Photographic (44 page)

Jane stopped sorting laundry to be washed, and made a cutting gesture across her neck.

“Enough.” She leaned forward, hands against the dryer, head down. 

Ian leaned in the doorway. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” 

Jane shook her head. “You’re an observant man.” She faced the dryer.

“Ah…yeah.”

“You saw me in London. You saw me dance.”

“Right on. You were amazing.”

She turned and leaned against the warm dryer. “Do you think someone dances like that after a few lessons, a few weeks in a little belly dance studio down an alley?”

Ian’s mouth fell open a little. Jane enjoyed watching him put the pieces together. He had missed something about her, something key, an unusual occurrence. Or so he thought. 

“Well, I figured your mum must have taught you something. You were good.”

She had never told him what she had done. It had always been a humiliation in her mind, one that could be erased. And he thought her mother was in the main a singer in her itinerant work around the country at fairs and festivals. He’d never seen her perform her act.

“Ian, I was a professional dancer from the age of fourteen until I was seventeen. And I was an unofficial professional dancer from the age of, hum, four? I got a small cut, for passing the hat around, and I’d go up on stage for the final all-dance, as a kid. When I got older I belly-danced for money, for tips. My mother was my manager, you could say. She went around gathering the money after my show, before she would go on as the finale. She was the big draw, because she was the best dancer in most every Faire we went to. But I had some marquee value. I was young, ‘nubile,’ Ma said. I wasn’t full-bodied. Most dancers have something to shake, and they shake it. My dancing had to be different, because I was slender, so I was more, I don’t know. Snake-like. I had to exaggerate every movement to the last degree. I’d hold it, for suspense I suppose, then I’d do the things my mother taught me to drive the crowd wild. Rapid shimmies, figure-eights, belly waves, rock-backs, in succession, and at the end drop like a rock. Fall to the floor, knees collapsed, my head to my ankles. I threw in some of my own inventions. Ma didn’t like that, but as I was a cash cow, what could she say? I chose my own music, not traditional, and the audience liked that. I didn’t have Magda’s charisma, but I had my own little thing going.”

She looked down, rolled her neck to stretch her tight shoulders. “You’ve seen a lot. You’ve probably seen the world’s best dancers. Your travels, movie-making, you see it all, so what I did might not have seemed that special. But it was years of practice and trial by fire.” She laughed. “Literally, sometimes. It was how we made our living. She wasn’t just a singer, and I wasn’t just a high school student. We were…,” she considered for a moment, “on the fringe.” She brushed back her hair, feeling down to the ends for tangles. “So that’s how I know the Dance for the Dead. Now you know.” She slipped past, and though he tried to reach for her she continued on into the kitchen and away. 

The bonfire glowed huge and bright, whipping the light on the faces in its circle. Magda paced around, her arms crossed behind her back, inspecting the flames. Tam skipped and hopped in the shadows. Like a wraith, Jane stood in the darkness, covered by a robe, arms folded into her sleeves like an acolyte. Ian sat on one of the logs he’d dragged over with a Wildcat to mark the fire circle, watching the scene. He rose and approached the fire, mimicking Tariq, the other drummer, holding his instrument close to the heat to warm the skin.

The fire cracked and shifted. It needed to burn down and settle some. Crouching back down on the log, Ian fluttered his fingers silently on the skin and silver drum held between his knees. A half-dozen experiences, a handful of plays, would have to save him now. He’d found one very good drummer to lead in Tariq, an old friend. It had to be enough. That and the clarinetist from acting school days he’d flown in. Ian didn’t want to mess this up. 

Tariq began a simple rhythm, easy to follow. Ian tapped around the outside of his drum before getting to the sweet spot in the middle. He let his fingers and hands relax. He breathed, watched the hands of Tariq. Then he closed his eyes and listened. Hands off the drum, he beat one hand on his chest, one on his stomach, following Tariq. Tariq’s head swayed in an intricate rhythm, many fine motions inside the pattern of his music. Kirwin joined in, and Ian felt an anticipatory thrill as the languid, whimsical sound of the light clarinet perfumed the air with swirls of longing. 

Now Magda tucked up her outside skirts into her belt. With every step, she jingled with medallions of gold dangling at her waist. She circled the fire, her eyes on the flames, bare shoulders rotating. She swirled, a graceful turn, a hand at her waist; another turn, one hand thrust in the air. 

