Daniel Galera - Blood-drenched Beard

What’re you doing here, kid?

Be quiet, Orestes.

Who’s Gaudério, Aunty?

Would you rather I came back some other time? he says.

No, son. It’s no problem. Have you eaten? Aninha, the plate.

The woman who answered the door fetches a plate and silverware from the kitchen. Santina serves him a glass of Coca-Cola, chicken soup, rice, black beans, and a bowl of locally produced manioc flour. As he eats, he explains where he lives and where he is from. He says that his father died at the beginning of the year, and that his grandfather used to live in Garopaba. He approaches the subject with caution because there are other people at the table and in the kitchen. Santina notices.

Let’s talk outside. But finish eating first.

As they leave the house, he notices that the breeze has become a strong wind, which is making little waves in the lagoon and buffeting the vegetation. There are no rain clouds in sight. He holds Santina’s arm as they walk with short steps toward the dirt road. She points at a place across the street.

I can’t walk very far, but we can go over there. There’s a bench that’s protected from the wind by the wall of the school. I don’t know if I’ll see this year out. I’ve been on a waiting list for an operation through the public health care system for seven months.

What do you have?

Cancer. It’s the second time.

Santina doesn’t say where, and he doesn’t ask. He tries not to hold her arm too tightly. She doesn’t weigh a thing.

This place is beautiful. I’d never been up here before. From a distance these hills don’t look so big. We see the lagoon and the beach from a completely different angle.

She looks over her shoulder and makes a gesture that takes in the slope behind her house.

See all that there? All that land? Guess who it belongs to.

Your husband?

It’s mine. My husband died. The man inside is my brother. Just yesterday a young man from your city showed up here wanting to buy some land on the hill. My grandson took him up and showed it to him. I was asking fifty thousand, and he thought it was too much. So I told him it had just gone up to one million. Because that’s what it’s going to be worth in ten years. It’ll be covered in mansions. Take a good look at this nature. Make the most of it, because its days are done. I won’t live to see it, but you will. I just hope my children don’t sell it off too cheap and fritter away the money. My neighbor gave a piece of land to each of his children, an awful bunch of no-goods, and they turned around and sold them for a pittance and spent the money on car tires and drugs. I try to make my children and grandchildren understand what is going to happen here.

He offers to help her sit, but she refuses with a wave of her hand.

I’m not that weak. How did you find me?

I’ve been doing some investigating. I found the police chief. The one you contacted in Laguna.

He didn’t find a thing, poor man. They lied to him from start to finish.

Were you my granddad’s girlfriend?

Yes. I was very young. I thought he was going to take me away from here, as he used to say he would. Love is the heart of desperation.

You didn’t go to the dance the night he died, did you?

No. I was at home feeling nauseous. I—

She takes a deep breath and shudders.

Are you okay?

She turns her face in his direction but doesn’t look at him. She isn’t looking at anything. Her face is wrinkled and tense, and her eyes are red.

What did they tell you? That he’s a ghost? That he’s a demon? That he never dies? Did they tell you he brought a curse on Garopaba? That he kills young girls to avenge himself? There was no place for Gaudério here, but he insisted on staying. What a stubborn man. They said he’d killed José Feliciano’s girl, but it wasn’t him. He swore to me. Nobody knows who did it. But they took the first excuse they could find to get rid of him. Lots of gauchos had started coming here in that decade, and people didn’t like it. There were lots of fights, lots of disputes. Your granddad always stood up for himself and would threaten people with his knife. Everyone was afraid of him. He was a very big, strong man. He’d disappear underwater to fish. Lots of people said it was a trick. That he was dangerous. He wasn’t. He just didn’t have a way with people. On the inside he was sweet, very honest. Affectionate. I didn’t go to the dance that day because I was feeling dizzy. I was pregnant. He never knew. Maybe if I’d gone, they wouldn’t have done it to him.

What did they do to him?

I sent the police chief the telegram because I was sure he was just missing. In spite of all the blood. I wanted to see the body. I wanted to find the father of my child.

What did they do to him, Santina?

And then I lost the baby. If I hadn’t, it’d be your aunt or uncle.

What did they do to my granddad?

They turned out the lights and stabbed him to death. It was several men at the same time, and I know the names of each and every one of them. They tried to cover it up, but with time I found out everything. The men who tried to kill him are all dead now. They say they stabbed him more than a hundred times. When the lights came back on, his body was lying there. Someone went to get a sheet so they could roll him up and dump him in a grave in the middle of the forest. It took a while, and before they were organized, he stood up. After lying there for ages. He started to move, and then he got up. His knife was still in its sheath at his waist, and he pulled it out. They backed away, and he stood there looking each one of them in the eye and saying he was going to kill them. Everyone started screaming, but no one dared get close enough to finish him off. It wasn’t possible that he was still alive. The place looked as if they had butchered a cow there. They drove him toward the beach. He shook his knife at them and said he was coming back to get each one of them. That he’d kill their wives and children. Some people say he shouted things in languages that don’t exist. Others say he had fire in his eyes. He stumbled across the sand and into the sea. He swam out into the deep and disappeared. To this day people think he’s a ghost. They say that if you mention him, he appears, and a tragedy happens. They say he’s worse than the devil. The fear’s been passed on from father to son. Haven’t you noticed? When a girl is killed, they say it’s him. Even when they find the real murderer. It’s a belief no one can erase. They say Gaudério’s spirit won’t rest until he’s killed every descendant of those who killed him. They say he’ll never stop, even after death. Even the people who knew he was still alive kept the stories going so people would believe he’d died, to help them forget. Shame and fear. That’s all.

But didn’t he die?

We met three times.

Where did he live?

In the hills.

A house in the hills?

No, in the hills, around about. But he was mad. There wasn’t much left of him. It was very sad. Very sad.

But do you think he’s still—

I don’t know. The last time I saw him was five or six years ago, and I decided it was going to be the last. My health isn’t up to it. I don’t want to see certain things anymore. He’d be about ninety now. I wouldn’t be surprised. He won’t be checking out so soon.

Where did you see him the last time?

Behind here on Freitas Hill. The other two times were in Ouvidor. But he wandered all over the place. In each place they call him something different. In Jaguaruna there’s talk about an old man who is sometimes seen around the shell middens, and I’ve always thought it was him.

Santina covers her mouth with the back of her fingers and stares at him until he looks away at the wind-ruffled lagoon.