by Nancy Kress
“I don’t think I can go on like this,” I say to Rob, before I know I’m going to. “Not knowing. That girl wasn’t crazy, Rob—she didn’t sound crazy.” Chimps with my face.
“Not now,” he says, glancing at the others, who are studying the menu screen as if they can’t hear us. “Let’s eat lunch.”
And we do, discussing nothing but class, rehearsal, performance. I feel myself calm down. This is what matters, after all. Dancing. Nothing else.
But a week later, back in Washington, we start work on a new ballet, made on us by Mr. C. himself.
“Cameron, you and Sarah enter on diagonals, with flick jetés from opposite sides of the stage,” he says. He demonstrates by crossing the practice room; at sixty, he still moves like a young man. In the sneakers, ugly pants, and red T-shirt he always wears at a first choreography session, he’s almost like a parody of himself, except for his voice. It’s strange to hear such decisive, brilliant direction in that flat, raspy Midwestern voice.
“Very energetic,” he says. “You meet in the middle, tendu croisé derrière, look at each other and smile. Then Mitchell and Caroline repeat the movement, ending up here.”
I don’t know why I’m supposed to be smiling at Sarah. I came in late—a great crime—and whatever Mr. C. has told the others about the ballet, he isn’t repeating it to me. He’s going to make me ask, as punishment.
I don’t ask. I go through the entrance, and the combinations that follow. The music is aggressive, modern: Sabo, I guess, or Bolthouse. There are some very athletic, sexual moves for Sarah and me, Mitchell and Caroline. I decide we’re two sets of lovers.
“Now, here,” Mr. C. says, “the doctor enters, where the music breaks. Like this, Nicole. No, more stillness. You stand with your back to them, eight full beats, and the music delivers the verdict.”
Doctor? Verdict?
“Now, Mitchell and Caroline, you sink to the floor, like this, overwhelmed. Sarah, you and Cameron have the counterpoint, the shock—but controlled, heavy, slow, to match the music. Watch—it’s a short pas de deux, but an important one. Start with a supported arabesque third, and Sarah you lean very far forward, you couldn’t possibly maintain this position without his support and you know it … good. But drop your arm … that’s good … Cameron, echo the forward yearning reach of her arm.”
The little pas de deux is beautiful: intricate and moving, perfectly balanced. I can barely follow the steps. My chest is tight enough to hurt. Doctor? Verdict?
“You both exit stage right,” Mr. C. says, “and Mitchell, you carry Caroline out stage left. Then, Sarah, you enter again, far to the rear, on the beat, slow sad bourées, conspicuously unsupported … no, dear, like this. Better. Now you freeze, tendu effacé, as the first of the unborn children flits across the stage in rapid bourées, head down.”
Unborn children.
“You raise your head, Sarah, and when the music shifts—here—”
“Stop,” I say, very loud. Everyone looks at me. “I came in late. Please, what is the ballet about?”
Mr. C. says nothing. One of his most infuriating habits is that he never repeats explanations; other dancers must do it for him. Sarah rushes in.
“It’s about infertility, Cam. Both couples are trying to conceive, but can’t, and then they’re haunted by the shades of the children they’ll never have—you know, a reverse on all those Romantic ballets where the principals are haunted by the shades of their dead—until near the end—”
“No,” I say. “No.”
Sarah gapes at me.
“No. I won’t dance it!”
There’s an electric silence. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. My heart pounds so hard it fills my ears. I’m lightheaded, as if I might faint.
“Dmitri,” Mr. C. says calmly, “take Cameron’s place.” Dmitri, watching the rehearsal, looks startled and moves slowly next to Sarah. Mr. C. turns to me.
“Go to Melita,” he says kindly. “Tell her you feel ill and need to see Dr. Newell.”
“I don’t feel ill,” I argue, further astonishing myself. “I feel…” What? Why can’t I dance this ballet?
