The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro

Twenty

OF THAT DAY FIRMINO WAS destined to remember chiefly his physical sensations, lucid enough but as foreign to him as if he hadn’t been involved at all, as if a protective film had cocooned him in a state between sleep and waking, where sensory perceptions are registered in the consciousness but the brain is powerless to organize them rationally, leaving them floating around as vague states of mind: that misty late-December morning when he arrived shivering with cold at the station in Oporto, the local trains unloading the early commuters with their faces still puffy with sleep, the taxi-ride by those sullen buildings of that damp and gloomy city. The whole place depressed him immensely. And then his arrival at the Law Courts, all that red tape at the entrance, the block-headed objections of the policeman at the door, who frisked him and wouldn’t let him in with his pocket tape-recorder, his Union of Journalists’ card which finally did the trick, his admittance to that tiny courtroom where all the seats were taken. He wondered why, for such an important trial, they had chosen such a small room, of course he knew the answer, although in that state of mingled insentience and hyper-awareness he was unable to articulate it mentally, and went no further than registering the fact.

He finally managed to find a place on the narrow dais reserved for the Press, segregated by a dark-stained, pot-bellied-columned balustrade. He had expected a crowd of reporters, photographers, flash-bulbs. But there was nothing of the sort. He recognized two or three colleagues, with whom he exchanged brief nods, but the rest were quite unknown to him, probably specialists in law cases. He realized that a lot of the newspapers would be falling back on information from press agencies.

In the front row he spotted Damasceno’s parents. The mother was swathed in a grey coat and dabbed her eyes every so often with a crumpled handkerchief. The father was wearing an unbelievable red-and-black checked jacket, American style. To the right, at the table where the lawyers sat, he spotted Don Fernando. He had dumped his lawyer’s gown on the table and was busy studying documents. He was wearing a black jacket and a white bow-tie. There were deep circles under his eyes and his lower lip drooped even more than usual. Between his fingers he was twisting an unlit cigar.

Leonel Torres was sitting practically huddled in his seat, looking scared out of his wits. Beside him sat a frail blonde who was presumably his wife. Sergeant Titânio Silva himself was seated with his two deputies. The latter were in uniform, whereas Titânio Silva, in mufti, was wearing a pin-striped suit and a silk tie. His hair was gleaming with brilliantine.

The Court entered and the proceedings began. Firmino thought of switching on his tape-recorder, but he had second thoughts because the courthouse had hopeless acoustics and the recording was sure to come out badly. Far better to take notes. He drew forth his notebook and wrote: The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro. After which he wrote no more, he just listened. He wrote nothing because he already knew all that was being said: the reading of Manolo the Gypsy’s testimony about finding the body, the fisherman’s statement that he had fished up the head on the line he had out for chub, and the results of the two autopsies. As to what Leonel Torres had to say, he knew that as well, because the Judge simply asked him if he confirmed what he had said during the preliminary investigations, and Torres confirmed it. And when it came to Titânio Silva he too confirmed his previous statement. His raven-black hair glistened, his hair-line mustache kept time with the motion of his thin lips. Of course, he said, his first statement to the examining magistrates was the result of a misunderstanding, because the young recruit who was with him in the car was sleepy, very sleepy, poor lad, he had come on duty at six in the morning and was only twenty years old, and at that age the body needs its sleep, but yes, in fact they had taken Monteiro to the station, and he was beside himself, at the end of his tether, he had broken down and cried like a child, he was a small-time crook, but even crooks can sometimes touch the heart, so that he himself and one of the deputies had gone down to the kitchenette on the floor below to make him a cup of coffee.

