THE DANCING STAR - CHAPTER 1

 THE DANCING STAR

Josep Ballester...

Translated from the Catalan by Sandra Dermark.

CHAPTER ONE

No one who does not have chaos within them can give birth to a dancing star.

Friedrich Nietzsche.

Roger Rococo Rose-Without-a-Thorn, as soon as he got up in bed, thought: "Today I'm going to the Main Square to see the brand new fountain they have put smack dab in the middle of the square, walk the streets, walk the promenade, walk the narrow old backstreets, to see what's going on in the village. Perhaps or surely I will become aware of something that happened last night while I slept. It's possible that the shopkeeper has burst into laughter and fallen into the water tank and gotten out with a cart full of goldfish, or a fishbowl full of hay, in her grasp. Who knows? Maybe the husband of the Moon, of the silver white Moon, was going down to the ground floor to find an olive-tree-greenish glove which their daughter had forgotten upon returning from playing and skipping rope to the tune of the song called 'Dance of the buzzer-buzzers at the bottom of the rabbit hole.' Or maybe Harry Frothystride had had a finger stuck to his nose from when he mocked the hairstyling lady-lizards when the latter curled the hair of Granny Chardface on the market place.

Roger Rococo Rose-Without-a-Thorn broke his fast. Roger Rococo lives in a house where everything remains like it was ever before. The rooftop is on top, like ever before, above his bedroom, and his bedroom is beneath the rooftop, like ever before. From his bedroom window the view is always the same; the sun rises at dawn, and its rays eagerly stroke the tree-lined promenade before the school opposite his place. At night, on nights with a moon, the moon beams with a long and lustful kiss upon the crystal waters of Prussian blue of the blue river of Prussian crystal.

Things continue to be like ever before, anyway, and as deep and as soft as the eyes of Othello Meow when he looks at the deep horizon.

Roger Rococo Rose-Without-a-Thorn went out into the garden to see what Othello Meow was doing; he found him behind the rose bush with coral roses, of an intense shade of coral. Othello Meow is his pet cat, with a coat as black as dark midnight dotted with some ashen-grey spots. The cat was scratching at the ground passionately, as if there were something there, digging quicker and quicker just like dogs do when they bury the khaki-coloured and red-polka-dotted bones of their dreams.

"I must help him," quoth Roger Rococo Rose-Without-a-Thorn. And both cat and owner began to dig in the garden soil. Imagine their surprise when a little head popped up and spoke to them:

"Good morning to you two! I am Adelade the Star!"

"Whaaaa...???"

She was a tiny star, not very large; anyway astronomers who know, or say they know, with their distinguished and illustrious mien, told us that stars were very large, and this one was not oversized, indeed, Adelade was a tiny baby star.

With a smile as wide as an autumn breeze, and eyes as large and rounded and blue as a pair of blue dragonflies. So blue, such a transparent and crystal-clear shade of blue as cuckoo-bell flowers full of blue raindrops dancing upon silver leaves after a summer downpour.

And Adelade the Star asked them once more:

"Who are you two?"

"We... are Roger Rococo Rose-Without-a-Thorn and Othello Meow," they both said, still surprised. "And what are you doing?"

"We stars are tied to golden strings ever since we are born to light up the whole sky; then, when we are a little bit older, we can let go and travel or fall down to Earth. Therefore, you may have sometimes seen from here a star, and find that it has disappeared the next day; it's because that star has left to explore the wide world."

Roger Rococo Rose-Without-a-Thorn said that Lady Nell Bread-and-Honey, his grandmother, had told him another tale about the stars.

"Lady Nell Bread-and-Honey always told me that the stars are candied hazelnuts, which the witch Clara and the witch Claudia scatter wherever they fly."