Daniel Galera - Blood-drenched Beard

I’ve stopped, Cecina. The subject is dead and buried. I owe you a lot. Thank you for helping me.

She looks at him as if he were a pickpocket offering to help her cross the street.

You disappeared for a while there.

I went on a trip.

A trip where, for heaven’s sake? Everything’s underwater.

I went to Porto Alegre to resolve a few things. Paperwork to do with my late father, that kind of thing.

Cecina turns her face a little and doesn’t look convinced. He can imagine what she is thinking. As predicted, all it took was the arrival of winter for the enthusiastic young PE teacher who only wanted to live a simple life in front of the beach, and who could prove his good intentions with a check for thousands of reais, to become a sick, filthy, evasive liar. Drugs, no doubt. She is relieved to have received a year’s rent in advance.

Did the rain do much damage here, Cecina?

Not too much. Just holes in the streets. The road to Ferrugem was blocked for a couple of days, but they’ve fixed it. The real problem for us here is that the retaining wall on Cavalos Hill fell again and closed off access to the highway. Did you hear about it? My nephew who’s studying vet science in Florianópolis has been stuck there for two days. Things are pretty ugly in Blumenau and Itajaí. According to yesterday’s Diário Catarinense, the death toll is already sixty-eight. I imagine there’s many more. They just haven’t found the bodies. And I saw on TV that volunteers have been stealing donations. It’s a tragedy. I’ve never seen so much rain in my more than sixty years of life.

How awful. At least Garopaba was spared.

We’re blessed here.

And who won the election?

There’s going to be a second round. No one got an absolute majority. Weren’t you here?

No. I’m a bit out of the loop.

She glances inside the apartment.

Someone stopped by here looking for you a few days ago.

Man or woman?

Man. All he gave me was a nickname. He was fairly dark-skinned, bald. You’re not caught up in drugs, are you?

Bonobo?

I think that was it.

What did he want?

He was asking after you. I said I hadn’t seen you for several days.

He’s a friend. I’ll give him a call. Thanks, Cecina.

After Cecina says good-bye, he gets his black umbrella and goes to the supermarket again to buy a credit voucher for his cell phone. Halfway there he realizes he’s still walking slowly, at the pace he kept so that Beta could keep up with him. He glances over his shoulder all the time, as if by a miracle she might reappear, limping along behind him. Something clutches at his stomach. What he feels isn’t exactly pain but a kind of revulsion, as if his guts were disgusted at themselves. At the supermarket and in the doorways of some houses, the fishermen and their wives return his greetings as if merely respecting an enemy. He has done nothing to these people, but he understands that his mere presence is an unpleasant specter. He is sick of it and feels a deep sadness. His grandfather must have felt the same sadness, only a thousand times greater. The origin of his superhuman strength.

When he gets home, he plugs his cell phone into the charger, takes a hot shower, and makes a ham and cheese omelet. Ever since he woke up on the sand of Siriú, he has felt cold to the bone, and nothing seems to warm him up. His tracksuit pants and two wool sweaters aren’t enough. His fits of ragged coughing are becoming more frequent. He rolls himself up in the blanket, sits on the sofa, and dials a number on his cell phone.

Bonobo.

Swimmer.

He invites his friend over to his place for a drink and a chat, but he is in Porto Alegre. Bonobo confirms that he stopped by the apartment a few days earlier to say that he had decided to visit his sick father after something he had said the day they met at Altair’s kiosk. He says he finally met his nine-year-old half-sister for the first time and went to the neighborhood where he grew up to see his blood sister, whom he hadn’t seen in over a year. Bonobo found his father in a fragile state after surviving an aortic rupture. He’d had the incredible luck to be showing a plot of land to a cardiologist when he’d felt sharp pains in his chest and gone into a cold sweat. The cardiologist had detected irregular rhythms in his heartbeat, phoned a colleague, and sent him to hospital by taxi. He was operated on in time. Nevertheless the damage was extensive, and he was very weak. Bonobo’s dad’s new wife begged him not to broach any potentially stressful subjects, which could be lethal, so their conversation was a little stiff and certain things were left unsaid. At any rate, they forgave each other and joked around a little. He hadn’t seen his father in five years.

But you were right about what you said over in the kiosk, says Bonobo. I’m glad I came. I see myself in the old man. I almost wound up as big a prick as him. But now he’s there with his new family, more laid back, retired, living off all the land he bought in the south zone of the city. His wife and little girl love him. And I’m out of the rut I was in and have a bed-and-breakfast near the beach. I think I surprised him as much as he surprised me. He and I might’ve gone to the grave without ever knowing the whole story. I don’t know if that makes sense to you.

It does.

How are things at your end? You haven’t been answering your phone. Your landlady said you’d disappeared.

I discovered more or less what happened to my granddad, and I found him, still alive, in a cave over near Pinheira.

No way.

He was missing two fingers on his right hand, just like Dad said.

Are you sure you didn’t dream it? It sounds like a dream.

I’ll tell you more when you get back. I’m almost out of credit. To be honest, I’m calling to ask a favor. I lost Beta up in the hills. I want to go back to look for her.

Which hills?

Behind Pinheira Beach. It’s a long story, but I need to go back and look for her. I doubt I’ll find her, but I won’t be able to rest until I’ve tried. I feel like total shit. She was Dad’s dog. And you know, before he died, he asked me to have her put down.

I get it.

I screwed everything up.

Take it easy, man. We’ll find her.

It’s killing me. I thought we could go to Pinheira together in Lockjaw, and you could give me a hand. I’m not really well enough to go on my own. We can look for her for a couple of days, spend a night there. When do you get back?

In three days.

Shit. Any chance you could come back tomorrow?

I can’t. But if you wait for me, I’ll go with you. I owe you one.

I’ll wait. Thanks, man.

I’ll go straight to your place when I get back.

I’ve missed you, man.

You too. Hang in there.

Same to you.

• • •

H e can barely get out of bed on Saturday morning. His cough has worsened considerably over the last few days, and now he is starting to experience chest pain and shivers. The rain stops at dusk, the sea becomes calm, and a flaming sunset appears and disappears in an instant as if it has walked through the wrong door. His wheezing is noisy in the silence of the night, and he is thinking about dragging himself off to the health clinic when he hears Beta yelping.

It must be another dog. Or just in his head. But Beta yelps again, this time insistently. The sound is distant and despairing and seems to be coming from the beach, the hills, and the walls of the apartment all at once. He pulls on his sneakers, opens the door, and stands outside. His shivers worsen and run through his body like electric shocks. He wonders if he is mad or delirious with fever. He hears the yelping again. This time he is almost certain that it is coming from the beach or the seaside boulevard.