Blood-drenched Beard : A Novel (9781101635612) Read online

  What’s going on?

  One of the officers who has just arrived, a short man whose uniform sits loosely on his body, says they caught the young man breaking into the German’s house. The blond man, who must be the German, bellows in protest in a tongue that isn’t German or any other foreign language but rather a truncated form of Portuguese with an almost incomprehensible accent. He shouts that it is the third time the thief has broken into his house, holding up three fingers. This time he saw the intruder coming into his garden, so he hid in his own garage and took the young man by surprise with a blow to the head.

  Günther waited in the garage and wham, he says, simulating the gesture of a baseball player.

  The other police officer says they found the man tied to a beam in the garage by his feet, hanging upside down. The German continues narrating the story at the top of his lungs and gesticulating. The officers start to interrogate the young man, whose hair at the back of his head is drenched with blood. Realizing that the officers are no longer listening, Günther turns to him.

  Three times! he cries, exasperated. I tell police three times! I have thief’s address! Everyone knows him!

  Günther is wearing leather sandals, a pair of battered cargo jeans, and a blue Pepsi T-shirt. He has very blue eyes and a white beard cut close to his red face. He says that the man broke his window twice in the last few weeks to steal a blender and a pair of running shoes.

  They steal small things to smoke crack! Blow to the head! Wham! You can’t be afraid of the delinquent!

  Günther grabs his arm forcefully and starts telling him how he came to Rio de Janeiro to look for his daughter, who had been kidnapped by her Brazilian mother. He had been warned that Brazil was very dangerous and stayed locked in his hotel room for four days eating nothing but peanuts and drinking only soft drinks. He ran out of peanuts and was forced to go downstairs and find a tavern where he could get something to eat. He ordered some fries, and a delinquent tried to take them. Günther stabbed him in the hand with his fork, and everyone stood around watching. No one else bothered him. Since then he’s never been afraid.

  The police officers have begun beating up the young man in a corner of the police station. Günther’s face twists in horror. He shouts at them to stop and, seeing that it isn’t enough, lunges at the officers, who are trampling the kid, who can’t be more than eighteen years old and is curled up on the floor saying he is sorry. The officers try to immobilize Günther and stop the suspect from getting away at the same time. Tables are dragged about, and the bottle is knocked off the water cooler. He watches the pandemonium until the German is brought under control. The young man is sitting on the ground protecting his head with his hands. The officer looks surprised when he realizes he is still there.

  Can I help you with anything else?

  No. Thank you for your time.

  Good evening.

  Ah. One more thing. A girl was killed in Paulo Lopes a few weeks ago. Strangled. Her face was mutilated. Do you know which case I mean?

  Yep. They caught the guy.

  Did they? Who was it?

  A neighbor. I don’t remember his name. He’s locked up. Why?

  I read about it in the paper and just remembered it. Just curious.

  He confessed. An acquaintance of the family. He’d already been seen with the daughter.

  Did he say why he killed her like that?

  Apparently he was in love with her. She wasn’t interested.

  Is he normal or a whacko?

  The officer looks as if he is about to laugh and shrugs.

  He thanks him and leaves with his bike and Beta.

  He returns home on foot, pushing his bike through the streets skirting Capivaras Lagoon. The light from the lampposts gives an oily yellow hue to the carpet of water moss that covers almost the entire surface of the polluted lagoon. A cloud of mosquitoes hovers over a small rotting warehouse. Huge dogs start to emerge from the vegetation on an empty lot, and he hooks his finger under Beta’s collar as a precaution. Several members of the pack are purebreds, Rottweilers, German shepherds, or mixed breeds in which he recognizes the features of collies and Labradors. They are all filthy and lean, with tongues hanging out, fur bristling with sweat and cold, trotting through the night with no apparent destiny as if following a ghostly leader. They are a common sight in the town, large dogs abandoned by vacationers who live hundreds of miles away. They seem haunted, as if they can’t fully stifle the instinct to search for home.

