Antonio Tabucchi - The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro

“It is,” replied Firmino, “either male or female, just to be simplistic, is that the system you call binary?”

“That is the general sense,” confirmed the lawyer, “from which stems truth or falsehood, for example, but that would require a really boring conversation, and as I have said I have no wish to weary you, truth or falsehood, forgive me these Pindaric flights, but this is a question of ethics, and obviously the problem of law, but I have no wish to talk about sophisticated treatises on the matter, it’s not worth while.”

He snorted as if in vexation, but appeared to be vexed chiefly with himself.

“Do you believe that the whole universe is also binary?” he suddenly whispered.

Firmino regarded him with astonishment.

“In what sense?” he asked.

“Binary in the way the Earth is,” repeated the lawyer, “in your opinion is it binary like the Earth?”

Firmino had no notion what to answer, so he decided to hand the question back.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t think so,” replied the lawyer, “at least I hope not, let’s say I hope not.”

He caught the maid’s eye and motioned to his empty glass.

“It’s merely a hope,” he went on, “a hope for the human race to which we belong, though a hope that in the long run doesn’t concern us directly because neither you nor I will live long enough to learn what Andromeda is made of, for example, or what goes on around those parts. Just think of all those scientists in NASA and so on, working like beavers to enable our descendants in a century or two to reach places we think of as the limits of our solar system, and just imagine the faces of our poor descendants when after such a long journey they disembark from their spaceship up there and find a great big binary structure: male or female, truth or falsehood, even vice or virtue, ah yes! because the binary system, even if they weren’t expecting it, calls for a priest, whether Catholic or of any other religion, to tell them: that is sinful, this is virtuous. Yes, can you just imagine their faces?”

Firmino felt the urge to laugh, but managed to confine himself to a smile.

“I don’t think science fiction has ever come up with that hypothesis,” he said, “I read a lot of science fiction but I don’t think I’ve come across that one.”

“Ah,” said the lawyer, “I’d never have suspected you liked science fiction.”

“I like it a lot,” said Firmino, “it’s my favorite reading.”

The lawyer produced another of those little coughs of his that sounded like a chortle.

“Very well,” he muttered, “and what has your friend Lukács got to do with this favorite reading?”

Firmino felt himself starting to blush. He realized that he had fallen into a trap and reacted with some pride.

“Lukács is useful to me for the study of post-war Portuguese literature,” said he, “science fiction belongs to the realm of fantasy.”

“That’s what I wanted,” rejoined the lawyer, “fantasy. It’s a fine word, and also a concept to meditate upon, so meditate on it if you can spare the time. As far as I’m concerned I was fantasizing about the dessert Dona Rosa has prepared for us this evening, it’s a flan brûlé , but maybe we’d better give up on it, just another drop of wine and I’ll be off to bed because my day is over, though perhaps yours might keep going and achieve something really useful.”

“Anything I can,” said Firmino. “For example?”

“For example a look in at ‘Puccini's Butterfly,’ that’s a place that might give us some interesting information. That’s all. Just a little look around.”

He drained his glass and lit one of his gigantic cigars.

“Use your own discretion,” he went on while a match was scorching his fingertips, “take note of the people there, the employees, see whether the Green Cricket is around the place, since they’ve told me he keeps an office there, a chat with him might be interesting, it’s really a job for the police, but can you see the police going into ‘Puccini's Butterfly’?”

“No indeed,” agreed Firmino.

“Right you are then,” said the lawyer, “I don’t want you to think of yourself as Philip Marlowe, but concerning this Green Cricket we might be able to discover something on the side, a few minor offenses, because you know what De Quincey said, don’t you?”

“What did he say?” enquired Firmino.

“What he said in effect was that once a man has allowed himself to commit murder, it won’t be long before he thinks it a small matter to steal, and then he’ll proceed to getting drunk and to not observing the Sabbath, then to behaving like a boor and breaking his word. Once he’s on that slippery slope there’s no knowing where he’ll end, and there are many who have to blame their ruin on some murder or other to which they had paid little heed at the time. That’s what he said.”

The lawyer chuckled to himself and added: “My dear young man, as I said before I have no wish to bore you, but let us suppose that I, who have just spoken to you about professional ethics, should ask for your help in piercing the so-called veil of ignorance. I’m not going to go on about it, it’s the phrase of an American jurist, and it’s a purely theoretical matter existing in a sort of Plato’s Cave. But supposing that with my Pindaric flights I might be able to bring this concept down to the purely practical, let us say the factual level, something that no juridical theorist would ever forgive me for, and let us say that I wouldn’t give a damn, what would you think?”

“That the end justifies the means,” replied Firmino promptly.

“Not exactly my own conclusion,” replied the lawyer, “and please don’t utter that cliché again, I detest it, in its name mankind has committed the most appalling atrocities, let us merely say that I am shamelessly exploiting you, which is to say your newspaper, is that clear?”

“As clear as daylight,” replied Firmino.

“And let us say that I could always justify myself with definitions provided by the theory of law, that not without some measure of cynicism I could claim to belong to the school of those who believe in the so-called intuitionist concept, but no, let us go so far as to call it an act of arbitrary fantasy, how do you like the definition?”

“I like it,” said Firmino.

“In that case,” said the lawyer, “with our act of arbitrary fantasy we shall work De Quincey’s paradox backwards, which is to say: since I am absolutely convinced that it will not be easy to prove that the Green Cricket cuts people’s heads off with electric carving knives, we shall attempt to show that he behaves anti-socially, for example that he smashes plates over his wife’s head, do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly,” replied Firmino.

The lawyer seemed content. He leant back in his chair. A dreamy look came into his eyes.

“And at this point we might even introduce your friend Lukács,” said he.

“Lukács?” queried Firmino.

“The principle of reality,” replied the lawyer, “the principle of reality, I wouldn’t be surprised if in spite of everything it might not prove useful to you this evening. But now I think you’d better be off, young man, in fact it seems to me just the right time of night for a place such as ‘Puccini’s Butterfly,’ after which you will report everything to me in minute detail, but keep your mind concentrated on that principle of reality, I think it might be useful to you.”

AVENIDA DE MONTEVIDEU, together with the Avenida do Brasil, combined to form an interminable seafront, far longer than Firmino had bargained for, but he had no choice but to trudge along it until he came to the nightclub, because he didn’t know the number. A fresh breeze off the Atlantic ruffled the flags outside a big hotel. At first the seafront was swarming with people, mostly young families outside ice-cream parlors, with children nodding off to sleep as they sucked wearily at their ices. It occurred to Firmino that his compatriots put their children to bed far too late and maybe had too many children anyway. But then it occurred to him that that was a cretinous thing to think. He noticed that the first, crowded stretch of seafront gradually gave way to a less frequented, more classy area of austere villas and early twentieth-century buildings with iron-balustraded balconies and stuccoed façades. The ocean was pretty rough and its violent waves crashed against the cliffs.