores. Over the doorway Firmino had spotted a sort of wooden inn sign crudely painted with the words: “The cellar for discerning palates is here.”

“So what do you think are our next steps?” asked Firmino.

“What’s the name of your witness?” asked the lawyer.

“He’s called Torres,” said Firmino, “he’s an electrician at the Faisca Garage.”

“I’ll call by and pick him up this afternoon,” said the lawyer, “and take him to the examining magistrate.”

“And what if Torres doesn’t want to testify?” objected Firmino.

“I repeat: I will take him to the examining magistrate,” replied the lawyer placidly.

He poured out two glasses of a greenish wine and raised his own glass for a toast.

“This is an Alvarinho which can’t be found on the market,” he said, “but it’s only an aperitif, after this we’ll drink red wine.”

“I’m not all that used to drinking wine,” said Firmino apologetically.

“You can always make up for lost time,” replied the lawyer.

At that moment the owner appeared with dishes of food, and addressed the lawyer as if Firmino didn’t exist.

“Here we are Don Fernando,” he declared with a satisfied air, “and if your guest doesn’t like it the lunch is on me, as I said before, however he’d do better to quit town.”

The red beans and rice, smothered in a chestnut-colored sauce, looked far from appetizing. Firmino took two fried fish and cut himself a slice of the salt cod roulade . The lawyer watched him with his small, questioning eyes.

“Eat up, young man,” he said, “you’d better keep your strength up, this is going to be a long, complicated business.”

“What should I do at this point?” asked Firmino.

“Tomorrow go to Torres,” said the lawyer, “and give him a whale of an interview, as long and detailed as possible. Then publish it in your paper.”

“And if Torres doesn’t want to?” asked Firmino.

“Certainly he’ll want to,” replied the lawyer calmly, “he has no choice, the reason is simple and Torres will grasp it at once, I don’t imagine he’s a fool.”

The lawyer took a napkin to the sauce of the tripe running down his chin, and continued in a detached tone as if explaining something absolutely elementary: “Because Torres is a finished man,” he said, “this afternoon under my supervision he is going to give his evidence before a magistrate, of that I can assure you, but you know, a statement which stays in the hands of the examining authorities is a drifting mine, it’s always a good rule not to trust it, that statement might come to the knowledge of someone who doesn’t like it, and just imagine, with all the traffic accidents that happen these days, incidentally did you know that Portugal is at the top of the list in Europe for road accidents? It appears that we Portuguese drive like madmen.”

Firmino regarded him with all the perplexity which this lawyer continued to instill in him.

“And what purpose would be served by the interview in my paper?” he enquired.

The lawyer, with great relish, devoured a strip of tripe. Although it was cut quite short he kept trying vainly to wind it up round his fork.

“My dear young man,” he sighed, “you amaze me, you have been amazing me ever since you entered my house, you write for a paper with a wide circulation and you don’t seem to know the meaning of public opinion, it’s very remiss of you, so try to follow me for a moment. If after making his statement to the examining magistrate Torres repeats every word of it to your newspaper he can be easy in his mind, because he will have the whole of public opinion on his side, and any absent-minded driver, for example, would think twice before running over someone so much in the public eye, do you get the idea?”

“I get the idea,” replied Firmino.

“And then,” continued the lawyer, “and this is something that directly concerns you as a journalist, do you know what Jouhandeau said?”

Firmino shook his head. The lawyer took a sip of wine and wiped his fleshy lips.

“He said: Since the essential object of literature is the knowledge of human nature, and since there is no place in the world where one can study it better than in courts of law, would it not be desirable, by law, for there always to be a writer among the jurymen, his presence there would be an inducement to all the others to reflect more deeply. End of quotation.”

The lawyer paused for a moment and took another sip of wine.

“Well then,” he resumed, “it’s obvious that you will never sit in the jury box of a court as Monsieur Jouhandeau wished, nor will you even be present at the preliminary enquiries, because the law does not permit it, and it is also true that strictly speaking you are not exactly a writer, but we can try to consider you as such, seeing that you write for a newspaper. Let us say that you will be a virtual juryman, and that is your role, a virtual juryman, do you grasp the concept?”

“I think so,” replied Firmino.

But he wanted to come clean, so he asked: “But who is this Jouhandeau? I’ve never heard of him.”

“Marcel Jouhandeau,” came the answer, “an irritating French theologian with a taste for provoking scandal, he was also a great eulogist of abjection, if I may so put it, and of a sort of metaphysical perversion, or rather of what he imagined to be metaphysical. You must understand that he was writing in France at the time when the Surrealists were exalting rebellion and Gide had already produced his theory of gratuitous crime. But naturally he had none of Gide’s stature, in fact he was pretty poor stuff, even if the occasional maxim about justice hit the mark.”