Blood-drenched Beard : A Novel (9781101635612) (3 page)

So why are you telling me this now?

You haven't read that short story by Borges that I mentioned earlier, have you?

No.

“The South.”

I haven't read anything by Borges.

'Course you haven't, you read fuck all.

Dad. The pistol.

Right.

His dad opens the bottle of cognac, fills a small glass, and downs it in one go. He doesn't offer him any. He picks up the pistol and examines it for a minute. He releases the magazine and clicks it back into place, as if to show that it isn't loaded. A single bead of sweat runs down his forehead, drawing attention to the fact that he is no longer sweating all over. A minute earlier he was covered in sweat. He tucks the pistol into the waistband of his slacks and looks at him.

I'm going to kill myself tomorrow.

He thinks about what he's just heard for a good while, listening to his irregular breathing leaving his nostrils in short puffs. An immense tiredness weighs suddenly on his shoulders. He stuffs the photo of his granddad into his pocket, dries his hands on his Bermuda shorts, gets up, and heads for the front door.

Come back here.

What for? What do you want me to do after hearing that kind of shit? Either you're serious and want me to convince you to change your mind, which would be the most fucked-up thing you've ever asked me to do, or you're having a laugh at my expense, which would be so pathetic that I don't even want to find out. 'Bye.

Come back here, damn it.

He comes to a halt by the door, looking back at the sad floor of pinkish clay tiles separated by stripes of cement, the lush fern trying to escape a pot hanging from the ceiling, the perennial atmosphere of cigar smoke that pervades the living room with its invisible consistency and sweet, strangely animal smell.

I'm not joking, and I don't want you to convince me of anything. I'm just informing you of something that's going to happen.

Nothing's going to happen.

Look, understand this: it's inevitable. I made up my mind a few weeks ago in a moment of absolute lucidity. I'm tired. I'm fed up. I think it started with that hemorrhoid surgery. At my last checkup, the doctor stared at my tests, then looked at me with a woeful expression as if he were disappointed in the whole human race. I got the impression he was going to quit my case like a lawyer. And he's right. I'm starting to get sick, and I can't be bothered with it all. I can't taste my beer anymore, cigars are bad for me but I can't stop, and I don't even feel like taking Viagra so I can fuck. I don't even miss fucking. Life's too long, and I haven't got the patience for it. For someone who's had a life like mine, living beyond sixty is just being stubborn. I respect those who take it seriously, but I can't be bothered. I was happy until about two years ago, and now I want to go. Anyone who thinks I'm wrong can live to a hundred if they want. Good luck to 'em. I've nothing against it.

What nonsense.

Yeah. Forget it. I can't expect you to understand. We're too different. Don't bother—it'll be a waste of your time.

You know I won't let you do it, Dad, so why did you invite me over to tell me?

I know it's not fair. But I did it because I trust you, I know how strong you are. I called you because there's something I need to take care of first, and I can't do it alone. Only my son can help me.

Why don't you call your other son? Who knows, he might even find the whole thing amusing? He'll write a book about it.

No, I need you. It's the most important thing I've ever had to ask anyone, and I know I can count on you.

Give me that pistol now, and I'll take care of it, whatever it is. Okay? Are you done clowning around?

His dad laughs at his exasperation.

Tchê
, kid . . . listen. What needs to be taken care of is because of the other thing.

The suicide.

That word makes it sound kind of gutless. I'm avoiding it. But go ahead and use it if you want.

What do I do now, Dad? Call the police? Have you committed? Go over there and take that gun away by force? Did you really think this would work?

It already has. It's as if it's already happened.

That's stupid. It's your choice. What if I make you change your mind?

It's not my choice. It'd be easier for me, and much easier for you, to see it as a choice. My decision doesn't lead to the fact—it's a part of the fact. It's just another way to die, kid. It took me a long time to come this far. Sit down again, son. Want another beer?

He walks quickly over to the sofa and sits down angrily.

