Sapphire Moonlight

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Across the street from them stood the Town Hall building, a large three storeyed granite construction. Sergio stared thoughtfully at the building. He was together with Marcelo and Roberto. They were sitting on a bench at Church Square. Joao Santos, the mayor of Providencia, would be in there, in his office, working, although it was Saturday. Sergio admired Joao Santos deeply because Joao Santos was hard-working.  

It was about two o'clock in the afternoon. They had been talking about the party Denise, the mayor's daughter, would be holding later on in the evening. There was a feeling of expectancy as regards it. That was the very period of parties. There would be a number of them in many people's houses all throughout December, January and February, plus one or two balls at the club. The great culminating event would be the Carnival balls - four in a row from Friday to Tuesday Carnival - at the end of February. It would mark the end of the summer holidays. The other period of parties and balls were the winter holidays in July.  

Sergio was Doctor Claudio's son. He was studying engineering, something he loved dearly. He also loved parties, holidays, and playing sports. But engineering was something special, and when he graduated he would be as hard-working as Joao Santos, the mayor. Sergio was a loyal friend, kind and helpful, to those he regarded as friends. To those for some reason, not always a good one, not always very clear either, he did not regard as such, he was bound to behave curtly, even rudely. 

In the street between the square and the Town Hall, called Marechal Clemente Street, a car passed at moderate speed, going to the right. It was a one way street. Cars were parked alongside both sidewalks each side of the street. To the left of the Town Hall there was a stationer's, and then, still to the left there was a pharmacy and then a large clothes shop.  

To the right of the town hall, across the street that was at right angles with Marechal Clemente Street, there was a bar on the corner. Past the bar were houses on a residential stretch in Marechal Clemente Street. Two women went by, coming from the right, from the residential stretch, going to the left, which meant they were going west, to the town centre. They walked on the pavement in front of the town hall. They were absorbed in their talking. Two girls, about sixteen years old, came on the sidewalk edging the square, across the street from the women, some twenty metres behind them, also going to the town centre.  

Three girls were coming, walking east, which meant to the right, on the sidewalk the same side as the square. They were passing beside a taxi stand that was on the corner opposite the square and were about to cross over. A car was coming, so they had to wait a little while it passed very slowly. The car stopped at the corner before turning right into Marechal Clemente Street, its engine almost stalling but then regaining power. After the car turned round, another car went by in Marechal Clemente Street, coming from the centre, and then another, and then a tractor. If it were a film from the fifties, a song called Why would have been playing softly in the soundtrack.  

A young man, an acquaintance of the boys, walked by. He had come from the street at the back of the square and was crossing the square diagonally near where they were. He wore cream trousers, a white shirt, a panama hat with the rims only very slightly curved upwards faintly cowboy style, and brown boots that went just below his knees. These last items, as was customary in those parts, meant that the young man's father very probably owned a farm. In fact, his father did own a farm and he worked on it. He walked calmly with firm decided steps marked by the sound of his boots hitting the stone paved ground. His eyes were fixed at some point on the ground a few steps ahead as he was thinking. A serene expression was on his face. 

'Hi, Porfirio,' the boys said to him. 

'Hi,' he said. His name was Porfirio Mirtes. 

'How are you?'