Sapphire Moonlight

Chapter 47

Chapter 47

In the afternoon Joao Caio and Juliana drove to the other end of the beach as they had planned in the morning.  

A lot of buildings stood in that area. There was no avenue anymore as the avenue came to an end well before the place should be reached. You had to drive on the beach itself, on the sand, on a surface crisscrossed with a pattern of tyre treads.  

At about three o'clock in the afternoon they were back to the part on the beach they had been in the morning, near the end, where the avenue made a U-turn . They sat on the flood wall bordering the sidewalk. The sea looked calm, bottle green, like Ray-Ban glasses lenses, at that hour. Some people were on the beach either swimming or lying on the sand. The sidewalks were empty. Cars drove by at intervals. A few people were in the bars here and there but in general the bars were empty at that time. From time to time the wind blew a kiss, gently as if blowing the candles on a birthday cake.  

He stared at her and something passed between them. It had been passing. It was nice to look into her eyes and know she would be there near him without any obstacles. Eyes that promised and then were true to their promise. Nice to know their love was a love without any ache. He liked her company and he saw it was the same for her as concerning him. He had her company and didn't have to make any special effort to have it. Neither did she as regards him. The look in her beautiful eyes travelled unto his heart and into the last corners inside his chest, inside his very soul. She smiled friendly, lovingly. Her lips were his to be kissed. 

Not like being in front of the ship that instants before the midnight of the 28th of July 1914 fired its guns starting World War I, at the moment it started firing. Neither was it like sailing on a doomed ship bound to hit an iceberg on a terrifying night.  

It was like sailing in waters that would not bring any sorrow.  

She was standing opposite Joao Caio while he was sitting on the floodwall. She had her hands on his shoulders.  

He put his arms around her waistline. She stroked his chin, then she looked down over her chest to check out her T-shirt front and then up and right at the wide gentle sleek arc of the floodwall along the beach as far as it was possible to see. 

'I like the way it is unadorned,' Juliana said. 'I mean the floodwall and the sidewalk, the whole seafront. It's very simple and very beautiful.' 

'It really is. Have you been to Miranda beach?' 

'I haven't.' 

'It used to be like this in the past. But then they built extra walls on the sidewalk, concrete benches - three benches arranged C-like as if in a sitting room - here and there along the pavement, at intervals, low walls around every tree, supports for trash cans, half walls in length to divide I don't know what, passages and stairs. Looks as if the beach is wearing braces, those braces kids wear on the teeth. They ended up spoiling the whole view.' 

She laughed at the comparison. 

'I can imagine,' she said. 

'I mean in a kid braces look fine, but not on a seafront.' 

She smiled. 

'I don't know how things like this can pass. I mean there are laws, there is a town council, there is the mayor,' he said. 

'I like this seafront to be the way it is and I hope it remains unchanged,' Juliana said. 'Unspoiled.' 

He touched her waistline with his nose. There was the smell of her cotton skirt and then he kissed her on the hip at the front. 

The avenue stretched from the U-turn at the end of the beach to some blocks beyond the central avenue. Past that point the beach itself worked as an avenue as far as the eye could see in a very long arc, with buildings alongside the avenue on the coast line. That was the part they had been to. In the stretch they were now in there weren't many buildings, only a few, elegant buildings. Restaurants could be seen and bars and icecream shops. The blocks were separated by quiet streets at cross angles with the avenue. Some blocks or parts of them were empty. Then there came the last block in the avenue and across the street from it was an elegant restaurant at the end of the avenue, at the U-turn, The Tarrafeiro's. 

Juliana wanted to go to a place called Jangadeiro's, a bar in the avenue. They went there and sat at a table at the front. They had juices. From their table they could watch the sea. 

Later they went for a drive on the road that went to the fort. This was an internal road that ran parallel to the avenue skirting the beach, only three blocks inside, away from the beach. It was a narrow, very quiet, asphalted, tree-lined road. Only a few houses stood here and there along the way and plenty of unoccupied terrain lay on both sides.  

He showed her the building where he and his parents and his brothers used to stay when they came there in the past. Together with the one beside it, it stood alone in the whole area except for a few houses nearby.  

Joao Caio parked the car and they got out.  

It was around six o'clock and the birds had called it a day. Their singing would resume only tomorrow. Then a boy shouted something from a very distant place, as boys will always shout at that hour, it seems everywhere. His long high pitched shout came very faintly. A dog barked from another point, a long distance away from where they were, to an extent that the barking sounded restful instead of annoying, and to an extent that you would wish it to be repeated again.  

Then in the evening they walked on the sidewalk on the side where the bars were. Across the street from them, people, a considerable number of them, walked on the pavement that bordered the flood wall, as they did every evening. They walked to and fro while others preferred to sit on the wall. All of them talked a great deal. Some had a telltale patch of white face cream on their noses as an evidence of their excesses under the sun during the day.  

The whole beach arc glimmered with lights that made it look like a platinum tiara with mounted stones bought expensively at a famous jeweller's shop, and the lights from the part of the beach that was the other side of the arc flickered in the distance. That was a very beautiful expensive tiara and you felt like buying it if only it were possible and keep it at home to contemplate it whenever you wanted. The mountain on one side and the promontory near the fort on the other side, where the crescent ended both sides, were dark, and so was the sea, where ever coming waves never stopped breaking, in their ongoing task of washing the shore. 

'Oh, darling, let's go to one of those bars that are beside the restaurant near the central avenue,' Juliana asked Joao Caio. 'Near the fun fair, do you know what I'm talking about?' 

'I do. Let's go there.' 

'Do you feel like it?' 

'I certainly do.' 

'If you want to go anywhere else, we can go.' 

'No. Let's go to one of the bars you mentioned. I've been meaning to go there myself. It's been a long time since I've last been there. They're pretty good places.'