Antonio Tabucchi - The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro

“In my opinion chameleons manage to survive everywhere,” quipped Firmino, “all they have to do is change color.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” laughed Dona Rosa, “and you must know more about that kind of chameleon than I do, what with your work, I scarcely ever leave the house, but believe me even I know a few chameleons, specially in this city.”

The television screen showed a lagoon with a white beach and humpy sand dunes. Firmino thought it looked like Tavira, and it may indeed have been in those parts. Then the camera swiveled to a hut on the beach, which was a restaurant with a few plastic tables outside it, at which some blond foreigners sat eating clams. The camera zoomed in on a freckly faced girl and the commentator asked her what she thought of the place. She answered in English, and Portuguese subtitles appeared on the screen. She said that beach was an absolute paradise for someone like her, coming from Norway, the fish was fantastic and a whole seafood meal cost the same as two cups of coffee in Norway, but the main reason why she was eating at that shack was Fernando Pessoa, and she pointed to a branch of the pergola which shaded the place. The lens focused on the branch, and there in close-up, dead still but with large eyes darting this way and that, was a giant lizard which looked like part of the branch. It was one of the poor surviving chameleons of the Algarve. The commentator then asked the Norwegian girl why the reptile was called Fernando Pessoa, and she told him she had never read any of that poet’s works but that she knew he was a man of a thousand different masks, and that like the chameleon he camouflaged himself with every sort of disguise, and that was why the owner of the restaurant had made that his signboard. The camera then shifted to a hand-painted sign over the hut, on which were the words: “Chameleon Pessoa.”

At that moment the telephone rang and Dona Rosa motioned to Firmino to answer it.

“I have a couple of things to tell you,” came the lawyer’s voice, “have you got pen and paper?”

“I’ve got my notebook right here,” replied Firmino.

“They’re contradicting themselves,” said the lawyer, “take notes because this is important. In the first version they denied having taken Damasceno to the police station. Unfortunately for them they were given the lie by the witness, who, get this one, had followed them in his own car. They had previously said they had let Damasceno out of the car along the way, whereas Torres, who had followed them at a discreet distance all the way to Oporto, maintains that with his own eyes he saw Damasceno being beaten up on the way into the station. Now comes a second contradiction: they were forced to admit that they had taken Damasceno to the station for a mere check-up, and that they had detained him only for a short while, the time needed to check his papers and so on, half an hour at the most. Therefore, supposing they got there at about midnight, at around half-past twelve Monteiro would have walked out of there on his own two feet. You follow me?”

“I follow you,” Firmino assured him.

“But the fact is that Torres, who seems a tough egg,” continued the lawyer, “states that he stayed there in his car until two o’clock in the morning, and never saw Damasceno Monteiro come out. You follow me?”

“I follow you,” confirmed Firmino.

“Therefore,” affirmed the lawyer, “Monteiro was there in the station at least until two o’clock, at which time Torres thought he had better go back and off he went. And it’s at this point that things become more of a muddle, for example, the orderly responsible for registering arrival times, was at that time sleeping like a child with his head on the desk, and there’s also the story of some coffee which the Green Cricket went down to the kitchen to prepare with the help of one of his men. With things of this sort they managed to string together a slightly more convincing yarn, which is the final version, the one the Green Cricket is bound to use at the trial. But it is not up to me to tell you this version.”

“Who’s going to tell me then?” asked Firmino.

“You will learn it directly from Titânio Silva,” replied the lawyer. “I am dead sure that this is his final version, and also what he will say at the trial, but this is a statement which it would be better for you to hear from his own lips.”

From the receiver came a kind of wheeze followed by a few coughs.

“I have an attack of asthma,” explained the lawyer with the same wheeze in his voice, “my attacks of asthma are psychosomatic, crickets secrete a fine powder beneath their wings and this brings on an attack.”

“What must I do?” asked Firmino.

“I promised to have a talk with you about professional ethics,” replied the lawyer, “so you may consider this telephone call as the first practical lesson. Meanwhile, in your newspaper, stress the contradictions into which these men have fallen, it is a good thing for public opinion to get the idea, and as regards this latest version go and interview the Green Cricket, he will certainly think that by granting an interview he is taking precautions, but we are taking precautions, everyone plays his own game, as in Milligan. Do you follow me?”

WE ARE AT THE Antártico , A WELL-KNOWNice-cream parlor at the mouth of the Douro, overlooking the splendid estuary of the river which traverses the city of Oporto. We have been granted an interview by a personage very much in the public eye, and on whom, according to certain witnesses, grave responsibilities appear to weigh in the matter of the death of Damasceno Monteiro. I refer to Sergeant Titânio Silva of the city Guardia Nacional, of whom we give the following profile in synopsis: fifty-four years of age, native of Felgueiras, of modest social background, enrolled in the National Guard at the age of nineteen, military training at Mafra, cadet in Angola from 1970 to 1973, decorated for valor during his military service in Africa, and for more than ten years, a sergeant at the Guardia Nacional headquarters in Oporto.

— Sergeant, do you confirm the brief profile we have drawn you? Are you a hero of the Portuguese campaigns in Angola?

I do not think of myself as a hero, I simply did my duty to my country and to the flag. To tell the truth, when I went to Angola I didn’t even know the geography of the place. Let’s say that it was in our overseas territories that I acquired my sense of patriotism.

— Would you care to define what you mean by sense of patriotism?

I mean that I realized I was fighting against people aiming to subvert our culture.

— What do you mean by the word culture?

Portuguese culture, of course, because that is what ours is.

— And by the word subvert?

I was referring to the blacks who shot at us because ordered to by individuals like Amílcar Cabral. I realized that I was defending territories which had been ours since time immemorial, when Angola had neither culture nor Christianity, both of which were brought there by us.

— And then, having earned your medal, you came back home and started a career in the Oporto police .

That is inexact. At first I was posted to the outskirts of Lisbon, and, since we had lost the war, we had to deal with all the jobless refugees returning from Africa, the retornados .

— We who? Who had lost the war?

We had, the Portuguese.

— And how did things go with these people returning from the ex-colonies?

There were a lot of problems, because they claimed the right to be put up in posh hotels. They even organized demonstrations and threw stones at the police. Instead of staying to defend Angola by force of arms they came to Lisbon and wanted to be kept in the lap of luxury.