Thomas Pletzinger - Funeral for a Dog

Tuuli and I pack our things and leave our room 219 over the Praça de São Geraldo, she steals an ashtray, I take along the Words worth poems. The bill for the Pousada Majestic we pay in reais and dollars one to one, our American money is enough for the days and nights we spent waiting for Felix. We fell out of time and can afford it, we tip well. David throws our luggage in the back of the truck, and Lua marks the turned-off fountain of the Praça de São Geraldo of Tupanatinga with lifted hind leg. The three-legged dog jumps without help onto the back of the truck and we leave the town. Away we go, I think, on we go! David drives, Tuuli sits next to him and rolls a cigarette, I with my two thousand eight hundred eighty-three hours of peace service in my bones wonder whether all this can be true. Everything is the same as always, we buy cans of beer in various villages and stop on the roadside. We do as the padre does: Urinating is good for you, we say, and laugh. Felix and I hit each other on the shoulders and remind each other that we really exist, in the middle of Brazil, in the middle of the desert, in the middle of the jungle, on the way to the sea. We drive through the sertão and bathe in a river full of piranhas, we sleep in the monastery of the Holy Mary, we stroll in orchid gardens. We drive to Pedra, and climb up the black stone, and Felix declares with hands raised to the sky that the world belongs to us. Tuuli looks out the window for hours, we talk, she sings, we laugh. We drive past bananas and sugarcane, past green hills and herds of cattle, we dance in Caruaru and sleep on the bank of the Rio Ipojuca. Lua sings “Girl from Mars.” Felix wins a hundred reais at dice in Fortaleza, he loses a hundred reais on the international game Brazil versus the Netherlands, in a café in Macarana he bets on Oranje, everyone thinks his blond hair is Dutch. The game ends 2–2. You can’t win them all, says Felix, patting Lua’s head. Tuuli sees the ocean first, Lua sees the ocean for the first time. We sleep a few nights in the sand. Tuuli removes the bandage from Lua’s stump. In Natal we take off his chain, Lua hesitates. When he then runs along the water, you can almost no longer tell that his leg is missing. Felix borrows a surfboard, I’m Robby Naish! he cheers, and Tuuli applauds. In the morning she wears my purple Los Angeles Lakers cap and in the evening Felix’s panama hat. David leaves the Heckler & Koch in the glove compartment. I read and lie on my back, sometimes I take notes. On the white beach of Jericoacoara we collect the roundest and palest stones. Tuuli, Felix and I throw the pebbles far out into the Atlantic. No one wins, no one loses. It’s a tie, says Tuuli, and never wants to let us go. Lua asserts that this is happiness. David talks on the phone with the padre, everything is all right in the Fundação Ajuda de Nossa Senhora. The water is running. Felix and I learn capoeira, we fight and dance at the same time, we walk barefoot, we never hit each other intentionally. Lua orders chicken hearts for breakfast. On the large dune overlooking the village Tuuli kisses first me, then Felix, then me again. Peace service in deprived areas of Latin America, says Felix, crazy, aaah!

On my last night David stops at the beach of Olinda next to the largest wooden shack. Here there are Volkswagens and Chryslers, here there are Chevrolets and Hondas. We get out, behind us a taxi is honking. Olinda, says Felix, from the Portuguese ó linda , “how beautiful!” On the horizon two tankers in full regalia, shining cranes and cabins, floodlights on the monastery on the hill too, over all this planes in descent. The sun has already disappeared, my time in Brazil has expired, tomorrow I’m flying back. I’ve finished reading Wordsworth’s Selected Poems. I’m using the return ticket for Varig Airlines as a bookmark and stick the book in my bag, Recife-São Paulo-Frankfurt. The others are heading back to Seraverde, Tuuli will stay for a while in the Fundação. She takes my hand. Your last night, she says, so let’s go! So let’s go? I think, and before my eyes I see Tuuli and Felix sitting on the water tower, her head on his chest. They’re smoking without me. So let’s go, says Felix, so let’s go, says Lua.

OI, COMPADRE, David says to the guard at the door. The two of them know each other. He makes sure the police aren’t coming, Felix explains to us, cockfighting is prohibited. Lua has to go back on the chain, but we’re allowed in. No photos! I with my three thousand two hundred sixty-four hours of Brazil in my bones have never seen anything like this: the guests are sitting at small tables around a dance floor made of clay. We get a table in the second row. A waist-high barrier made of light blue wood stands between us and the dance floor. Old men in shirts, young men in suits, occasionally a woman with dyed blonde hair and high-laced breasts holding a bottle of Guaraná. Men and boys lean on the bar in shirts and pants of the same color, red, yellow, green, blue, black, white. At the bar there’s no drinking, at the bar the teams talk shop, says David, the cock breeders and handlers. Under strings of lights people play poker and dice and pass money back and forth. An old man is playing the berimbau, another is smoking the stub of a joint until it’s completely gone, black with oil, the lighter close to his calloused lips. To celebrate the occasion we have grilled red mullet with lemon and black beans, to celebrate the occasion David pours one beer bottle after another into Lua’s bowl. Lua is lying under the table and drinking. Tuuli asserts that I look tired. Tired or awake, Felix laughs, this is your last night, my Svensson! Now let’s have a beer! Tuuli is sitting between Felix and me, she’s laughing, she’s holding our hands. We bet! Felix indicates to the server the size of a bottle with both hands, mais uma ceveja , we raise our glasses into the light, my dear Svensson, our last night!

Around ten the cocks are brought in. The dice and card games stop, the berimbau keeps playing, the guests turn to the dance floor on which no one is dancing. A man with a bell asks for quiet. We have to stand up to see anything. Money is pulled out of pants pockets, shirt pockets, leather wallets and embroidered purses. The cock handlers have disappeared, instead men and women in shorts and shirts crowd all around us, the air is thick with smoke. I observe Tuuli. Lua is sleeping, and when Lua is sleeping, all is well, says Felix, and kisses the nape of Tuuli’s neck. He pulls a few bills out of his pants pocket. The birds arrive, the conversations cease, the fights begin. The first handlers step into the ring through a small gate: grandfather, father and son with the same mustache and same jerseys, their hands press the cocks’ wings against their bodies. The birds’ heads jerk back and forth, their combs shake. David translates: the animals’ names, their ages, their wins and losses. The shack nods and murmurs. One after another, all the handlers present their birds. There are roosters of all colors, white and brown and black, some are one color, some speckled, they’re named Desert Storm and Senna de Vila Desterro IV and Sharkinho Noventa. I can’t remember the names, I want to take notes and I get muddled. On the animals’ legs shimmer the spurs, made of metal or horn, some look like they’re made of glass. Sharp as razor blades, says Felix, they’ll cut off your finger if they get you. In the shack there’s a soft buzz, for several roosters it rises to an excited murmur, for others it peters out with boredom. When a brown and white speckled rooster with long feathers and metal spurs is displayed, the spectators cheer. That’s the champion, David translates, 43 fights undefeated. I take note of this brown and white rooster, 43 fights and not a single loss. A moment later follows the snow-white challenger, and David explains that this bird has gone undefeated in seven duels, he hasn’t had to fight that much, he’s been well trained, he’s supposed to be the best in Pernambuco.