For his piss he had chosen a massive oak that cast its great shadow over a grassy clearing just on the verge of the pines. Who knows why it gave him a sense of comfort to piss against the trunk of that tree, perhaps because it was very much older than he was, and Manolo liked to think there were living things in the world older than him, even if they were only trees. The fact is that it made him feel at his ease, and filled with peace, in harmony with himself and with the universe. So he walked up to the great trunk and urinated with relief. And at that moment he saw a shoe.
What particularly caught his eye was that it did not appear to be an old, cast-off shoe, such as was frequently to be found in that area, but a brightly polished shoe which seemed to him to be made of goatskin, pointing upwards as if there were a foot inside it. And it emerged from beneath a bush.
Manolo approached with caution. Experience told him that it could be a drunkard, or else a delinquent in ambush. He took a look over the tops of the bushes but could see nothing. Then he picked up a stout stick and started to part the bushes this way and that. From the shoe, which turned out to be an ankle-boot, he picked his way to a pair of legs clad in tight-fitting jeans. Manolo's eyes got as far as the waist and there they paused. The belt was made of light-colored leather, with a large silver buckle bearing the image of a horse’s head and the inscription “Texas Ranch.” With difficulty Manolo sought to decipher the words and impress them well on his memory. Then, still parting the bushes with his stick, he continued his inspection. The trunk of the body was dressed in a blue, short-sleeved T-shirt on which was printed a phrase in some foreign language — Stones of Portugal — which Manolo looked at for a long time to impress this also on his memory. Using his stick he continued his inspection with calm and with caution, as if afraid of hurting that body lying belly upwards in the bushes. He reached the neck, at which point he could go no further. Because the body had no head. There was a clean cut which had caused little bleeding, just a few dark clots on which the flies were buzzing. Manolo withdrew his stick and allowed the bushes to cover the pathetic object. A few steps away he sat down with his back against the big oak and set himself to thinking. To assist thought he took out his pipe and filled it with the tobacco from some Definitivos cigarettes, which he picked carefully apart. At one time he liked to smoke shag, but now it was too expensive for him, and he had to fall back on unpicking cigarettes of black tobacco that he bought a few at a time at the shop of a certain Francisco, known as Shittipants, because he walked with his buttocks clenched together as if he were about to shit himself. Manolo filled his pipe, took a few puffs and pondered. He pondered over what he had discovered and decided that there was no need to go back and take a second look. What he had seen was more than enough. And meanwhile time was passing, the cicadas had begun their intolerable chirring and the air around was heavy with the scent of lavender and rosemary. Beneath him stretched the glittering ribbon of the river, a warm, light breeze had sprung up and the shadows of the trees were growing shorter. It occurred to Manolo how lucky it was that he had not brought his grandson. Children ought not to see such horrors, he thought, not even gypsy children. He wondered what time it was and enquired of the sun. Only then did he realize that the shade had shifted, that the sun was shining full on him and he was bathed in sweat. He got wearily to his feet and set off back to the encampment.
There was a lot of activity in the compound at that hour. The old women were washing the infants in tubs and the young mothers were cooking. People hailed Manolo as he passed but he scarcely noticed them. He entered his hut. His wife was dressing up Manolito in an old Andalusian costume, because the community had decided to send the children to sell flowers in Oporto, and it made more impression if they were decked out in traditional costume.
“I’ve found a dead man in the pinewood,” said Manolo softly.
His wife did not catch his meaning. She was combing Manolito’s hair and smarming it with brilliantine.
“What was that, Rey?” asked the old woman.
“A corpse, right near the oak.”
“Let it rot,” replied his wife, “everything around here’s rotten.”
“There’s no head,” said Manolo, “they’ve cut it clean off, chop!”
He made a gesture as if chopping his own head off. The old woman stared at him wide-eyed.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Manolo repeated his gesture: chop!
The old woman straightened up and sent Manolito away. “You must go to the police,” she said firmly.
Manolo gave her an almost pitying look:
“EI Rey does not go to the police,” he said with pride, “Manolo of the free gypsies of Spain and Portugal does not enter a police station.”
“What’s to be done then?” asked the old woman.
“They will be informed by Senhor Francisco,” replied Manolo. “Shittipants has a telephone and is always on to the police. Let him tell them, since they’re on such friendly terms.”
The old woman gave him a worried look and said nothing. Manolo stood up and opened the door of the hut. When he was in the doorway, silhouetted against the full light of day, his wife said:
“You owe him two thousand escudos, Rey, he gave you two bottles of aqua-vitae and put it on your tab.”
“Who cares about two bottles of giripiti,” replied Manolo. “Let him go fuck himself.”
Two
FIRMINO WAS HELD UP AT THE traffic light at Largo do Rato. It was an interminable red light, he knew, and the impatient taxi behind him was practically nudging his back bumper. Firmino knew that one must be very patient about the works undertaken by a Council that promised people a clean and tidy city, and was straining every nerve to make it the venue of the International Exhibition. This would be a world event, declared the posters erected at all the neuralgic points in the traffic, one of those events which would raise Lisbon to the status of a City of the Future. For the moment Firmino knew only what his immediate future was to be, and knew no other. It was to wait for at least five minutes at the light, until the excavator shifted out of the way, and even if the light turned green there was no means of moving, you still had to wait. He therefore resigned himself, lit one of the Multifilter cigarettes sent him by a Swiss friend, tuned the radio in to the program “Our Listeners Ask Us,” just to find out what was going on, and glanced up at the electronic clock at the top of the building opposite. It said two o’clock in the afternoon and gave a temperature reading of one hundred and four degrees. Well after all, it was August.
Firmino was on his way back from a week’s holiday with his girlfriend in a little village in Alentejo, and bracing days they had been, even if they had found the tides pretty fierce. However, as always before, Alentejo had not let him down. They had found farmhouse accommodation right on the coast, the owners were German, only nine rooms, and then there were the pinewoods, the beach to themselves, love-play in the open air and local cooking. He took a look at himself in the rear-view mirror: he had a fine tan, he was feeling in good shape, he didn’t give a damn about the International Exhibition and was keen to get back to his job on the newspaper. Nor was it only keenness, it was sheer necessity. For his holiday he had spent his previous month’s wages down to the last penny.