Blood-drenched Beard

She’s with a calf, everyone. Don’t make any noise, and tread carefully on the bottom of the boat. Let’s see if she’ll come over.

When they are about a hundred yards from the whale, Elias turns off the motor. The black hump breaks the surface and disappears again at regular intervals. Mother and baby exhale almost in unison. The calf’s blow is weak in comparison and sounds an octave higher than its mother’s. It is a distinctly mammalian sound, not to mention somewhat human. Like the sound of a person sighing heavily amplified a thousand times. He feels an immediate connection to the whales and suspects that everyone on board is feeling the same. Only a few whispers dare break the silence. The women can’t suppress maternal coos, and the children’s euphoria gives way to stupor. No illustrated book has prepared them for this. After a more impetuous dive that ends with a wave of her tail, the whale reemerges in front of the boat and swims over slowly, its curved back appearing and disappearing.

Stay calm, says Toni. She’ll swim under the boat. It’s normal for them to brush the bottom slightly. The callosities or warts on their backs are a characteristic of the species. The calves are about sixteen feet long and weigh four to five tons when they are born.

What a beautiful animal, he says.

Amazing, aren’t they? says Jasmim. You really feel something when they come close.

Damn, I left my harpoon and dynamite at home, says the guy from Rio.

The whale exhales some five or six feet from the boat, and the tourists gasp in awe. Many of them are watching the scene through electronic visors. The mother’s skin is black, smooth and shiny like vinyl, and her calf’s is wrinkled and gray. They look like they are about to crash into the boat, but they dive under at the last minute and pass underneath it. The boat rises up a little, and some of the occupants are frightened. The girl who was feeling queasy is lying on the bottom again, staring at the sky with an expression of surrender. Some people step over her in a collective maneuver to get to the other side to follow the whale’s trajectory. The surface becomes smooth again. Mother and calf reappear and swim away.

This here was a bloodbath for a century and a half, and yet they still come back and greet people, says Jasmim. With no instinct for self-preservation, without history, without bitterness. I think it’s amazing the way they come so close to the beach to have their young. Last year there were some practically in the surf there in Garopaba, right up in the shallow water. The babies have to learn to breathe outside the water. It’s totally crazy, but that isn’t a fish, it’s a mammal. When they come up close and blow like that, I can feel their lungs, and it gives me goose bumps. They’re terrestrial animals that returned to the sea. Have you ever seen a whale skeleton? They’ve got bones like paws in their flippers. Hands and fingers. Sometimes I wonder if this habit of migrating here to be near the beach has to do with a certain nostalgia for the past. Their terrestrial ancestry. Imagine a whale right there in the shallow water, almost on the beach. I wonder what it feels. Maybe it sees the frontier of another world, remote and deadly, as threatening as the ocean is to us. Or maybe it’s like coming home. Like returning to the womb. Something enticing. Maybe that’s why they get beached for no apparent reason. Because the sea is limitless. That’s the terror of the ocean. It is the opposite of the womb. I think the whales experience this terror.

• • •

I know who she is, says Bonobo. A black girl with a voice like a singer. She was at a luau over on Ferrugem Beach a month ago. I thought she was a bit aloof. I don’t think she took a liking to me. She came and left on her own. By motorbike. I’ve seen her around three times at the most. I don’t think she mixes much. But she’s a beauty. Funny you should ask about her because it struck me that you two might hit it off. She made me think about you.

She made me think about me too.

I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear that.

Sorry.

You in love, swimmer?

Maybe.

Poor guy. I’ll be here when you need me.

His cell phone beeps to announce an incoming call. He says good-bye to Bonobo and answers. It’s his mother. She wants to know if she can come and visit him in three weeks’ time, on the weekend. Of course you can. You can have my room, and I’ll sleep in the living room. It’s been quite cold, but it hasn’t rained much. She says she’s planning to drive up. Great. We can visit some of the other beaches around here.