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

  The dog’s mine, and everyone here knows it. You’ve all seen me with her ever since I arrived. I’m taking her back, and I’ll be off now.

  He bends over to start undoing the knot and receives a kick in the side of the face. There is a crack, and he feels tooth fragments on his tongue. Beta barks desperately. He and his attacker quickly end up on the sidewalk, and the group of locals starts in on him, from all sides. He manages to land a couple of punches, but he can no longer see a thing. Someone grabs him by the hair. His head is smashed a single time against the hood of a car, and blood stops up his nose and fills his mouth. A flying kick in the back brings him down in the middle of the road. He pulls his knees toward his chest as they continue to attack him, unable to react now. He hears Beta barking until it is over.

  A car stops in the middle of the street, and its headlights reveal the silhouettes of those who have been watching from a safe distance. More and more people arrive. He manages to sit on the curb and realizes that he has been kicked right across the street to the beach promenade. He keeps his mouth closed and is afraid to open it, as if something vital might leak out.

  Get him out of here, someone says.

  Take him down to the sand.

  Several hands pick him up by the arms and legs. He is carried for a time and then gently placed on the cold, hard sand, as if they now want to be careful not to hurt him. He lies there, his breathing heavy and bubbling with blood.

  Sit him up.

  Someone helps him sit, and he wavers like a gymnast making a concerted effort to keep his balance.

  Can you make it home?

  I need to get my dog.

  Go home.

  They leave, and his sight slowly returns. He is sitting facing the sea with the wall of the promenade at his back. Two men come down the nearest set of steps and approach him.

  How are you?

  Need some help?

  He needs to go to a hospital.

  Do you want to go to a hospital?

  Where do you live?

  He’s having trouble talking.

  I’m going to call the police.

  Stay here with him.

  One of the men crouches down next to him and asks him the occasional question, but he isn’t listening. All he can hear is Beta’s tireless, surreal barking. She managed to make it back. Starving. Limping. She made it all the way back through the hills.

  He starts to get up. It takes him a while, but he manages. He stands there for a few minutes, coughing and steadying his feet on the ground. The man looking after him holds his arm and tells him to stay still, but he pulls his arm away and looks at him with an expression that makes words unnecessary, because the man doesn’t touch him again. He takes a few tentative steps. He can walk.

  He stumbles across the sand to the steps, climbs them, walks a little way along the promenade, and starts back across the street toward the bar and Beta’s barking. He wipes the blood from his eyes with his sleeves and has another little fit of coughing. Those who are still standing around talking about the fight stop talking and stare at him. Someone in the bar points across the street, and everyone else turns to look. He stops two paces away from the sidewalk.

  Five men are sitting at one of the tables. The mustached bartender is behind the counter drying cups with a white tea towel. Everyone stares, and no one says a thing. He has already forgotten what they look like and glances from one to another, feeling the blood running into his eyes, blinking without stopping, and frowning with his swollen face. Four of the five are wearing baseball caps, three are blond, and he can’t take in any more than that. He places his hand around his chin and runs it all the way down to the tip of his blood-drenched beard, which drips into a small puddle on the white paving stones.

  Which one of you was it that took my dog?

  You’re kidding.

  He’s in a state of shock.

  He takes a step closer and runs his tongue over his teeth, feeling two crushed molars and a loose canine.

  I forget people’s faces. Now, who was it?

  It was me.

  Ah, right.

  Still not happy, jerk?

  Can I take my dog now?

  Give him the dog, for Christ’s sake, says the bartender with the mustache. The dog’s mine, says the local.

  Then I want to know if you’re man enough to fight without the help of your girlfriends here.

  What?

  He repeats himself, trying to pronounce each syllable clearly with his bitten tongue and cut lips.

  I don’t kick dead dogs. Go home, motherfucker.

  He spits all the blood in his mouth at the guy, who sits there frozen for a few seconds, wipes himself off, gets up, and turns to his companions.

