Dead on Your Feet

by Grant Michaels

  I attempted an introduction, but Rafik grabbed my arm and pulled me away from my station and back toward my office. Once inside he spoke bluntly, like a military officer during a crisis.

  “You must help. Madame is afraid for her life.”

  “Rafik, this is a matter for the police, not me.”

  “They do not believe her. I can see by their faces and their questions. They think Madame is imagining the attack.”

  “It couldn’t have happened at a worse time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I pursed my lips, then told him, “Toni was released this afternoon.”

  “Oh! That is good news, no?”

  “Not really.”

  Rafik’s dark eyes, full of pleading just seconds ago, now smoldered. “Why not?” he said.

  “She could have been the one who attacked Madame,” I said.

  “Not possible.” The fires within him were already kindled.

  “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “Madame was unlocking the front door. Someone grabbed her purse and knocked her down.”

  “Did she see who it was?”

  “She was too … how you say? … started?”

  “Startled.”

  “Startled, yes.”

  “So she saw nothing?”

  “No.”

  “Rafik, I still think this is for the police. I agreed to help get Toni out of jail, but now I have other things on my mind.”

  “What things?”

  “You and me. I want to spend time on us.”

  “But Madame is my family.”

  “Not mine,” I said.

  He aimed his fiery eyes at me.

  “So you will not help her?”

  “Not when there’s danger.”

  “You are afraid, then?”

  “I’m trying to be sensible.”

  “You are the only person who can help me.”

  “The police can handle it.”

  “Please, Stani. Can you talk to her? Just talk? It will help her. It will help me.”

  I heaved a sigh. Love, lover, lovest. “Rafik, what can I possibly say or do that can’t be done by somebody in authority?”

  “You can bring peace. Madame Rubi likes you. She trust you.”

  Flattery again. It worked on others and it worked on me.

  “Okay, dear heart. I’ll talk to her, for whatever good it does.”

  Suddenly Rafik grabbed me and pulled me into a strong embrace. With our heads pressed against each other he said, “I knew you will help.”

  “I’ll go see her after work. Tell me where she lives.”

  “She is in the same building with Max Harkey.”

  “The Appleton?” I said, pulling my head back slightly to face him.

  “Oh yes. Madame lives downstairs. She is his neighbor.”

  “Why didn’t I know that?”

  Rafik shrugged. “She always lives there.”

  That was a curious fact.

  I nuzzled my face against my lover’s neck. “Since I’m doing this favor will you stay tonight?”

  “Oh …” He wavered. “I am so tired.”

  Was it really tiredness? Or was it Toni di Natale’s new availability?

  “I understand,” I said. “It’s no wonder you’re dead on your feet. I saw how hard you work in rehearsal.”

  At once Rafik pulled away from me. “When?” he demanded.

  “Today, just after noontime.”

  “You watch me?”

  “Yes. It was wonderful.”

  “How dare you to watch me?”

  “Dare? I watched you because I love you.”

  “I tell you before, do not watch my rehearsal.”

  “I didn’t plan it. It just happened. You were so beautiful showing the dancers what to do. I fell in love with you again.”

  At this Rafik softened a bit. Once more I asked him to stay the night with me. Once more he claimed to be tired.

  “Be tired with me,” I said, despising the begging sound in my voice.

  “Non. I will go home.”

  “Shall I call you after I see Madame?”

  He nodded. “If you like. Probably I will be sleeping.”

  In whose arms? I wondered.

  “Rafik, I’m tired too. But still you expect me … ask me … to do another favor for you. I’m supposed to soothe Madame Rubinskaya’s troubled mind and heart. And I agreed to do it … for you. Well now, what about me?”

  “Stani, you have a strong spirit. You must help others. I am too weak now. My work takes all my strength.”

  One last time I offered myself “Why don’t we spend the night together so I can help you?”

  “You will help me if you talk to Madame.”

  Rafik embraced me again, kissed my neck, my cheek, my mouth. Then he left the shop.

