Instruction for us: It is noticeable in the story that the reader perceives only the thoughts of Alfredo Salazar but not Julia Salas’. Retell Dead Stars using Julia Salas’ perspective. Given the word limit, choose only one scene in the story to recreate using and showing Julia’s thoughts.
A few inquiries led him to a certain little tree-ceilinged street where the young moon wove indistinct filigrees of fight and shadow. In the gardens the cotton tree threw its angular shadow athwart the low stone wall; and in the cool, stilly midnight the cock’s first call rose in tall, soaring jets of sound. Calle Luz.
Somehow or other, he had known that he would find her house because she would surely be sitting at the window. Where else, before bedtime on a moonlit night? The house was low and the light in the sala behind her threw her head into unmistakable relief. He sensed rather than saw her start of vivid surprise.
“Good evening,” he said, raising his hat.
“Good evening. Oh! Are you in town?”
“On some little business,” he answered with a feeling of painful constraint.
“Won’t you come up?” He considered.
His vague plans had not included this. But Julia Salas had left the window, calling to her mother as she did so. After a while, someone came downstairs with a lighted candle to open the door. At last–he was shaking her hand.
She had not changed much–a little less slender, not so eagerly alive, yet something had gone. He missed it, sitting opposite her, looking thoughtfully into her fine dark eyes. She asked him about the home town, about this and that, in a sober, somewhat meditative tone. He conversed with increasing ease, though with a growing wonder that he should be there at all. He could not take his eyes from her face. What had she lost? Or was the loss his? He felt an impersonal curiosity creeping into his gaze. The girl must have noticed, for her cheek darkened in a blush.
Gently–was it experimentally? –he pressed her hand at parting; but his own felt undisturbed and emotionless. Did she still care? The answer to the question hardly interested him.
The young moon had set, and from the uninviting cot he could see one half of a star-studded sky.
So that was all over.
Why had he obstinately clung to that dream?
So all these years–since when? –he had been seeing the light of dead stars, long extinguished, yet seemingly still in their appointed places in the heavens. An immense sadness as of loss invaded his spirit, a vast homesickness for some immutable refuge of the heart far away where faded gardens bloom again, and where live on in unchanging freshness, the dear, dead loves of vanished youth.
Dead Stars
Julia Salas’ Perspective
Out of the blue, in the native town of Julia Salas; a mistake from the past came to visit her. It seems like Julia’s business with this mistake is not yet settled and corrected, they are still magnetizing to each other’s poles. She foresees this will happen. What a clown destiny. He was still able to find her in peace and comfort zone. Julia’s mind and heartfelt nostalgia and suddenly got deja vu with the eyes wide open as daydreaming. Seeing him again is like reading a history book that reminded her of once awful events. But nevertheless, at least she was able to grasp the truth and did what was right before missing the boat and experiencing the further excruciating aftermath of a secluded storm hidden by this man downstairs. What happened is already part of their history, she is now in contemporary time and the mistake is existing unto this time. She forgave and welcomed him again.
“Good evening,” Alfred greets with a simple gesture, raising his hat.
“Good evening. Oh! Are you in town?” Julia responded surprisingly.
“On some little business,” responded with control with his ache.
“Won’t you come up?” She invited him hospitably.
The sudden visit of Alfred is naturally welcome by Julia and her mother. She went down and opened the doors with a candle for Alfred. She finally met him and actually shook and held each other’s hand.
He had not changed. He is still looking and coming for Julia, with the reality that he is in love and married to another woman. She left because of the tangled love between them. Julia doesn’t deserve a love that is given by a man with a heart for two. It is unfair and worse than unrequited love. Yet, she talked to Alfred about matters out of their love. She wonders about the hometown and asks thoroughly. She spoke with the presence of mind and contemplatively. Julia may be changed physically, mentally, and emotionally because of well-grounded and certain reasons distant from the same old Alfred.
In the end, Julia’s love was relieved and died for a long time towards him. It has been gone since that day. She may be lost because of the ache caused by him but more ultimately it’s Alfred’s torment and inaptness for her love.
I read “Dead Stars” back when I was in high school and found myself wondering how the women in the story viewed the events. Thanks for this peek into Julia’s point of view.