Look, consider this: imagine what it'd be like if you or anyone else tried to stop me now. It'd be a pain in the ass. Me trying to act on my decision and you guys trying to stop me, goodness knows how, living with me, watching me, committing me to an institution, medicating me, your brother coming from São Paulo, and your mother having to put up with me again. Who knows what you could do, but it'd be a nightmare for everyone involved. Do you see how crazy it'd be? There's nothing more ridiculous than someone trying to convince someone else. I've worked with persuasion my whole life, and it's the worst cancer of human behavior. No one should ever be convinced of anything. People know what they want, and they know what they need. I know it because I've always been a specialist in persuasion and inventing needs, and that's why that wall there is covered in awards. Don't try to talk me out of it. If you convinced me not to kill myself, you'd leave me crippled, and I'd live a few more years, defeated, mutilated and sick, begging for mercy. This is serious. Don't try to persuade me. Persuading someone not to follow their heart is obscene. Persuasion is obscene. We know what we need, and no one can tell us what's best. What I'm going to do was decided a long time ago, before I even had the idea.

I expected more of you, Dad. More than this retarded drivel. I've never been able to play the victim—it makes me sick—and the person who taught me that was you. And now you're giving me this victim crap.

Well, now I'm going to teach you something else: when you start shitting blood and can't get it up and wake up feeling fed up with life every goddamn day, you have a moral obligation to act like a victim. Write it down. Oh, don't give me a hard time, for fuck's sake. Have you grown balls all of a sudden? It's not you. You're the acquiescent sort, a bit of a pushover even. I've always told you that to your face. I've got you all worked out. I've warned you about so many things. And have I ever been wrong? Have I? I told you you'd lose your girlfriend the way you did. I told you the desperate would come to you your whole life. But you really are capable of thinking of the next person even though you can't remember anyone's face. And that's why you're better than me and your brother. I'm proud of it, and I love you for it. And now I need you to stand by your old man.

Fuck, Dad.

His dad's eyes are red.

It's Beta.

What about Beta?

His dad waves at the front door and makes an almost inaudible sound. The dog gets up without hesitation and leaves the house.

You know how much I love that dog. We've got a real connection.

I'm not doing it.

Why not?

There's no way I can look after a dog right now. And anyway . . . fuck, I don't believe this. Sorry. I've got to go.

I don't want you to look after her. I want you to take her to Rolf, over in Belém Novo. After I've . . . done what I'm going to do. Ask him to give her an injection. I've done my homework—it's painless.

No, no.

She's already depressed. She knows. She'll waste away when she's on her own.

Do it yourself. You're the one who thinks he doesn't have any fucking choice. I do. I won't be a part of this.

I can't bring myself to, kid.

No, no.

You have to promise me.

Forget it, Dad. There's no way.

Promise.

I can't be a part of this.

Please.

No. It's not fair.

You're denying me my last wish.

It won't happen.

You'll do it. I know you will.

I will not. You're on your own. I can't. Sorry.

I know you'll do it. That's why you're here.

You're trying to persuade me. A few minutes ago that was obscene.

I'm not going to persuade you. I'm done. It's my last wish. I know you won't deny me it.

Miserable old man.

That's my name.

A very old memory comes to mind. The scene is incongruous and doesn't seem to deserve having been recorded in memory, much less being recalled at a moment like this. One morning before work, his dad was shaving in the bathroom with the door open, and he, aged six or seven at the time, was watching him. After shaving, he washed his face with soap, lathering it up well, then rinsed it repeatedly. There was no more soap on his face by the second rinse, but he kept on splashing his face with water, four, five times. He asked his dad why he rinsed his face so many times if the soap was already gone by the second rinse, and he answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world: 'Cause it feels good.

My hand's shaking, Dad.

You're doing just fine. You're a superior human being.

Shut up.

Seriously, I'm really proud of you. No one else'd be able to do it.

I didn't say I would.

I could make you promise something much worse. To make up with your brother, for example.

I'd do it if you told me all this was just a big joke. In a few hours I'd be giving him a hug. You could start organizing the barbecue.

Good try. But to be honest, I couldn't care less. I wouldn't forgive him, if I were you.

Good to know.

