The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa

fingertips to the old man. He was perplexed, annoyed. Edmundo Barata dos Reis took his hand firmly in his own hands, and held it, looking at him sidelong, like a bird, attentive, mocking, enjoying the other man’s discomfort. José Buchmann, wearing a lovely honey-coloured corduroy jacket, arms folded across his chest, seemed to be enjoying himself too. His little round eyes glowed in the dark of the room like shards of glass.
    ‘I thought you’d enjoy meeting him. This man’s life story could almost have been made up by you…’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘I’m-All-Ears. That’s what they used to call me. It was my fighting name. I liked it. I liked hearing it. And then – in a flash! – the Berlin wall collapsed on top of us. Pópilas , old man! Agent one day, ex-gent – experson – the next.’
    Félix Ventura twitched:
    ‘Did you study with Professor Gaspar?’
    Edmundo Barata dos Reis smiled, surprised:
    ‘Yes, oh yes! You too, comrade?’
    With genuine joy the two men embraced. They exchanged recollections. Barata dos Reis, a good couple of years older than Félix Ventura, had been to Professor Gaspar’s classes at a time when you could count the number of black students at the Liceu Salvador Correia on the fingers of one hand. Leaving school he got a job with the meteorological service. Arrested in the early sixties, accused of trying to establish a bomb-making network in Luanda, he spent seven years in the Tarrafal concentration camp in Cape Verde. ‘No better than a chicken coop,’ he said, ‘but the beach was lovely…’ Within a few weeks of independence he was already known to friends and enemies alike (and he’d always had more of the latter than the former) as Mr I’m-All-Ears. Two years in Havana, nine months in Berlin (East Berlin), another six in Moscow; his steel tempered, he returned to the solid trenches of socialism in Africa.
    ‘A communist! Would you believe it? I’m the very last communist south of the equator…’
    That insistence would be what did it for him. Within a few months he would be changed into an ideological nuisance. An awkward sort of fellow. He wasn’t ashamed of shouting ‘I’m a communist!’ at a time when his bosses would only murmur, in hushed tones, ‘I used to be a communist…’ and he’d keep yelling out – ‘Yes, I’m a communist, I’m really very Marxist-Leninist !’ even at a time when the official version had begun to deny the country’s socialist past…
    ‘I’ve seen some things, old man…’
    José Buchmann sat down, legs crossed, in the big wicker chair that Félix Ventura’s great-grandfather had brought from Brazil. He put his right hand deep into his inside jacket pocket, took out a silver cigarette case, opened it, slowly separated some tobacco and rolled a cigarette. A wicked smile lit up his face:
    ‘Now tell him what you told me, Edmundo, the story about the President…’
    Edmundo Barata dos Reis looked at him seriously – angrily – violentlytugging at the strands of his beard. For a moment I thought he was about to get up – I was afraid he might leave. José Buchmann shrugged:
    ‘You can say it, damn it! There’s nothing to worry about. Félix here is a solid chap. He’s one of us. And anyway, weren’t you both students of this famous Professor Gaspar? That’s got to mean something. Félix tells me it’s like belonging to the same tribe or something.’
    ‘The President has been replaced with a double.’ Edmundo Barata dos Reis said this in a burst, then fell silent. His eyes flitted anxiously around the room. He had begun to look like a sparrow searching for an open window, for a bit of light, a bit of sky he could escape to. He lowered his voice: ‘The old man has been replaced. They’ve put a double in his place, a scarecrow – I’m not sure how to put it – a fucking replica.’
    ‘Shit!’ Félix burst out laughing. I’d never heard him swear before. I’d never heard him laugh like this either,