The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro

Five

“HELL AND DAMMIT,” said Firmino, “how can I say I dislike a town when I don’t even know it? The thing’s illogical, it shows a real lack of proper dialectics. Lukács held that direct knowledge of the facts is the indispensable instrument for forming a critical opinion. No doubt about it.”

So he went into a big bookshop and sought a guidebook. His choice fell on a recent publication with a handsome blue cover and splendid colored photographs. The author’s name was Helder Pacheco, who apart from showing a high degree of competence also revealed a boundless love for the city of Oporto. Firmino detested those technical, impersonal, objective guidebooks that dish up information stone cold. He went for things done with enthusiasm, not least because he really needed enthusiasm in the position in which he found himself.

Armed with this book he began to walk about the city hunting happily in the guidebook for the places where his random footsteps led him. He found himself in Rua S. Bento da Vitória and at once took a liking to the spot, chiefly because even on such a scorching day it was a dark, cool street, where the sun seemed never to penetrate. He looked it up in the index, which was easy to consult, and found it straightaway on page 132. He discovered that it had once been called Rua S. Miguel, and that in 1600 a monk called Pereira de Novais, of whom he had never heard, had written a picturesque account of it in Spanish. He relished the monk’s pompous descriptions of the “casas hermosas de algunos hidalgos” ministers, chancellors and other notables of the city now lost in the mists of rime, but whose lives were attested to by architectural evidence: pediments and capitals in the Ionic style, recalling the noble and sumptuous days of that thoroughfare, before the inclemencies of history transformed it into the working-class street it was today. He pushed on with his inspection and arrived at a rather impressive mansion. The guidebook told him that it had once belonged to the Baroness da Regaleira, had been built at the end of the eighteenth century by one José Monteiro de Almeida, a Portuguese merchant in London, and had served in succession as the central post office, a Carmelite convent, and a state lycée, until being turned to its present use as the headquarters of the police crime squad. Firmino paused for a moment before its majestic doorway. The crime squad. Who knows if someone in there was not following the uncertain track of the headless corpse, as he was himself? Who knows if some austere magistrate, immersed in deciphering the reports of the forensic experts who had carried out the autopsy, was not even now attempting to put an identity to that mutilated body.

Firmino glanced at his watch and walked on. It was nearly midday. Acontecimento should be on the newsstands of Oporto by now, it arrived by the morning flight. He came into a square which he didn’t bother to look up in the guidebook. He made for a kiosk and bought the paper. He sat on a bench. Acontecimento gave the whole front page to it, with an illustration in violet ink showing the silhouette of a headless body and above it a knife dripping with blood. The headline read: STILL NO NAME FOR HEADLESS CORPSE. His article was on the inside pages. Firmino read it carefully through and saw that there were no substantial changes. He noticed, however, that his description of the blue T-shirt had been tinkered with, and this riled him. He made for a telephone booth and called the paper. He was answered, of course, by Senhora Odette, who started nattering away at once, poor thing, sitting there in her wheelchair, the telephone was her only contact with the world. She wanted to know if they ate as much tripe in Oporto as people said they did, and Firmino replied that so far he had managed to avoid it. Then she asked if it was more beautiful than Lisbon, and Firmino replied that it was different, but had its charm which he was in the process of discovering. Finally she congratulated him on his article, which she had found “gripping,” and gave him to understand how lucky he was in life to have such exciting adventures. At long last she put him through to the Editor.

“Hullo,” said Firmino, “I see that you are being cagey.”

The Editor chuckled. “Its a question of strategy,” he said.

“I don’t see the point,” said Firmino.

“Listen here Firmino,” explained the Editor, “you claim that Manolo the Gypsy gave the police an exact description of the T-shirt, but in their official communiqué the police have said that the body was naked from the waist up.”

“Exactly,” said Firmino impatiently, “and so?”

“And so there must be a reason,” insisted the Editor, “and we won’t be the ones to contradict the police. I think it better for us to say that we’ve heard rumors that the corpse was wearing a T-shirt printed with the words Stones of Portugal, imagine if Manolo invented the whole thing.”

“But we’ll lose the scoop if we don’t say that the police kept quiet about the T-shirt,” protested Firmino.

