Blood-drenched Beard : A Novel (9781101635612) (22 page)

It's true. That was one of the things that came up during my interrogations. You didn't know your granddad, did you? If there was one thing that was clear to me, it was that he was a troublemaker. There was an unsolved murder of a girl some months before he was killed. I think the community suspected your granddad, and they may have finished him off because of it. Whether it was him is another kettle of fish.

Zenão Bonato looks at him sternly.

Understand, son? Sorry, he was your granddad, and it can't be easy to hear these things. But that's what happened. I turned a blind eye and went home.

No, it's okay. I'm not even sure why I'm digging all this shit up.

He looks at his glass of whiskey and takes a big sip.

But it sucks not being sure about anything. Whether he was a murderer or just an inoffensive brawler. Whether he's in that cemetery or not.

It's normal to want to know. But no one will ever be able to tell you what really happened to him. Some people disappear from this life without saying how or where they're going. They leave a bunch of clues, but they're all false.

Do you think he might have still been alive?

Zenão's eyes spark.

He might have. He might still be. Imagine! But speculation won't get us anywhere.

Zenão gets up slowly, fills both of their glasses again, and walks away with a posture that betrays his age, his knees slightly flexed, his back a little hunched. He walks three paces and turns around.

You know how much those bottles of wine cost, don't you?

No. How much?

A hundred and fifty. I'm going to take a piss. Be right back.

He picks up the bottle and examines the label. The wine is called Coração.

So, sexy. Would you like to go somewhere a bit more private?

I can't. I've just spent all my money on wine.

But they take credit cards here.

I'm already going to have to put this on my credit card. And I need everything I've got left to pay the vet's bill, 'cause my dog was run over.

He throws back the rest of his glass of whiskey and chews on an ice cube. He is drunk. She isn't moved by the dog story. It doesn't even register with her.

What do you do?

Me? I'm a PE teacher. And a triathlete.

Hmm, an athlete.

Yep. I swim, ride, and run. Fuck, that sucks.

He laughs to himself.

Why do you say that? I think it's amazing.

No, that's not what sucks. It's nothing. Ignore me. I have to go.

I love strong men.

He starts to laugh again. He feels a bit desperate, a bit crazy.

How many tattoos do you have, Andreia?

Nine. This one here on my leg is a Chinese or Japanese ideogram that means “peace and health,” she says, unzipping one of her boots halfway. These here, she says, lifting up her top to reveal her pelvis, are roses.

What do the roses stand for?

Nothing. They're just flowers.

What about that one on your shoulder?

It's a Harley-Davidson on a highway. I love motorbikes. Have you ever done a road trip on a bike?

He examines the tattoo at close range but can't understand the drawing.

Where's the bike?

Here, look, she says, twisting her neck around, pointing and speaking as if she were dealing with a child, the motorbike on the highway. There's a curve in the highway. And there's a sign with a skull on it.

Aaah. Now I see it.

And there's this one.

She turns her back to him and lifts up her top again. Written across the small of her back in big letters is:
GOD IS DEAD
.

That's a strange tattoo.

Cool, isn't it? I love Nietzsche.

Who's Nietzsche again?

A philosopher. He had a huge mustache. A friend of mine posted the line on her Facebook page, and I liked it. I read one of his books.
Beyond Good and Evil
.

Never read it.

Wanna hit the bedroom, athlete?

How much is it?

A hundred and fifty.

You cost the same as the wine? That's not right.

She doesn't say anything.

You should cost more than the wine. That's not right.

Zenão Bonato comes back with a cigarillo between his teeth and holds out his hand to the albino girl. Let's have some fun, blondie. Ivory also gets up and a beam of light strikes her head. Her eyelashes are yellow, and where her hair is parted, he sees that her scalp is a pinkish color. Then Zenão holds out his other hand. He stands and shakes it.

I don't know if I've been much help.

You have. Thanks for your time.

Careful with the girl. Want a Viagra?

Not today.