  Wait here.

  He takes a few steps back into the middle of the street and waits for the local to come. He raises his fists up to fight but receives three punches in the face in rapid succession and falls to the ground.

  Someone tries to help him up, but he waves everyone away and stands up again. He knows that if he takes just one more punch, it’ll all be over. He goes down to the beach and signals to the local again.

  This time the local hesitates, feeling sorry for him. He watches him come down the steps looking disgruntled, visibly annoyed to still be fighting a broken opponent. Or maybe he is scared. Maybe he remembers certain stories about things that happened in decades past, right there. Things that his parents and grandparents refuse to talk about.

  He sets one foot in the sand. The strong light from the lampposts on the promenade give the sad scene with its audience of twenty or thirty people the contours of a spectacle. The two of them study each other, and he takes advantage of the local’s hesitation and bored stance to kick sand in his face. The local reels back, rubbing his eyes, and as soon as he takes his hands away from his face, he gets a blow square in the nose. They start blindly throwing punches, a few of which hit their target, until he manages to grab the local between the legs with one hand and his throat with the other at the same time. He can feel the guy’s crushed testicles and windpipe squashed between his fingers. The local’s legs grow weak. They topple onto the sand together, but he doesn’t let go. He keeps squeezing and sees the local’s numb, terrified face start to turn red and then blue.

  Only a bullet in the head’ll get rid of me now, motherfucker.

  People start trying to separate them, first pulling at them, then with punches and kicks, but he doesn’t let go until he recognizes the voice of a woman who has been shouting at him for some time.

  Look at me! she says. Let him go. Look at me!

  He lets go. After a long, apparently lifeless, pause, the man starts to cough and choke on the sand and is rescued by his friends.

  He sinks his fingers into her curly hair.

  Dália. I can’t see you properly.

  My God! Get up, come on.

  What’re you doing here?

  Me? I came for a fucking caipirinha! And I find you two mauling each other on the beach like animals. You need to go to the health clinic. Jesus, your forehead’s really hot. Come here.

  Hang on. Just a minute.

  He gets up and staggers over to the gate with everyone looking on. He goes into the driveway and kneels in front of Beta.

  There, Beta girl. Everything’s okay now.

  He can’t undo the knot with his fingers. A man comes over and holds out an open penknife.

  This’ll help, champ.

  Thanks.

  That’s the dog that swims in the sea, isn’t it? And you’re the guy with the beard who swims with her. I can see you guys from my front veranda.

  He cuts the collar off and pats Beta’s ribs. Dália comes over and scratches Beta’s back.

  Get up, you nutcase. The police’ll be here soon. Let’s try to get to the hospital befor
ehand—otherwise it’ll take a while.

  Soon.

  You’re not thinking right.

  He staggers out of the gate and over to the bar with Beta behind him. He has a coughing fit before he is able to order.

  I’ll have two of those caipirinhas with bergamot leaves.

  You serious?

  One for me, and one for the lady here. And a bit of ice in a plastic bag, please, if it’s no trouble. Are those motherfuckers still here?

  They’re over there on the other side of the street. I’ve seen you here before, haven’t I? I remember the beard.

  I think so. But my beard didn’t used to be so long.

  They’re going to shave it off at the hospital.

  That’s okay—it’s about time it came off.

  The barman hands him a plastic bag of ice cubes and starts slicing limes. Dália sits down next to him, covers his whole face with the bag of ice wrapped in a tea towel, and presses on it. When she removes the compress a minute later, blue and red lights are licking the wooden facade of the bar.

  I feel a bit dizzy, Dália. I might pass out.

  The barman brings the caipirinhas to the table and puts his hands on his hips.

  Where are you from again? You’re not from here.

  He’s Gaudério’s grandson, someone says.

