THE ONE MISSING STAR

THE ONE MISSING STAR

“ Do you see how he got dressed, our very dear friend? Oh, I say, at least, he could spare us the sight of those disgusting hairs on his beautiful muscular legs…..All he had to do was wear an ankle-length skirt, if he didn’t want to shave” Marilda , she laughed heartily, even though she pretended to be disgusted by how he showed up at the masked ball, he, Teddy Boy, their friend Alice’s boyfriend. Kate remained silent , her eyes glued to the skirt Teddy Boy was wearing. She looked at him, while he was dancing.  It wasn’t the first time she saw that skirt, or a skirt just like that. Of course, it made a strange effect to see it worn by a man ( on a man), on two legs all muscles and very hairy, on ( with) short socks and sneakers. But he, Teddy Boy was like that . He liked very much to amaze, even baffle, even scandalize.  Ah, and he liked to wear comfortable clothes too.  “ Oh, I’m wider here, in the skirt, than into the trousers” He, Teddy, was in fact saying, addressing her, as he kept on dancing , and the yellow skirt was fluttering on his very hairy legs.

She  had seen that skirt for the first time in the park. It was short after sunset and the fluttering of its yellow , the flashing of those clusters of blue stars, scattered here and there, it had seemed to Kay   it had something dealing with the last rays of the dying sun. That yellow skirt with clusters of little blue stars, had appeared to her very much enchanting, something fairy. The yellow skirt  (it) was worn by a very young girl, little more than a child, who had long blond braids. The very young  girl wearing the yellow skirt, she was running and jumping, she was chasing each other with girls and boys of her age. And the yellow blue starred skirt, moving together her, fluttered bright, and now and then it swelled with the wind. With its almost phosphorescent yellow was, or at least it had seemed to her a surface of light, but even a source of light there in the park, where ( while) the green of the trees was darkening.

“ Hey, I see that you have to be very much attracted to our Teddy Boy’s legs! You don’t take your eyes off him! “ Marilda said, looking laughing at Kay. “ Oh, but let me understand….or is it perhaps the lush hair on his legs that fascinates ( intrigues) you?” Marilda grinned.

Kay  kept her eyes on the skirt worn by Teddy Boy. That skirt had a very simple line ( or cut), it was even a little old-fashioned. The skirt was tied at the waist by a four-inch wide band. It was riffled  at the waist and went down rather wide and straight. The skirt ended with a little frill of the same fabric as the all skirt. What attracted, indeed magnetized Kay ‘s attention was the fabric of the skirt, with  the yellow background on which clusters( or patches) of little blue stars were scattered here and there.  

After seeing it worn by that very young girl  in the park, Kay had seen again that skirt worn by Alice, who was Teddy Boy’s girlfriend. Could it be that the skirt now worn by Teddy Boy, was the same she had seen worn by Alice? Kay wondered. Alice had told her that she had bought it (the skirt) from Romanian street venders.  Kay had been able to watch that skirt closely. She had felt  (touched) its fabric, which looked like silk, it was shiny like silk, but to the touch it was more porous than silk. Kay had also noticed, touching it, that the fabric was thinner, almost transparent, where there were the clusters of little stars. Alice had told her that, but of course, the fabric of the skirt was silk, but it was a very particular silk, which was woven in Transylvania.

“ Ah, but listen…there is also TRANSILVANIAN SILK. I didn’t know that” Kay  said.  “ It will be obtained with a particular processing ( weaving), the Transylvanian silk, I think, since it is different from the other silk…Yes, it has more thickness, more consistence than the usual ( well known) silk, it is also porous” Kay said, as she kept feeling ( touching) the fabric of that skirt, making it slip between her fingers. “ But it is not the processing ( the weaving) that makes the difference….It is rather the RAW MATERIAL ( RAW MATTER) “ Alice replied. “ How!?! The raw material ( matter)? You said..this (it) is silk, didn’t you? Then the raw material to get it will be that ( the thread) provided by the silk worms” Kay said ( observed).

“ Of course, the first matter ( material) is provided by the silkworms….But I said you that it ( this) is Transylvanian silk…don’t you understand?” “ And what is there to understand?” Kay  asked, almost irritated, since she had the impression that Alice was making fun of her. “ Think Transylvania land of vampires….think Dracula…” Alice said, looking at her with a grim expression. Kay thought that Alice wanted to scare her. “ Come on, would you like ( want) me to believe  that Dracula and the vampires have to do with Transylvanian silk? I cannot believe it!”Kay  said, almost irritated.

“ And instead it is just ( really) like that” Alice said, nodding to what she was saying. “ Yes, vampires have to do with silk from Transylvania, and Dracula has to do with it”

