Sapphire Moonlight

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

They were close to the wood-burning stove in the kitchen in the farmhouse. The stove was in the shape of a quadratic prism made of brick with a layer of cement over the brick forming a smooth and polished external crimson surface. A thick rectangular black iron hotplate ran on top, narrower than the stove upper surface. The stove was the same height as a gas cooker, only much longer in length. It had been built alongside one of the walls in a corner with its head alongside the other wall. The firewood was loaded through the end part under the hotplate. 

'Which do you prefer, tea or coffee?' he asked her.  

'I prefer coffee,' she said. She was not used to that kind of cooker. They had a gas cooker in her house, as was the case in Joaquim's house in town, or usually in everybody else's homes. 

'In my greatgrandmother's farm there was a cooker like this,' she told Joaquim.  

'You can have hot coffee all throughout the day,' Joaquim explained, handing her a cup of coffee. She drank it and it had a very good taste. 

Thais thought that in a kitchen with a cooker which was on twenty-four hours a day with the embers burning under the ashes during the night, smouldering, and with alternating periods of flames or burning coals during the day there was always life. 

'Do you want some more?' he said. 

She liked the way he was quietly focused and how he had poise and how he on many occasions remained unperturbed. She didn't stop to think about this nor did she pay so much attention to it now. She had her attention drawn to the stove. But that feeling was present. It was at the back of her mind and because it was implicit, it made her feel happy in a general manner. Then there would be moments when she would think precisely about those qualities he showed that she admired so much. 

'Yes, please,' she said, her eyes were bright. He poured some more coffee for her. She found it pleasantly hot near the cooker. A crakling noise came from under the hotplate.  

'I like the smell of firewood burning,' she said. 

'So do I,' he said. 

Holding their cups they went over to the table which was laid for the afternoon tea and coffee. Homemade bread taken from the outside oven a while earlier lay on an extrawhite tablecloth on the table. The crust was brown and it smelt like hot newly baked homemade bread. 

Besides bread, there was butter on the kitchen table. The butter had been made there at the farm. It was unsalted and it was cool as it had been kept in the fridge. 

'Do you want me to spread butter on a slice for you?' Thais said. 

'Yes, please,' he said.  

She cut a piece of bread in two and as she did so, hot steamlike smoke rose in the air and she felt the heat on her face. She spread butter on one of the halves and the butter melted with its characteristic smell. She put both halves together again and gave them to Joaquim. She prepared another two slices for her. 

Slowly and carefully she started to eat it and it was delicious. Joaquim did the same. 

The screen door, in green wire mesh, opened - the main wooden door was kept open during daytime - and the maid who was baking bread came in bringing three loaves of bread, just out of the oven, in an aluminium bowl. 

'Hi, Alberta,' Joaquim said. 

'Hi, Joaquim,' she said. 

'How are you?'  

'I'm fine,' she said smiling at Joaquim and then at Thais. 'Hi, Thais,' she said. Thais had often been there before with Juliana and their friends, and Alberta knew her pretty well.