Sailing in a magical ship.

Text: Julio Suárez Herrero

A tribute to the composer Joaquin Rodrigo and to the danish writer H.C. Andersen.

There was something special about that cruise ship. I felt it as soon as I went  into the big lobby that was swallowing the long queue of passengers arriving from different parts of the world.

The ship had a considerable big “Plaza” where every night different musical groups played while a few passengers, mostly of an advanced age, danced.  We  sat there in one of the small sofas near the bar  sipping a drink of impossible name and waiting to go to the restaurant for the second turn of dinner.

The second night of the cruise I woke up suddenly. My watch told me it was three in the morning. I could hear the sound of music faded by the distance and I felt as if an unknown power forced me to go to the door of the state room, open it and walk all along the endless corridor that led me to the Plaza.

Nobody was in the wide space where a few hours before passengers had shown their dancing skills. I was absolutely alone in front of the stand where the musicians used to play every night. I could not clearly see any of them, barely some shadows that seemed to handle the  instruments with the sound that surrounded me and gradually was letting me hear my favourite music. The notes of the “Aranjuez Concert “filled  the space of the Plaza and I listened to it while my mind brought me back to many years ago.

I can not recall when the enchantment ended. I was again in my bed in the early morning but the sound of the music was still alive in my ears.

Two days more elapsed without anything out of the normal routine happened. But during the fifth evening the magic of the cruise showed up again.

We were in our table at the restaurant ready for the generous menu of the dinner when an unmistakable sound of the trot of a horse reached our ears. The waiters hurried to the entrance of the restaurant and  following them we saw they were helping a lady of unbelievable long blond hair to dismount from a horse and leading her to a distant table.

Everything seemed normal to all the passengers sitting in the restaurant. Nobody was showing signs of surprise. It was like if nobody else had seen the scene.

-It´s nothing but a dream-I heard somebody saying. A dream because horses don´t go around in a cruise.

I did not say anything and  smiled lightly as I knew that the horse and the horsewoman were real because  anything can happen when there is magic in a ship.

Link Aranjuez mon amour:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyi802igGXc