Sapphire Moonlight

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Accompanied by Thais, Elaine Sampaio and Denise, her closest friends, Juliana Dantas sauntered down Desembargador Alcindo Oscar Bueno Amancio Street. The sound of her clogs tapping on the stretch of cobblestone pavement on which they were passing reverberated lightly. The full moon, not so big in size at this hour, was visible at middle height in the sky. Its cool white dense form, not absolutely round, was almost entirely visible but for a small dent near the top of its circumference. It sent a limpid serene nocturnal shine. It would be possible to drive on the internal road which linked Providencia do Rio Turvo to Ernestino Dias, some sixteen kilometres away, with the headlights off, in such a moonlight. The fragrance of the perfume the girls were wearing that summer could be scented in the air as well as that of jasmine and roses and other plants from the gardens of the houses nearby, and from the trees alongside the street. Oddly enough the perfume was called Degredo, and it was a success. A faint scent of burning wood also lingered in the air.  

They had just quit Elaine's car, which had been parked in a place that chanced to be empty - simply waiting for them to park, one wouldn't believe how. They walked at a leisurely pace towards the first bar of the bars in the street, on the left-hand side. Its name was Arbela. Some people were going the same way as they were, others came the other way. Cars went passing in the street at moderate speed with their headlights dipped. The girls arrived at Arbela, and had to wait until they got a table on the sidewalk, near the front door and close to the wall. All the other tables were occupied. It was a few minutes past nine. The place had already started to crowd. 

A number of bars stood in Desembargador Alcindo Oscar Bueno Amancio Street as you came past the church at Sinhazinha Ana Joaquina Road, at right angles, and turned right into it. They were sited more or less every other place, in a double row, both sides of the road, as far as the street corner. Then, if you crossed the other street and carried on walking straight ahead, there would be a downhill stretch in the middle of a very quiet and dark residential area - most lamp-posts off - and no more bars. But if you turned right instead, and proceeded uphill on Maria Sebastiana Isadora Alves Street you would meet several, situated on both sides of the road, for three blocks ahead consecutively. Beyond that point, as far as the hotel where Joao Caio was staying was located, a few more places, relatively large, would be found sparcely. That L-shaped area constituted one of the fashionable places in town.  

As it happened every weekend in that whole area young people were gathering in front of the bars. A great many people sat at the tables on the sidewalk, while many others stood around or kept strolling along the pavement, coming and going. Many couples, and also groups of boys and girls stood by, talking. Many of them were drinking whisky, Martini, vodka, or fruit juice, many held beer or soft drink cans in their hands. Some preferred to take their seats inside the enclosed part of the bars.  

Even though Providencia was a small town, with some forty thousand inhabitants, the traffic in those two streets got particularly jammed at that hour, moving quite slowly and coming to long and frequent halts. Yet, in the circumstances, either those at the wheel, or the passengers accompanying them, generally found a certain pleasure in that slowness. It was, in fact, a sort of jam in which nobody ever acted frantically, and in which everybody felt real cool. The occasion to feel the night around, as well as to observe calmly the bars alongside the road and the people who were sitting at the tables outside, counted very much. But what counted mainly was the chance the boys and girls had, to flirt with each other in the cars abreast.  

All sorts of car makes could be found there, from the cheaper to the most expensive. In the big city of Sao Joao D'Acre, the capital of the state, the situation in the regions of bars at night was to a certain extent exactly the same, only, of course, the avenues were much longer and wider and often held cars four, five, or six abreast while in Providencia they could only manage to go two abreast.