Zenão chortles with laughter. His chortling is broken here and there by a swinelike snort, followed by a terrifying wheeze at the end. When he has recovered, Zenão leaves with the albino girl in tow and disappears through a door next to the bar where a woman writes something down, hands the girl a key, and lets them into a corridor lined with rooms.

He decides to leave too. He pats his wallet in his back pocket. Near the door Andreia wraps her arms around him and pouts. He falls into her blue eyes in a way that he knows is imprudent, but the moment of surrender brings him a sense of calm that only he knows how much he needs. She has an almost invisible down on her cheeks. The fine lines that start in the corners of her eyes like river deltas merely emphasize her youth.

I like you, girl.

I've got other tattoos in places that I can only show you without my clothes on.

I like your mole.

She covers her cheek with her fingers as if she is ashamed of it, and perhaps she really is. Then she kisses him. Then hugs him. The curve of her white neck gives off a sharp odor of white wine. A farmer of about fifty, wearing a straw hat, walks in. Then two well-dressed young men. They wave at everyone with familiarity. The place gets going late. Girls appear from the back of the dark nightclub and circle around them, two clinging to each man. Andreia asks where he lives and if she is going to see him again. He asks for her phone number, but she says she can't give it to him. He offers to give her his own phone number and tells her to call him if she wants to visit the coast. She goes to the bar to get a pen. The bouncer in the leather jacket runs a hand through his slicked-back gray hair and says, That's love. She comes back, writes down his phone number and address, folds the paper, and places it in the pocket of her shorts.

Is this your real phone number?

Yep. But you're not going to call me, are you, Andreia?
*

Yes I am, but I don't want you to leave now.

She hugs him again. The friendly giant in the suit is watching from the door and says, I've never seen her like that.

Do you think I'm pretty?

Yes.

I'm much better without clothes on. Why don't you want to come to bed with me? They take credit cards here. I know what I'm doing.

How much is it again?

A hundred and fifty.

Are you sure?

Maybe if I talk to them, they'll come down to a hundred and twenty.

You don't get it. A hundred and fifty is the price of that disgusting wine.

She thinks a little. Eyes staring straight into his.

Are you giving me a raise?

Tell me what you're worth.

Two hundred. And fifty.

That's your price?

Yep.

Let's go.

Can I take a bottle of champagne for us?

 • • • 

J
une ends dry and
cold
with dead penguins lying all over the sand. It takes days for the dozens of carcasses to be removed. No one touches them, not even the vultures. The plump black and white bodies refuse to decompose and look like plush toys forgotten on the beach. Some penguins appear on the rocks, tired and injured but alive, and are taken away by members of a local animal welfare group. The birds have the grumpy demeanor of passengers forced to vacate a bus that has broken down on a highway. From his window, he sees children throw buckets of water over a penguin that has decided to station itself on Baú Rock, thinking the showers help in some way. The penguin dries itself off by shaking its head and takes two or three steps sideways, resigned, as if hoping they'll leave it in peace in its new position. A young man stops at his window to ask if he has any antiseptic spray and shows him a bloody finger. He and some other volunteers with an environmental NGO were trying to restrain a penguin, and he got bitten. The penguin's wing looks broken, and they are going to treat it at a clinic in Campo D'Una. They don't know why dead penguins show up on this stretch of coast from time to time. It doesn't happen every year.

The first whales have been spotted down the coast, near Ibiraquera. People have seen males leaping out of the water a few miles offshore and the first pregnant females spouting near the beach, which has started attracting scientists, tourists, and curious locals.

He continues waking up early and sometimes puts on his wetsuit and goes for a swim. It takes him a little under half an hour to cross the entire bay, and when he is really up to it, he swims back. The running group is starting to dissolve. Only Denise showed up to the last two lessons. She is ready to enter ten-kilometer races, and if she keeps it up, she'll be able to do a half-marathon by the end of the year. Sara has stopped coming and answers his text messages saying she's been busy and will have to take a break from running. He is living on his paltry wages from the gym, but the rent is paid for the year, and his expenses are minimal. Beta's surgery and treatment have already cost him three thousand
reais,
and he will also have extra bills for her stay at the clinic and her medication.

