Antonio Tabucchi - The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro

It occurred to Firmino that things were not taking the right turn. He felt a fool, and more of a fool still when he thought of the little Sony in his pocket that had cost him the earth.

“I also speak Portuguese, but I prefer geringonça ,” explained Manolo.

Well, the truth was that Firmino was not able to understand the gypsy dialect, what Manolo called geringonça . He made an effort to solve the problem by finding a logical thread, beginning at the beginning.

“May I write your name?”

“Manolo El Rey does not end up in the cagarrão ,” answered Manolo, crossing his wrists and then putting a finger to his lips. Firmino gathered that the cagarrão must mean prison or at least the police.

“Very well,” he said, “no names, and now please repeat your request.”

“How many baguines ?” repeated Manolo, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together as if counting money.

Firmino made a rapid calculation. For immediate expenses the Editor had given him forty thousand escudos. Ten thousand might be the right price for Manolo, after all he had agreed to talk to him, which was already extraordinary for a gypsy, and maybe he’d be able to worm something out of him that he hadn’t told the police. But what if Manolo knew nothing more than he had already said, and this appointment was just a trick to get his hands on a few baguines , as he would put it? Firmino tried to play for time.

“It depends on what you tell me,” he said, “whether what you have to say is worth my while.”

“How many baguines ?” and again the rubbing of forefinger and thumb.

Take it or leave it, thought Firmino, there was nothing else for it.

“Ten thousand escudos,” he said, “no more and no less.”

Manolo gave an imperceptible nod of acceptance.

“A chavelho ,” he murmured. And he brought his thumb to his mouth, tipping his head back.

This time Firmino had no trouble in getting the message, so he went into the shop and returned with a liter of red wine. On the way he slipped a hand into his pocket and turned off the tape recorder. He couldn’t say why he did it. Perhaps because he had taken a liking to Manolo at first sight. He liked the expression on his face, stony and at the same time bewildered, in a way even desperate, and the voice of that old gypsy deserved a better fate than to be filched by some Japanese electronic gadget.

“Tell me everything,” said Firmino, and put his elbows on the table with his fists against his temples as he did when he wanted to concentrate. He could even do without his notebook, his memory would suffice.

Manolo approached the matter in a roundabout way. On the whole he explained himself pretty well, and as for the words in geringonça , Firmino could not decode them but managed to guess at the meaning by following the thread. The gypsy began by saying that he had trouble sleeping, that he often woke in the middle of the night because that’s the way it is with old people, because they wake up and think back over their whole lives, and this distresses them, because thinking of one’s past life is a source of regret, especially for those of the gypsy people, who at one time were noble but have now become beggars but he was old only in his mind and spirit, not in his body, because he still retained his virility, it was only that with his wife his virility was useless because she was an old woman, and so he got up and went to empty his bladder in order to relieve himself. And he went on to speak of Manolito, who was his son’s son, and said he had blue eyes and a sad future to look forward to, because what future could there be in a world like this for a gypsy boy? Then he began to go off at a tangent and asked Firmino if he knew a place called Janas. Firmino listened attentively. He liked the way Manolo talked, with those rounded periods sprinkled with words in dialect, so he asked with genuine interest: “Where is Janas?”

Manolo explained that it was not far inland from Lisbon, in the vicinity of Mafra, where there was an ancient circular chapel dating from early Christian times during the Roman Empire, and that this place was sacred to the gypsies, because the gypsies have roamed the Iberian peninsula since very ancient times, and every year, on the fifteenth of August, the gypsies of Portugal used to gather at Janas for a great festival of singing and dancing, the guitars and accordions were never silent for a moment and the meals were prepared on great braziers at the foot of the hill, and then, at sunset, at the very moment the sun touched the horizon, when its rays reddened the whole plain down as far as the cliffs of Ericeira, the priest who had celebrated Mass would come out of the chapel to bless the gypsies’ livestock, the mules and the horses, the finest horses in the whole Iberian peninsula, which the gypsies then sold to the stables at Alter do Chão, where they were trained for the bullfights, but now, now that the gypsies no longer had horses but bought horrible motor cars what was there to bless? Could one bless a motor car, which is made of metal? Certainly with horses if you don’t give them hay and oats they die, whereas with cars, if you haven’t the money to put petrol in them they don’t die, and when you do put petrol in off they go again, and this was why those gypsies who had a bit of money bought cars, but what point would there be in blessing a motor car?

Manolo gave him a questioning look, as if expecting him to come up with a solution, and the old man’s face wore an expression of profound unhappiness.

Firmino lowered his eyes, almost as if he were personally responsible for what was happening to Manolo’s people, and he lacked the courage to urge him to go on. But Manolo continued without urging, including details that he probably considered of interest, about how he was pissing against the great oak when he had spotted the shoe protruding from the bushes. Then centimeter by centimeter he described what he had seen as he examined the body, and said that on the corpse’s T-shirt there were words in a foreign language, which he spelt out because he didn’t know how to pronounce them, and Firmino wrote them down on his notepad.

“Like this?” asked Firmino, “was it written like this?”

Manolo confirmed that that was it: Stones of Portugal.

“But the police have stated that the body was naked from the waist up,” objected Firmino, “the newspapers say that it was naked from the waist up.”

“No,” confirmed Manolo, “there were these words, these very words.”

“Go on,” said Firmino.

Manolo did so, but the rest of it Firmino already knew. It was what Manolo had told the shopkeeper and subsequently confirmed to the police. Firmino doubted he could gain anything more from the old gypsy, but something told him to press on.

“You sleep badly Manolo,” he said, “did you hear anything that night?”

Manolo held out his glass and Firmino refilled it. The gypsy knocked back the wine and murmured: “Manolo drinks, but his people are in need of alcide .”

“What is alcide ?” asked Firmino.

Manolo consented to translate: “Bread.”

“Did you hear anything during the night?” repeated Firmino.

“An engine,” said Manolo promptly.

“Do you mean a car?” asked Firmino.

“A car and car doors slamming.”

“Where?”

“Near my hut.”

“Can a car get all the way to your hut?”

Manolo pointed to a dirt track that ran at an angle off the main road and along the edge of the encampment.

“On that track you can reach the big oak and go on down the hill all the way to the river.”

“Did you hear voices?”

“Yes, voices,” said Manolo.