Blood-drenched Beard

The nurse handing him

a glass of water is wearing a name tag that says “Natália” and her uniform reminds him of a scene from a porno movie he watched over and over on the Internet a few years back until he got sick of it. All that is missing is the hat with the red cross on it. She has blond hair, a big nose, and eyes the color of a swimming pool. With an accent from western Santa Catarina, she asks if he knows what his name is and where he is. He thinks about it. He doesn’t know. He is in the São José Regional Hospital, Natália tells him, and he was brought in by a woman called Dália, who said she was his friend and left a few hours after checking him in. The same woman phoned in that morning to give the hospital his full name and ID number. He thinks about that too. He doesn’t remember a thing, much less having spoken to Dália recently. Natália and Dália, he stammers. Dália, Natália. The nurse grins and squints at him as if assessing how lucid he is. He turns his head with difficulty on the soft pillow and sees hospital-green curtains around him, his own body wrapped in a pink blanket like the ones that used to cover the cozy sofas and armchairs in his grandmother’s living room, and pieces of the metal frames of the other beds in the room. The dog? he asks. What have they done with my dog? Natália remembers that the woman said to tell him that the dog was fine and not to worry. She’s at her mother’s place or something like that. Another nurse, very thin, with a name tag that says “Maila,” appears, and she and Natália celebrate his waking as if they have all known one another for a long time. He asks how long he has been there, and Maila smiles and says it’s been almost twenty-four hours. Natália goes off to check on another patient, and Maila goes to look for the doctor. He feels stitches and bandages on his face when he wrinkles it. His jaw and neck feel cool, a sign that his beard has been shaved off. There is a needle in the back of his right hand, hooking him up to a saline drip or something of the sort. A woman in an adjacent bed has an intermittent hacking cough. The doctor, whose shaved head makes him look like an undergraduate student, says he was transferred by ambulance from the health clinic in Garopaba the night before with hypothermia, hypoglycemia, dehydration, and bacterial pneumonia, which is being treated with intravenous antibiotics. He has a fractured nose and rib, and cuts and abrasions on his face. The doctor asks if he has had a drowning incident or inhaled a lot of water in the last few days, and he replies that yes, he took in a lot of seawater, a great amount, about four days ago. He can see that the doctor is thinking about something else much more serious. He discusses something with Maila in a low voice and hurries down the corridor.

Dália shows up the next day with Pablito. She brings the key to his apartment, his cell phone and battery charger, a slightly musty change of clothes, two books of crossword puzzles, the most recent issues of Playboy

and O2 magazines, and a Tupperware pot containing slices of chocolate cake. She says she came with him in the ambulance and left only when the doctor assured her that everything was going to be fine. He wouldn’t wake up for anything, and she didn’t know what was going on and thought he was going to die. She had never felt anyone so hot with fever. Beta is in her backyard, being looked after by her mother, who said to tell him that she had already seen it all in dreams and tried to warn him, but he hadn’t wanted to listen. She stopped by his apartment that morning and found the door locked but went to find Cecina, explained the situation, and got a spare key so she could go and get his ID and some clean clothes. Cecina, who had found the door open and apartment empty, asked if he had a drug problem. Later in the afternoon, Dália picked up Pablo from school and came to São José by bus to visit him. Pablito offers to let him play his Nintendo DS a little. Can I hang on to it until I’m released? I’ll give it back in a few days. Pablito hugs his video game and shakes his head, and he says he is only joking. He asks Dália about her contractor boyfriend from Florianópolis, and she says they’re getting married in March. She is going to move to Florianópolis with her mother at the beginning of December. When the invitations are ready, I’ll send you one. Great, he says. I’ve always dreamed of standing up in the middle of a wedding and saying I object to this marriage. She holds his hand, and he squeezes hers back. Thank you, Dália. I don’t deserve any of this. Yes you do, she says.