Blood-drenched Beard : A Novel (9781101635612) (28 page)

A woman goes past on the footpath and stops in front of them to chat. He realizes it's Cecina only when she starts saying that he's a good tenant, the best she's ever had in the off season, really easygoing, unlike his granddad, who lived here many years ago. He has never talked to Cecina about his grandfather, and the inappropriateness of her comment can only be some kind of veiled message, but it is a topic for another time. When Cecina leaves, his mother asks what she meant with that comment about his grandfather.

I haven't got a clue. She's not all there. She's always confusing me with other people who have stayed here before.

Close to midday, he goes inside and sets about seasoning and baking the fish. It is a while before he hears her voice again.

Come and look at this, son.

He goes outside and looks around but can't tell what his mother is referring to.

Over there. A booby fishing. It's a brown booby. Watch.

The bird is gliding between the fishing boats at a height of seventy to ninety feet. It starts its descent in a wide circle, then suddenly changes course, folds itself into an arrow, and pierces the water at a right angle. It bobs up seconds later without a fish in its beak and takes flight again, resigned.

If there's one thing I love, it's watching these birds that fish by diving. I used to come up to Florianópolis and Bombinhas a lot with my family when I was a teenager, and I'd spend hours watching the boobies. My dad knew everything about birds. They have pockets of air in their heads to absorb the impact when they dive. Did you know that? I like it when they stand still on the rocks with their gawky feet and white bellies. They're such show-offs. Dad once told me that someone had found a booby that had plunged into the water with so much force that it had gone beak-first into the mouth of a fish. They pulled the fish out of the water with the booby's head still in its mouth. They had both died at the same time because the booby's head had got stuck, and it had drowned. Can you imagine?

He looks at his mother, who keeps watching the booby like an awestruck child, and smiles to himself. He feels a lump in his throat.

A friend of mine would say that their lives were connected.

After lunch they go for ice cream at Gelomel. He suggests they visit another beach, but his mother says she is tired and isn't up for another long drive. They head up Antenas Hill in the car to enjoy the view of the town, beaches, dunes, and Siriú Lagoon. When it starts growing dark, they go home and make a simple dinner of coffee and sandwiches. His mother asks how he is doing for money.

I'm fine. The money from the car has kept me going, and I can live off my wages from the gym no problem. You don't have to worry about me.

Have you got anything you can lend me?

He can't understand why she would need money. She tells him she had plastic surgery.

Where, Mother?

I had a chin tuck. And got rid of the bags under my eyes. You don't want your mother to look like a toad, do you? I know you have no way of knowing the difference, but I look a lot better.

But where did your money go?

I don't know. Everything's really expensive. I lent Dante some money too, and he's going to pay me back, but I don't know when. He said he'll only have some money after he finishes his book. Because he has to stop working in order to finish. I've got four installments left to pay on the surgery.

Now I know how he got to Vietnam last year.

He's going to pay me back.

Doesn't Ronaldo have any money?

He has a bit. But I don't want to ask him. He didn't want me to have the surgery. I think he'd give it to me, but I only want to ask him as a last resort. But if you can't spare anything, don't worry. I'm just asking.

I've got almost nothing.

He promises to wire the little savings he has to her the next afternoon, and she promises to pay it back as soon as possible. They wake up early on the Monday morning so she can drive back down to Porto Alegre. It is starting to grow light, and the lamppost flickers over their heads. He closes the trunk, hugs his mother, and kisses her on the cheek. He tells her to take it easy on the highway. Before backing out of the driveway, she half-opens the window.

I don't mean to meddle, but I don't think the little black girl really likes you.

 • • • 

J
asmim doesn't answer the
phone
all morning but calls early in the afternoon when he is at work. She is sobbing, out of breath from crying so much.

I need you to come here now.

I can't leave before five. What's wrong?

A new wave of sobs makes it impossible for her to speak.

For Christ's sake, what happened?

Come as soon as you can, okay?

At five-thirty he speeds breathlessly down the driveway to her cabin, leans his bike against the fence, and notices that the front steps are gone only when he is about to knock. Not only have the steps disappeared, but they have given way to a deep, irregular hole surrounded by clods of damp soil ranging in color from beige to black. A pick and a spade are lying on the grass. He makes his way around the hole and knocks on the door. Jasmim shouts that it is open and tells him to come in. He places one foot on the threshold, grips the doorframe with both hands, and enters the cabin with a kind of rock-climbing maneuver.

She is prostrate on the ground in muddy jeans and a windbreaker. There is dirt on her hands, in her ponytail, and on the tip of her nose. Her eyes are dull, and the cheekbones that he sees as if for the first time are glazed with tears. She gives him a pained little smile when she sees him. He turns on the light, kneels, and hugs her, asking what has happened. She sighs with relief, but her kisses are no more than involuntary reflexes. She points at the kitchen counter and turns her face the opposite way as if something terrible that she'd rather not see is sitting there. He gets up and goes over to the counter. There are two objects. A silver candlestick, the length of a child's recorder, and a kind of iron goblet or chalice, with bronze or some other orange-colored metal on the inside. Both are still covered with dirt.

I'm positive the candlestick is made of silver, says Jasmim in a tired voice behind him.

This goblet here looks like it's bronze on the inside.

I think it's gold.

It can't be.

Jasmim lets out a deep sigh. He puts the objects back on the counter, crouches in front of her, and takes her rough, muddy hands in his. She tells him that she asked her neighbor to help her remove the front steps last night. The neighbor noticed that the block of steps was a little loose, worked on it for a while with a sledgehammer, then tied it to the back of his pickup with a rope and accelerated up the driveway to pull it off. Because the travel agency doesn't open on Mondays, she spent the whole day digging with the same tools her neighbor had lent her and already had weary arms, blisters on her hands, and an aching body when she hit something strange with the spade. The objects were wrapped in crumbling swaths of fabric, and she burst into tears as soon as she brought them inside.