“Go see Melita,” Mr. C. says, and turns back to work. I see that he’s saving me face, giving me an excuse to leave and also one to return later (“Dr. Newell says I’m fine.”). But I can’t do it. I know suddenly that I can’t dance this ballet. Why not? I don’t particularly care about children, born or unborn. I never have. It makes no difference. I can’t dance the ballet. My body will not let me.
I rush out of the room.
In another, deserted practice room, I calm and center myself, standing for a long time in the middle of the floor with my head bent, concentrating as hard as I can. Then I start a combination from Sorrows. Tour en l’air, plié, relevé, and into the arabesque …
I stumble, my timing off. No, not my timing … something else. Some inner sureness about the flow of the steps, about the space I should be carving into sharp sections, about myself …
I try again.
And again.
I try the second act entrance from Jupiter, then my solo from Le Corsair. I can’t dance it, not any of it. I can make my body go through the steps, but I can’t dance it. From the corner of my eye I see ghostly children bourée-ing across the stage, and they’re all chimps with my faces. No, I don’t see them. They’re not there. But the thought of them is there, gnawing at a part of my brain I don’t even have any more, like the phantom pain of amputees. Or maybe that’s not it. Whatever it is, I can’t dance.
I can’t dance.
I can’t dance.
Rob sits on his bed in his room, sewing ribbons on shoes. I burst in and grab his shoulders. “Tell me!”
“Cam, what—”
“Tell me now! Everything that happened to me before the operation!”
He says, with forced steadiness, “You don’t want to know.”
“No, I don’t! But I have to, because it keeps coming back to jolt me every way I turn! I can’t take it anymore, Rob. I never know when either my own mind or somebody else is going to just jolt me into—it’s like an earthquake each time, just when I’m least expecting it. I have to have some sort of preparation.”
He stares at me steadily, from those blue, blue eyes. Then he whispers, “No.”
“No?”
“No. I can’t. You told me, Cam—and so did Dr. Newell—that no matter what happened, no matter how many times you changed your mind, I’m not supposed to tell you. It would be worse than not knowing.”
“I’ll ask Sarah! Joaquim! Mitchell!”
“None of them really knows the true story. Only me and Melita and Mr. C.”
“You’re lying!” I cry, although I can see that he’s not. “Someone else here knows!”
“No one.” He’s on the edge of tears. But I’m not—I’m furious.
“Fuck it, Rob, it’s my life!”
“It’s your old life. This is the one you have now.” He tries to put his arms around me but I fling him off.
“Leave me alone. Now, and for good. I don’t want a lover who doesn’t care what I want or need. Go fuck somebody else.” I leave him there, in tears, slamming the door on my way out.
At the far end of the garden, near the Aldani House wall, I throw myself full-length on the bench. Nothing is right anymore. But even when I was afraid of dreams and animals and that soldier girl, I could still dance. I had that. When this interferes with my dancing … oh, God, if it makes me so I can’t dance …
If I can’t dance, I would rather be dead.
That soldier girl. She knows what happened to me. I know you had an operation because I saw the result.…
I saw her once in Washington, once in New York. Which city does she live in? I don’t even know her name.
A half hour later, it occurs to me that Security at International Center must have her name. They burst into my dressing room and took her off for questioning. And charges were filed; there must be a police report.
>
It only takes two vid calls. The first, requesting a copy of the police report, puts the report on screen as soon as my ID number verifies that I’m the victim. The girl’s name is Shana Irene Walders. No permanent address.
I fret about this for a while, and then I realize that she must have appeared in court—maybe she’s in jail someplace that I can visit. Is that allowed? I have no idea. Nor do I know how to find out, so I put in a call to a public database searcher, with rush fees. The PDS calls back almost immediately, and I tell her what I want.
Fifteen minutes later she calls back. “Shana Irene Walders appeared for arraignment in District of Columbia Superior Court on Friday, July 14, 2034, on charges of trespass, criminal intent, and assault of a security officer. Bail was set at $10,000; it was paid by a Dr. Nicholas Clementi. Ms. Walders was released pending a hearing, which was set for Monday, July 31. She gave as ‘temporary address’ the residence of Dr. Nicholas Clementi, 1396 Sturges Drive, Bethesda, Maryland. Do you wish any more searches?”
