Brazilian short story writer Dalton Trevison, born 1925
Cemitério de Elefantes (The Elephant's Graveyard) is yet another short story collection where author Dalton Trevisan examines the nasty side of life in and around his home turf of Curitiba, Brazil, a city six hours drive south from São Paulo.
Here's my compressed retelling of two of the many tales:
HOG-KILLING DAY
A humdinger featuring a husband and wife at war. This time it's seventy-year-old Onofre, a man completely without morals, a man who would “spend every day drunk and after drinking he would settle down to beating his wife.” His wife, Sofia, flees yet again to her daughter’s house. Onofre sends word he needs her to come home to take care of a hog he has decided to butcher.
Sofia does come back home (a tad gullible, I reckon). Between taking swigs from his bottle, Onofre starts beating her with his bare fists. Onofre then decides to inflict serious damage: he grabs his whip. Sofia runs outside and finally realizes the hog Onofre decided to butcher is none other than herself.
Since Onofre can’t find his wife inside the house at the moment, he takes a break, walks outside and sits on a bench in the yard. He belts down a few more swigs from his bottle, stands up and starts cracking his whip again.
At this point daughter Natalia arrives on the scene. “What’s going on, Papa?” Onofre replies, “That old woman stole my shotgun and ran away.” At this juncture, Sofia rises up from behind the garden wall. “I didn’t run away. Here I am."
Onofre stomps back and forth across the yard cracking his whip until, suddenly, there's a blast from the shotgun. The old man falls to the ground and calls out: “Help me, old woman. I’m dying. I’ve been shot.”
Dalton Trevisan concludes his story thusly: "His eyes bulging, he stretched out on the ground. He asked for a drink of water. Sofia brought the jug. He was silent, the bottle in one hand and the whip in the other, quite still, so that he heard the chirping of the sparrows as they predicted rain."
THE RIVERBANK
One Saturday afternoon Abílio parks his wagon by the riverbank. A houseraft is on the other side of the narrow river. Abílio jumps down from the seat where his two sons remain sitting. Abílio leans against a wagon wheel and rolls a cigarette. In the distance Abílio recognizes his friend Nicolau in his houseraft and shouts out, "How are things, old friend?" Nicolau says "fine" and when Nicolau gets on land, tightens his face and asks for the settlement of a bill. Abílio replies, "I've owed you a lot more before," and offers Nicolau all the money he has. Nicolau refuses since three full days of work are owed. Abílio tells him, "I never broke an obligation and I've always been straight." Nicolau answers, "But this time you didn't come through." Abílio takes all the coins from his pocket, stretches out his hand and repeats he's giving him all the money he has. But Nicolau doesn't accept the money; it is not enough. Pale with fury, Abílio shouts, "You're a regular Polack!" Nicolau, the stronger man, grabs Abílio by the shirt, pulls him over to the wagon. Abílio's sons shriek. Abílio pulls his knife from his belt, puts it into Nicolau's chest and says, "You're a dead man." Nicolau, bloody and weak, flees. Nicolau runs, stumbling, pursued by his friend who catches up to him and stabs him again, this time in the arm. Nicolau stumbles on and catches stab number three in front of his own houseraft. Nicolau's wife appears at the window and screams, "My God, a man's getting knifed!" Hands clutching the wall, Nicolau begs, "Abílio, don't kill me just like that." Stab number four catches Nicolau in the back. Leaning on the wall, Nicolau drags himself to the gate. Without the strength to go up the steps to the door, Nicolau falls in a pool of blood. Abílio wipes the knife on a board before putting it away. He goes to the riverbank and leaps into Nicolau's houseraft. Crossing the river, Abílio stops rowing for an instant, cups his hands and shouts to Nicolau to take his two sons and wagon back home.
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Note: For readers of English, these two and other stories from The Elephant's Graveyard can be found in Dalton Trevison's The Vampire of Curitiba published by Alfred Knoff and translated from the Portuguese by the great Gregory Rabassa.
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