On the first Saturday in July a game of water volleyball is held in the gym pool. It was an idea he had to bring together students who trained at different times, and everyone opted in. They are all there. He bought the net himself and installed it in the shallower part of the pool. The twins, Rayanne and Tayanne, asked for permission to bring a friend and are the first to arrive. Ivana comes and tells him she is not going to play but ends up being convinced to participate and discovers that she is a good setter. Then Jorge, the rheumatologist, and Tiago, with the enlarged breasts, arrive, followed by Jander and Rigotti, a triathlete who trains with him from time to time. He had asked Débora to call the students who had stopped coming to the pool, and some are there, including Amós, the Rastafarian, who is now married to a hippie woman several years older than himself who speaks slowly and coats each gesture and word with a somewhat disturbing tenderness and calm. The gym owner, Saucepan, also participates. Most of the students already know he can't remember their faces and identify themselves as they greet him. There are so many in attendance that they have to form three teams and play sets of ten points, in which the winning team remains and the losing team is replaced with the one on the sidelines. He isn't a good player himself, and they spend the morning teasing him about his disastrous attempts at bump passes in the water. Afterward his younger students decide to dunk him. He spends five minutes trying to get away from them. After the game there is going to be a barbecue at Jander and Greice's house. As he leaves the dressing room, Débora approaches him. She says the students love him. You know that, don't you? It makes him bashful, and he says she is exaggerating. At the barbecue Jander shows off the power of his sound system, applying several different equalizer settings to Rush and Pink Floyd CDs, and then puts on a DVD of Charlie Brown Jr.'s
MTV Unplugged
. Greice comments once again on how well Beta is doing. He visits her every day now, and the vet is more and more confident that she will regain her mobility. Jorge is there with his boyfriend, an American millionaire investor who lives on Silveira Hill and spends half the year in Garopaba and the other half in New York. Everyone has brought meat, and the raw steaks wait their turn to be barbecued, lined up on a wooden platter, which inspires looks of disgust and vegan preaching from Amós's wife. Only Tracksuit Man and Jander drink heavily, crumpling one can of beer after another. The women have brought red wine. He sticks to sodas himself as he doesn't like to drink in front of his younger students. At one point he comes out of the bathroom and finds the group gathered on the veranda in a strange silence. Ivana, the spokeswoman, says that everyone there is happy to have him as their swimming instructor and that they forgive him for never remembering their faces. She says he doesn't need to be ashamed of it because they can tell how much he cares about them, and they are all improving and enjoying swimming more and more. She says they all hope he has a happy life in Garopaba because the town welcomes him with open arms, and he is already a local. Then she says that they all pitched in and bought him a present. The twins appear carrying a paper bag from a sporting goods store. Inside is a Nike windbreaker, for running.

That night after the barbecue he goes to Bonobo's bed-and-breakfast. Sitting around the kitchen table are Altair, Diego from the gas station, and Jaspion, a large young man with long, straight hair, the son of a Korean father and Brazilian mother. Jaspion lives in Rosa and is a knife maker. He sells his knives, with minutely worked blades and handles of ivory, giraffe bones, and other highly regulated or prohibited materials, for thousands of dollars to collectors and white-arm enthusiasts all over the world. He lives comfortably with his wife and young daughter in a studio-home near the beach and sells only five or six knives a year. Bonobo's kitchen is hazy with smoke and stinks of Diego's Indonesian cigarettes and Bonobo's crappy cigar. Bonobo asks him how his trip to see the police chief in Pato Branco went. He fidgets a little in his chair to reposition the geriatric diaper, which is uncomfortable in the groin area, and narrates his misadventures in the state of Paraná.

Fuck, says Bonobo. God is dead? I couldn't fuck a chick with that tattooed over her butt.