The Judge remarked that for making a cup of coffee two people seemed a little excessive. Well, true enough, or at least it might seem to be true, replied the self-assured lips of Titânio Silva in a sort of confidential whisper, but on the other hand we have to consider the type of equipment the State supplies to its commissariats, not that he wished to criticize the State, he understood the difficulties of the State, the meager funds at the disposal of the responsible ministry, but the fact was that that coffee machine had been supplied nine years before, if the Court wished to consult the Accounts Department it would find all the invoices in the archives, and since for understandable reasons a nine-year-old coffee machine does not function perfectly one has to work away at it, one has to turn up the gas or turn down the gas, and so it happened that while he and the deputy were working away at the machine, simply to get poor Monteiro a cup of coffee, they heard a shot. They rushed upstairs, Monteiro was lying dead on the floor beside the desk, with a pistol in his hand, the regulation pistol which the new recruit Ferro had thoughtlessly left on the desk. Yes indeed, because even a police officer is not an automaton, even a police officer can leave a pistol lying on a desk.

Of what followed Firmino only managed to memorize a phrase or two here and there. He tried to pay as much attention as he could, but his mind, as if out of control, wandered off on its own and dragged him back in time, out of that farce of a courthouse, and without any logical sequence he felt himself now staring at a severed head placed in a dish, now in a gypsy encampment on a suffocating August day, now in a botanical garden gazing at a century-old exotic tree planted by a lieutenant in Napoleon's army. And at that point they were discussing Titânio Silva’s migraines, and of this Firmino managed to take in a few scraps, the exhibiting of a medical certificate attesting to the fact that Sergeant Silva was affected by terrible migraine following the rupture of an eardrum caused by a mine exploding near him in Angola, though he had never claimed a State pension on those grounds, and because of this ailment he had been obliged to go home for an injection of Zomig, leaving the body of Monteiro there on the floor, after which his two deputies began to stammer words to the effect that yes, now they realized, now they understood that they might be accused of the crime of concealment of a corpse, but that evening their minds were far from the Penal Code, and in any case neither of them knew a ruddy thing about the Penal Code, they had just been so thunderstruck, and so damn scared, that they’d removed the body and left it in a public park.

When it came to the cigarette burns found on Monteiro’s body, Titânio Silva took it on himself to reply in person. And while Firmino listened to his words, which were deadened as if by wads of cotton wool yet at the same time sharp, he realized he was beginning to sweat, as if he were on fire within, and all the time the thin lips of Titânio Silva were explaining to the Court with complete aplomb that he had had “No Smoking” notices put up all over the station, because as the scientists tell us and civilized countries have printed by law on every packet of cigarettes, smoking causes cancer. Someone in the courtroom laughed inanely, and curiously enough that laugh struck Firmino as some kind of demented message, he realized that his hand was trembling slightly, but mechanically he wrote down: laughter in court.

And then the Judge, after the intervention of the Public Prosecutor, asked if Counsel wished to make any declaration before pronouncing their addresses to the Court. Counsel for the defense, a pot-bellied bumptious little man, announced that one thing had to be recorded in the acts of the proceedings, a question of principle, yes indeed, of nothing less than principle, his voice was curt and peremptory, Firmino tried to follow what he was saying, but as if his own mental integrity were at stake he felt threatened by those words and only managed to scribble down a few notes that now seemed to him disconnected: heroic conduct in the wars in Africa, bronze medal for military valor, devotion to the flag, lofty patriotism, the defense of true values, the struggle against crime, perfect trust in the State and Nation.

There followed an interval of no more than a few seconds, to Firmino it seemed endless, a sort of limbo during which his memory carried him back to a white house on the shore at Cascais and his father's face, to a blue sea with white-crested waves, to a wooden Pinocchio doll with whom an infant Firmino had his bath in a zinc tub on a terrace. The Judge said: The prosecution has the floor. Don Fernando rose, negligently, put on his gown, carried himself over to beneath the Bench and surveyed the public. His face was a pasty yellow. His pendulous cheeks hung down on either side of his face like the ears of a basset-hound. In his hand was his unlit cigar, and with that cigar he indicated a point in the ceiling as if aiming at someone in particular.

“I will start with a question which I address chiefly to myself,” said Don Fernando. “What does it mean to be against death?”

At that moment Firmino pressed the button on his tape recorder.

THE TRAIN RUMBLED ON through the darkness. Out of the window Firmino saw a cluster of distant lights. Maybe it was Espinho. He’d taken a seat in the restaurant car, which in fact was nothing but a self-service with a couple of tables at one end. Behind the counter stood a waiter, a weary look on his face and a cloth in his hand. He approached Firmino.

