Sapphire Moonlight

Chapter 33

Once again to Samie

Chapter 33

Having turned round the corner, Mrs Dantas and her children found themselves in Conselheiro Altino Guimaraes Street, on the part that was in the town centre. This was one of the main streets in town. Very long, it started close to Santa Maria's church, in a quiet residential area on a lower level well before the town centre, went through that area and then upwards, stretching out for many blocks ahead, always in a straight line. It ended at Governador Jose Bento Avenue at right angles, not so far away from one of the town's urban limits, where the internal road to Ernestino Dias started.  

The part which ran in the center of the town defined the main commercial area, where some of the most important shops were placed, although nowadays plenty of stores could be found in other streets, in several other parts, even far from the center.  

A number of shops, single or double storey, stood on Conselheiro Altino Guimaraes Street side by side, from the small ones - some as small as a door, others occupying a little room only, crowded with articles -, to the medium sized and the big ones.  

Some traditional shops had been there for over seventy, eighty years. Many of these had three, four, five and in some cases even more, very tall rectangular double doors at the front, on their plain, unadorned facades. On top of one of these brown, green or grey wooden doors - the walls were painted white, or light or dark yellow, light blue or any pastel colour - there would be recorded a date such as 1915, 1920, 1923, 1930. Others were double storey, with windows and doors that had an arch at the top, with nineteenth century style fronts. They shared the market with their more recently built counterparts which dated back to the fourties, the fifties or the sixties, or which had been built a few years ago. Shoes, clothes, material, household items, furniture, toys, stationery, tobacco, wine and alcoholic drinks, groceries, could be bought there on that street - as well as in sparsely distributed stores in the surrounding area, in the streets which ran parallel to it or which crossed it -, and there were pharmacies, bakeries, banks, offices, restaurants and bars.  

People went by, shopping, or because they had business to do in the offices or the banks in the area, or else they were passing.  

The Dantas went past the supermarket on their right, then past a tobacco shop, a household appliances store, then a hairdresser's, a bakery, and a bar. They knew the owners of all these businesses, and the people working in them, and the same was valid for the rest of the street. It gave Juliana a cosy feeling to be there in Conselheiro Altino Guimaraes Street, in that place at that exact time. She was quite sure she shared that feeling with her mother, her brother and her sister, and with everybody else there even if they weren't aware of it there and then. Images from a documentary she had seen on TV about the start of the Twentieth Century came to her mind. It showed some big cities in Europe, mainly London and Paris, and some cities in the United States, with lots of people in the streets and a lot of traffic. She remembered a scene in the United States, probably New York, in the early 1900's, which showed some men strolling down a street - it might have been after lunchtime. Then two women passed and one of the men turned round, to look at the women. Every time she put that video to play, for she had recorded it, those men and those women became alive again somehow, and their gestures and reactions and that moment they had lived a hundred years ago, sort of came into life again. Their afternoon stroll had been kept forever. 

A woman whose husband was a farmer in the region, greeted Mrs Dantas from the pavement across the street from them. She was in front of a fabric store. She was carrying paper bags. She gave Mrs Dantas a warm friendly smile and waved emphatically. 

'Hi, Alice!' she said warmly. 

'Hi, Constancia!' said Mrs Dantas, showing nice surprise and waving back, a smile on her face.