Antonio Tabucchi - The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro

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………………………………………………………………………………………….. every man is absolutely indispensable to to all the others and all are absolutely indispensable to each……………………………………………………

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……………………………………………… and all are beings in a human sense leading to him, each man is the root of the human essence………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

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…………………………………. I repeat, the human essence of man is the point of reference………………………………………………………………………….

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…………………………………………………….. the ethical affirmation is originally aimed against the negation of man, therefore the fact of his being against death is a positive thing in man, but since man has no experience of his own death, only that of others, in the light of which he can only imagine and fear his own……………………………………………..

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…………………………………………………………………….. and it is the ultimate basis and insuperable condition of any humanistic ethic, that is of any…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….”

The waiter came up and Firmino switched off the machine.

“Listening to the radio?” asked the waiter.

“No,” answered Firmino, “it’s a recording I made this morning, it’s a lawcase.”

“If it’s a law case it must be interesting,” said the waiter, “I once saw a trial on television and it was just like a film.”

Then he added: “If you want to stay here you’ve got to eat or drink something.”

“And if I did?” asked Firmino, “what if I did eat something?”

“You can’t, it’s against Company regulations.”

“Have you any idea who the Railway Company is?” retorted Firmino.

The man appeared to give the matter some thought. He propped his broom against the side of the carriage.

“To tell you the truth I only know Senhor Pedro, who’s the bloke at the window in the personnel office.” “And do you think this Senhor Pedro is the Railway Company personified?” “Not likely,” replied the waiter, “in any case he’s due for a pension.”

“In that case why not have something to eat,” said Firmino, “we could even eat together at this very table, and what’d you say to something hot, eh?”

The waiter scratched his head.

“The coffee machine’s off,” he said, “but we could switch on the electric hotplates.”

“Good idea,” declared Firmino, “and what could we cook on the hotplates?”

“What would you say to scrambling each of us a couple of eggs?” suggested the waiter.

“With ham?” prompted Firmino.

“With ham from Trás-os-Montes!” declared the waiter, moving off.

Firmino switched on the recorder again.

“ Es ist ein eigentümlicher Apparat , this is an odd sort of machine. These words were written way back in 1914 by an unknown Jew, born in Prague, but who wrote in German………………………………………………

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…………………………………………………………………………. a very odd sort of machine that perpetuates a barbarous law………………………………………

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…………………………………………………perhaps the machine of a penal colony or a terrible prediction of the monstrous event which Europe was due to witness?………………………………………………………………………

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………………………………… monstrous, ungeheuer , the monster and vampire concealed behind the Grundnorm …………………………………….

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………………………. writing there in Prague he could scarcely know what the people in whose language he wrote would later commit………………

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……………………. because it is evident that murder is not enough………………………………… torture…………………………………………………….

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………………………………………….. before killing a man you have to inflict pain, to savage him, to lacerate the flesh of a man…………………………..

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…………………… are we to claim, you and I, that none of us is responsible for this abiding monstrosity of human history? But what then becomes of individual responsibility, for torture, one of the theoretical bases of monstrosity?………………………………………………..”

More incomprehensible buzzing, with background noises and mutterings from the public. Firmino pressed the STOP button. The waiter arrived with a steaming pan of scrambled eggs and buttered toast. He proceeded to set the table.

“Did you switch it off?” he asked.

“I can’t hear much, worse luck, and when he turns towards the Bench his voice gets completely lost in the sound of electronic crackle.”

“Who’s it talking?” asked the waiter.

“A lawyer in Oporto,” replied Firmino, “but you can only catch a phrase here and there.”

“May I listen in?” asked the waiter.

Firmino pressed the button.

“… therefore if I may be permitted a literary allusion, because literature also is an aid to understanding law…………………………………..

……………………………………… the machines célibataires as the French Surrealists called them, the things most deadly to life……………………..

…………………………… our police stations today, in this year of grace in which we live, are our machines célibataires …………………………………..

…………………………. the needles they use in penal colonies or merely cigarettes stubbed out on the naked flesh………………………………………

……………………………… reading the reports of the inspectors appointed by the Council of Europe for Human Rights relating to places of detention in our so-called civilized countries……………………………… a blood-curdling document dealing with places of detention in Europe…………………………”