A Conversation for Las Fallas - the Great Fire Festival of Valencia

follow up "Johnson the captain".

Post 1

Alfredo


(To use all the information I shared with you in "Johnson, the captain", I'll continue with one or more dear memories of those days).

Living on nothing in Valencia in oktober 1970, I searched most of the time a sleeping place at the beach, close to the harbour.

One evening I entered the lonely beach and as I walked on, I suddenly saw the profile of someone sitting at the coastline, staring at the deminished horizon.
As I came closer I saw it was a girl and as a matter of course I sat next to her in the sand.

There was calm in the air and with hands and feet we talked a little, because she was Spanish and couldn't speak English very well.

After a while I took the initiative to even dance with her without ány music at all, asif we were in a disco and it may well have been that I even tried to sing a popsong to give it a boost.
We danced and laughed.
It must have been around one o'clock at night.

When we finally sat down again, she had a request.
She apparently had received a letter from an German vacation lover who had spent his time in Spain,
but,
she was unable to understand his words....

No wonder she was staring at the horizon; having received a precious gift but not being able to unravel it.
If I could do that for her.

She gave her beloved letter to me and I read some lines.
By instinct I rose up asif a spectaculair and dramatic moment was born.

Little by little I translated the words in English.

And more and more I got carried away by a romantic painting I saw in my mind and soon after I hardly saw any words of the letter anymore, but the more clear became this painting of love to me and I painted it to this hungry Spanish girl in the most poëtic words I could find.
She must have felt the meaning of it, because her eyes became blurry and her soul became cherished with hope. I could see it.I could feel it.

Finally I was finished with my creative translation and returned the treasure to her.
We walked, hand in hand, a mile along the coastline without speaking much to each other.
And when we returned we kissed a while like lovers do.
She told me that her father was a doctor and that they lived in Madrid and spent some time now here at Valencia.
I asked her to meet her the day after at eight o'clock at this same place on the beach of Valencia. And she agreed and promised to come.

I was there, the next day.
She wasn't.
Finally I got it.

In her mind she had sailed away over the seas with the wind of my poëtic words ,far away from Valencia and sensed the horizon in the hope to find a glimpse of her dear German lover. Now she was closer to him then ány other time since he had to depart her.
She was almost in heaven now and did nót intend to visit this cruel world ány longer.
Not even for Alfredo, her guide in language and love.
And right she was.

"Bey-Bey!" from Amsterdam, Alfredo. September 2002.


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follow up "Johnson the captain".

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