Daniel Galera - Blood-drenched Beard

The next day he climbs the steep trail up to the top of Branca Rock. He discovers that behind the small escarpment visible from the road is a long wall of rock streaked with lichen. At the top he finds a very beautiful woman in a leotard and tracksuit practicing yoga. He puts Beta down after carrying her up the last difficult stretch of trail and looks at the woman, not entirely sure what he is seeing. She is sitting in a strange cross-legged position, completely wet, with her short black hair slicked back on her head. His footsteps finally rouse her from her meditative trance, and they stare at each other for a moment, not really understanding each other’s presence there. He gets the last two apples from his backpack, and they eat them together and talk. She tells him she is on a retreat at a nearby meditation center and explains that they are sitting on the exact site of one of the biggest energy portals in South America. You can feel it, can’t you? The first inhabitants of the region used to speak of a wagon of light that left the lagoon in the south and crossed the sky until it disappeared behind Branca Rock. She shows him the path of the wagon with her pointed finger. Even blurred in the distance by the rain, the landscape is immense. Beyond the highway the swamps and waterlogged fields make everything down below look as if it has become a giant lagoon, and the dunes and hills of Ferrugem appear as ghostly contours against the phosphorescent gray sky. He says good-bye to the woman, takes the trail back down, and continues toward the hills behind Encantada.

The dirt road passes an old sawmill with wooden gears powered by water, and an ox-drawn manioc flour mill. Children in blue and white uniforms carrying umbrellas come out of a tiny municipal school and point at him, laughing and whispering shamelessly. The lampposts end at two wooden houses surrounded by vegetable gardens and pastures fenced off with barbed wire. After this the trail disappears, and he doesn’t see anyone else for days.

On his second morning lost in these hills, he is awoken by warm sunlight. Birds sing and swoop through the air, narrowly missing one another. Colors pulse. There are shadows. He takes off his jacket and T-shirt and feels the sun on the top of his head, nose, shoulders. Lizards with enormous tails warm their blood lying on the rocks, gazing upward like martyrs. He spreads out his clothes and sleeping bag on the rocks, takes the soap, and looks for a stream to bathe in. The dog goes with him, snapping at flies, trying to catch them midflight. He fills his water bottle and remains naked in the midday sun until he is dry. Half of the sky is blue. Butterflies and cicadas vie for space in the underbrush, and the air slowly fills with buzzing in a variety of timbres. Blades of grass sway as crickets land on them. A tiny bush is covered in red wasps that don’t look like anything he has seen before with his own eyes or in photographs or documentaries. He crouches down and watches them for a long while. From time to time they all move a fraction of an inch in perfect synchronicity, reconfiguring their occupation of the bush. He looks around and hasn’t a clue where he is. He knows more or less where he came from and where he needs to go from here. A fertile smell wafts up from the moist soil warmed by the sun. Hairy black bumblebees hover in the air, pollinating orchids. The overcast half of the sky starts to encroach on the blue half, and he can hear thunder in the distance. He decides to move on and walks along the crest of the hill, picking his way through the vegetation.

In the short space of time between nightfall and the return of the rain, he comes across a valley of low scrub covered with a luminous mist of fireflies. He doesn’t dare move, as if a single footstep might scare off the thousands of bugs all at once and break the spell. Large raindrops start to fall, and the little dots of green light slowly disappear.

He improvises shelter beneath a leafy tree and in the middle of the night is awoken by the dog howling. She is a short distance away, and he can’t see her. It is the first time he has heard it, and he feels strangely guilty, as if he were spying on her in a moment of intimacy. Her howls are long and far apart, and there is no answer.

At the end of the next day, he realizes that he is walking along the ridge of Freitas Hill. To his left he sees the streets and houses of Paulo Lopes and on his right Costa do Macacu and Siriú Lagoon. Somewhere nearby must be the land that Santina’s children will inherit. He spends another night out in the open. It no longer bothers him that he is wet, and the hunger that has clawed at his stomach over the last few days has disappeared. The following day he continues walking from one hilltop to the next with plodding footsteps, followed by the dog a short distance behind him, avoiding roads and plantations, until he is close to the village center of Siriú Beach.

