Blood-drenched Beard

Some winter days are

like summer days, and this Monday in early September is one. Clotheslines sag and mattresses sunbathe on lawns and verandas. Those who can, enjoy the sunshine on the beach. Leaders of the two political parties running for election in the town set out early on their rounds to buy votes by giving away bags of cement and paying off motorbike loans. Poor children receive free surfing lessons and eat oranges for breakfast by the beach. He pulls on his wetsuit, lets the dog out, and walks across the rock to the ocean. With his first few strokes, the freezing water works its way through the neck opening and zipper and down his back and belly, but in seconds it is warmed by the heat of his own body, and the suit becomes protective and cozy. When he turns his head to the side to breathe, he can see Beta limping across the sand, accompanying his forward movement through the fishing boats. He doesn’t know how she does it, but she does. On the main avenue a mentally disabled man holding the Olympic Week torch runs slowly beside a guide, followed by an Association for the Handicapped microbus occupied by other disabled people taking part in the relay and two police cars with flashing lights. They are headed for the town of Paulo Lopes, where the torch will be passed along. In Rosa, Bonobo receives a phone call from a friend in a fix whose first thought was to talk to him and if possible see him, if that’s okay. In her house in Ferraz, a local woman is talking on Skype with her thirteen-year-old son who lives with his dad in Spain and comes to visit only during the summer. A gardener stumbles across the body of a dog that died of cold two nights ago in the flower bed of a summer house on Rua dos Flamboyants. In an isolated community in the hills of Encantada that lives according to the Mayan calendar, a toothache brings a young woman to tears, and she can’t stop thinking about what her life will be like if the world doesn’t end in December 2012 as predicted. He swims out deep and feels the waves growing larger and the surface growing rougher as he approaches the middle of the bay. The wetsuit attenuates his fear of the ocean, but it is still there and looms up as soon as he starts thinking about it. He has the feeling that the ocean

wants

something from him, but he can’t imagine what that thing might be. Perhaps a piece of information that he has forgotten or doesn’t even know he has. The ocean interrogates him and seems on the verge of losing its patience, but he usually gets out in time to avoid an attack of fury. In the health clinic, the doctor on duty is sewing up the face of a handsome surfer who hurt himself with his surfboard on the rocks in Ferrugem, using plastic surgery stitches to try to preserve his appearance as much as possible, while his girlfriend records the procedure with the camera on her cell phone. A group of young women working in lottery houses, pharmacies, and clothing shops exchange text messages to arrange the details of a secret party with champagne and vibrators that night. A coral snake slithers over the foot of a small-time drug dealer smoking marijuana on Siriú Hill without him noticing. A pyromaniac’s car is seized because he was driving without a license, and he decides to set fire to the entire town. In the municipal school, a teenage boy wants to talk to the girl he lost his virginity to the night before after the Campinense Club ball but isn’t sure of her name. The owner of a coffee shop on the outskirts of town tallies up the weekend’s takings and calls his wife to let her know that the new all-you-can-eat pizza service at night has brought them profits in the winter for the first time in three years. In some offices in a small arcade on the main avenue, a designer tweaks the vectors on the logo of a surf boutique, a lawyer holds an almost-full packet of cigarettes under the bathroom tap until it is drenched and then throws it into the bin, and a Pilates instructor hangs a student upside down on a wall using hooks and belts. He has been swimming without looking ahead for several minutes when he senses something strange. He raises his head and sees what appears to be a rock but then reveals itself to be the warty black mass of a right whale some thirty to forty yards away. His first reaction is to swim away in panic, but he calms down as he observes the unmoving animal. It must be one of the last whales of the season and is incredibly close to the beach, perhaps eighty yards. He sees Beta as a bluish blob with legs in the sand. A handful of humans are admiring the cetacean from the beach. The whale blows, and a shiver runs down his spine. Then there is another jet, smaller and higher-pitched, and he realizes that there is a calf near the mother, out of sight, on the other side of her. The whale doesn’t seem bothered, and he can’t tell if she is watching him. Her enormity is intimidating, but she gives off a sense of calm and camaraderie. Her back appears and disappears in the waves, reflecting the blue of the sky, and she flaps her flippers out of the water. It occurs to him that the whale is nursing and the calf is probably a newborn. As he emerges from the water, Beta throws herself into the shallow waves to meet him. He plays with her in the sand a little, and suddenly everyone around them gasps in admiration. The whale starts beating her tail in the water. A young woman standing nearby says with a smile that the whale is happy because of her baby. Each beat of her tail makes a big splash and produces a pleasant boom. The whale starts to swim away, and he heads home too, walking slowly with Beta limping behind him. She is already able to walk long distances but still has difficulty running. Over in the direction of the town, he sees a column of gray smoke and then another. It is too much smoke to be garbage burning in empty lots. A man is surfing the point break in the south corner of Silveira Beach alone. The sea is calm, and the waves are low. There is no one else on the beach, and a feeling of solitude suddenly grips the surfer with a mixture of ecstasy and terror. It is a winter day that feels summery. Sitting on his surfboard, he wiggles his toes in the cold water and imagines that there is no world on the other side of the hills. A gull appears out of nowhere and starts flying in circles over his head. It is all white, and he wonders if maybe it isn’t a gull after all. He can’t tell. The circles get smaller and smaller, and the surfer is suddenly certain that he is receiving a warning to get out of the water immediately. He has been detecting a series of subtle variations in the sea, invisible phenomena that are hard to describe. The rocky bottom starts to bubble. He paddles with all his strength toward the water’s edge, electrified with fear, aiming at a fixed point in the sand. As the surfer runs through the shallows with water up to his knees, he finally looks back and sees gigantic waves breaking over the rocky seabed, the waves that he believes would have drowned him.