Daniel Galera - Blood-drenched Beard

When I first arrived here, I read in the paper that the biggest school of croakers in the history of the town was caught here last year. There was a photo of a pile of fish the size of a truck.

Jeremias laughs and shakes his head as if he shouldn’t talk about it but reveals that the school of croakers was rounded up out at sea by a large industrial trawler in an illegal maneuver during the closed season. The local fishermen found out, put several boats in the water, and sailed out to the trawler. There were threats of violence, the trawler’s crew got scared, and when everyone had calmed down, they struck an agreement. Most of the fish brought in were already dead. The trawler kept five tons, and the fishermen of Garopaba took the rest. When they arrived, it looked as if they had caught those sixty-four tons of croakers with their own nets. The story, he says, just proves that our days are numbered. It’s not worth it anymore to buy a ton of nylon and pay someone to hand-sew a net. The industrial nets are cheaper. This net I’m mending here is two and a half miles long. It’ll take me another three days to finish. In the past the women used to stay at home making nets. Those days are over too. They don’t think it’s their job. The younger generation doesn’t even know how. Ever been to Laguna? The women there still make nets. It’s a pleasure to watch. They’re so fast you don’t even see the needle. It’s all over here. Soon there’ll be universities and the young folks are going to get degrees and move away as soon as they can. Not to mention the climate. It’s a mess. They all sit around arguing about whether the climate’s changing, but us fishermen know for a fact that it is. In the old days we knew that in October we’d have calm seas, southerly winds, blue skies. It’ll be October soon, and you’ll see the mess. It won’t change anything for me. I’m getting on in years. That dog of yours likes the water, doesn’t she? She goes out swimming with you. I’ve seen her.

She does. She was hit by a car and lost a lot of movement in her paws. I taught her to swim, and now she’s almost recovered.

Is that so? Well, I’ll be. Never seen anything like it.

She sees her master swimming all the time: I’d say she got it from me.

Must be a family thing.

They exchange a smile.

Sure you don’t know who gave you that black eye?

I couldn’t see. I think it was the kids who hang around on the rocks.

If you find out or if it happens again, you let me know.

Okay.

I know everyone.

Thanks.

He gets up and stretches.

See you later, Jeremias. I was going to go for a swim, but it’s a bit late now. I’m going to have lunch and go to work. Have a good day.

Jeremias nods without taking his eyes off the net and his needle. He works there from dawn to dusk for three days, sitting in the same position, mending his net with his back to the sea, and on the fourth day the net disappears.

He works his last few afternoon shifts at the pool, unable to hide the fact that his head is elsewhere. The vigilance with which he usually instructs and corrects his students gives way to a glum lack of focus. Spatula, Saucepan’s partner, puts in a rare appearance and tells him that if he has to pretend he’s working, he’s better off leaving once and for all.

One morning the skeletal, long-nosed postman hands him an envelope that isn’t an electricity or phone bill. The first personal correspondence he has received since he’s been there is from Jasmim. Inside the envelope is a letter* written in large handwriting and a photograph that she took of the two of them in Ferrugem. They are sitting at a table in Bar do Zado at sunset. She is wearing a white halter top with a yellow-flower print and hoop earrings. He studies her curls tumbling down over her shoulders, the piercing in her left ear, her black skin with its golden sheen, her flared nostrils, small eyes, and fleshy mouth glistening with lip gloss. There is a certain seriousness in her gaze. Her lips are parted, showing the tips of her white teeth, but her smile is small, as if she were more surprised than happy. He isn’t wearing a shirt and has messy hair, a long beard, and a broad smile that stretches from ear to ear. At first he thinks she has sent him a picture of herself with another guy, but it can only be him.

Every morning he runs barefoot to Siriú or rides to Silveira and swims across the bay, where he sees timid schools of fish in the clear water, the first and only sign of the approaching spring in those weeks of dry, persistent cold. Beta is now allowed out all the time and never ventures far from home except on her early-morning walks, when she limps along the beach with growing boldness and swims through the waves like no Blue Heeler before her. She tags along whenever he goes out on foot and heads back to the vicinity of the apartment only if he stomps on the ground and shoos her away with a short, dry hiss, one of the signs of the new language that is slowly replacing the previous one established over a decade and a half of living with his father. His long, frequent runs along the beach bring him knee pain for the first time in years. He spends his nights in bed in his dark, slightly musty room with the windows and shutters closed, eating pasta or rice and meat straight from the pot, bags of ice on his knees, playing FIFA on PlayStation. He feels hungry all the time and takes to going around with bars of chocolate and packets of cookies in his pocket. Every time he goes out, he feels like he is being watched, and he starts to avoid meeting people’s gazes. Sleep hits him and passes in a flash. He compares his face in the mirror with the photo of his grandfather and notices that his own beard is already a little longer than his grandfather’s. His thinner, more tanned, older-looking face has never appeared more like the one in the photograph, and every time he wakes after a lightning-quick night, he feels as if he has spent the last few hours dreaming he was his grandfather, wandering the coastal cliffs and hills on sultry afternoons filled with thunder, lightning, drops of rain, water splashing up as the waves break against the rocks, herds of cows trampling trails, grasses rustled by snakes, black birds in flight, and ocean winds. The rain arrives quietly. No one gives it much thought, and there is no reason to believe it won’t leave in a few days as it always does. The last few whales head with their calves for the Antarctic seas, and with them the last few winter tourists go too.

The news that he’s leaving the gym spreads among the students, and he starts receiving invitations to farewell outings and dinners that he politely turns down with lies. After a certain point, it doesn’t even occur to him to recharge his cell phone battery.

