Blood-drenched Beard

His brief career as a swimming instructor at Academia Swell comes to an end on an abnormally busy Saturday morning. A lot of locals are out, and about despite the fine rain and on his way home, he notices that many are carrying small blue or red flags and listening to handheld or car radios. A taxi driver explains that a live election debate is taking place on Rádio Garopaba between the two contenders for mayor: the Progressive Party’s candidate, who is up for reelection, and his opponent from the Workers’ Party. For weeks all the talk in town has been focused on promises of paved streets and new municipal health clinics, accusations of favoritism and corruption, videos and recordings on the Internet showing supposed cases of vote buying, and a rumor that the current mayor has a new swimming pool paid for with public funds, which hasn’t stopped hundreds of his supporters, most born and bred in Garopaba, from flocking to the square waving blue flags with a few colorful umbrellas among them. The Rádio Garopaba headquarters is in an office adjacent to the parish church, and the stairs are cordoned off with tape and watched by two guards. A car with a loudspeaker on top blasts out the debate for all to hear, and each good reply by a candidate is applauded and celebrated with cries of support and slogans. There are people of all ages, with respectable families and gangs of adolescents moving through the crowd like schools of fish, and tense Party members in dark glasses coordinating things. Wary children watch everything, leaning against cars or sitting on their parents’ shoulders, and elderly people look rejuvenated, dashing here and there, cheering with raised fists, reeling somewhat from the overload of stimuli. There is something threatening in the air. Workers’ Party activists circulate around the perimeter of the square with red flags and the exchange of threats, and cursing is frank and humorless. Politics has got the population worked up, and stories are making the rounds about everything from verbal arguments and fistfights to iron bars and fish knives. Ever since he got punched in the face by strangers, he has avoided getting too close to the locals, but today it seems that all aggressive impulses are being channeled toward the exaltation of one or another candidate and hatred for his opponent and his opponent’s voters. He remains at the edges of the tumult, neutral in his preference and at the same time interested in the growing intensity of the collective frenzy. A few cars inch their way through the alleyways around the square, honking endlessly. Over the loudspeakers the current mayor refutes his adversary’s allegation that he is planning to raise property tax rates and says that during the four years of his administration, rates have merely kept pace with inflation. The crowd celebrates his answer with flag waving, horn honking, and shouting. Girls parade around in heavy makeup with glistening lips, long, straight hair, platform shoes, and their best and tightest jeans. A fisherman in tattered clothes doesn’t tire of inciting others to shout, The people united will never be defeated! with little success. Many people are drunk, and beer cans are inadvertently kicked across the ground. The unexpected arrival of two cars carrying opposition party members creates a stir. Workers’ Party members wave red flags out the windows and try to forge a path through the busy street with their vehicles. The people in the square start chanting, Look who’s desperate! Look who’s desperate! The din is so great that the debate can no longer be heard. People begin plastering the cars with blue stickers. The driver of one car tries to tear a blue flag out of the hand of a voter, and a heated argument spreads in waves of shouting, running, pushing, and shoving. Parents usher their children away, but the fight is soon broken up, and the crowd parts to let the two cars drive away. They disappear around the first corner. The Workers’ Party candidate speaks poorly of the doctors in Garopaba, giving rhetorical ammunition to the current mayor, who wins the debate. The two opponents can soon be seen talking to the local press at the entrance to the church, at the top of the hill, and a few minutes later they start walking down the stairs. The Workers’ Party candidate leaves discreetly, while the current mayor savors each step and opens his arms like an emperor going to meet his people to the sound of his campaign jingle. He is a large man who looks like an American film star who is murdered in The Godfather

. As the mayor picks up a child, a new fight breaks out between opposing activists on the beach side of the square. He is a certain distance from the center of the commotion, but he is able to see men and women in a scuffle and a man getting knocked to the ground with a leg sweep and getting up again. The police move in quickly, and the fight is reduced to small groups backing off while swearing and making threats. In the meantime a rally led by the car with loudspeakers has begun to form. He buys a beer at the coffee shop on the corner of the square and tags behind the cars and pedestrians as they head for the town center. Soon dozens of cars and hundreds of motorbikes and bicycles form a long serpent that slithers through the narrow streets of the village to the main avenue, passing the health clinic. The intermittent rain slowly drenches the participants. The sounds of car horns, engines revving, and exhaust pipes backfiring mix with the repetitive election jingle in an infernal cacophony. The motorbikes lead the way down the main avenue, most with a driver and someone on the back waving a flag. In their wake comes a line of cars, pickups, and SUVs packed with people. A toothless man in the back of a pickup that is falling to pieces beats on the roof incessantly with a bicycle wheel. Some people ride on car hoods and trunks. The rally becomes an apocalyptic parade, and those who are not involved look on in shock from sidewalks and front gardens. Men whistle at rain-drenched women leaning out of cars displaying their cleavage, while older residents sip maté and smoke, watching everything with a slightly bored expression. Everyone seems about to crash their car, fall off their motorbike, or start a fight. He follows the rally for a while, but when the rain gets heavier, he decides to call it a day. He stops off for another two beers on his way home, and in one tavern he hears that someone tried to stab a rival voter and accidentally clipped a child’s arm. Another man brags that he sold his vote to both candidates on the same day and confesses that he still isn’t sure who to vote for. When the men at the next table find out that he is from Porto Alegre, they ask how the election is going there. He hiccups, says he hasn’t got the slightest idea, and gets up to pay. Then he returns to the table and quickly looks at each of their faces.