He heads down the first trail he finds, stops at the first diner he sees, and orders a cheese and chicken-heart sandwich. The sound of his own voice echoes in his head, and it occurs to him that he hasn’t uttered a word since his conversation with the yogi in Encantada. Two young men in baseball caps and baggy jeans are drinking beer and smoking cigarettes at the table next to him, slouched in their plastic chairs. Their dialogue is cryptic, but they seem to be talking about a party and a girl who was there. The skinny one talks more, and the muscular one listens as he turns the alarm of his car parked outside on and off with his key. The small TV on the wall is showing a dubbed film, but the volume is so low it is almost inaudible. The pregnant woman in a white apron and hairnet who takes orders and flips burgers at the same time appears with his sandwich and a tray with napkins and sachets of ketchup and mayonnaise. His contracted stomach can tolerate only half the sandwich. He leaves the rest on some grass near a post for the dog to eat. A news bulletin interrupts an advertisement and shows scenes of the flood. A river of chocolaty rapids cutting right through a highway. Men rowing boats around an archipelago of roofs. Families camped out in a gymnasium.

He asks the young men for a cigarette. They look at him with blank faces, and he asks again. The muscular one gets up, walks over to his table, holds out the packet, waits for him to take a cigarette with his long, mud-caked fingernails, and holds out the lighter for him. He thanks him, puffs on the cigarette a few times without inhaling, and tosses it half burned into the middle of the puddle-filled road.

Argh! Disgusting shit.

He clears his throat and spits on the sidewalk. The skinny one lets out a scornful chuckle.

Where’d you come from, nutcase?

He gets up, signals to the waitress, leaves the money on the table, turns his back to the men, and walks away talking.

It all started a long, long time ago, he says in a drawn-out, theatrical voice as he walks toward the beach and points at the shadowy mass of the hills. It was a dark… stormy night…

What a mess, he hears one of them say.

He laughs to himself, checks to make sure Beta is behind him, and stomps his way through the puddles until he reaches the sand. Garopaba is on his right, far away and ghostly. He walks to his left until he comes to a seaside hill and takes a trail that soon leaves him on a craggy headland. The waves crash with gusto against the larger rocks, throwing spray high into the air. The rain has dwindled to a drizzle, and he looks for a way through for the dog, but it is growing more and more difficult. Over the rocks, over the rocks, this is the way, he mutters to himself. He steps from one to another and slowly leaves Siriú behind him. For a long time all he can see is the top of the next rock.

When he finally raises his head to look around, he realizes that it is growing dark. He is in the middle of a rocky headland between nothing and nowhere and has already come too far to turn back. He steps on a loose stone, and his fall is broken by his backpack, but his elbow gets a good whack, and he feels the pain travel up his arm to his shoulder like an electric shock. He tests the joint and feels his arm with his other hand. A little blood and some throbbing, nothing to worry about. He lifts the dog onto the larger rocks before scaling them himself. He progresses in this manner until the boulders of granite give way to greenery. He tries to climb the slope, but the barrier of bushes is too dense and thorny. He returns to the rocks, and shortly before it is pitch black, he spots a natural shelter between two large boulders. As he draws closer, he discovers that the narrow cavity extends inward a short way, forming a small, dry grotto. He leaves his backpack inside, makes the dog comfortable, and sits at the entrance to his triangular niche as if he were a stone statue placed in the most improbable, absurd place precisely so as not to be seen. The ocean in front of him is a large mass of darkness that is darker than the night, a monster that is both invisible and manifest. He knows he is well above the high-tide mark but is afraid anyway. It is the same kind of irrational fear that slowly grips him when he is swimming alone in deep water. On the other hand, where else could he be safer and more protected? Nothing can touch him here. In a few hours the day will dawn as always, and he will be able to leave. No possible surprises tonight. Nothing can happen. Not here.