  Back at my styling station Garrett Wade remarked, “What was that all about?”

  “That,” I replied, while trying to conceal the gnawing in my heart, “that was about love.”

  “It’s no wonder you hang on to him.”

  “It is?”

  I finished applying the magic mud that would transform Garrett Wade’s roots to a state of absolute blondness. As I brushed the color on, I wondered aloud, “Why should I run another mission of mercy?”

  “Do you want my opinion?” Garrett said.

  “Sure,” I said, catching his eyes in the mirror.

  “If you don’t do it, what will happen?”

  “Nothing.”

  “There’s your answer, girl.”

  “Didn’t you just tell me to dump him and start dating again?”

  “Not him. Any other ol’ hunk. But not him.”

  Garrett Wade had obviously been vanquished by Rafik’s charm.

  I finished his hair and sent him away humming. The renewed color and cut would surely impress tomorrow’s jury.

  After that I was planning to do some office work and then go home, but Garrett’s words nagged me. If I didn’t do what Rafik had asked—visit Madame Rubinskaya—then it was certain that nothing more would happen regarding Max Harkey’s murder, at least nothing provoked by me. But if I did do it, if I did pay the old woman a visit and meddle a bit, what then?

  Arriving in front of the Appleton I realized an odd conflict of facts and events. If Max Harkey had had the presence of mind to call Rafik, Marshall Zander, the police, and God knows who else after being attacked, then why had he not identified his attacker to anyone? Had he been protecting someone? Also strange was the lack of any evidence that suggested he had tried to stop the bleeding. Had he been too consumed by panic? Or had Max Harkey realized that his wounds were fatal and that nothing could save him? Or perhaps—why hadn’t I seen this before?—perhaps Max Harkey had not phoned anyone. Perhaps he had been unconscious through the entire horrific episode. Except for an exquisitely staged suicide, how else could a person sustain those efficient, deliberate wounds?

  I rang Madame’s apartment and identified myself to her. She buzzed me in, and I saw that the front door latch had been repaired already. Upstairs, I pressed the button outside Madame’s apartment door, when a dog started barking noisily within.

  “Verushka! Verushka!” squawked the old woman on the other side of the door.

  With my innate fear of dogs, I had a feeling that Verushka and I were not going to be best of friends.

  Madame Rubinskaya opened the door and the dog rushed out past her. Given Madame’s Russian heritage I’d expected to see a borzoi or an Afghan hound. But Verushka was just a mongrel bitch. She wagged her tail excitedly and ran her snout up and down my trousers, then raced back and forth through the hallway, yipping and yapping and sniffing everywhere. Madame Rubinskaya stood in the open doorway admiring her pet’s antics.

  “I save her,” she said. “She is good girl, my little czarina.” Madame stooped down slightly and clapped her hands. “Inside now, Rushka. Inside!”

  The dog barked—two short, sharp barks—then
obeyed her mistress instantly and charged back into the apartment. I followed Madame Rubinskaya into a large sitting room of decayed imperial elegance.

  “Rafik sends you?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “Good. You wait here. I will bring chai.”

  “Chai?” I asked.

  The old woman grinned. “Tea,” she said emphatically, then turned and left me alone in the room.

  The sitting room was a historian’s dream but a designer’s nightmare, a hodgepodge of furniture and other possessions with no discernible theme, no link, save that of age. The furniture looked European and from the postwar period during which modernity was adopted at the expense of good design. The collection of odd table lamps barely illuminated the gloom of the dark-papered walls and the heavy window drapery. An ancient Byzantine icon with eyes saddened by the weight of the world gazed down from a high corner. On one side of the room sat a grand piano enshrouded by a musty-smelling jacquard fabric edged with long fringe. A few musical scores lay on the music rack. I leafed through one and I saw that it had been autographed to Madame Rubinskaya by the composer. On the piano top were many framed photos. One in particular caught my eye. It was a sepia-tone print of a young male dancer, a god actually, taken in half profile from behind. The man was naked. I picked up the photo and studied the finely honed muscles of the subject’s backside. Here was a piece of work that engaged me. Just then I felt Verushka sniffing at my shoe. She did it gently, as if to apologize for her boorish greeting when I arrived. Without a pedigree, like me, she was at odds with the artifacts in Madame Rubinskaya’s flat.

