The Giant Cloud
A novel in twenty episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

SEVENTEENTH EPISODE
(Beyond the fine grains of L’Escala sand)

And together we cheered affectionately, ate cotton candy, heard expressions of approval, tasted sweet herb smells, watched women wearing lively colored flounces and prophetic men tainted by the Ebro River Moorish olive tone in tight pants, with their eye on this art of devouring and doom which is bullfighting.
It was during our encounter the day before, at the Avuello Bar, that I had confessed to Albe that I would not be able to make it to Gerona. I was truly sorry. My car, although practically new, had broken down. Probably the spark plugs, the battery, don’t know really. For me, an engine was and remains a kind of miracle, moved by more or less controlled explosions, so unlike the real drift of bangs that break out in a bullfight. Astonishing machinery, fed by petrol vapors, so dissimilar to the swerve of explosions that were invading the secrecy of my passion, that veil, a stark handle where her voice and what she tells me grows into a presage of pure desire, without guide, without rudder.
And I went on talking about my project for my book on Lusitanian tauromachy, and my spark plugs, over a Fanta naranja in front of the beach sand, and Albe cracking a smile, in complete secretiveness. Who would figure?
She smiled once more, but it was not merely the callings anymore; it was also her lukewarm body motionlessly dancing, her backbone bristling, the stars confessing in the vicinities of her hot ilium, the shimmering of Lebanon cedar growing in front of the bar, wanting to crawl into the sands, and the ineffable certainty that nothing would remain the same. Edmundo’s strange face was at odds with the world’s boredom and foretold the rise of a chorus of moons, as her wrists navigated over the table top, and her elbow touched his during a brief soft earthquake. In front of them always the Fanta naranja and the body lotion, leather sandals and the illusionary tractability of the Mediterranean, beyond the fine grains of L’Escala sand.

(Next episode of The Giant Cloud: “On that night of endless moonlight, as I was filled with the select memory of the sound of horse trots …”)

Continues

(see here portuguese updated version)