  • • •

  He notices that his front door isn’t locked, which is something he doesn’t usually forget to do. From the door he can see almost the entire apartment, and at first glance there doesn’t appear to be any sign of forced entry. He looks at the position of the cushions on the sofas, the pamphlets on the table, the two magazines on the counter next to his dirty dishes. His wetsuit, which is worth hundreds of reais and is, perhaps, the item of greatest interest to a thief, is still hanging on the clothesline in the laundry area. The folder where he keeps four hundred U.S. dollars and eight hundred reais in cash, among magnetic bank cards and personal documents, remains under the silverware tray in a kitchen drawer. He locks the door from the inside, keeps the shutters closed, sets out food and water for the dog, and goes to have a shower.

  Later he sits on the sofa for a while, looking at his cell phone. He tops up his credits with a recharge voucher and dials a number.

  Gonçalo?

  His old school friend starts in with the usual interrogation about why he felt compelled to move to the coast out of the blue, but he quickly cuts him off. He asks Gonçalo if he is still working as a reporter for the newspaper Zero Hora. He says he is looking for any information at all about his grandfather’s death and tells him everything he knows: the year, the story about the unsolved murder at the dance, and the jumbled details that his dad told him about his move to Garopaba in the late sixties.

  Man, are you really okay?

  Listen, Gonça. Dad came here at the time and said he’d spoken to a police chief from Laguna who had supposedly come to look into the matter. But the folk here know fuck all, and no one at the police station is going to help me. The subject is taboo here, and I still don’t get why.

  That’s going to be tricky. Didn’t your father have a death certificate?

  No.

  If that’s really what happened and a police chief actually did go to oversee the case, he must have started an inquest. But imagine the guy arriving, in 1967, in a fishing village that had just become a separate municipality, to deal with a murder without a culprit. To deal with a case of community justice. The only neutral witnesses were most likely hippies, and they were probably licking the sand, high on mushrooms. Or maybe the guy didn’t even start an inquest, or didn’t go to the trouble of finding a culprit. It was the people’s justice, period. That kind of thing used to happen a lot in small towns and still does. And even if he did conduct an inquest, I bet it’s sitting in some dead archive somewhere.

  Okay, but is there a way to find out?

  Look, I’ll talk to a friend of mine, a source in the Department of Justice. Maybe he’ll have a suggestion. I’ll get back to you, okay?

  He washes the three days’ worth of dirty dishes piled up in the sink and then looks for something to eat. He hasn’t been shopping in days and doesn’t find anything nourishing in the kitchen except for a packet of peeled shrimp in the freezer. He thaws it and cooks the shrimp in salted water for a few minutes. He squeezes lime over them and eats them with the remains of a packet of crackers. He is doing the dishes again when his cell phone rings.

  Hey, Gonça.

  Hi. I talked to the guy.

  What’d he say?

  It’s like this, man. Let’s suppose it really was a police chief from Laguna. The guy may have started an inquest or not. If he did, he may have named a suspect or not. Sometimes the
re is no one to name, or sometimes an agreement is struck because there are important people involved, that kind of thing. Okay? At any rate, the police chief has to refer the inquest to the Department of Justice. The judge sends it to a public prosecutor even if there are no suspects. When there is a suspect, the prosecutor seeks an indictment. When there isn’t a suspect, he can either ask the investigators for further information or request that the case be archived, which is most likely in this nobody-knows, nobody-saw-it kind of crime. It’s the judge who makes the final decision.

  Right. So you think it must have been archived straight off, then?

  It’s most likely. If there was an inquest. So let’s consider this hypothesis. The guy had it archived. In 1969. So what happens forty years later? What matters now is that the case has two destinations. One copy has to go to the civil police archives. After twenty years the statute of limitations expires, and if no one has reopened it, the police send it to the state public archive. Right?

  Right.

  And another copy goes to the state court.

  So all I have to do is go to those archives?

  In theory, yes, but here’s the thing. The archives should be kept forever, but in some cases the states get authorization to have them incinerated because they take up a shitload of space. You’ll have to see what the story is in Santa Catarina. The upshot is that if there was an inquest and if it was correctly archived and if it hasn’t been incinerated or lost in the last forty years, you might find it—if you’re lucky and you look properly and talk to the right people.

