Sapphire Moonlight

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

'Really?...' Joaquim said. 'I'm fine... I'm at the farm... Yes... Would you?...' Thais's voice came to him on the mobile. 'Mother has invited you to come here tomorrow... And so has Juliana... To spend the night... You will?... Tomorrow afternoon... Say about half past one?... Bye... You too... Sleep well.' Joaquim rang off and turned slowly to his mother and sister. 'She sends you each a kiss.' 

'Will she come?' Mrs Dantas asked. They were in the sitting room. 

'Yes, tomorrow afternoon.' 

Things had been happening in Joaquim's life in the last few hours, sorting out themselves with kaleidoscopic skill and kaleidoscopic speed.  

It was a quarter past eight in the evening. Half an hour before, as Mrs Dantas, Juliana, Otavio Sergio and Luiza were sitting in the porch, the phone rang and it was Joaquim telling his mother that he was about to arrive at the farm as he had decided to spend the night there. He had called his mother so she knew it was him and so that she and his sisters and his brother should not be worried when they saw the headlights on the road. In fact, soon afterwards they saw the lights gliding down the road that went behind the cowshed as a pair of powerful spotlights that swept from above. Both the cowshed and the road became partially visible in a flash as the beams flitted and an instant later plunged back into darkness altogether, leaving only their bulks to be discerned in the moonless night. Joaquim arrived and parked his car near the place where his mother had parked hers. Juliana's car was in the garage at one of the houses up the track. Joaquim had come alone. He greeted them. 

'Where is Thais?' Juliana had asked him. 'Why hasn't she come?' 

'We didn't go out today. We went out yesterday. Then I decided to come and spend the night here for a change.' 

'How is your father?' Mrs Dantas asked. 

'He's fine,' Joaquim said and paused a while.  

'Why didn't you invite your girlfriend to come?' Mrs Dantas said. 

'I didn't think of it, mother.' 

'She might be sad.' 

'Do you think so?' 

'Well, I do.' 

'I'll leave tomorrow after lunch back to town.'  

'Why don't you invite her to come tomorrow?' Mrs Dantas said. 

'Yes, Joaquim,' Juliana said. 

'We're leaving on Friday afternoon. So she will sleep here one night. I think she will enjoy it,' Mrs Dantas said. And this was why Joaquim had been phoning Thais to invite her to come to the farm. After the phone call Mrs Dantas asked her son had he had dinner. 

'Yes, mother, I have,' Joaquim answered. 'Let's sit there in the veranda, shall we?' Joaquim said, and they moved out onto the veranda.  

'You see, Tavio? I'm in the yard,' came Luiza's voice from the yard, across the track and after the hedge. 

'I can't see you,' Otavio Sergio said. 

'But I'm here.' 

'Yes, I can see you now,' Otavio Sergio said. He could see the shape of his sister in the yard, close to the entrance. 

'You see? I'm not afraid.' Luiza had gone down the steps from the porch, crossed the track and walked past the hedge and then into the yard. To do this at night was in her mind a proof of courage. Joaquim observed the shape of his sister, easier to see now as a cloud had drifted past, leaving the moon in the open. Fixing his attention he could now see her clothes and her hair. He smiled. His sister had become quiet and she moved from time to time. Perhaps she was waiting for Otavio Sergio to say something, perhaps she was paying attention to her own sensations there alone in the dark.