  • • •

  The nurse handing him a glass of water is wearing a name tag that says “Natália” and her uniform reminds him of a scene from a porno movie he watched over and over on the Internet a few years back until he got sick of it. All that is missing is the hat with the red cross on it. She has blond hair, a big nose, and eyes the color of a swimming pool. With an accent from western Santa Catarina, she asks if he knows what his name is and where he is. He thinks about it. He doesn’t know. He is in the São José Regional Hospital, Natália tells him, and he was brought in by a woman called Dália, who said she was his friend and left a few hours after checking him in. The same woman phoned in that morning to give the hospital his full name and ID number. He thinks about that too. He doesn’t remember a thing, much less having spoken to Dália recently. Natália and Dália, he stammers. Dália, Natália. The nurse grins and squints at him as if assessing how lucid he is. He turns his head with difficulty on the soft pillow and sees hospital-green curtains around him, his own body wrapped in a pink blanket like the ones that used to cover the cozy sofas and armchairs in his grandmother’s living room, and pieces of the metal frames of the other beds in the room. The dog? he asks. What have they done with my dog? Natália remembers that the woman said to tell him that the dog was fine and not to worry. She’s at her mother’s place or something like that. Another nurse, very thin, with a name tag that says “Maila,” appears, and she and Natália celebrate his waking as if they have all known one another for a long time. He asks how long he has been there, and Maila smiles and says it’s been almost twenty-four hours. Natália goes off to check on another patient, and Maila goes to look for the doctor. He feels stitches and bandages on his face when he wrinkles it. His jaw and neck feel cool, a sign that his beard has been shaved off. There is a needle in the back of his right hand, hooking him up to a saline drip or something of the sort. A woman in an adjacent bed has an intermittent hacking cough. The doctor, whose shaved head makes him look like an undergraduate student, says he was transferred by ambulance from the health clinic in Garopaba the night before with hypothermia, hypoglycemia, dehydration, and bacterial pneumonia, which is being treated with intravenous antibiotics. He has a fractured nose and rib, and cuts and abrasions on his face. The doctor asks if he has had a drowning incident or inhaled a lot of water in the last few days, and he replies that yes, he took in a lot of seawater, a great amount, about four days ago. He can see that the doctor is thinking about something else much more serious. He discusses something with Maila in a low voice and hurries down the corridor.

  Dália shows up the next day with Pablito. She brings the key to his apartment, his cell phone and battery charger, a slightly musty change of clothes, two books of crossword puzzles, the most recent issues of Playboy and O2 magazines, and a Tupperware pot containing slices of chocolate cake. She says she came with him in the ambulance and left only when the doctor assured her that everything was going to be fine. He wouldn’t wake up for anything, and she didn’t know what was going on and thought he was going to die. She had never felt anyone so hot with fever. Beta is in her backyard, being looked after by her mother, who said to tell him that she had already seen it all in dreams and tried to warn him, but he hadn’t wanted to listen. She stopped by his apartment that morning and found the door locked but went to find Cecina, explained the situation, and got a spare key so she could go and get his ID and some clean clothes. Cecina, who had found the door open and apartment empty, asked if he had a drug problem. Later in the afternoon, Dália picked up Pablo from school and came to São José by bus to visit him. Pablito offers to let him play his Nintendo DS a little. Can I hang on to it until I’m released? I’ll give it back in a few days. Pablito hugs his video game and shakes his head, and he says he is only joking. He asks Dália about her contractor boyfriend from Florianópolis, and she says they’re getting married in March. She is going to move to Florianópolis with her mother at the beginning of December. When the invitations are ready, I’ll send you one. Great, he says. I’ve always dreamed of standing up in the middle of a wedding and saying I object to this marriage. She holds his hand, and he squeezes hers back. Thank you, Dália. I don’t deserve any of this. Yes you do, she says.

