Antonio Tabucchi - The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro

“Happy memories in fact,” observed Firmino.

“Mena died too young alas,” continued the lawyer, ignoring what Firmino had said, “and I have given the farm to her son, making him promise to go on keeping a few horses, and he still has three or four, even if he makes a loss on them, he only does it to comply with this whim of mine, so that I still feel myself to be in my childhood home, where I can take refuge when I feel the need for comfort and contemplation. Jorge, Mamma Mena’s son, is the only relative I have left, he’s my foster-brother, and I can come to his house any time I like. So you see, young man, you are very privileged this evening.”

“I am well aware of it,” replied Firmino.

Senhor Manuel turned down a narrow dirt road where the car left a cloud of dust in its wake. This dirt road ended at a yard on the other side of which rose a traditional old farmhouse. Under the arches an elderly man was waiting. The lawyer got out of the car and embraced him, Firmino shook his hand, the man murmured some words of welcome, and Firmino realized that this was Don Fernando’s foster-brother. They entered a rustic room with a beamed ceiling where there was a table laid for five. Firmino was invited to take a seat while Senhor Jorge led the lawyer into the kitchen. When they returned they were each carrying a glass of white wine, and the girl who followed in their wake filled all the glasses.

“This wine comes from the farm,” explained the lawyer, “my brother sells wine for export, but you won’t find this vintage on the market, it’s strictly for home consumption.”

They drank a toast and took their places at the table.

“Ask your wife to join us,” said the lawyer to Senhor Jorge.

“You know she’d be embarrassed,” replied Senhor Jorge, “she’d rather eat in the kitchen with the girl, she says it’s men’s talk.”

“Bring your wife in,” said Don Fernando firmly, “I want her to sit at table with us.”

The wife came in bearing a laden tray, gave a little bow and sat down without a word.

“Spare-ribs,” said Jorge to Don Fernando almost apologetically, “but you telephoned at the last moment, it’s the best we could get ready in time. The pork isn’t our own, but you can trust it.”

During supper no one said very much. A bit of chat about the weather, the sweltering heat, and how the traffic had become impossible, things of that sort. Then Senhor Manuel dared a teasing remark: “Ah, Jorge my friend, if only I could have a cook like yours in my restaurant…”

“My cook is my wife,” said Senhor Jorge ingenuously. The conversation ended there.

The girl who had poured out the wine came back and served coffee.

“She’s Joaquim’s granddaughter,” said Jorge turning to Don Fernando, “she spends more time at our house than at her own, do you remember Joaquim? He suffered a lot before he died.”

The lawyer nodded but said nothing. Senhor Jorge uncorked a bottle of grappa and filled everyone’s glass.

“Fernando,” he said, “Manuel and I will stay here and chat, we have a lot to say to each other about vintage cars, if you want to take your guest to see the horses by all means do so.”

Don Fernando got to his feet with his glass of grappa in his hand and Firmino followed him out of the house. It was a starry night and the sky was luminous beyond belief. From behind the hill rose the reflection of the lights of Oporto. The lawyer took a few steps into the yard with Firmino close beside him. He raised one arm and made a sweeping gesture round the yard.

“Quinces,” he said, “all round here once upon a time there used to be quince trees. The pigs used to guzzle underneath them because there were masses of windfalls. Mena used to make quince jam in an old black pot hung over the kitchen fire.”

On the other side of the yard were the dark outlines of the stables and barns. The lawyer made for them with his lumbering gait.

“Does the name of Arthur London mean anything to you?” he murmured.

Firmino gave it a moment’s thought. Answering one of this lawyer’s unpredictable questions he was always scared of making a blunder.

“Wasn’t he a big Czechoslovakian politician tortured by the Communists there?” was all he came up with.

“To make him swear to a lie,” added the lawyer, “and later he wrote a book about it, it’s called The Confession .”

“I’ve seen the film,” said Firmino.

“That’ll do,” murmured the lawyer, “his most brutal jailers were called Kohoutek and Smola, those are their very names.”

He opened the stable door and entered. There were three horses inside, one of which stamped a little as if in alarm. Above the doorway was the kind of blue light bulb you find in trains. The lawyer sat heavily down on a bale of straw. Firmino followed his example.

“I love the smell of this place,” said Don Fernando, “whenever I feel depressed I come here, I breathe in this smell and look at the horses.”

He slapped his enormous belly.

“I believe that for a man like me, with such a repulsively deformed body, simply to look at the beauty of horses is a kind of consolation, it gives us faith in nature. Incidentally, does the name of Henri Alleg mean anything to you?”

Firmino was once again caught unawares. He preferred to say nothing, and simply shook his head in the semi-darkness.

“A pity,” said the lawyer, “he was a colleague of yours, a journalist, and in a book called La Question he tells us how in 1957 he was accused by the French army in Algeria of being a Communist and pro-Algerian, and he, a European and Frenchman, was tortured in Algiers to make him reveal the names of the other pro-Algerian partisans. To recapitulate, Arthur London was tortured by the Communists, Henri Alleg was tortured because he was a Communist. Which goes to show that torture can be practiced by all parties, and this is the real problem.”

Firmino said nothing. One of the horses gave a sudden neigh, and to Firmino’s ears it was a disquieting sound.

“Alleg’s jailer was called Charbonnier,” went on the lawyer almost in a whisper, “he was a lieutenant in the paras, it was he, Charbonnier, who gave electric shocks to Alleg’s testicles. I have a mania for remembering the names of torturers, for some reason remembering the names of torturers means something to me, and do you know why? because torture is an individual responsibility, to say you’re obeying orders from above is inexcusable, too many people have used that shabby excuse to shield themselves by legal quibbles, do you follow me? They hide behind the Grundnorm .”

He heaved an enormous sigh, which a horse acknowledged by pawing the ground angrily.

“Many years ago, when I was young and full of enthusiasm, and still thought that writing served some purpose, it entered my head to write about torture. I came back from Geneva, and at that time Portugal was a dictatorship and under the thumb of the Political Police, a body of men who knew exactly how to extort confessions, if you understand me. I had a pretty good field of enquiry available right here in Portugal, the Portuguese Inquisition, and I started to delve into the archives of the Torre do Tombo. I can assure you that the refined methods of the jailers who tortured people in our country for centuries are of truly special interest, so learned they were about the muscles of the human body, as studied by the great anatomist Vesalius, to the reactions of the principal nerves which traverse our limbs, our poor little genitals, a perfect knowledge of anatomy, and all done in the name of the Grundnorm , and you can’t get more Grundnorm than that, the Absolute Norm, you follow me.”

“Meaning what?” enquired Firmino.