 “ On ( come on), you cannot make me to believe that also silkworms are vampires in Transylvania! That they too feed on blood! Come on, I cannot believe it!”  Kay exclaimed . But she was beginning to feel almost bad, indeed really frightened. She dropped that piece of cloth  that she had kept holding between two fingers. Alice ( had) looked at her in silence for a few moments, then , grabbing a hem of the skirt she was wearing, she had said: “ The Transylvania silk is a really special silk….oh, it’s  very much special! And, think, despite being so special, it is produced at a very low cost. “ But how can you wear a skirt made of a silk ( fabric) obtained from BLOOD? And from HUMAN BLOOD, I suppose “ Kay screamed , horrified. Alice had continued to look at her in silence, as she was still holding a nock of her skirt between her fingers  “ I hope….at least it is blood of dead (people) “ Kay said.  “ But the blood of the dead is no good. Do they feed on the blood of the dead, they vampires?” Alice had asked, looking at her with eyes that seemed to retret into their sockets (orbits). “ You mean that….” Kay was left speechless. She couldn’t ask what she was in a hurry to ask  ….Suddenly she saw all them, as if they were in front of her, children , young people and old people, men and woman who were destined to feed with their blood the silkworms of Transylvania. They all, she was sure, who, once they had served that magnificent purpose, were eliminated ( had to be eliminated). “ Then…then there are people destined to be used to feed those silkworms….in order to obtain the very special Transylvanian silk “ Kay  managed barely to gobble. Alice continued to look at her in silence. It seemed she wanted to show her ( Kay) her beautiful skirt, which stretched, spread, pulling it now on one side, now on the other. Or maybe Alice, who kept staring at her with a closed-mouth smile____but was it a smile or a grin?___she wanted to say her ( Kay) : “ But you look at this fool ! Won’t this poor fool think I give her even the details of this very big business ( matter)?” Then suddenly Alice had started laughing , and she told her, oh, but , of course she shouldn’t believe what she ( Alice) had just told her about the Transylvanian silk. Come on, there could be no silkworms that fed on blood! Didn’t Kay understand that she had only joked with her? Yes, she had wanted only to have a little fun with her! Then Alice had also asked her if she would liked to have a skirt like hers too.

Didn’t she too think it was very charming? Oh, she could have it at a very low price ( cost.

Kay got ( had gotten) away with it, saying that, since she always wore pants and dressed casual, what would she do with a skirt like hers ( that)? She said it lightly, with nonchalance, even if (but) she was trembling with fear. She had not at all felt reassured when Alice had told her, laughing amused, that it was not true what she had told her about the very special silk of Transylvania. Kay thought, indeed felt, that it was true, instead. Yes, she believed that the Transylvanian silk( the silk of which that skirt was made) was gotten ( obtained) from the thread provided by silkworms that fed on blood. If Alice at the end had turned it all in(to) a joke, saying that she had wanted to make fun of her , and she ( Alice) had denied what she had just said, she had not convinced Kay at all.

Now she, Kay, more than looking at Teddy Boy, who was all stirring, and he kept lifting his skirt to show his very hair legs, as he was dancing almost sprawling, she kept her eyes on the skirt he  Teddy Boy) was wearing. She had asked him directly and Teddy Boy had told her that, sure, the skirt he was wearing was Alice’s, that she had loaned it to him.  So Kay could have no doubt that it was the same skirt she had seen on Alice. ( Alice wearing). Then, when Alice had told ( talked) her about the very special silk of Transylvania, she , Kay, had been able to see that skirt very closely, and she had touched its fabric. She had also been able to observe those clusters of little blue stars , placed here and there , that stood out on the yellow background of the skirt. If those clusters of little blue stars seemed randomly distributed ( scattered) on the fabric, ( and, therefore on the skirt), Kay had noticed  that they were all the same as each other. In the centre of each of them  there was a blue star larger than all the other that crowded around it to form the cluster ( of stars). And she had noticed that those little blue stars were of decreasing size, that is the blue stars became smaller as they were further away from the centre of the cluster.  Kay, she kept looking on Teddy Boy’s skirt. There was something, something little she had just felt , without being able to realize what is was. Then she, continuing to look at the skirt fluttering on the boy’s legs, had noticed that in one of the clusters of the little blue stars , the one which remained on the right side, THE STAR LARGER than the others, that in the centre of the cluster, was missing. That one seemed ( appeared) a cluster like the others, but it wasn’t. Yet Kay was sure that in the skirt she had seen on Alice the cluster of blue stars were all the same, each of them had a larger star at its centre. If that Teddy Boy was wearing was really Alice’s skirt, why wasn’t that larger star there? When Teddy Boy stopped dancing , she went to him and she started talking of the skirt he was wearing. She said, ah, how she would have liked to wear a skirt like his. When Teddy said that, if she wanted, he would take off the skirt for her wear it, Kay kept the opportunity to retire to the bathroom to be able to scrutinize the skirt inch by inch.  Yes, in a cluster, the one which remained on the right hip of the wearer of the skirt, the larger star in the centre of the cluster was missing. That cluster of stars, at a first sight, it seemed the same as all the others, but it wasn’t. The larger star in the centre of it was missing. If that skirt was the same that Kay had seen worn by Alice, since she was sure that in that skirt all the clusters of the stars were identical ( and that in the centre of each of them there was a Bigger Star), how was it possible that the bigger star of that cluster had disappeared? If the bigger star was gone the fabric had to have been cut. If the fabric had been cut, there had to be a mark, a seam. When Kay had looked, and touched too the skirt worn by Alice, she had noticed that where  the bunches (clusters)of blue stars were the fabric ( the silk) was thinner than that of the yellow background.

Now Kay again felt, touching it, the fabric . Yes, even now, where the bunches of stars were, the fabric ( the silk) was thinner like than. But , wait, it wasn’t quite like that, since in the centre of the cluster from which the bigger star was missing, right where there should have been the bigger star , that was missing, the fabric was much thicker. It had a thick and a soft consistency, as if it were sponge.

 Marilda knocked at the door. She asked to Kay if she was all right, since she had been locked in the bathroom for two hours.  Kay, just at the moment, was pressing her fingers on the very thick and spongy fabric in the centre of that cluster, right where the larger( bigger)star should  have been, that was disappeared.  First her fingers were stained with blood, then a lot of blood  had started to gush from that small piece of cloth, just that on which the missing star should have been.