“No,” I said. “Bill my ID number.”
“Thank you for using Sabrina’s Search Shop.”
Shana Walders, in Bethesda. I have a performance tonight; no, I can’t do it. I can’t dance the role. Mitchell will have to go on, they can announce that I’m injured, or they can just pretend it’s me under Mitchell’s mask.… My head feels stuffed with something sharp and dangerous, like tacks. If I move the wrong way, they’ll pierce my brain and I’ll die. Except that if I can’t dance, I’m already dead. I can’t dance tonight, I would stumble and lurch.… I can’t go back to the rehearsal. Or the performance. How long will they wait for me? Everyone will just assume I’m late again. And I will be. The late Cameron Atuli, what a shame, so young, a precious natural resource and to kill himself like that at the height of his career.…
All that, if I can no longer dance.
I walk to the gate, and through it, and out of Aldani House.
* * *
Thirteen ninety-six Sturges Drive in Bethesda is a large, old house. People don’t build such large houses anymore, Rob told me; most houses hold only one or two people. Dr. Nicholas Clementi’s house has a little lawn in front and large old trees at the sides and back. From one hangs an ancient wooden swing. The late-afternoon breeze rustles the leaves, and everything is drenched in golden light like the Act II curtain of Sorrows.
I walk up to the house and ring the bell. A well-dressed old woman with white hair answers. She says pleasantly, “Yes?”
“I’d like to see Shana Walders, please.”
The woman looks surprised. “May I tell her who’s visiting?”
I hesitate, but can’t think of any reason not to give my name. The soldier girl will know me soon enough. “Cameron Atuli.”
The woman’s eyes go wide, and she puts her hand to her mouth. Wordlessly she motions me into a wide center hall.
I would like—would have liked—Rob and me to have a place like this one day, with sculpture and flowers and soft pale colors. That’s the only thought I have time for because the soldier girl comes galloping down the stairs. “Oh my God!”
“Shana Walders?” I say, and my voice comes out high and squeaky. I try again. “Shana Walders?”
“Where the fuck did you come from?”
“I—from Aldani House. I’d like to talk to you.”
She laughs, without mirth. “And I been trying to get to you for … but you already know that. Come on.” She grabs my arm. I can’t help it; I shrink back.
“Shana,” the old woman says, ice in her voice, “what is happening here?”
“How should I know?” Shana says. “I’m as surprised as you. Nick isn’t home, is he? Well, then, he can hear it all later. Meanwhile, Mr. Atuli is here to see me.”
She pulls me into the dining room and shuts the sliding door, leaving the old woman frowning in the hall. The dining room has a polished cherry table, heavy ivory curtains, and eight chairs upholstered in palest green. Beside them, Shana Walders and I look at each other.
“So, Cameron Atuli, what are you doing here?”
I steady myself against a chair back. “I want to know what happened to me. You said in New York that you know.” I clasp my hands hard in front of me and wait.
“Why do you want to know now, when you didn’t want to know nothing before?” she demands. Clearly she’s always demanding. I don’t like her.
“None of your business. Just tell me whatever you were going to tell me in New York.”
“It would be better if we cooperate.” Her voice has changed; she moves close to me and puts her hand on my shoulder, her lips parted a little, her eyes soft and wide. I stare at her incredulously. She moves away and laughs. “Just testing. Some of you are bi, right? But not you. All right, then let’s swap information.”
She talks, then, for a long time. About a train wreck, a warehouse, the chimps she saw with my face, what was said in some government committee. I can hardly bear to hear it. All those dreams of being chased by animals, the cringing at a dog on the street … but I don’t hear anything that should make me unable to dance. Shana finishes.
I say, “Is that all?”
“‘Is that all?’ Don’t you care that there are monkeys out there that look like Cameron Atuli, built for women who can’t have no kids? No, you don’t care. Or not much anyway. But as it happens, that isn’t all. Whoever kidnapped you did something else to you.”
Suddenly she’s uneasy. I wait.
