The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro

Seventeen

SEATED IN AN ARMCHAIR IN THE lounge, Dona Rosa was sipping a cup of coffee. It was ten in the morning. Firmino knew that he was still looking a bit glassy-eyed, in spite of the quarter-of-an-hour spent under a warm shower to try and wake himself up.

“My dear young man,” said Dona Rosa affably, “come and have a cup of coffee with me, I never manage to catch a glimpse of you.”

“Yesterday I was at the botanical gardens,” apologized Firmino, “I spent the whole day there.”

“And the day before?”

“At the museum, and later at the cinema, they had a film on that I’d missed in Lisbon,” responded Firmino.

“And the day before that?” persisted Dona Rosa with a smile.

“With Don Fernando,” said Firmino, “in the evening he took me out to dine in the country, at a farm of his.”

“It is no longer his property,” corrected Dona Rosa.

“So he told me,” replied Firmino.

“And what did you find to interest you so much in the botanical gardens?” asked Dona Rosa. “I have never been there, I’m so housebound.”

“A hundred-year-old dragon tree, it’s an enormous tropical palm, there are very few specimens in Portugal, it seems it was planted by Salabert in the nineteenth century.”

“You know so much, dear boy,” exclaimed Dona Rosa, “but of course in your profession you need a lot of knowledge, tell me then, who was this gentleman with the foreign name who planted this tree?”

“It’s not that I know all that much,” replied Firmino, “I read it in my guidebook, he was a Frenchman who came to Oporto when Napoleon invaded us, I think he was an officer in the French army, and he it was who founded the botanical gardens here in Oporto.”

“The French are a cultured people,” said Dona Rosa, “their republican revolution came much earlier than ours did.” “We only became a republic in 1910,” rejoined Firmino, “every country has its own history.”

“Yesterday on TV I saw a program on the monarchies of Northern Europe,” said Dona Rosa, “they’re on the ball, those people, they have an altogether different style.”

“They also stood up against the Nazis,” said Firmino.

Dona Rosa uttered a little cry of surprise.

“I didn’t know that,” she murmured, “so you can tell they’re on the ball then.”

Firmino finished his coffee and got up, saying that if she would excuse him he had to go and buy the papers. Dona Rosa, beaming all over her face, pointed to a stack of newspapers on the divan.

“They’re all here,” she said, “fresh off the press, Francisca went to buy them at eight o’clock, it’s a terrific scandal, the whole press is talking about it, this Titânio is up against it in a big way, if it hadn’t been for you journalists the police would never have gone near the place, so thank God for the Press, say I.”

“In all modesty, we do what we can,” responded Firmino.

“Don Fernando telephoned at nine o’clock,” Dona Rosa informed him, “he needs to speak to you, actually he has put everything in my hands, but I think it’s best for you to talk to him first.”

“I’ll go and see him at once,” said Firmino.

“I would advise against that,” said Dona Rosa, “Don Fernando can’t receive you today, he’s having one of his crises.”

“What sort of crises?”

“Everyone can have their little crises,” replied Dona Rosa gently, “so it’s better not to go disturbing him, but don’t worry, he said he’d call you back and give you instructions, all you need is a little patience.”

“I’ve got patience enough,” said Firmino, “but I’d have liked a short stroll, perhaps as far as the Café Centrale.”

“I can see that what you need is a cup of good strong coffee,” said Dona Rosa affectionately, “this stuff Francisca makes in the morning is full of barley, what you need is a good strong espresso so I’ll go and get her to bring you one, meanwhile you stay here and read all the big news about that nightclub, then before long we’ll take a peek at the television, there’s a program on nature, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it but it fascinates me, it’s presented by a really nice scientist at Lisbon University, and today’s program is all about the chameleon of the Algarve, it seems that the Algarve is one of the few places in Europe where the chameleon has managed to survive, so it says on the TV page.”

“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?”