On my last night David stops at the beach of Olinda next to the largest wooden shack. Here there are Volkswagens and Chryslers, here there are Chevrolets and Hondas. We get out, behind us a taxi is honking. Olinda, says Felix, from the Portuguese ó linda, “how beautiful!” On the horizon two tankers in full regalia, shining cranes and cabins, floodlights on the monastery on the hill too, over all this planes in descent. The sun has already disappeared, my time in Brazil has expired, tomorrow I’m flying back. I’ve finished reading Wordsworth’s Selected Poems. I’m using the return ticket for Varig Airlines as a bookmark and stick the book in my bag, Recife-São Paulo-Frankfurt. The others are heading back to Seraverde, Tuuli will stay for a while in the Fundação. She takes my hand. Your last night, she says, so let’s go! So let’s go? I think, and before my eyes I see Tuuli and Felix sitting on the water tower, her head on his chest. They’re smoking without me. So let’s go, says Felix, so let’s go, says Lua.
OI, COMPADRE, David says to the guard at the door. The two of them know each other. He makes sure the police aren’t coming, Felix explains to us, cockfighting is prohibited. Lua has to go back on the chain, but we’re allowed in. No photos! I with my three thousand two hundred sixty-four hours of Brazil in my bones have never seen anything like this: the guests are sitting at small tables around a dance floor made of clay. We get a table in the second row. A waist-high barrier made of light blue wood stands between us and the dance floor. Old men in shirts, young men in suits, occasionally a woman with dyed blonde hair and high-laced breasts holding a bottle of Guaraná. Men and boys lean on the bar in shirts and pants of the same color, red, yellow, green, blue, black, white. At the bar there’s no drinking, at the bar the teams talk shop, says David, the cock breeders and handlers. Under strings of lights people play poker and dice and pass money back and forth. An old man is playing the berimbau, another is smoking the stub of a joint until it’s completely gone, black with oil, the lighter close to his calloused lips. To celebrate the occasion we have grilled red mullet with lemon and black beans, to celebrate the occasion David pours one beer bottle after another into Lua’s bowl. Lua is lying under the table and drinking. Tuuli asserts that I look tired. Tired or awake, Felix laughs, this is your last night, my Svensson! Now let’s have a beer! Tuuli is sitting between Felix and me, she’s laughing, she’s holding our hands. We bet! Felix indicates to the server the size of a bottle with both hands, mais uma ceveja, we raise our glasses into the light, my dear Svensson, our last night!
Around ten the cocks are brought in. The dice and card games stop, the berimbau keeps playing, the guests turn to the dance floor on which no one is dancing. A man with a bell asks for quiet. We have to stand up to see anything. Money is pulled out of pants pockets, shirt pockets, leather wallets and embroidered purses. The cock handlers have disappeared, instead men and women in shorts and shirts crowd all around us, the air is thick with smoke. I observe Tuuli. Lua is sleeping, and when Lua is sleeping, all is well, says Felix, and kisses the nape of Tuuli’s neck. He pulls a few bills out of his pants pocket. The birds arrive, the conversations cease, the fights begin. The first handlers step into the ring through a small gate: grandfather, father and son with the same mustache and same jerseys, their hands press the cocks’ wings against their bodies. The birds’ heads jerk back and forth, their combs shake. David translates: the animals’ names, their ages, their wins and losses. The shack nods and murmurs. One after another, all the handlers present their birds. There are roosters of all colors, white and brown and black, some are one color, some speckled, they’re named Desert Storm and Senna de Vila Desterro IV and Sharkinho Noventa. I can’t remember the names, I want to take notes and I get muddled. On the animals’ legs shimmer the spurs, made of metal or horn, some look like they’re made of glass. Sharp as razor blades, says Felix, they’ll cut off your finger if they get you. In the shack there’s a soft buzz, for several roosters it rises to an excited murmur, for others it peters out with boredom. When a brown and white speckled rooster with long feathers and metal spurs is displayed, the spectators cheer. That’s the champion, David translates, 43 fights undefeated. I take note of this brown and white rooster, 43 fights and not a single loss. A moment later follows the snow-white challenger, and David explains that this bird has gone undefeated in seven duels, he hasn’t had to fight that much, he’s been well trained, he’s supposed to be the best in Pernambuco.
