Firmino read the telegram and gave Catarina a worried look. She returned it with a questioning air. Firmino read the telegram out loud.
“What does he want me for?” he asked.
Neither of them had anything to say.
“What shall I do?” asked Firmino, turning to Catarina.
“I think you ought to go.”
“You really do?” insisted Firmino.
“Why not? After all,” smiled Catarina, “Oporto isn’t the end of the world.”
“What about our celebration at ‘Tony dos Bifes’?” asked Firmino.
“We can put that off until tomorrow,” answered Catarina, “let’s just have a snack at the ‘Versailles’ and then I’ll take you to the station. It’s ages since I’ve been to the ‘Versailles.’”
HOW DIFFERENT IS A CITY seen in the broad light of day and in blazing sunshine. Firmino cast his mind back to the last time he had seen that city, that misty December day when everything had seemed so dreary and dreadful. But now Oporto wore a gladsome look, lively, animated and the potted flowers on the sills of Rua das Flores were all in bloom.
Firmino pressed the bell and the door clicked open. He found Don Fernando sprawled on the sofa under the bookshelves. He was in a dressing gown, as if he had only just got out of bed, but wore a silk scarf round his neck.
“Good evening, young man,” he said vaguely, “thank you for coming, make yourself at home.”
Firmino sat down.
“You wanted to see me urgently,” he said, “what’s it all about?”
“We’ll discuss that later,” said Don Fernando, “first tell me about yourself and your fiancée, how is she, have they taken her on at the library?”
“Not yet,” replied Firmino.
“And your thesis on the post-war novel in Portugal?”
“I’ve written it,” said Firmino, “but it’s not very long, just a brief essay of twenty-odd pages.”
“Still on your beloved Lukács?” enquired Don Fernando.
“I’ve adjusted my sights a little,” explained Firmino, “I concentrated on a single novel and incorporated other methods.”
“Tell me all,” said the lawyer.
“Newspaper weather reports as a metaphor of prohibition in a 1960s Portuguese novel, that’s what I’ve called my dissertation.”
“And a very fine title too,” said the lawyer approvingly. “And on whose method do you base it?”
“Mostly on Lotman, as regards decoding the secret message,” explained Firmino, “but I’ve kept in Lukács as far as politics are concerned.”
“An interesting mélange,” said the lawyer, “I should like to read it, perhaps you might send me a copy. Anything else to tell me?”
“On the basis of this work I put in for a scholarship to go to Paris, and I won it,” Firmino admitted with some measure of pride. “I have a really good research project under way.”
“Very interesting,” said the lawyer, “and what’s your project about?”
“Censorship in literature,” said Firmino.
“Is that the case!” exclaimed the lawyer, “I offer my congratulations. And when do you hope to leave?”
“The sooner the better,” replied Firmino, “the grant starts the moment the candidate accepts, and I signed the acceptance form this morning.”
“I see,” said the lawyer, “in that case I may have brought you here to no purpose, I didn’t bargain on an event so gratifying yet so demanding on you.”
“Why to no purpose?” enquired Firmino.
“I had need of your help.”
Don Fernando got up and made his way to the desk. There he selected a cigar and inhaled its odor for a long time without making up his mind to light it, then he flopped down on the sofa again, threw his head back and gazed at the ceiling.
“I’m asking for a retrial,” he said.
Firmino stared at him in astonishment.
“But it’s too late now,” he said, “you didn’t appeal within the legal time-limit.”
“That is true,” admitted the lawyer, “at that time it seemed useless.”
“And the case has been closed,” Firmino pointed out.
“True, it has been closed,” said the lawyer. “And I shall have it reopened.”
“On what grounds?” asked Firmino.
Don Fernando said nothing, but pulled himself upright, and without getting up opened a small buffet beside the sofa, extracting a bottle and two glasses.
“It’s not an exceptional port,” he said, “but it has its dignity.”
He poured out the wine and at last made up his mind to light the cigar.
“I have an eyewitness,” he said almost in a whisper, “and the things he witnessed justify me in asking for a retrial.”
“An eyewitness?” repeated Firmino, “but how do you mean?
“An eyewitness to the murder of Damasceno Monteiro,” replied Don Fernando.
“Who is it?”
“The name is Wanda,” said the lawyer, “a person I happen to know.”
“Wanda who?”
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.”