  Madame arrived with a tray laden with plates of food and a tall copper urn, a samovar. I felt my face redden, since she had caught me in a prurient moment with the photo of a young naked man in my hand.

  “Is Maxi,” she said as she laid down the tray. I put the photo back on the piano and went to help her.

  She served the chai in a tall glass. It was strong—pungent and sweet and floral. Along with the chai she served cold veal sandwiches on hearty dark rye bread, accompanied with Polish pickled mushrooms and potato-egg salad. We ate quietly for a while. I was about to ask her about the attack when she put her plate down and stole the moment from me.

  “I tell you story about Maxi,” she began. “You see from that picture how beautiful was his body. When Maxi was dancer in Monte Carlo, I was régisseuse. That is rehearsal director, you know?”

  I nodded and glanced at her finely wrought ankles and her high insteps, which seemed constrained by the vamp of her shoes.

  Madame Rubinskaya continued her tale. “One time after class I am closing studio and I hear noises in girls’ dressing room. I ask myself, What is this? Someone is in here? So like cat I go to dressing room. Quiet, quiet, soft steps I make. Slowly I move curtain to see inside. And what is in there?”

  She paused theatrically, and I knew to say nothing. Then she smiled at me with her whole face. Even her eyes shone through the gloomy atmosphere of her sitting room.

  She whispered, “Maxi is making love to young ballerina.” Madame then placed her glass of tea on the table and exclaimed, “Bozhe!”

  Her story was a reversal of the classic primal scene. And as if reading my thoughts, Madame said, “That is when I know I love Maxi forever. After that he is like son to me.” She sighed and shook her head, then let her breath out slowly and finished with a sad little moan.

  At intermission she offered me a tray of small flat pastries redolent of baked apples. I took one and bit it. It crumbled in my mouth, creating a cloud of spiced fruit and buttery caramel.

  “You like?” Madame Rubinskaya asked.

  “It’s delicious,” I replied honestly.

  She smiled contentedly, pleased with her excellent culinary skills. “Is simple,” she said. “Just butter and cream cheese, and a little flour to hold it.”

  The luscious melange teased at my tongue so playfully that I went to olfactory heaven. Then I recalled all too clearly the mission from which Madame Rubinskaya had cleverly distracted me with food and drink and fable. I scolded myself for being thrown so easily off the track, which is probably what accounted for my next remark, a zenith of non sequitur.

  “Did you lose anything valuable?”

  Madame Rubinskaya looked at me as though I had just spoken a line from high church liturgy.

  “The mugging,” I continued. “Did the attacker take anything?”

  The startling shift in Madame Rubinskaya’s deportment would have required a lesser actress to undergo lengthy sessions in coaching and makeup, though I suppose I had provided her with a superb motivation. She made the change from nurturing “baba” to victimized senior citizen—slumped shoulders, sagging cheeks, pinched lips, wary eyes—in less time than it took to say “Action.”

  “Ach!” she exclaimed. “From nowhere he came.”

  “So it was a man?”

  “Of course it was man.”

  “Did you see him?”

  A sly glance from her clever eyes.

  “No,” she said. “It all happen too fast.”

  “Then how do you know—”

  “I know it was man!”

  “Of course,” I said. I became the concerned therapist, the persona I had used when I was training at the psych clinic. “It must have been terrible for you,” I said, forcing warmth into my eyes.

  Always acting, always hiding something, now the two of us were at an impasse. She was obviously faking hysteria and I was just as obviously faking sympathy. The real question was, if there had really been an attack, who did it and why? And if not, why had the old woman invented the episode? It was time for some charm.

