Blood-drenched Beard

They arrive at the Pico do Surf along a potholed sandy road flanked by ditches. He tries to remember the route he has just taken and can’t. It takes him a while to park his Fiesta without falling into the crater between the road and a vacant lot. There is a palisade around the nightclub, which throbs with bass notes and emits blasts of strobe lights. Some people are drinking beer outside, leaning against the cars. There is a short queue at the entrance. The girls are all wearing high heels, short skirts, and tops falling off their shoulders and alternate between nervous glances and fits of laughter. The guys are wearing Bermuda shorts, and some are in flip-flops. They all look like surfers and surfers’ girlfriends. Dália says she’s going to get them both in for free, but in the end the doorman only lets her in, and he has to pay the entry fee of twenty reais

. They climb a staircase carved into the sloping terrain and cross a garden with large wooden tables and a pool table. The dance floor is dark, and the music very loud. The hypnotic and rather disturbing hip-hop music has an immediate depressing effect on him. They go to buy some beers at the bar in the corner, and Dália disappears as soon as he turns his back to her. He loses sight of her for long enough to forget her face and identifies her only much later by her necklace, as she dances in a circle of people. She hugs him when he approaches and introduces him to her friends, but then she moves away again, dancing with a can of energy drink in her hand. He tries to dance but can’t get into the mood. He hovers nearby, stationary. A guy with short peroxide-blond hair soon appears and talks insistently in her ear. Dália looks uncomfortable but stays there listening and answering back for a time that seems never-ending. He thinks about the car poorly parked beside a ditch with his belongings in view on the backseat. He forgot to take out the radio. Someone’s going to break the window and steal my radio, he thinks. He buys another beer. He feels as if he’s been listening to the same song since he arrived. Dália’s pulled-back hair reappears in front of him, and she complains about the guy she was talking to. Her warm breath, mint-scented from her sugarless chewing gum, has a calming effect. Jesus, that guy’s totally clueless, she says. Stay here with me, and he won’t bother you, he says. She wraps her long, agitated arms around him, dancing, and asks if he wants an E, because she’s just had one. A friend is selling them for thirty

reais

a pop. Her sweat is visible on her collarbone and trapezius muscle. He touches her neck with his nose and inhales the sour smell of her skin mixed with her sweet perfume. She says, I’ll be right back, and disappears again. He considers taking some ecstasy too, something he hasn’t done since his college years, and letting it dictate whatever happens for the rest of the night, partly because he still believes that she is his for tonight, and partly because he feels too lazy to take the initiative. When he runs into her again a little later, she is listening to the guy with peroxide-blond hair again. The darkness swallows not only people’s faces but also their bodies, gestures, clothes, and accessories, almost completely eliminating any possibility of recognition. A short, blond photographer is circulating through the party, taking photos. Groups of friends pose with their arms around one another and smile as they poke out their tongues and make a V sign with their fingers. The photographer comes over and sets off two flashes in his face. He thinks again about his car, the dog at the hotel, the house he hopes to find and rent tomorrow. He goes over to Dália, excuses himself to the guy with peroxide-blond hair, and says he is leaving. They are close to a speaker and have to shout to be heard. You can’t leave now, she says, placing her hand on his chest. I’m going! he shouts. I don’t like it here, and I’m going house hunting first thing in the morning. But I need a lift back, she says, a little irritated. Then it’s now. What the fuck, man! she protests. Fine, go then. I’ll figure something out later. You’re so boring. Without thinking he plunges his fingers into her hair, at the nape of her neck, forcefully working them into her taut hair, feeling the roughness of her roots and the resistance of her scalp. He holds her head by her hair in front of his. She stares at him with bulging eyes, not understanding what he is doing, and he doesn’t know what he is doing either, but it feels good and she seems to like it too, in spite of everything. It might be the ecstasy. He kisses her on the face and lets her go. She sort of smiles. The guy with the peroxide-blond hair shoves him away, and he takes advantage of the momentum to move toward the exit with decisive footsteps, laughing to himself.