Coalescence and energy fed her dance. Or was she feeding them? Magda milked this energy and spun it with the slow rotations of her hips, her wrists. She did not follow the quicker melody of the clarinet, but the slower bass line beneath. The drums slowed, as if by command, slower and slower, as she rolled through her body in slow motion. 

Suddenly great sparks jetted out of the fire, spraying into the fire circle. Ian saw them land at his feet and on his jeans. He maintained a one-handed beat while hastily brushing them off with the other. They dissolved instantly, however. Phantom fire. Magda had done it. He wasn’t sure how. She must have thrown something into the fire, so subtly he had missed it. 

Magda gestured to Jane, lingering in the shadows, who had shed her cloak and wore a jet beaded top. Long strands swayed from the bottom of the halter, encircling her belly and back. Her head and top half were covered by a black veil. She wore a full emerald skirt, with gold accents at the hem. With each step a small
ching
announced the presence of brass anklets: tiny round bells, miniature metal fruit on the vine, round her legs. The brass metal of the anklets matched the brass headpiece which kept her veil in place. The firelight flashed brilliantly on the tiny red jewel at the center of her forehead, dropping from the V of her headpiece. 

Jane joined her hand to Magda’s. Circling the fire they swayed, step-in, step-out, taunting the fire. Tam ran from the outside circle and sat on the log with Ian. She wore an outfit her grandmother had made for her in the last few days. It was a simple tie-on top and pantaloons, though they called them her “bloomers.” Tam had chosen the material and color, also green, that she thought Hank would like, because he liked spring. Magda had even sewn on sequins in a pattern of swirls, so Tam would sparkle like her mother and grandmother. 

“It is important to catch the eye,” Magda told Tam, “otherwise, why are you dancing in front of other people? You can always dance for yourself. But if you’re to put on a costume, you must pay attention to detail.” 

Ian glanced over and saw Tam transfixed, as the musicians and dancers drew more deeply into unison as Jane joined the dance. From the slow beat they had been carrying, a new insistence emerged. The beat picked up.

Magda and Jane parted. Separately, each took on her own means of expression. Magda was overwhelming, consuming like the bonfire. She demanded the eyes of the small audience. Yet Ian’s eyes sought the form of his wife. He had seen her dance in London, another side of her, sensuality he hadn’t known. Something he thought he brought out in her. Now, watching her as he played, fingers going numb, he saw her, the shade-like aura around her. She looked to the fire, as if it were human, or as if it were a god. Beseeching, seeking a retraction, an undoing. He beat for her, to make it true. Her hands reached out, as she spun round and round, again and again, her hands over her head, then down, asking the fire, wishing on it. As her chest rose and fell, she stopped spinning and seeking. She stood staring into the deep heart of coals. With a quarter turn, she walked the circle path, her hands wringing together. Head bowed, she lifted the veil. 

She reached out for Tam as she passed them. Tam ran up to take her hand. Jane walked with Tam. Tam smiled, hopped like a frog. They let go hands, and Jane danced a new dance, her body undulating, punctuated by cutting movements of her hips, possessed by the music’s harsh rhythm.

When she and Magda passed, they clasped one hand over their heads, forming an arch, sliding away from the arch like an ancient madrigal. Turn and change, turn and change. Tam came up. Magda repeated the pattern with her. Jane paced on alone. She leapt into the air, closer to the fire. Two quick steps and she turned a tight pirouette. With one swift motion she grasped the headpiece and veil, flinging them into the flames. The veil and headpiece separated, the veil floating like mist, descending until it vanished, consumed without Ian ever seeing it burn.

Tanais. Flying pirouettes, skirt flaring gold like flame, hand toward the burning fire soul, coming in again to her heart, head whipping with each turn, until she completed a dizzying three orbits of the bonfire. When she stopped, breathless, Magda and Tam reached for her and grasped her hands. Feet blackened, she stood, spent. Magda leading, they stepped, in and out, hands linked, around the glow, how many times Ian couldn’t say. It was all a colorful blur at that point, of vibration, silken fabric, firelight, smoke, and the revelation of another woman: another Jane. He felt as if he could drum all night, though he couldn’t feel his forearms, let alone his hands. There was an explosion of sparks, like the earlier one. And another. They shot into the sky like shooting stars. He did not bother to look down to see if he were burned. Now here they came—the mourners, the dancers—to the musicians, and Magda gave a kiss to each of them, on the forehead, and said her thanks. 