  When he wakes up the next morning, Bonobo is sitting next to his bed, talking to the nurse. Would you like to take some time off and spend a few days hanging out at a bed-and-breakfast in Rosa? Have you ever thought about being a model? Natália’s mouth is half open, and she looks both shocked and intrigued by the figure in front of her, but she turns back to her patient as soon as she sees that he has awoken. As she takes his temperature, Bonobo tells him that he tried to visit the day before, but Lockjaw broke down halfway there, and he had to have her towed to Paulo Lopes, where he left her at a garage. Today he got a lift with a girl who was going to Curitiba. You’re looking uglier than me, swimmer. I already know the name of the dickhead who did this to you. They say he’s at home, can’t walk, and his neck is black. How can a guy go and steal your dog like that? In times past I would’ve finished the job for you. I’d have ripped his balls off and thrown ’em to the sharks, but nowadays I only plant kindness and compassion. And anyway, no one else’ll ever give you a hard time in this town. Someone told Altair about the fight, and Altair told me. People are saying your attackers left you unconscious on the sand, but you got up and went after the guy. Wish I’d seen it. It’s a bummer that it happened, but I wish I’d seen it. Natália takes his temperature and writes it on a spreadsheet. Don’t you have those thermometers that you stick up the patient’s ass, Nati? He prefers that sort. Natália makes a face, excuses herself, and leaves. Man, what a babe, says Bonobo. Don’t you think? I’ve never seen anything like her. Get her number before you leave. When the effect of Natália’s presence wears off, Bonobo asks, What’s this story about you meeting your granddad? He thinks for a moment and then says that he has come to the conclusion that it was just a dream or that he was delirious with fever. Not only does he lie, but he embellishes. I went off hiking through the hills in the rain and got sick. I didn’t look after myself and came down with a fever, drinking and going out of my mind at home. Beta disappeared, and I didn’t even notice. I had hallucinations. I was pretty confused when we spoke on the phone. This whole story of my granddad is over for me now. I know I told you that before, but this time I’m serious. Bonobo places a hand on his shoulder. Everyone who comes here goes out of their mind a little in their first winter here, swimmer. It’s a rite of passage. I hope you make it through. I hope you stay. You’re my brother now. Remember that. If you need something, we’re brothers. Bonobo leans back
ward and looks serious again. I know I still owe you that money, but I’ll only be able to pay you back after the holidays. Money only flows here in the summer, as you know. I’ve got big plans for the bed-and-breakfast. This summer looks promising. There’s always a way. I’ve got plans to expand and diversify the products and services we offer. I want to target two kinds of customer: those who sympathize with Eastern religions; and hipsters. Two strong behavioral trends for the coming decade, thus two strong consumer trends. Spiritual materialism and ironic consumerism. Zen tourism and self-conscious metatourism. The first is right up my alley. It’ll be easy. Talks and courses in Buddhism, meditation sessions before breakfast included in the daily rates, a small shrine, a whole program of activities that feel like a game and makes guests feel that they’re fulfilling stages toward spiritual enlightenment, letting go of the material world and attaining happiness for themselves and others. A list of activities that they score points for and that lead to rewards. They’ll take home some kind of certificate. And there’s always going to be something under construction on the premises so people can volunteer to help. It’s kind of bad karma, but I’ve got bills to pay. The hipsters are a bit harder. They need to feel that they’re doing something authentic, but it can’t be truly authentic. The atmosphere needs to be retro and a little antiestablishment, but without these terms ever being mentioned. Hipster guests aren’t tourists. They’re authentic, alternative individuals consciously acting like tourists in touristy settings, which turns the spiritual poverty of silly commercial tourism into something cool with the wave of a magic wand. The good old long weekend at the beach repackaged as a fetish. We’ll offer authentic package deals with an old-fashioned flavor. I’ll have to work out how to exploit it. At any rate, I’m going to go ahead and get a gramophone and set up a thrift shop in the front foyer. I’ve worked it all out on PowerPoint. I’ll show you later. If you grow a seventies-style mustache, you can be my concierge. Whaddya think, swimmer? Interested?