Dead Stars

Chapter 4

"Well—Americans are rather essential to my entertainment."

She laughed.

"We live on Calle Luz, a little street with trees."

"Could I find that?"

"If you don't ask for Miss del Valle," she smiled teasingly.

"I'll inquire about—"

"What?"

"The house of the prettiest girl in the town."

"There is where you will lose your way." Then she turned serious. "Now, that is not quite sincere."

"It is," he averred slowly, but empathically.

"I thought you, at least, would not say such things."

"Pretty-pretty—a foolish word! But there is none other more handy. I did not mean that quite—"

"Are you withdrawing the compliment?"

"Re-enforcing it, maybe. Something is pretty when it pleases the eye—it is more than that when—"

"If it saddens?" She interrupted hastily.

"Exactly."

"It must be ugly."

"Always?"

Toward the west, the sunlight lay in the dimming waters in a broad, glinting streamer of crimson gold.

"No, of course you are right."

"Why did you say this is the last time?" He asked quietly as they turned back.

"I am going home."

The end of an impossible dream!

"When?" After a long silence.

"Tomorrow. I received a letter from father and mother yesterday. They want me to spend Holy Week at home."

She seemed to be waiting for him to speak.

"That is why I said this is the last time."

"Can't I come to say good-bye?"

"Oh, you don't need to!"

"No, but I want to."

"There is no time."

The golden streamer was withdrawing, shortening, until it looked no more than a pool far away at the rim of the world. Stillness, a vibrant quiet that affects the senses as does solemn harmony; a peace that is not contentment but a cessation of tumult when all violence of feeling tones down to the wistful serenity of regret. She turned and looked into his face, in her dark eyes a ghost of sunset sadness.

"Home seems so far from here. This is almost like another life."

"I know. This is Elsewhere, and yet strange enough, I cannot getting of the old things."

"Old things?"

"Oh, old things, mistakes, encumbrances, old baggage." He said it lightly, unwilling to mar the hour. He walked close, his hand sometimes touching hers for one whirling second.

Don Julian's nasal summons came to them on the wind.

Alfredo gripped the soft hands so near his own. At his touch, the girl turned her face away, but he heard her voice say very low, "Good-bye."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alfredo Salazar turned to the right where, farther on, the road broadened and entered the heart of the town—heart of Chinese stores sheltered under low-hung roofs, of indolent drug stores and tailor shops, of dingy shoe-repairing establishments, and a cluttered goldsmith's cubbyhole where a consumptive bent over a magnifying lens; heart of old brick-roofed houses with quaint hand-and-ball knockers on the door; heart of grass-grown plaza reposeful with trees, of ancient church and convento, now circled by swallows gliding in flight as smooth and soft as the afternoon itself.

Into the quickly deepening twilight, the voice biggest of the church bells kept ringing its insistent summons. Flocking came the devout with their long wax candles, young women in vivid apparel (for this was Holy Thursday and the Lord was still alive), older women in sober black skirts. Came too the young men in droves, elbowing each other under the talisay tree near the church door.

The gaily decked rice-paper lanterns were again on display while from the windows of the older houses hung colored glass globes, heirlooms from a day when grasspith wicks floating in coconut oil were the chief lighting device.

Soon a double row of lights emerged from the church and uncoiled down the length of the street like a huge jewelled band studded with glittering clusters where the saints platforms were. Above the measured music rose the untutored voices of the choir, steeped in incense and the acrid fumes of burning wax.

The sight of Esperanza and her mother sedately pacing behind our Lady of Sorrows suddenly destroyed the illusion of continuity and broke up those lines of light into component individuals. Esperanza stiffened self-consciously, tried to look unaware, and could not.

The line moved on.

Suddenly, Alfredo's slow blood begin to beat violently, irregularly.

➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿

What do you think will Hadoop's next! CLIFFHANGER! Haha!

Follow me and don't forget to turn on the notifications!