The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro

by Antonio Tabucchi

The lawyer took a sip of port.

  “Wanda is a poor creature,” he replied, “one of those poor creatures who rove the face of the earth and have no hope of the kingdom of heaven. Eleutério Santos, known as Wanda. A transvestite.”

  “I don’t see where this is getting us,” said Firmino.

  “Eleutério Santos,” continued Don Fernando, as if reciting a crime-sheet, “thirty-two years old, born in a village in the mountains of the Marao to a family of very poor shepherds, sexually abused by an uncle at eleven years old, raised in a Home until seventeen years of age, occasional jobs like unloading fruit at the mouth of the Douro, other occasional work as assistant grave-digger at the public cemetery, a year in mental hospital here in Oporto suffering from depression, a sojourn which obliged him to live cheek by jowl with oligophrenics and schizophrenics in those exemplary hospices on which our country so prides itself, at present simply Wanda, known to the police as a prostitute walking the streets of Oporto, with the occasional slight depressive crisis, though now he can afford to see a doctor.”

  “You certainly know all about him,” observed Firmino.

  “I was his legal adviser in a case against a casual client who slashed him during an encounter in a car,” said Don Fernando, “a petty sadist who however had a bit of money, and Wanda didn’t come out of it too badly.”

  “And the evidence?” asked Firmino, “tell me about the evidence.”

  “To put it briefly,” replied Don Fernando, “Wanda was on his usual street, but that evening it seems there wasn’t much in the way of business, so she moved to a side street that wasn’t in her territory and there ran into the pimp who controls that street, who flew at her at once. Wanda defended herself and there was a scuffle. A patrol of the Guardia Nacional came by, the pimp took to his heels leaving Wanda flat out on the ground, they shoved her into the car, took her to the police station and put her in the detention cell, or rather, what they call the detention cell but is really only an ordinary little room adjoining the offices. However it happened that those particular patrolmen had a proper sense of duty and registered the fact that Wanda had been taken into custody. The register clearly states: Eleutério Santos, entry 2300 hours. And there is no way they can tamper with that register.”

  The lawyer fell silent while he filled the air with puffs of smoke and gazed once more at the ceiling.

  “Then what?” asked Firmino.

  “The patrol which had arrested Wanda went off duty and Wanda was left in the little room which, as I have said, adjoined the offices, and there she lay down on a bunk and went to sleep. At about half-past twelve she was awakened by cries, she opened the door a crack and peeped through. There was Damasceno Monteiro.”

  The lawyer paused to put out his cigar. His little eyes in their pouches of fat were focused on a point in the distance.

  “They had tied him to a chair, he was stripped to the waist and Sergeant Titânio Silva was stubbing out cigarettes on his belly. Seeing that there’s No Smoking in that police station, Damasceno Monteiro provided a convenient ashtray. This Titânio wanted to know who had stolen the previous consignment of heroin, because this was the second time he’d been ripped off and Damasceno swore he didn’t know, that this was the first time he had done a job at Stones of Portugal. And at a certain point Damasceno started yelling that he’d denounce him, that the whole town would know it was Sergeant Titânio Silva who controlled all the heroin peddling in Oporto, and this Titânio started to jibber and jump up and down like a madman, though these details are superfluous, you’ll learn more about them later, until he pulled out his pistol and shot the lad point-blank through the temple.”

  The lawyer poured himself out another glass of port.

  “Does the story interest you?” he asked.

  “Very much so,” replied Firmino, “and how does it go on?”

  “This Titânio told officer Costa to go down to the kitchen and fetch the electric carving knife. Costa came back with the knife and Titânio said: ‘Cut off his head, Costa, he’s got a bullet in his brain that would give us away, you go and throw the head into the river while Ferro and I take care of the body.’”

  The lawyer glanced at him with his little restless eyes and asked: “Satisfied?” “Very much so,” said Firmino, “but where do I come into it?”

  “Look here,” said Don Fernando, “I already know all these details, but I can’t get them into the papers. And as this morning I took Wanda to give evidence to the appropriate authorities, I would like her to repeat what she knows to a newspaper, let us call it a sort of precaution, in view of all the road accidents that happen in this country.”