Yeah, well, I don't mind saying it now. But I really do need you to spare the old girl. She's fifteen, but her breed can easily live more than twenty years. She's my life. Ever seen a depressed dog? If she's left here without me, I'll take her suffering with me. Can I consider it promised?

Okay.

Thanks.

No, it's not okay. I can't be a part of this.

Love you, kid.

I didn't say I would. I haven't accepted. Don't touch me.

I wasn't going to. I'm not moving.

T
he ocean finally appears at the
end of the main avenue of the town, a cold blue sliver at the end of the stretch of tarmac glinting under the throbbing midday sun. It is his birthday. He drives in second gear with the windows down and the fan on to keep air moving through the car on the windless day, the muffled whir of the fan mingling with the shy drone of the 1.0-liter engine and Ben Harper music coming from the CD player, almost stopping at speed bumps so as not to scrape the underside of his overloaded car. In the trunk and backseat of the small Ford Fiesta are two suitcases of clothing, a sound system that he is two installments away from paying off, a twenty-nine-inch TV, his PlayStation 2, a camping backpack full of personal belongings, a carefully folded wool blanket and quilt, plastic bags containing sneakers and shoes, CDs, and some basic kitchen utensils. He has packed photo albums, a barbecue knife his dad gave him, with its armadillo-leather handle and steel blade that rusts now and then and needs to be cleaned with steel wool and greased with oil, his special rubber wetsuit for swimming, and an eight-by-ten-inch black-framed photograph registering his arrival in the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii. A support attached to the trunk with hooks and chains holds his mountain bike, battered after a few years' use, an already outdated model with a thick, heavy aluminum frame. Beta is asleep, curled up in the passenger seat, muscles softened by the hot sun, and lulled by five hours of driving on the highway. She sighs often, sniffs, sneezes from time to time, opens her eyes, and closes them again without changing position.

He ate a toasted salami-and-cheese sandwich in Osório and a meat pasty at a gas station near Jaguaruna, so he drives straight past the restaurants he sees along the way and instead pays attention to the real estate agents, with eye-catching signs dotted along the main avenue. They are all conveniently closed at this hour. He continues on in the light traffic toward the blue of the ocean, in the opposite direction from small groups of lethargic pedestrians in bathing suits, dazed by the sun, heading for restaurants or home, carrying folding chairs and beach bags. It has been over a week since Ash Wednesday took with it most of the tourists, and the few who have stayed behind or just arrived behave with the serenity of latecomers.

The main avenue ends in a curve to the right and turns into the seaside boulevard. He parks diagonally between other cars in the parking spaces facing the beach. The sun beats down on the Fiesta. He walks around the car and opens the passenger door. Beta raises her head but doesn't move. Just as on the other three stops he made during the journey, he has to pick her up and set her down on her feet on the ground before she decides to lap up the warm water he pours from a family-size plastic bottle into an empty ice cream tub. He takes the last few swigs from the same bottle. He takes off his shirt and sneakers, leaving on only his swimming trunks. He locks the car and heads down the cement ramp next to the Embarcação Restaurant to the sand, carrying Beta. Groups of off-season tourists enjoy themselves on the spacious beach. He approaches a woman who is smoking and reading a book by herself under a beach umbrella. The book's cover is purple. Her knees are dark, her toenails are painted with pearly nail polish, and she is wearing a delicate gold anklet. The umbrella is blue with an insurance company logo on it, and the sunlight that manages to pass through it gives her bare legs a green hue. He memorizes all this so he'll be able to remember her later.

Hi. Would you mind watching my dog for a bit?

She lifts up her sunglasses and gazes a moment at the animal in his arms.

Can't he walk?

She can walk, but she's a bit tired. If I could put her in the shade here, she'll just lie there until I get back.

Okay, you can leave her. But I'm not chasing after her if she runs away.

She won't run away. And if she does, just let her go. I'll find her afterward.

What's her name?

Beta.

