Daniel Galera - Blood-drenched Beard

In the water there is no indication of the ferocity he had glimpsed on the surface. His body is already decelerating when he arrives at the slippery-smooth rocks on the seafloor, and he becomes aware that he is suspended in the muffled murmur of the cold sea, softly rocked by the current. He had learned from his older brother how to duck under the big waves to get past the wave break. No matter how big the wave, Dante had taught him, dive down close to the ocean floor, and swim toward it as fast as possible. The wave will suck you under it, and you’ll come out the other side when it breaks. If you try to swim back, it’ll come crashing down on your head. If you try to dive into it too near the surface, it’ll pick you up and toss you into the blender. You’ll break your back or get sliced up by the corals. His brother was already a good surfer as a kid, but he didn’t like surfboards himself. He preferred swimming. The first thing he does now, instinctively, before trying to return to the surface, is study the forces of the water until he can say with some certainty in what direction the waves are breaking. He swims a few strokes in the opposite direction to the waves, comes up for air, and returns to the bottom, trying to avoid being dashed against the rocky headland.

The bottom is silence. The water is protective and slows time.

But the surface is hell. Trails of foam appear on all sides, covering his head, and salt water runs down his throat. He grows breathless, freeing himself of the running shoes and jacket that are restricting his movements. He can’t see the moon or stars or anything else that might help him get his bearings. His body is lifted up to the crest of waves and then sucked down to the bottom of troughs, and he can’t make much out beyond this rise and fall. The clash around him involves familiar natural forces, but there is no easily perceived arena for it. He is an insignificant piece of meat, adrift.

The first flash of lightning after the fall doesn’t illuminate anything besides a large uniform cloud that covers the entire dome of the sky and contrasts with the black horizon. He needs to choose a direction and swim parallel to the coast until he comes to a beach. The salt stings his eyes. The strength of his arms seems useless against the violence of the waves, but he knows it isn’t true and that if he takes the right current and swims in the right direction, he’ll be able to get away from the headland and make it to the sand, even though it may take hours. For the first time he is calm enough to detect the cold that is working its way deeper and deeper into his body. He needs to establish the right pace, which will keep his body warm and allow him to continue swimming for however long is necessary.

Terror rises in him when he imagines reefs and sea creatures or entertains the idea that he might be swimming in the wrong direction, moving away from the beach, with firm, regular strokes, into an overwhelming vastness from which there will be no return.

The rest of the time he focuses on swimming, breathing, signs that might help him keep going in a straight line that will take him somewhere. He reaches a point where he doesn’t believe he is in any more of a predicament than the other times he has swum long distances in Olympic swimming pools or participated in ocean races with hundreds of other athletes. It all feels quite familiar, like those two miles of the Tapes Open Water Swim that he completed with cramps in his thigh, or the hypothermia he had in the middle of the bike ride that almost got him eliminated from the Ironman in Florianópolis. There’s a right cadence for every race, and an athlete must pace himself and pay attention to style, the path of his strokes, and the rhythm of his kicking, and above all, he must focus and stay focused on the swimming until his mind and body are one, which enables him to become one with the water and there is no longer any need to focus. Everything he has experienced previously seems to have prepared him for this. It is the race he has trained for his entire life. The imagination can be an ally at times like this. He imagines competitors beside and directly behind him. Only the best swimmers in the world. The leader, whom he wants to pass, is kicking his legs right in front of him. All he has to do is swim in his wake. His mind believes it, and his made-up opponent becomes real in no time, a man of flesh and blood who feels the same cold and the same weariness, a companion. He can almost touch his feet with his fingertips. And when this particular fantasy dissipates, he imagines other things. That he is being chased by giant sharks or leviathans the likes of which no one has ever seen before. That if he pauses or slows his pace, he will be zapped by lightning. That he is leaving death behind. That a quiet, loving woman is waiting for him on the sand of the beach, a woman who doesn’t look like anyone he has ever been with but has nothing extraordinary about her. She greets him without surprise, lets him lay his head on her sand-covered thighs to rest for as long as he requires, and says that they need each other, that they will always want to fulfill each other’s wishes and will be able to, without exception. He can tell she is speaking the truth. She brushes his temples with her fingertips and asks what he wants. He babbles that he doesn’t want much, just that her legs be warm to the touch in the winter and cool in the summer, and that they have a runny-nosed little girl who scrapes her knees as she tears around the house, and that there be a view of a lagoon that turns golden in the late afternoon, even if from afar. Above all that she remain warm when he is cold. That’s all. Then it’s her turn. Tell me what you want. She tells him, and he says yes to everything and asks what else, what else? It is an interminable list of things, and promising her each of them brings him infinite pleasure, no matter what they are. He gives her everything, one thing for each stroke of his arms, begging her not to stop, obtaining from this the strength he needs.

S omeone shakes him.

Hey! Hey!

He opens his salt-sealed eyes with difficulty and is blinded by the light. The person helps him lift his torso.

Sit up, man.

He shades his eyes with his hand and sees a muscular man crouching in front of him, dripping with sweat, barefoot, wearing only shorts.

Are you okay?

He is gripped by a fit of convulsive coughing, almost vomiting, but nothing comes out. It doesn’t last long, and as soon as it is over, he tries to get up but can’t and falls back into a sitting position. He looks to both sides, and all he sees are two strips of white sand blazing in the sun. Behind the man is a light blue sea of docile waves.

What’re you doing here? What happened to you?

What beach is this?

Siriú.

The Siriú next to Garopaba?

Is there another one?

He starts laughing and coughing.

Would you like me to call someone?

No, no, he says, pulling himself together. Help me up?

The man grabs him under his arms and sets him on his feet.

Have you seen a dog around?

No. What happened to you? Did you drink and go for a swim?

I fell in.

You look like Tom Hanks in that movie, man.

It’s stopped raining.

It’ll be back soon. It’s been raining for almost a month.

What day is it today?

Wednesday.

I mean the date.

I think it’s the fifteenth.

Of what month?

October.

The man puts his hands on his waist, glances to both sides, then stares at him with a tilted head and squinting eyes.

Man, you need help. Stay here. I’m going to call someone.

He shakes his head and makes a gesture to say it isn’t necessary. His eyes have adjusted to the sunlight, and now he can see the houses on Siriú Hill to his left, and, to his right, in the distance, Garopaba, stretching all the way to Vigia Point. His tongue is swollen and salty in his mouth, plastered with thick saliva. He feels a twinge of hot pain near his waist and groans. He lifts up his wet T-shirt and sees a white cut in the middle of a reddish oval.