Blood-drenched Beard

The third-to-last attraction of the evening, before the pagode music band and the much-awaited sentimental pop duo Claus & Vanessa, is the folk singer Índio Mascarenhas. The man who climbs onto the stage must be in his early sixties. He is wearing black bombacha pants, brown boots, a red handkerchief, and a gaucho hat. Even from afar his indigenous features and solid jaw are striking. A diagonal beam of light exposes his deep wrinkles, like scars. There is an abundance of cartilage in his broad, pockmarked nose and ears. His skin is the color of wood and looks like it is wood. There is no band, just the man and his guitar. Instead of singing, he launches into an interminable speech about his journey as an artist.

I play a different kind of music, from my part of the country, Uruguaiana. ’Round here, you folk listen to music with more of a dancy feel to it. Forgive me, but I’m more of a savage. My hat is different from yours — the brim is broader. Across the road from my house is a church, with a bar on one side and a whorehouse on the other, and I feel happy in all three places.

The audience in the square isn’t very enthusiastic about Índio Mascarenhas and starts to disperse. Some teenagers start to curse him. But he is drawn to the figure of the singer and moves closer to the stage. The sob story goes on for several minutes and is self-centered and narcissistic, but it is also sincere and filled with a touching naïveté. The man claims to be tough but seems fragile and exposed. There is an ancestral purity about him. His repetitive speech doesn’t come to any kind of conclusion, but he is suddenly satisfied and starts to play. His amped-up guitar is out of tune, and the volume is much higher than it should be, which distorts the sound and makes the amplifiers crackle. Índio Mascarenhas never plucks his instrument. He just strums the strings with a quick, percussive beat that never stops while the fingers of his left hand get tangled in chords that barely sustain the melody. His voice is deep and beautiful but nothing extraordinary. It is his attitude and way of playing that are hypnotic. His father used to have a lot of old records of folk music, and he grew up listening to gaucho classics, but this rustic, somewhat improvised sound is different.

After finishing his first song, as he receives a mixture of applause and booing from the remaining audience, Mascarenhas looks into the crowd and suddenly gives a start, a look of surprise on his face. The singer squints at him, then opens his eyes wide and raises his eyebrows as if he has just seen a ghost.

After the show, he sees Mascarenhas leaning on the counter of a drink stand and walks over. At close range the singer reeks of sour sweat, and it makes him feel dizzy. The singer is drinking cachaça out of a plastic cup. His wide-brimmed hat is on the counter, and his thick hair, a mixture of black and white, is greasy and stuck to his scalp. By his side is a girl of about thirteen with black hair tied up in a ponytail, big, inquisitive eyes, and indigenous features. He is talking to a short man who is also wearing bombachas and a brown leather jacket over a long-sleeved shirt. When he sees him approaching, Mascarenhas looks him up and down and goes back to talking to the short man in an attempt to pretend he didn’t recognize him earlier. Nevertheless he stops in front of the singer and greets him. Mascarenhas’s reply is accompanied by a gust of bad breath that could knock a man down, and his olfactory aggression brings back a detail of his last conversation with his father. The intervening decades apparently haven’t diminished the problem at all. To make things worse, Mascarenhas is smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and chewing on handfuls of peanuts from a bowl on the counter.

I really liked your show, he says, holding out his hand.

The singer receives the compliment with his massive, rock-hard hand and smiles.

Thanks, kid.

Without further ado, in his warm voice made hoarse by an incessant regime of boiling-hot maté and hand-rolled cigarettes, Mascarenhas goes straight to the point.

Kid, you look just like a guy I met here in Garopaba many years ago.

Índio’s been coming to play here since the sixties, says the short man. This guy here’s got stories to tell!

Man, did you give me a fright, Mascarenhas goes on. I thought you were a ghost.

Did you think I was Gaudério?

Mascarenhas frowns and turns his head to one side theatrically. Whoa, he says, and then is unable to say anything else and eats another handful of peanuts.

I’m his grandson. My dad told me about when you met. You guys had a run-in, didn’t you?

We did. A run-in, yep, we did. Well, I’ll be. It’s been a long time. This fair was no more than two stalls and a low stage in the church hall.

The girl tugs on Mascarenhas’s sleeve.

What’s up, my princess? Hey, this is my daughter. Noeli. She’s a bit skittish. She’s traveling with her dad, ain’t ya? What do you want, my little swamp rose?