His brief career as a swimming instructor at Academia Swell comes to an end on an abnormally busy Saturday morning. A lot of locals are out, and about despite the fine rain and on his way home, he notices that many are carrying small blue or red flags and listening to handheld or car radios. A taxi driver explains that a live election debate is taking place on Rádio Garopaba between the two contenders for mayor: the Progressive Party’s candidate, who is up for reelection, and his opponent from the Workers’ Party. For weeks all the talk in town has been focused on promises of paved streets and new municipal health clinics, accusations of favoritism and corruption, videos and recordings on the Internet showing supposed cases of vote buying, and a rumor that the current mayor has a new swimming pool paid for with public funds, which hasn’t stopped hundreds of his supporters, most born and bred in Garopaba, from flocking to the square waving blue flags with a few colorful umbrellas among them. The Rádio Garopaba headquarters is in an office adjacent to the parish church, and the stairs are cordoned off with tape and watched by two guards. A car with a loudspeaker on top blasts out the debate for all to hear, and each good reply by a candidate is applauded and celebrated with cries of support and slogans. There are people of all ages, with respectable families and gangs of adolescents moving through the crowd like schools of fish, and tense Party members in dark glasses coordinating things. Wary children watch everything, leaning against cars or sitting on their parents’ shoulders, and elderly people look rejuvenated, dashing here and there, cheering with raised fists, reeling somewhat from the overload of stimuli. There is something threatening in the air. Workers’ Party activists circulate around the perimeter of the square with red flags and the exchange of threats, and cursing is frank and humorless. Politics has got the population worked up, and stories are making the rounds about everything from verbal arguments and fistfights to iron bars and fish knives. Ever since he got punched in the face by strangers, he has avoided getting too close to the locals, but today it seems that all aggressive impulses are being channeled toward the exaltation of one or another candidate and hatred for his opponent and his opponent’s voters. He remains at the edges of the tumult, neutral in his preference and at the same time interested in the growing intensity of the collective frenzy. A few cars inch their way through the alleyways around the square, honking endlessly. Over the loudspeakers the current mayor refutes his adversary’s allegation that he is planning to raise property tax rates and says that during the four years of his administration, rates have merely kept pace with inflation. The crowd celebrates his answer with flag waving, horn honking, and shouting. Girls parade around in heavy makeup with glistening lips, long, straight hair, platform shoes, and their best and tightest jeans. A fisherman in tattered clothes doesn’t tire of inciting others to shout, The people united will never be defeated! with little success. Many people are drunk, and beer cans are inadvertently kicked across the ground. The unexpected arrival of two cars carrying opposition party members creates a stir. Workers’ Party members wave red flags out the windows and try to forge a path through the busy street with their vehicles. The people in the square start chanting, Look who’s desperate! Look who’s desperate! The din is so great that the debate can no longer be heard. People begin plastering the cars with blue stickers. The driver of one car tries to tear a blue flag out of the hand of a voter, and a heated argument spreads in waves of shouting, running, pushing, and shoving. Parents usher their children away, but the fight is soon broken up, and the crowd parts to let the two cars drive away. They disappear around the first corner. The Workers’ Party candidate speaks poorly of the doctors in Garopaba, giving rhetorical ammunition to the current mayor, who wins the debate. The two opponents can soon be seen talking to the local press at the entrance to the church, at the top of the hill, and a few minutes later they start walking down the stairs. The Workers’ Party candidate leaves discreetly, while the current mayor savors each step and opens his arms like an emperor going to meet his people to the sound of his campaign jingle. He is a large man who looks like an American film star who is murdered in The Godfather . As the mayor picks up a child, a new fight breaks out between opposing activists on the beach side of the square. He is a certain distance from the center of the commotion, but he is able to see men and women in a scuffle and a man getting knocked to the ground with a leg sweep and getting up again. The police move in quickly, and the fight is reduced to small groups backing off while swearing and making threats. In the meantime a rally led by the car with loudspeakers has begun to form. He buys a beer at the coffee shop on the corner of the square and tags behind the cars and pedestrians as they head for the town center. Soon dozens of cars and hundreds of motorbikes and bicycles form a long serpent that slithers through the narrow streets of the village to the main avenue, passing the health clinic. The intermittent rain slowly drenches the participants. The sounds of car horns, engines revving, and exhaust pipes backfiring mix with the repetitive election jingle in an infernal cacophony. The motorbikes lead the way down the main avenue, most with a driver and someone on the back waving a flag. In their wake comes a line of cars, pickups, and SUVs packed with people. A toothless man in the back of a pickup that is falling to pieces beats on the roof incessantly with a bicycle wheel. Some people ride on car hoods and trunks. The rally becomes an apocalyptic parade, and those who are not involved look on in shock from sidewalks and front gardens. Men whistle at rain-drenched women leaning out of cars displaying their cleavage, while older residents sip maté and smoke, watching everything with a slightly bored expression. Everyone seems about to crash their car, fall off their motorbike, or start a fight. He follows the rally for a while, but when the rain gets heavier, he decides to call it a day. He stops off for another two beers on his way home, and in one tavern he hears that someone tried to stab a rival voter and accidentally clipped a child’s arm. Another man brags that he sold his vote to both candidates on the same day and confesses that he still isn’t sure who to vote for. When the men at the next table find out that he is from Porto Alegre, they ask how the election is going there. He hiccups, says he hasn’t got the slightest idea, and gets up to pay. Then he returns to the table and quickly looks at each of their faces.