Blood-drenched Beard

A natural staircase, with steps molded by roots, appears, and after another abrupt curve around a rock, he comes face to face with a large rectangular aquarium at the side of the trail. He approaches it and points the flashlight. Inside the glass box are several stone, clay, and ceramic chips arranged as if they were in a museum display case. The curved lines of many of the fragments suggest that they are pieces of statues, vases, or old plates. Some have inscriptions in unknown characters or patterns of triangles and diamonds. In one corner of the aquarium are half a dozen arrow tips similar to the ones he found in his first few days of walking. The lid of the aquarium is well sealed, and the very white sand at the bottom preserves a dryness that seems extinct in the world.

A little farther along, the trail is suddenly interrupted by a large boulder. Looking closer, he sees that there is a low passage under the boulder, low enough to force a man to stoop. Around this opening is a small bamboo portal. He stands there listening for a time, but all he hears is rain. He turns off the flashlight. A very tenuous, almost undetectable light leaks through the opening. He stoops and enters.

He stands up inside a kind of rocky antechamber weakly lit by the same light he could see from the trail. On his right is a natural opening invaded by the branches of a tree and partially covered with a wavy sheet of asbestos. A narrow vertical opening leads to another section of the cave. He turns on the flashlight and shines it around a little. At the back is a large turtle shell.

The dog finally decides to enter and, after adjusting to her new surroundings for a few moments, starts to growl. He shines the flashlight on the opening, turns, and passes through it with two sideways steps.

The old man is facing him, watching, sitting on what appears to be an old rocking chair covered with sheepskins, his arms lying on the armrests. The light of a gas lantern hanging on a rock wall immediately reveals the size of the cave but hides its details in the shadows. The old man’s gray beard hangs halfway down his chest. He still has a few strands of white hair on the sides of his head. He has a broad face, narrow nose, and deep-set eyes. He is a tall man who has shrunk. His faded and tattered pants, vest, and wool jacket must have been elegant when new. The intensity of his cadaverlike figure is reinforced by the presence of a young mulatto woman, who can’t be any more than twenty years old, sitting on a stool close to him, slightly behind the rocking chair. She is wearing a kind of knitted robe in a sandy tone and a diamond tiara that can only be a plastic imitation of the real thing. One of her arms is resting lightly on the old man’s shoulder. The two of them stare at the intruder with the same stony gleam in their eyes.

Good evening, he says, pushing back his hood.

The old man turns his head a little like a curious dog and wrinkles his forehead. His bushy eyebrows are gray like his beard, and his skin looks like a leather bag with centuries of use.

The woman’s eyes widen suddenly, and she looks frightened. She whispers something in the old man’s ear, and he raises his right hand to the height of her face, requesting silence. Then he whispers something in her ear. She gets up, takes a few steps to a dark recess toward the back of the cave, and speaks to someone.

The roof of the cave is an enormous slab of slanting rock that is some ten feet at its highest point and almost touches the ground at its lowest. The cave is dry and warm, and there is a blue tarpaulin sealing an upper corner. Near him, an upright log serves as a table for a perfect sphere of granite about the size of a soccer ball. A flash of lightning reveals two openings, one on his right that leads into the forest, and another behind him, which he figures is the direction of the valley and ocean, but the two or three flares of light that are gone in an instant are not enough for him to identify the third person that the woman just spoke to. The cave dwelling has a clean, mineral smell. He can’t detect the smell of people living there. A puddle of water is forming at his feet.

I’m sorry, I’m getting everything wet.

The old man leans forward slightly and summons him closer with his index finger. The rocking chair creaks. He can hear Beta growling in the antechamber. She must be afraid to squeeze through the opening.