That's incredible. It was right in the spot you'd dreamed about, wasn't it?

Yes,
she says, exasperated. Tears snake down her cheeks again like rain on a window. She removes her hands from his and rubs her face, smearing dirt across it like fresh warpaint.
Shit
. What the
fuck
have I done? What am I going to do now?

They must be worth a fortune. I doubt the goblet is made of gold, but if it is—

Fucking hell
, don't you get it? I had
another
dream on Saturday.

Now it dawns on him, and his only reaction is an exclamatory grunt.

After you and your mother left, I lay down to watch a TV series that I'd downloaded, and I fell asleep and woke up an hour later right in the middle of the dream. The same one as the other times. Two priests burying something in front of the door of my house, and a woman in white watching. And this time there was the old guy with his metal detector and some other bizarre stuff, but it was the same situation.

That's why you're like this? For heaven's sake, Jasmim. It's just a superstition. You dreamed about it again because you'd just told my mother about the legend and the dreams, and you got a fright when those guys came over here to dig around in your garden. Sometimes ideas get stuck in our heads, and then we dream about them. Don't take it to heart.

It was the
third
time, and there really
was
something there. I never thought that—

Get up. Let's get you showered. You're a mess.

I'm going to have to change the position of the door. I'm screwed.

He pulls her up into a standing position.

You've let it get to you. Let's think about what to do with your treasure now. I'm going to fill in the hole in front of your door. Everything's okay.

Will you sleep here tonight?

He needs to go home to make sure the dog has food and water, but he knows that this moment is decisive, and if he wavers even slightly in his answer, it will change everything.

Of course I will.

While she showers, he goes outside to fill in the hole. It takes him a while because the soil is everywhere and the darkness makes it hard to work. An unnatural silence sets in, and he hears branches breaking in the nearby woods. A vehicle passing on the road above reassures him. When the hole is full enough not to cause an accident, he calls it a night and goes inside. He locks the door and shutters, takes a shower, and makes a sandwich out of whatever he can find in the fridge. Thinking it is probably a good idea to remove the candlestick and goblet from sight, he gets a cardboard box down from the top of the fridge, takes out the blender, puts the objects inside it, and hides it under the sink among the cleaning products.

Jasmim is lying on her side under layers of blankets and quilts, knees pulled up to her chest, staring at the wall. She doesn't want to eat. He gets under the blankets with her and tries to soothe her, caressing her body and hair that is now dry and braided. She doesn't want to live in the cabin anymore. He says that she can stay with him for a while if she wants and asks if she's thought about staying on in Garopaba in the future. There's still some cheap land in Ambrósio, Pinguirito, Siriú. In two or three years everything's going to double in price, but if we start looking now, we can find some good land and start building slowly.

Are you inviting me to live with you?

Yes. If you want to.

And what would our house be like? Do you think we could find some land on a hill? I like living on a hill. It doesn't need to be very high up or anything.

They fantasize about the house for a while until her beautiful, monotonous voice grows rubbery and weak and then disappears completely. It is the first time she has fallen asleep next to him without the long preamble of kicking and muttering. He knows that she is mentally and physically exhausted but lets himself believe it is something else.

In the morning he sees her for the last time. He wakes up earlier than usual and shakes her lightly. He whispers in her ear that he needs to go home and asks her to call him as soon as she gets up. She grumbles and nods. He rides home. Beta has piddled on the bathroom floor. He gives her food and water, then takes her for a walk on the beach. He lets her go into the water by herself and keeps an eye on her. She is hardworking, and her swimming is incredibly efficient. She faces the backwash in the shallows bravely and allows the water to wash over her, shaking her head and blowing the water with her nose. After a few minutes she returns to the sand and comes trotting over with her limited movements, using her front paw for balance only when necessary. Since Jasmim hasn't called by eleven, he tries to call her, but she doesn't pick up. He comes to the conclusion that she must have left her cell phone on silent mode but keeps trying her every ten minutes until he starts getting a message saying that it is out of range or off. He realizes he is late for work. Throughout his entire afternoon shift at the pool, he tries to call her and even calls Bonobo to ask him to drive over to her place to see if everything is all right, but Bonobo is at the federal police in Florianópolis getting his passport renewed. At five o'clock he gets on his bike and pedals over to Ferrugem. The cabin is locked, and her motorbike is gone. He still can't get through on her cell phone.

He drops by the cabin over the next couple of days and sees no sign of her. The neighbors haven't seen her coming or going. On the third day, a new girl appears at the travel agency counter and says that no one there has the slightest idea what happened to Jasmim, but she didn't come to work on the Tuesday, nor did she leave a message, which is pretty strange because she hasn't collected last week's pay. On the fourth day, he goes to the police to file a missing person report. The police officers say they are going to look into the case informally and initiate a search if she hasn't reappeared within a week. He doesn't know her full name, but he gives them the name of her father, who is a state deputy in Porto Alegre, and says that she did some research at the Center for Psychological and Social Assistance and in municipal health clinics in the region. He also tells them that an old Ferrugem resident by the name of Joaquim was prowling around her cabin recently, but he decides not to mention the legends and treasure for the time being.

On the fifth day, he and Bonobo prise open the shutters on one of the cabin's windows. As far as he can tell with his problematic memory, the inside of the cabin is intact and things are in the same places as they were on the Monday morning when he left her sleeping there alone, the only difference being that the box containing the candlestick and the goblet is gone from the cupboard under the sink. On the sixth day, he stops by there again on his own and finds Joaquim and his grandson or great-grandson snooping around the back of the house. He asks if they know where she is.