“I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t stay here without taking refreshment.” “Bring me whatever you like,” said Firmino, “perhaps a cup of coffee.”

“The machine is switched off sir,” said the waiter.

“In that case a glass of mineral water.”

“I am sorry,” said the waiter, “but I cannot serve you anything because the restaurant is closed.”

“So what’s to be done?” asked Firmino.

“You cannot stay here without ordering something,” repeated the waiter, “but you cannot order anything.”

“I don’t follow the logic,” retorted Firmino.

“It’s Company regulations,” explained the waiter placidly.

“But what do you have to do now?” enquired Firmino tactfully.

“I have to clean up sir,” said the waiter, “I’m supposed to be only a waiter, because that’s what’s written in my contract, but the Company makes me do the cleaning up as well, and my union doesn’t stick up for me.”

“Very well then,” said Firmino, “while you are cleaning up let me sit here, I won't give you any trouble, we can keep each other company.”

The waiter gave a comprehending nod and went off. Firmino fished out his notepad and tape-recorder. He thought about how to write his article about the trial. He hadn’t taken notes, but for the general drift he could trust to his memory. As for Don Fernando’s speech he had it in that little contraption, and even if the recording was defective it could be transcribed with a bit of effort. More lights came into view through the window. La Granja? Dammit, he couldn’t remember whether La Granja came before or after Espinho.

Darkness pressed on the window-panes. He got out his pen and prepared to take shorthand. He thought that one doesn’t realize it at the time, but everything in life can come in useful, even that shorthand course he had taken long ago. He hoped he was still fast enough and pressed the button to start.

The voice seemed to come from far away. The recording was very faulty, the words drifted off into nothing.

“… question I address chiefly to myself: what does it mean to be against death?………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….

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

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….

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

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

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

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….

…………………………………………………….. 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……………………………………………..

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………….. 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………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

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

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

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

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

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

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

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

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

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

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

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

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………… 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…………………………”

The old lawyer’s voice was lost in a sort of gurgle.

“He was too far away,” said Firmino, “and worse still he sometimes lowers his voice and almost mumbles to himself.”

“Try again,” said the waiter.

Firmino pressed the START button.

“… a great contemporary writer has interpreted that prophetic narrative written in 1914, arriving at the humanistic conclusions with which I opened this speech……………………………………………………………

……………………… if it is true, as he asserts, that that narrative succeeded in giving body and meaning to the phantoms of regret……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………….. but what sort of nostalgia are we speaking of? Some paradise lost, a nostalgia for purity, a time when man was not yet contaminated by evil? we are not in a position to say, but we can assert with Camus that the great revolutions are always metaphysical and that, as he affirms by referring to Nietzsche, the great Problems are to be found by the roadside……………………………………………………..

…………………………. this man who stands before us, and whom I have not the least compunction in calling ignoble, on account of the tortures he practices, because surely no one can imagine anybody stubbing out cigarettes on a corpse, so…………………………………………..

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………….. our police stations without any legal control and protection, where individuals such as Sergeant Titânio Silva operate……………………………………………”

More incomprehensible noises were heard and Firmino switched off the tape-recorder.

“Time to eat these eggs,” said the waiter.

“They’re still warm,” replied Firmino.

“Like a spot of ketchup?” asked the waiter, “everyone asks for ketchup nowadays.”

“I can do without,” said Firmino.

“What he said about the big problems being found by the roadside really struck me I must say,” said the waiter, “who was it who wrote that?”

“Albert Camus,” replied Firmino, “he was a French writer, but in fact he was quoting a German philosopher.”

“About this lawyer,” said the waiter, “what’s his name?”

“It’s a bit long and complicated,” said Firmino,” but there in Oporto everyone calls him Attorney Loton.”

“Press the button again, I’d like to hear more of what he has to say.”

Firmino pressed the button.

“………………………………………………………………. and as for the supposed suicide of Damasceno Monteiro……………………………………..