  Right. And . . . ?

  That’s it.

  Okay.

  Did you get it all?

  I didn’t get anything, to be honest.

  What part?

  I dunno, I’ve already forgotten everything. I don’t know how you memorize all that crap. You’re a journalist. I’m dumb. Any chance you could e-mail it to me?

  Fuck, man.

  Sorry. It’s the state archive, right? Civil police.

  Look . . .

  Gonçalo thinks for a moment on the other end of the line.

  Look, leave it with me. I know how to talk to these people. I’m snowed under covering the traffic department scandal here—have you seen what’s going on? They siphoned off forty-fucking-four million. It’s blowing up in the governor’s face—but as soon as I have a minute to breathe I’ll make a few calls and try to get something for you.

  Great. Thanks. Thanks a lot, Gonça.

  No problem. You’ve done me lots of favors. It’s my pleasure. I think I might even owe you money.

  You don’t owe me anything.

  I’m going to visit you there one of these days.

  Do. Bring the girls.

  Man, Valéria’s so big. You won’t believe it. And you should see her typing on a keyboard. It’s frightening.

  Is she, what, seven now?

  Six. But she’s like a little grown-up. She only acts like a kid when it’s convenient. What about you? I heard about your dad. That was pretty heavy shit. I didn’t find out until ages afterward. I’m really sorry.

  Thanks. Everything’s fine. It was fucked up, but it’s over. You still swimming?

  Me? Fuck no. Just smoking like a chimney and drinking nonstop. It’s over for me.

  No, it isn’t. You just can’t allow yourself to fold, Gonça.

  It’s too late for me. How’re you doing?

  I’m great. I’m working at a gym here, I can swim in the ocean whenever I want, and I can keep to myself. I really want to see this thing with my granddad through.

  But is there any special reason why you want to dredge it all up?

  As he thinks about his reply, he looks at Beta, who is asleep on the living room rug, kicking her back paw, perhaps struggling to remain in a dream.

  There is. But I don’t know how to explain it.

  Did your dad ask you to?

  No. Or maybe he did ask without asking. You know? Or maybe I just decided I had to know, and now I have to know.

  Okay. Don’t sweat. We’ll find something.

  Thanks, Gonça.

  I’ll call you as soon as I’ve got something to tell. Take care there, swimmer.

  You too.

  • • •

  The running group now has four members. The other three were brought by Sara. Denise, her best friend from the pharmacy, is overweight but has a lot of willpower and is immune to tiredness. Clóvis wears glasses and seems like an intellectual sort. He doesn’t know how to explain what he does for a living but he has a state-of-the-art watch with a heart-rate monitor and a GPS that costs several hundred dollars. Celma is a slender, elderly woman who runs a home bakery business specializing in banana and muesli pies and delivers her wares to her customers by bicycle. They all meet three times a week in front of the Embarcação Restaurant at seven in the morning with still-sleepy bodies and tight muscles. Sara always gets out of her car in the same way. She activates her car alarm and approaches the group with a focused, studied air, as if she cannot forget that she has an important part to play on a stage. By the time she has walked down the ramp, she is already in character. She loosens up, laughs with her eyes, and shakes her ponytail, clapping her hands and encouraging the group. Shall we go, then? Let’s shake a tail feather?

  Clóvis says he woke up with a dwarf clinging to each leg. He grumbles that today isn’t going to be easy. He coordinates his students’ stretching, and Sara shows off her brand-new Asics running shoes filled with cushioning gel.

  How’re your shins, Sara?

  Much better!

  She squats down and massages the muscles along her bones as he taught her.

  They’re better, but they still hurt a bit.

  Are you doing your exercises at the gym?

  Yep.

  Let’s take it slowly. You’re going to use this here today.

  He shows her a watch with a heart-rate monitor and explains how she should position the chest strap right under her breasts.

  Your mission today is to control your heart rate. Let’s keep it at a hundred and forty, okay? If it drops below that, you pick up the pace. If it passes, it you reduce it.