He settles the dog in the shade of the beach umbrella and walks toward the water, feeling the cold, squishy sand on the soles of his feet. The bay is calm, ruffled by a weak southerly breeze that makes the small waves break with fine, almost foamless crests over a smooth, glassy surface. The clear, icy water wets his belly, and he raises his arms in a reflex action. He plunges his hands into the water to wet his pulses and minimize the thermal shock, something he learned from his dad. It doesn't work, but he always does it anyway. On days like this the ocean resuscitates in him a childhood vision that miniaturizes everything. Tiny waves seen with his eyes at surface level are mythological tidal waves breaking over his head. The sinuous sand at the bottom is a scale model of a great desert where a crab's chitinous shell looks like the bones of some giant creature extinct many eras ago. Scraping his chest against the sandy seabed, holding his breath and with his eyes wide open, he sees the landscape of tiny dunes rippling out until they disappear in the opacity of the blue-green water. The vision is crystalline and silent, and farther up the sun refracts on the surface in shards of white, flickering in a scramble of geometric patterns. Back at the surface, he swims out deep with long strokes, testing the resistance of the salt water. His muscles, aching with cold, slowly relax. When he stops swimming, his body is warm, and the ocean floor is already out of reach. He sees Coral Island on the horizon, with its white lighthouse almost indistinguishable in the distance, and much farther away the south of Santa Catarina Island, with its hazy green mountains dissolving into the atmosphere. A seagull almost touches the water in a low flight toward Vigia Cove where, among a dozen fishing boats, a two-masted schooner, with the name
Lendário
in large red letters on its white hull, softly rocks near a wooden jetty. He turns his back to the ocean and looks at the beach. He has swum out farther than he thought. He sees the row of fishermen's sheds facing the waves with their fronts of grayish wood or painted in soft tones, the beach promenade lined with bed-and-breakfasts and restaurants, the pine trees in the seaside camping ground being targeted by solitary swallows that appear from all directions, Siriú Hill, and, behind it, the creamy dunes of Siriú Beach extending for a few miles toward the cliffs that hide the tranquil Gamboa Beach. A world of gold, blue, and green. The windshields of the cars coming around the bend at the beginning of the seaside boulevard reflect the sunlight in flashes that blind him. Tired of the excess of light, he takes a deep breath and lets the air out little by little, letting his body sink vertically. He keeps his eyes open at the bottom as long as his lungs can bear it, feeling protected from everything. Then he holds his nose above water and moves his feet and hands just enough to float upright in an almost imperceptible rise and fall, his body already used to the temperature, experiencing the salty taste, mineral smell, and sticky texture of the water. He doesn't notice the time passing and remembers to get out only when he starts to feel his forehead stinging in the sun.

When he approaches the woman, she is already defending herself.

You said to let her go, that I didn't have to do anything. You said she'd stay put. She took off. I tried to call you, but you were too far out, she rants. There is a smooth depression in the sand in the place where the dog was.

Which way did she go?

That way.

He thanks her and takes off running over the firm sand toward Siriú. He passes a kiosk with half a dozen thatched umbrellas protecting obese men and women, the unmanned lifeguard post, a platform built on top of a knoll with exercise bars. He keeps running until he sees the dog in front of the lookout in the camping ground, drinking the water trickling from a cement pipe. He kneels next to her and strokes her vigorously, pulling her ears back. The dog pants with her wet tongue hanging out and appears to be smiling, as all dogs do when they are hot. There you are, he says in a reprimanding tone of voice. Rather than a problem, Beta's solo walk is a welcome sign of her old energy and initiative. She follows him back to the car, but she stops several times and needs to be called again. He calls her by her name in a dry, commanding voice, as his father used to.

 • • • 

T
hat afternoon he starts
house hunting. He visits three real estate agents and gets just one contact. The agents say there are no yearlong rentals in the town. One of them even seems angry about it. People here don't rent for the whole year, only for long weekends and the tourist season. We're trying to change this culture. Garopaba is going to grow a lot over the next few years. People are coming here to live. Property owners want to charge an arm and a leg in the summer and not think about the matter for the rest of the year. You won't find anything.