  “Forgive me,” I said. “I should have been more understanding.”

  Her face remained fixed on me.

  I said, “Tell me about your dancing career.”

  That finally broke through her resistance.

  “Ah, so much to tell. What you want to know?”

  I shrugged. “What did you like best?”

  She took a deep breath and looked out into the room, as though putting herself in a trance. Some stage people seem to forget when they’re not onstage. “I like best to watch my grandmother. She was beautiful dancer. Assoluta. She was favorite of the czar.”

  She’d used the phrase before and I suspected that recalling her family’s past glory was Madame’s way of ensuring her own worthiness.

  She went on. “I was never prima ballerina like my mother. Who is family ballerina now is Mireille. She will be assoluta someday. Beautiful dancer. Like my grandmother.”

  “Mireille is your niece, right?”

  Madame Rubinskaya corrected me. “She is great-niece.”

  Grand-niece, I thought.

  I asked, “Did you ever dance the famous roles? Odette-Odile? Aurora? Juliet?”

  The old woman scowled. “I was character dancer. I had big passion, big fire, big technique, but I was never pretty young girl on stage. So I do my dance and the audience love me. I did tours en l’air like man. Big jumps too. Very strong.”

  “It must have been wonderful,” I said admiringly.

  She basked in a brief moment of former glory. Then her eyes became mischievous and she leaned toward me. “Shall I tell you secret now? Big secret?”

  “By all means.”

  She grinned broadly. “This is—how you say?—my deep dark secret.” She wanted to milk the moment for suspense, but she also wanted very badly to tell me the secret. In a hushed voice she said, “I never like stage. I never like performance.”

  I gave her my best anticipatory look.

  She continued. “I like only rehearsal and class. That is where ballet is serious. Sometimes on stage is like circus. But in studio it is always …” She paused to reflect, to choose the next word carefully, even though I was certain she’d divulged this secret often. “In studio,” she said, and added one more interminable pause. “Studio is like church.”

  Well, I thought, Brava
! Point finally made.

  She added quickly, “So I am content to be maîtresse de ballet, to serve my art and also my beloved Maxi.”

  At his name her eyes became watery again. It was time for me to pounce.

  “Can I ask you a question about him?” I said. “About Max?”

  Her left eyelid twitched.

  “If it help,” she said, faintly displeased to have me ruin the effect of her solemn confession.

  I knew my question was going to smell of accusation. I was there, after all, supposedly to comfort her, not to provoke her. So I launched forward uncertainly.

  “The night that Max was … The night it all happened? Did he call you for help?”

  “What you are saying?” she answered sharply. “Maxi call out for help? I hear nothing here. You see is almost soundproof.” Her face was still rigid, defensive.

  “Madame, did he telephone you?”

  “Oh,” she said, as if she had finally understood my question, though I was certain she knew perfectly well what I was asking. With a little more charm on my part, she might even tell me.

  After a lengthy pause, during which Verushka sneezed twice and then resettled herself at Madame Rubinskaya’s feet, the old woman said simply, “I don’t know.”

  “Did you hear the telephone ring?”

  She lifted her hands as though surrendering. “I cannot answer your question because I was not here.” Her voice had now acquired a feminine softness which became more obvious and almost intrusive as she continued. “I was staying at ballet studios that night.”

  “But you were at the dinner party. Why would you go to the studios?”

  “After I come home, I was taking walk with Verushka.”

  “Was that safe so late at night?”

  “I am not afraid. In Russia, there is to be afraid. Here is nothing to be afraid. Even now I am not afraid.”

  I couldn’t agree with her one hundred percent, but I wasn’t there to discuss domestic politics.

  She added, “You must never be afraid.”

  I nodded in faux gratitude for her advice.

  She continued her diversionary tale. “So, Verushka and I are walking, and we come to ballet studios that night, and I decide to stay there.”