What are the stakes, Svensson? asks Felix. When the first preliminary fight is announced, the spectators begin to gesticulate, they pass money through the room, there’s shouting at the bar, coins jingle. The hall goes silent, and two roosters are brought in. As in a boxing match, the handlers stand in the corners, they give their birds a light shake, they pull at their roosters’ heads and bodies as they talk relentlessly at them. The men are now wearing small bags around their bellies, in them Vaseline and bandages, needle and thread. They put the birds in the ring, they hold the scratching roosters tight for another few seconds, then comes the signal, and the audience begins to scream. The cocks flutter toward each other, they assail each other, they peck and kick, they want to tear each other to shreds. The spurs cut deep wounds in their wings and bodies, their beaks peck at the eyes. After a few seconds the first cock is lying and flailing on its side, its belly is covered in blood, on its neck an open cut is gaping. The handlers take their animals out of the ring, the loser draws a knife and puts his dying rooster out of its misery with a single slash, the winner gets the executed rooster. For honor, says David, for soup. One bird after another is put in the ring, sometimes it goes fast, sometimes it takes the cocks several rounds. During the short breaks, their handlers tape up their wounds, they blow air into their lungs and pry open their encrusted eyes, sometimes they pray. If both animals are injured, the rule is: whoever moves last is the winner. A brown cock flies over the barrier, and the audience immediately jumps out of the way. Fear of the spurs splits the crowd, I think, and see Tuuli laughing as she clings to Felix. When the cock notices the absence of his adversary, he turns, and immediately his owner is there, the spectators yell and whistle. I can’t tell who here is betting against whom and how much. David bets a few reais on a speckled cock named Iguaçú and wins, Felix bets everything and loses everything to a man with a pink tie. Tuuli gives all the roosters her own names: Nightingale and Orchid of Olinda and Moby Dick. In the second-to-last fight of the evening, Tuuli says with an announcer’s voice, Don Quixote finishes off a rooster named Sancho Panza in three tragic rounds. Both birds are lying in the bloody dirt, the owners shake hands, they cut off their animals’ heads.
The clay floor is saturated with the blood of the animals, the audience is getting nervous, at the tables in the first row the bets are increasing. Now comes the main fight, David shouts. I register the iron smell in the air, the cigarettes, the sweat of the gamblers. The owners of the champion rooster have taken their position in the left corner of the ring, the champion is fed chili seeds, the handler whispers something in his ear and makes the sign of the cross three times over his comb. Forty-three fights, I remember, not a single loss. The challenger is the whitest rooster I’ve ever seen, says David, look at the spurs! Black as hell! In the other corner the snow-white cock is being prepared for the fight. That one’s mine! shouts Felix, I’m betting on the white cock! Is that wood? I ask. Exactly, says David, jacarandá, rosewood, filed sharp a hundred times. Tuuli’s hair is fragrant as Felix and I bend down to ask her for the names of the roosters. We’ve drunk and gambled away our money, I’m the only one who still has a few reais for a last round. I say: Everything on the champion! Our former police dog is lying under the table and snoring, the heat and the squawking of the cocks can’t wake him. How Tuuli’s foot caresses Lua’s flank, I think, following every word from her mouth. Shall we bet? asks Felix, and I answer, yeah, let’s bet! Tuuli smiles. And? asks Felix. And? I ask. The names of the next combatants, says Tuuli, are William Wordsworth in the left corner and Robby Naish in the right. Your bet, please! Sodom versus Gomorrah, David laughs, Sodom versus Gomorrah. Tuuli is the top prize, says Felix.