Blood-drenched Beard : A Novel (9781101635612) (15 page)

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.

 • • • 

T
he 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 place, 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.

 • • • 

T
hat same afternoon he
is explaining to the twins how to do a drill to extend their strokes when a woman appears at the entrance to the pool and runs toward him with a worried face and flailing arms.

Your dog's been run over.

He doesn't recognize her.

It can't be mine, he says. My dog's here.

I saw it! she shouts in exasperation. It was right in front of me, over on the avenue.

He strains to recognize her. She is a slender woman in her early forties, with veins like tree roots running down her arms to her hands.

It isn't possible. Beta's lying at the entrance to the gym, he says with impatience that sounds affected to his own ears. She always waits outside reception or with Mila in the snack bar.

He takes two steps toward the door but realizes he doesn't know where he is going, so he stops and hesitates. The twins take in the scene wide-eyed. They look more identical than ever. He is sweating in the warm air, pungent with the smell of chlorine. The woman grabs his arm.

Come on, let's go. The man who hit her took her to Greice's. That's where you should go.

Do I know you?

Before he has even finished saying it, he knows it was a mistake. He hasn't rushed in with a question like this in a long time.

What? Are you nuts?

He stares hard at the woman's face, glances at her sandals, her green and gold sarong with Indian patterns, the blouse without any distinguishing characteristic, earrings, hair, teeth. Nothing.

She places her hand on his face and gives him a maternal look. As if he were a sick child.

Stay calm. I'll come with you, come on.

He follows her, breathing quickly. His vision has tunneled, and outside of it everything is blurry and no longer of interest.

It's me, Celma, your student, she says, glancing at him.

I know, sorry. I'm a bit confused.

So this is what Celma's face looks like. They ran together earlier that morning. She told him much of her life story. He apologizes again. She shakes her head as if to say she doesn't mind.

As he leaves the pool building, he can't help but look in the places where Beta normally spends her time. Débora says she hasn't seen her. Celma loses her patience.

I'm telling you, your dog's over at Greice's! Get down there before she dies! Do you want me to take you there? If not, I'm going home.

Who's Greice?

The vet over in Palhocinha. The guy said he was going to leave her there.

They pass through the front gate of the gym. Celma climbs onto her bicycle and turns to fiddle with something in the wicker basket lashed to the bike rack with bungee cords.

How is she?

Celma presses her lips together and sighs.

He ran right over her. He got her good.

But is she alive?

I don't know. She was in a bad way. But he stopped the car and asked where there was a vet. Lúcia from the coffee shop told him to take her to Greice and explained where it is. He went to pick her up, and she tried to bite him. Someone gave him a hand, and they managed to get her in the car, and the guy sped off.

It's the clinic over by the highway, isn't it? The one with the greenish sign.

That's the one. Near the fire station. Want to take my bike?

But before she can finish, he thanks her and sprints away. He runs three blocks to the main avenue, where he turns left and almost collides with a cyclist riding down the bike lane with a surfboard under his arm. He runs in his T-shirt, Speedos, and flip-flops. When the strap of one of the flip-flops breaks, he slows down, kicks them off his feet in a kind of clumsy dance step, and keeps running. The soles of his feet pound the cracked tarmac and hard sand at the shoulder of the road. He passes a shop selling Indian decorations and one of the many pizza parlors that closed right after Carnival. In the swamp on the right side of the road, which extends for several miles to the hills, a column of gray smoke is rising from a fire. He hears the crackling of burning bamboo and sees pink tongues of fire in his peripheral vision. There is no time to look now. His breathing is becoming more labored. The vegetation along the side of the road stinks of carrion. He stares straight ahead as he runs with long strides, his feet stinging from the friction, and wonders why he is running to the vet's, why he didn't take Celma's bike, why he didn't ask for a lift, or better, why he didn't take his own bicycle, which was where he always left it back at the gym. Idiot. He approaches the turnoff to Ferrugem Beach. At the back of his throat, he detects the zincky taste of being out of breath. He runs until he sees the green sign saying P
ET
V
IDA
.

The young man in reception is startled when he bursts in, or was already startled.

Did someone bring in a dog that's been run over?

The man doesn't say anything and just looks at him. It is a common reaction in these parts. People sometimes look surprised that they have been spoken to, as if addressing someone in words were the most peculiar thing.

My dog was run over, and someone told me she was here.

The man jolts out of his stupor and says yes, the dog is here. He says he's going to talk to the vet and tells him to wait there. He returns and says that she's in the consulting room and will be out to see him in a minute.

Can I go in to talk to her?

No. She'll be right out.

The man still looks nervous, as if he were being tested.

Is the man who brought her in still here?

He's gone. He waited awhile, then left.