“They cut off your balls,” she says brutally. “You are—were—fertile. They probably couldn’t get you to come, under torture I mean, and they wanted at least one fertile wad, so they hacked ’em off and took the load of sperm already in there. Fucking bastards.” After a minute she says something else, but I can’t hear her.
My testicles. They cut them off, because I couldn’t come on command. Was there anesthetic? Was I screaming? I can’t remember. You will wonder a thousand thousand times what was in those memories … but not this. Never this. Butchered like meat, still alive but … the ghost children of Mr. C.’s new ballet. Children of my body … I’d never wanted to father children. But somewhere in my deepest brain, I’d known why I couldn’t. Somewhere deeper than memory, somewhere where anger comes from … They cut off my balls.
Shana Walders is saying, “Hey. Hey, Cameron…” and holding out a glass of something. I drink it. Whiskey, burning as it goes down.
I say, “Do you know how hard a blithe man has to work to believe he’s a man? In this country, now?”
She stares at me, not understanding. Of course not. She’s female, and nobody ever made her doubt she deserved to live.… Who made me doubt myself? Who made me so afraid? But those memories are closed off forever.
They cut off my balls.…
I say, “But I have my balls. And I can make love—”
“Synthetic implants. For feel, looks, and hormone-making. But your cum isn’t fertile any more. Drink another.” Shana holds out more whiskey.
I bat it away and it spills over the pale green carpet.
“Hey—”
“I’ll kill them,” I say. “I’ll kill them all.”
Her face brightens. “Well, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, they—”
“I’ll kill them all. Aldani House has a lawyer. And if he’s not good enough, I have money from guest appearances with every major ballet troupe in the world, I’m Cameron Atuli—”
“A lawyer? You want to kill them with lawyers? Listen, Atuli, that don’t make no sense. The lawyers are on their side. The FBI is following you, and Nick Clementi says there’s no records of your kidnapping and no police action to find the kidnappers. That means it got blocked at a real high level. The government isn’t going to help you, Atuli. They’re covering up your torture.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You believed the rest of it, didn’t you?” she demands. “God, you’re a stewdee.”
I am Cameron Atuli. I am a dancer. I am blithe. I am a
dancer. I love Robert Radisson. I am a dancer. And someone cut off my balls.
I am a dancer.
Anger, I find, is a much stronger partner than fear. Fear stumbles and lurches; anger supports you firmly in whatever steps you choose.
“Where you going?” Shana says.
I say, “I have a performance in less than two hours. After that…” I stop. After that, what? What should come next? I must not lose my anger; I must not. My anger is all that’s making it possible for me to dance. So after the performance, what?
Shana says, “You’re not going to no performance. You call up Robert Radisson and tell him to meet us at the Ocean Bar on Georgia Avenue in D.C. It isn’t far from Aldani House.”
“Rob? Why?”
“Because I think he’s the only person who might know more than us. Even if he don’t realize it yet.”
“Know what sort of things?” I say.
“Hell, how do I know until I talk to him?” Shana says impatiently. “Just make the call, Atuli.”
“I will,” I say, and hold onto my anger and feel its power in my legs, my arms, my chest. The power to dance.
I call Rob.
13
NICK CLEMENTI
In Potomac Park, beside the river, stood an “old-fashioned marketplace” trying to look as if it had suddenly sprung up, a commercial Brigadoon, from a hundred years ago. All profits went to support the park, now that the government could no longer afford to do so. The area was kept clean of elderly homeless so tourists could buy pressed-felt fedoras, miniature Model T cars, penny candy, and posters of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Shirley Temple. The shops were beamed and floored in dark wood; the clerks wore baggy print dresses and garish lipstick. Safe in the hallowed quiets of the Past … Right.
The public “phone booths” were small individual sheds, each with a wooden seat, glassed in for privacy. None had vid. They took coins. I eased myself onto a seat, closed the door, and gazed at the “Instructions For Dialing,” which you had to do to reach a link. But the link itself was real enough. A secretary program answered my call. “Good afternoon. Tymbal, Kramer, and Anderson.”