  “I take your point,” said Firmino, “where can I find this Wanda?” “I’ve put her into hiding at my brother’s farm, she’ll be safe there,” said Don Fernando.

  “When can I interview her?” asked Firmino.

  “At once if you like, but it would be better if you went on your own, if you wish I will telephone to Manuel to take you in my car.”

  “Fine,” said Firmino.

  The lawyer rang Manuel.

  “The time it will take him to get the car out of the garage,” he said as he hung up, “not more than ten minutes.”

  “I’ll go out and wait for him in the street,” said Firmino, “the air is especially pleasant today, have you smelt the sweet scent of spring, Don Fernando?”

  “What about your scholarship?” asked Don Fernando.

  “There’s time for that,” said Firmino, “it lasts six months, if I lose a day or so it won’t matter, later on I’ll give my girl a call.”

  He opened the door to leave, but paused on the threshold.

  “You know, no one is going to believe that evidence.”

  “You think not?”

  “A transvestite,” said Firmino, “psychiatric hospitals, known to the police as a prostitute. Just imagine.”

  AND HE MADE TO CLOSE THE door behind him. Don Fernando raised a hand to stop him. He heaved himself to his feet and advanced into the middle of the room. He pointed at the ceiling, as if addressing the air, then pointed a finger at Firmino, then stabbed a thumb at his own chest.

  “She’s a human being,” he said, “remember that, young man, first and foremost she’s a human being.”

  He paused, then went on: “Try to be gentle with her, be very tactful, Wanda is a creature as fragile as crystal, one word out of place and she bursts into tears.”

  Helsinki, 30 October 1996

  Note

  The characters, locations and situations here described are purely the fruit of the author’s imagination. From actual fact he has drawn one very tangible episode which set that imagination in motion: on the night of May 7, 1966, Carlos Rosa, twenty-five years old, a Portuguese citizen, was killed in a police station of the Republican National Guard at Sacavém on the outskirts of Lisbon, and his body was found in a public park, decapitated and showing evidence of torture.

  For certain themes of a legal nature to be found in this book I owe much to friendly conversations with Judge Antonio Cassese, president of the International Penal Court of Justice at the Hague, as well as reflections arising from his book Umano-Disumano. Commissariati e prigioni nell’Europa di oggi (Inhuman States. Imprisonment, Detention and Torture in Europe Today, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995).

  This novel is also indebted to the person whom I here call Manolo the Gypsy, a fictional character, if you like, though it would be better to say a whole community concentrated in one individual in a story to which, on the plane of what is called reality, he is extraneous. Far from extraneous to the story, however, are certain unforgettable tales heard told by old gypsies one far-off afternoon at Janas, during the blessing of the animals, in the days when the nomad people still had horses.

  I wish to thank Danilo Zolo for all the information regarding the philosophy of law which he was kind enough to provide me with, and Paola Spinesi and Massimo Marianetti for the care and patience with which they transformed the original manus
cript into a typewritten text.

  It only remains to add that Damasceno Monteiro is the name of a street in a working-class district of Lisbon where I once happened to live, and that the opening sentences of Loton’s speech for the prosecution are taken from the philosopher Mario Rossi. The rest of that speech relies solely on the culture and convictions of the character himself

  A.T.

  Also by Antonio Tabucchi

  THE EDGE OF THE HORIZON

  INDIAN NOCTURNE

  LETTER FROM CASABLANCA

  LITTLE MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF NO IMPORTANCE

  PEREIRA DECLARES

  REQUIEM

  Copyright © 1997 by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore

  Copyright © 1999 by J. C. Patrick

  All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in wriring from the Publisher.

  Published under the title La Testa perduta di Damasceno Monteiro by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, Milan, 1997. This translation is published by arrangement with the Harvill Press, London.

  Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Limited

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Tabucchi, Antonio, 1943—

  [Testa perduta di Damasceno Monteiro. English]

  The missing head / Antonio Tabucchi; translated by J. C. Patrick,

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-811-22245-7 (e-book)

  I. Patrick, J. C. II. Tide.

  PQ4880.A24T4713 1999

  853’.914—dc21 98-31263

  CIP

  New Directions books are published for James Laughlin

  by New Directions Publishing Corporation

  80 Eighth Avenue, New York