………………………………………………….. Jean Améry……………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………. his implacable pages, Diskurs über den Freitod, tell us that abhorrence of life is the basic prerequisite for a voluntary death, though not only his book but the story of his life is essential to our understanding……………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………… Jean Améry, a Mittel-European Jew, was born in Vienna, took refuge in Belgium in the late 1930s, was deported by the Germans in 1940, escaped from the concentration camp of Gurs and joined the Belgian Resistance, arrested by the Nazis again in 1943, tortured by the Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz, he survived……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………….. but what is the meaning of survival?…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………… I ask myself………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………… devoting himself with great finesse to literature he wrote in both German and French, I recall for example his studies on Flaubert and two novels………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………….. but can writing save one from an irreparable humiliation?…………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………….. he finally committed suicide in Salzburg in 1978…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………… and I therefore assert that if Damasceno Monteiro laid violent hands upon himself, because my profound doubts in the matter cannot be confirmed by any witness, even though we have to strain all reason to credit this version of the facts……………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

….. his desperate act would have been forced upon him, as the result of the tortures he had undergone, as shown by the results of the autopsy………………………………………………………………………………………..

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………. I assert that the person responsible is Sergeant Titânio Silva……………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…… the methods worthy of the Inquisition employed in his headquarters……………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………….. do my opinions strike you as Quixotic? In that case allow me one last literary quotation, in saying that for all essential questions, by which I mean those for which people risk death, or which strengthen the will to live, there are only two ways of thought, that of Don Quixote and that of Monsieur La Palisse……………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

…………….. they would have us believe that Damasceno Monteiro died on account of a cup of coffee………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………. but this insulting idiocy, worthy indeed of Monsieur La Palisse, which we have heard in the laughable testimony of the accused, stops nothing short of infamy…………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

yes infamy…………………………………………………………………………………..

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

………. and I will attempt to explain what I mean by infamy…………………………………………………………………………………………………”

Firmino pressed the STOP button.

“After this the recording is even more of a washout,” he said, “but I assure you that from here on the lawyer’s speech was something to send shivers down your spine, I should have taken it down in shorthand at the time, but I’m not fast enough, and in any case I put my faith in this contraption.”

“That’s a shame,” said the waiter, “what happened next?”

“We come to his winding up,” said Firmino, “in which he recalled the Salsedo case.”

“What was that?” asked the waiter.

“I didn’t know either,” replied Firmino, “but it was some thing that happened in the United States, during the 1930s, I think, Salsedo was an anarchist who was pushed out of a police station window and the police made it out to be suicide, the case was revealed to the world by a lawyer who I think was called Galleani, and that was the end of the speech, but as you can hear there’s nothing left on the tape.”

The waiter got to his feet.

“In a while we’ll be arriving at Lisbon,” he said, “I must go and get my things together.”

“Make me out a bill,” said Firmino, “I’m paying for both of us.”

“That’s impossible,” objected the waiter, “I’d have to ring it up on the cash register, which also registers the time, and that would show that you’ve eaten at a time when one can’t eat.”

“I don’t follow the logic,” replied Firmino.

“Four scrambled eggs won’t ruin the Company,” said the waiter, “and it was nice to have someone to chat to, the journey seemed shorter, I’m only sorry about your recording, goodbye now.”

Firmino replaced the tape-recorder in his case and glanced through the notepad left open on the table. It was blank. The only thing he had managed to scribble down was the sentence. He re-read it.

“This Court, in virtue of the powers conferred on it by Law, having duly examined the evidence and heard the accused and Counsel for the defense and prosecution, condemns officers Costa and Ferro to two years of imprisonment for the charge of concealment of a corpse and failure to report aggravated by the fact that these offenses were committed by public officials in the exercise of their duties. However, the Court grants probation. It finds Sergeant Silva guilty of negligence in having left the station during duty hours, and suspends him from service for six months. It finds him not guilty of murder.”

The first lights of the outskirts began to twinkle through the carriage window. Firmino picked up his case and went out into the corridor. Not a soul in sight. He glanced at his watch. The train was on the dot.