“There must be a reason for that,” repeated the Editor, “and it would be great if you managed to find out.”

Firmino could scarcely hold his tongue. What grandiose notions came into the Editor’s head! The police wouldn’t even receive him, imagine them answering questions from a journalist.

“And what the hell would you do?” asked Firmino.

“Rack your brains,” said the Editor, “you’re young and have plenty of imagination.”

“Who is the examining magistrate on the case?” asked Firmino.

“Dr. Quartim, as you know, but you won’t get a thing from him because all his information comes from the police.”

“It looks like a real vicious circle,” commented Firmino.

“Rack your brains,” repeated the Editor, “it's precisely to find out these things that I’ve sent you to Oporto.”

Firmino left the booth streaming with sweat. Now he felt more irritable than ever. He made for the little fountain in the square and bathed his face. “Damn it,” he thought, “what next?” There was a bus stop at the corner. Firmino managed to jump aboard a bus that took him into the center of town. He was rather pleased with himself because he now knew the chief landmarks in a city which had at first seemed hostile. He asked the driver to drop him off when they came to some shopping center. At the driver's signal he got off, and only then realized that he had not even paid his fare. He entered the shopping center, a colossal area which some intelligent architect, a rare species nowadays, had created out of many old buildings without ruining their façades. Oporto was a well-organized city: in the entrance, a spacious foyer with numerous escalators leading to the basement or to the upper floors, was a counter from behind which a pretty girl in blue was distributing leaflets indicating all the shops in the center and exactly where to find them. Firmino studied this leaflet and set off resolutely for corridor B on the first floor. The shop was called “T-shirt International.” It was full of mirrors and had cubicles for changing and shelves overflowing with goods. Several youths were there trying on T-shirts and checking themselves out in the mirror. Firmino applied to the assistant, a girl with long fair hair.

“I’d like a T-shirt,” he said, “a particular T-shirt.”

“We cater for all tastes sir,” replied the girl.

“Made in Portugal?” asked Firmino.

“Both here and abroad,” replied the girl, “we import from France, Italy, England and especially the United States.”

“Fine,” said Firmino, “the color is probably blue, but it might come in other colors, the important thing is the words on it.”

“What are they?” she asked.

“Stones of Portugal,” said Firmino.

The girl looked thoughtful for a moment. She twisted her mouth slightly as if the words meant nothing to her, opened a large typewritten catalogue and ran her index finger down the lists of names.

“I’m sorry sir,” she said, “we don’t carry that line.”

“All the same,” said Firmino, “I’ve seen it, I passed a chap in the street who was wearing one.”

The girl did some more thinking.

“Perhaps it’s an advertisement,” she suggested, “we don’t carry publicity T-shirts, only ones on the open market.”

Firmino did some thinking too. Publicity. Maybe it was a publicity stunt.

“Yes,” he said, “but an advertisement for what, what do you think Stones of Portugal could mean?”

“Well,” said the girl, “it could be a new rock group that’s given a concert, when there’s a concert they usually sell advertising T-shirts at the entrance, why not try a record shop? They sell T-shirts along with the records.”

Firmino said thank you and looked in the leaflet for the record shop. Classical music or modern music? Naturally he opted for modern music. It was in the same corridor. The youth at the counter had a headset on and was listening in an enraptured way. Firmino waited patiently until he came out of his trance.

“Do you know a group called Stones of Portugal?” he asked.

The assistant looked at him and assumed a thoughtful air. “I don’t think so,” he replied, “is it a new group?”

“Could be,” said Firmino.

“Very new?”

“Could be.”

“We’re pretty up to date with new events,” the youth assured him, “and the most recent groups are the Novos Ricos and the Lisbon Ravens, but the group you mention frankly doesn’t ring a bell, though it could be an amateur group, of course.”

“Do you think an amateur group would be able to produce publicity T-shirts?” asked Firmino, fast losing hope.

“Not on your life,” replied the assistant, “most times even the pro’s can’t afford it, we live in Portugal you know, not in the United States.”

Firmino thanked him and left. It was nearly two in the afternoon. He wasn’t in the mood to look for a restaurant. Maybe he’d find a bite to eat at Dona Rosa’s. Just as long as the plat du jour wasn’t tripe.