The Book of Chameleons Read Free Page A

discussing me, which I found annoying – talking as if I weren’t there! – and yet at the same time it felt as though they were talking not about me but about some alien being, some vagueand distant biological anomaly. Men know almost nothing of the little creatures that share their homes. Mice, bats, ants, ticks, fleas, flies, mosquitoes, spiders, worms, silverfish, termites, weevils, snails, beetles. I decided that I might as well simply get on with my life. At that sort of time the albino’s bedroom used to fill up with mosquitoes, and I was beginning to feel hungry. The foreigner stood up again, went over to the chair where he’d put the briefcase, opened it, and took out a thick envelope. He handed it to Félix, said his goodbyes, and went to the door. He opened it himself. He nodded, and was gone.

A Ship Filled with Voices

     

     
    Five thousand dollars in large-denomination bills.
    Félix Ventura tore open the envelope quickly, nervously, and the notes burst out like green butterflies – fluttered for a moment in the night air, then spread themselves all over the floor, the books, the chairs and sofas. The albino was getting anxious. He even went to open the door, meaning to chase after the foreigner, but out in the vast still night there was no sign of anyone.
    ‘Have you seen this?!’ He was talking to me. ‘So now what am I supposed to do?’
    He gathered the notes up one by one, counted them and put them back in the envelope – it was only then that he noticed that inside the envelope there was also a note; he read aloud:
    ‘Dear Sir, I will be giving you another five thousand when I receive the material. I’m leaving you a few passport-style photos of myself for you to use on the documents. I’ll come by again in three weeks.’
    Félix lay down and tried to read a book – it was Nicholas Shakespeare’s biography of Bruce Chatwin, in the Portuguese Quetzal edition. After ten minutes he put it down on the bedside table and got up again. He wandered round and round the house, muttering incoherent phrases, until dawn broke. His little widow’s hands, tender and tiny, fluttered randomly about, independently, as he spoke. The tightly curled hair, trimmed down now, glowed around him with a miraculous aura. If someone had seen him from out on the road, seen him through the window, they would have thought they were looking at a ghost.
    ‘No, what rubbish! I won’t do it…’
    […]
    ‘The passport wouldn’t be hard to get, it wouldn’t even be that risky, and it would only take a few days – cheap, too. I could do that – why not? I’ll have to do it one day – it’s the inevitable extension of what I’m doing anyway…’
    […]
    ‘Take care, my friend, take care with the paths you choose to follow. You’re no forger. Be patient. Invent some sort of excuse, return the money, and tell him it’s not going to happen.’
    […]
    ‘But you don’t just turn down ten thousand dollars. I could spend two or three months in New York. I could visit the second-hand book dealers in Lisbon. I’ll go to Rio, watch the samba dancers, go to the dancehalls, to the second-hand bookshops, or I’ll go to Paris to buy records and books. How long has it been since I last went to Paris?’
    […]
    Félix Ventura’s anxiety disturbed my cynegetic activity. I’m a creature that hunts by night. Once I’ve tracked down my prey I chase them, forcing them up towards the ceiling. Once they’re up there mosquitoes never come back down. I run around them, in ever decreasing circles, corral them into a corner and devour them. The dawn was already beginning to break when the albino – now sprawled on one of the living room sofas, began to tell me his life story.
     
    ‘I used to think of this house as being a bit like a ship. An old steam ship heaving itself through the heavy river mud. A vast forest, and night all around.’ Félix spoke quietly, and pointed vaguely at the outlines of his books.‘It’s full