Blood-drenched Beard

Would you like another one?

Her bottom lip is a little lighter in color than her top lip. The color of raw flesh.

No thanks. Do I have to bring anything?

Sunscreen. Camera. We provide water. But you need to pay up front.

Oh. I haven’t got any money on me.

She checks her watch.

I close in fifteen minutes. Look, let’s do this: come a little earlier tomorrow and bring the money. We won’t tell anyone else. Are you from here?

I’m from Porto Alegre, but I live here now. Right behind here, in one of the apartments overlooking Baú Rock. Next to the house with the deck.

Wow! A five-star view. What do you do?

I’m a sports instructor: triathlon, swimming, running. That sort of thing.

Cool.

A car pulls up in front of the travel agency. All four doors open at the same time, and an entire family starts piling out. A potbellied man, who must be the father, enters the agency, murmurs a greeting, and stands there waiting to be served. A woman, who must be the mother, stays outside dealing with the hyperactivity of three girls.

He thanks Jasmim, says good-bye, and goes home with his heart thumping. He tries to think about something else but can’t. Women with flowers for names and curly hair. Myths contain truths of some sort. Something vulnerable in those big eyes staring at the screen. Patterns of stories that persist throughout time. He can no longer remember her face, but he knows he’ll find her beautiful again tomorrow. He remembers her shoulders held back, the way her waist and hips fit together, her straight posture in the chair. He’s never seen anyone sit so beautifully before. He is in love with her posture. She is too highly educated to put up with him for any length of time. It would be better to not even start. He gets the hundred reais from the kitchen drawer regardless and heads back to the agency, but when he gets there, it is already closed.

• • •

Back in the days of the São Joaquim de Garopaba Whaling Station, right whales were towed here and cut up at the edge of the beach. The blubber was melted down in furnaces in Imbituba to extract the oil that was used in oil lamps and to give consistency to the mortar used in construction. The parish church, over there on the old square, was built with mortar made from whale oil mixed with sand and ground shells. Their bones were used to make corsets. They were butchered right there in front of Baú Rock, every one, and the entrails left floating in the water were devoured by sharks.

Your apartment overlooks a whale cemetery, says Jasmim.

He turns to look at the bay that is growing distant and imagines the calm waters crimson with blood and the sky black with a swirl of vultures and seagulls. The boat moves slowly so that Toni, the thin biologist who is their guide, can finish his initial explanation.

In the past, people hunted with iron harpoons. Sometimes a whale could drag a launch for hours until it grew tired, and then the whalers would move in for the kill. Then they started using dynamite with the harpoons.

A young man in sunglasses with a Rio accent laughs. Jesus, did they blow up the whales? Literally?

They didn’t explode them completely. The dynamite wounded them.

They used to harpoon the calves to attract the mothers, Jasmim whispers in his ear. But Toni never says this. You know, family-friendly tourism.

The slaughter took place once or twice a year during the whaling season. The animals come here seeking warmer water in the winter. We might think this water is cold, but for the whales, who live in polar waters, it’s warm. The mothers come to give birth to their calves, and these beaches are like maternity wards, where they can nurse and protect their young.

Toni pauses.

The butchering of a whale could last for several days, and a strong smell would settle over the town.

It stank, says the pilot of the boat, an elderly man with a nervous tic in his eye and a kind of kepi on his head. It wasn’t easy to live with.

Elias, our pilot, was a whale hunter, says Toni. He caught the last whale on this coast, didn’t you, Elias? In Imbituba, wasn’t it?

Yep. In ’seventy-three. I caught the biggest one too. Seventy-five feet.