To Ian she said, “You did well.” She smiled at him, and squeezed his shoulder, and he felt an upwelling pride that at last, at last he had done something in this year of wounds to help heal a deep scar in Jane, instead of inflicting one.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

I
T
WAS
MANY
months later that all the stories, the little tributaries and streams of gossip and innuendo fed into the giant river of publicity churned up, before the release of
Odysseus
to the theaters. The anxious studio hoped for critical praise to garner credibility, to bolster and ameliorate the shame of the dreaded NC-17. If only the naughty association of the NC-17 could come to have a certain caché. In early screenings for critics,
Odysseus
earned a lambasting by a certain erudite voice in the reviewing media: “Overblown, wooden, and witless adventure in meaningless sex and violence. Where’s the Homer in all of this?” echoed in variations by less scholarly imitators. However, a dedicated, even fanatical minority opinion gave pointed praise, such as: “A violent, relentless smorgasbord of lust and cunning, cannily executed. Tears your heart out as it consumes the senses.” 

While Jane and Ian were in Los Angeles for the premiere, there was one piece of business Jane had to attend to. She had to see Marta. Getting her address had been a matter of searching the London flat and finding an address book in a kitchen drawer that, sure enough, had an entry for Marta herself in California. Jane had written down that scrap of information, not in her address book, where she did not want it to have permanent residence, but on the back of a business card hidden in a secret compartment of her wallet. It was a piece of information to be used at the right time, for the right purpose. 

In Los Angeles, the morning of the premiere, she had some extra time when she was supposed to be getting a manicure. The driver had the address, the card on the dashboard in front of him. 

When he first pulled up she was amazed at the size and charm of the house. This didn’t seem like the London Marta she’d gotten to know, through her other piece of property. That Marta had a cool, modern taste that did not reach out, rather receding in shades of white with a décor of purely functional furniture. Here, a wraparound front porch, white shutters, and unimposing but substantial square pillars on each side of the one-story entrance welcomed the visitor. Jane rang the doorbell in a state of some confusion. Was there another side to Marta she didn’t understand? This woman had as impossibly many sides as a tesseract: every side she faced squared off again, into yet another dimension.

The echoing of high-pitched barks came closer and closer before the door was opened and Jane was confronted by another puzzle. The woman before her couldn’t have been more unlike Marta, except that they both had white-blond hair. She was spectacular. A voluptuous, hourglass figure, pale, powdery porcelain skin, and an emanant sexuality that recalled the likes of Monroe and Mansfield. Two orange puffballs roamed at her feet, barking at intervals until the vision silenced them with a, “Sst! Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Marta Kuhonik.”

“Oh. Yes. She lives in the cottage behind.” The woman smiled, her heart-shaped lips a charming red bow. “May I ask who’s calling?”

“I’m Jane Reilly.”

“Oh!” A shadow passed over her face swift as a thought, then she smiled even more sweetly and stepped to one side. “Delighted. Why don’t you come in? I’ll see if she’s home.”

“All right. Thank you.” Jane walked past the two rusty guardians, revealed to be Pomeranians in better light, who trotted one on each side, accompanying her to the living room on the left. It was a light-filled, pleasant room, with a blue checked sofa and two nubby chairs. 

“I’m Cecelia.” She gestured at the room for her guest to sit. 

Then it clicked. This was Cee Cee Bedard, the model and actress. She had been the star of a burlesque show in Las Vegas for years. 

“Would you like some tea?”

This was not how Jane had pictured the whole scenario. In for a penny. “Why not, if it’s no trouble.”

“Not at all. I usually have some myself about this time. I’ll just put the kettle on and check on Marta.”

Jane settled herself on the sofa and looked down at the dogs, who were sitting in the center of the room staring at her. She patted her leg and they trotted up to her, panting and smiling. As she murmured endearments and scratched their ruffs, she heard the clink of the kettle and rush of water from the kitchen, then the sound of a door opening and closing.