Cartas à restinga 59The beach house of my maternal
grandfather in Grussaí was in the beginning
of a wide avenue, today officially named Li-
berdade, at that time called simply restinga.
Between the house of my grand-
father and his neighbor, Captain Fernando
Lopes, it ran a trickle of water that came
from the Paraíba do Sul river and flowed
into the pond.
On a Sunday, from the bridge over
the creek, I saw a small alligator. I called
my father, who came and killed it. It was
eaten for lunch. By the stream, my gran-
dfather, khaki-coloured pants rolled up to
the knees, holding a sharp machete, killed
the fat and distracted mullets which came
from the river. Nowadays, this water way,
which was part of the Restinga, was cri-
minally covered by the greed of the “bea-
chless”.
The Restinga was a piece of para-
dise in the middle of the sand. In the ear-
ly morning, after a dish of curd made by
my grandmother, we went to sunbath at
the sea, to see closely the swell that had
cradled our sleep. We walked straight by
the sandy street called “Street of the we-
rewolf”, through bromelias, sand burrs and
beach salsa strands that sometimes cut
our run with a fall. As the sun climbed in
the sky, the sand got warmer than it should
and we went back home in small runs, with
strategic stops to freshen up our feet. The
morning passed quickly among collecting
tatuís, unsuccessful attempts to catch the
grauçás, which were faster than the warm
wind, and dived in that green vastness that
spread itself into foams with brownish io-
dine fimbriae. It was truly heaven.