He gives up on the real estate agents and drives around the streets near the beach, looking for rental signs and marking the addresses on a map of the city. Contrary to what the agents say, many landlords are willing to discuss year-round rentals. One of the houses he sees is on Rua dos Pescadores, in the heart of the original fishing village, separated from the beach only by the fishermen's sheds. The varnished brick facade has two windows with cream shutters and practically juts out over the beaten-earth sidewalk and cobbled street, where barefoot children, dark from the sun and scantily clothed, are holding a penalty shootout with a torn, deflated ball. There is a faint smell of fish and sewage in the air. Over the murmuring of the waves, he can hear an old man guffawing, pool cues clacking, and women whispering on the side veranda of the house across the way.

The owner of the house, Ricardo, is a nervous Argentinean who seems to switch off at regular intervals as if he doesn't want to stop thinking about some urgent problem. He looks to be in his early forties and has watery eyes and gray stubble on his chin. They walk down the driveway to the back of the house, where the entrance is. An outdoor grill made of scorched bricks piled up on the ground looks as if it was built many summers ago. The patio is all cement and gravel. The floor and walls of the veranda are covered with horrible whitish tiles that remind him of cold and death. The house is neat and tidy on the inside but too dark, even with the windows open. The noises of the calm afternoon reverberate in the rooms and suggest the infernal symphony of busier days.

Ricardo doesn't interfere or explain anything, just accompanies him through the house. He seems impatient. As they leave, Ricardo asks in a lazy mix of Spanish and Portuguese why he is moving to Garopaba. He says he just wants to live near the beach, and the Argentinean replies that yes, of course, everyone wants to live near the beach, but why does
he
want to live near the beach? Naturally hard-wired not to trust Argentineans, like so many Brazilians from the south, he ignores the question. After locking the door, Ricardo asks if he surfs. He says he doesn't. He asks if he wants to learn to surf. He says he doesn't. He asks if he intends to open a business. It's not in his immediate plans. The Argentinean gives him a good once-over.

Then the problem is woman.

What?

People come to surf or to forget woman,
solo eso
.

I just want to live near the beach.

Sí, sí
. Of course.

How long have you lived here?

Almost
ten years.

And why did you come here?

To forget woman.

Did you?

No. You rent the house?

No. I think it's too dark.

Dark. True. Well, good luck.

 • • • 

H
e parks the car
in the Hotel Garopaba garage and pays the employees an extra thirty
reais
not to see the dog. He lies on the bed as it grows dark outside. His nap is interrupted twice by phone calls, which he tries to keep as short as possible because his cell phone is from Porto Alegre and the roaming charges are devouring his credit. His friends are calling to wish him happy birthday and to give their condolences after his father's death, unaware that he doesn't live in Porto Alegre anymore and that he left without telling many people, a detail that he himself omits because he knows he still doesn't have any answers or patience for the questions they might ask.

He wakes up hungry and feeling as if he has been inside for too long. He leaves the dog in the room with some dog food and water and heads out on foot to look for a restaurant. He takes the map with him to mark the locations of relevant places and people, a preventive measure against the pathological forgetfulness he has had since he was a child. He passes two bars offering steak and cheese sandwiches, then a buffet with hot meals and ice creams. A pizza parlor on the main avenue has a special all-you-can-eat price that night. The attractive round wooden tables are almost all taken, and three waitresses glide calmly past, serving the customers, who are colorfully lit by hanging oriental lanterns in the shapes of vases and stars. He picks a table for two in the outside area, near the sidewalk, the seat for which is a comfortable sofa with its back to the wall. The waitress who serves him is a tall brunette with skin peeling from too much sun, pouting lips, and shoulder-length curly hair. Knowing that her hair alone is probably enough to recognize her by, he nevertheless focuses on her oval face and slanting eyes. Sometimes he wonders if women in general are as beautiful to other men as they are to him, inwardly suspecting that his incapacity to remember any human face for more than a few minutes gives them extra appeal that others might think was just his eyes playing tricks on him. Because beauty is fleeting, he has learned to see it everywhere. This woman, however, must be beautiful to everyone. She is used to being looked at like this and returns his stare with a combination of politeness and tiredness, activating a perfunctory smile. With the rising inflections typical of small-town Santa Catarina, contaminated with sarcasm or incredulity, she asks if he wants the all-you-can-eat.