  Can you give me a hand?

  She shows him the strap. It appears to be in the right place.

  What’s the problem?

  Is this the right height?

  He pushes it up a quarter of an inch.

  There.

  The ocean is choppy. Much of the sky is covered in clouds, but orange streaks indicate that the sun has just risen behind the hill. An enormous catamaran is anchored about five hundred yards from the beach with its sails down and its mast conducting the rise and fall of the waves. The group sets out running along the sand, slowly. Sara’s watch beeps. Her heart rate is already one hundred and fifty-five, and they slow their pace. Clóvis takes off ahead of the group. He lets him go. At the end of the beach, they take the road to Siriú, which has a short paved section and then is all dirt road and sand. A kid shoos chickens from the patio of a roadside hut. Every two or three minutes a car or motorbike goes past, and he insists that they all run single file along the edge of the road and keep an eye out on bends. Sara finds her pace, and Denise accompanies her, puffing loudly. Clóvis has left them all behind, and Celma, who has yet to build up her endurance, has started to tire. He tells the girls to go ahead and stays with Celma, alternating between running and walking. Celma says it is a blessing to live here and to be able to go for an early-morning jog in such a beautiful place. She says that God made her go through a lot before she arrived here. He encourages her, and she tells him her whole life story.

  When they get back, Sara is sporting the flaming-red cheeks that are her trademark. Her face is covered in sweat and visibly giving off steam. She says that her husband, the dentist, wants to have a barbecue at their pl
ace, and the group is invited. Then she takes his arm and pulls him aside as if she wants to tell him a secret.

  We still haven’t settled one thing.

  What?

  How you’re going to charge for the lessons.

  I’m still not sure. We’ll talk about it later.

  But don’t you have a price?

  I’m going to think about it. We’ll talk about it later.

  It’s just that it’s been almost a month, and they want to know how much they’re going to have to pay.

  Don’t worry about it. We’ll talk about it later.

  She looks frustrated but lets it go for the time being.

  After the students have gone, he gets the backpack he left hidden behind the wall of a house and puts his running shorts, T-shirt, and shoes in it, leaving on the swimming trunks he is wearing underneath. He gets his goggles and heads out for a swim. The water is cold but bearable. The wind is blowing hard enough to whip up the waves, and he heads through the choppy sea toward the catamaran, planning to swim around it, return to the beach, and repeat the circuit until he is tired. He doesn’t want to swim to Preguiça Beach, as it might anger the fishermen, who are still exercising their right to exclusive access to the bay during the mullet season.

  As he approaches the catamaran, he hears warning cries. Puffing and with fogged-up goggles, he raises his head out of the water and sees two crew members in the stern shouting and waving their arms. He takes off his goggles and looks around, trying to see or hear a boat coming in his direction or perhaps a porpoise or goodness knows what. One of the men in the catamaran beckons him over and points at something in the back of the boat. He swims over cautiously, and as he gets a little closer, he is able to see over the top of the waves. An animal is glistening on the stern platform. It is a large, round seal, its fur mottled with patches of light and dark gray. The men are laughing, enchanted by the awkward, whiskered mammal swaying back and forth from flipper to flipper. He stops a few yards from the boat. One of the men says that it was there when they woke up and isn’t showing any sign of wanting to leave. They think it is hungry, and the other man goes into the cabin for a minute and comes back out with a small fish. The seal takes a look at the fish that the man is shaking over its head, gives two short, loud, nasal grunts that sound like pure mockery, and after a dramatic pause, flips effortlessly into the sea and slips beneath the water without a splash. They look at each other, not knowing what to say. He asks who the catamaran belongs to, and the men start to explain that they are just looking after the boat. The owner, a guy from São Paulo who is sailing around the world, stopped there to see to something in Garopaba. The seal leaps out of the water with a somersault worthy of a gymnast and lands in the same position as before on the stern platform. It has a large fish in its mouth, at least three times bigger than the one offered by its hosts. The fish flaps about until the seal tires of showing off and devours it.