“But you did.”
“I didn’t. I was…” Rebecca blinked. “I…”
“What? Say it, Pet Princess.”
Rebecca stared at the floor.
“Blacked out.” She snatched some panties from her locker and then slid into a pair of shorts. She grabbed her dance bag and whirled toward the door. Lenore planted herself in the way.
“Sure.” Her little pug nose wrinkled in distaste. Rebecca wasn’t sure how she was going to pass by this miniature blockade without starting a fight, but she had just twenty minutes to eat and then be ready for the first “Aîda” rehearsal with the demanding Ms. Sailor.
A hand clamped down on Lenore’s shoulder.
“Let’s all ease down and get to our next classes.” Raven to the rescue. Tall Raven Ring looked down at Lenore, all sincerity and smiles. Raven gazed with black eyes gleaming and her wide mouth uttering soothing phrases in a deep, earthy voice. Not a person anyone bothered, not even a mosquito like Lenore.
Lenore gave way by backing up. Rebecca swept past her.
“See you in rehearsal,” Rebecca called to Raven, who nodded with solemnity. Randy awarded her the part of Amemnis, Aïda’s rival. Best friends at each other’s throats — a test of their loyalty.
Chapter Three
“Where did you learn to do that?” Emmylou Sailor stood at the front of the class, hands on her hips, casting a look of astonishment at Rebecca.
“What?” Rebecca replied before she could think. What had she been doing? First came the dance of Aïda’s imprisonment and sorrow, then the twisty, spiraling solo in which her character expressed her longing for her Nubian home. Somewhere I had a blackout.
“You did this thing with your hips.” Sailor answered, demonstrating with an odd little shimmy, “And then you spread your arms as if you were holding an instrument.” Sailor’s arms flew wide open and the fingers moved as if strumming or shaking a delicate object.
Rebecca knew she must answer this famous and often imperious New York choreographer. The woman didn’t like to be kept waiting. But Rebecca just stood, rooted to her spot on the floor, slack-jawed like the class moron. A few students in the back began to giggle, silenced by a stinging look from Sailor. She turned to Rebecca again, every feature on her long-nosed, haughty face asking, “Well?”
“I, uh, dreamed it.” As she said the words, Rebecca knew they were true. This movement, this odd, exotic dance had been in her dreams for many nights now. Something else existed — the sensation of a presence standing behind her, driving her on.
“Dreamed it.” Sailor snapped her mouth closed and turned up the corners of her thin lips in a pretense of a smile.
“Yeah, I’ve been researching the Egyptians, and it must have entered my subconscious …” Rebecca said, mumbling as she studied the floor, drawing imaginary circles on the ground with her bare feet.
Sailor clapped her hands, and Rebecca looked up to see a smug toss of Sailor’s head.
“Well, I love it. It’s absolutely perfect. There’s no better way a woman from that time, that place, that complex mix of cultures could move. Of course. The hips, yes, very Mideastern, but the hands, open and African.” Sailor was talking to herself now, going through Rebecca’s turns and tying them together with her own dance craft.
“This thing with the fingers,” Sailor said, brows inching together. “She’s playing some instrument. Cymbals?”
“No, I think it’s a sistrum.” Rebecca had seen a picture of the ancient percussion instrument just the other day.
“Yes, yes. Of course.” Sailor ran out of the room, leaving Rebecca alone with the dumbfounded class. She shrugged, but no one else moved a muscle. No one dared to breathe. They just stared at her.
Sailor scurried back in seconds, holding a huge, well-thumbed book on Egyptology with a picture of King Tut’s death mask on the cover. She paged through it with authority, while leaning on the mirrored wall.
“There,” she cried. She held up the page so everyone in the room could see the strange little instrument, made of metal and set with jangling discs on wires. It looked like a small harp with tiny cymbals attached.
“It is for calling the goddess,” the choreographer continued. “The Egyptians used it, but archaeologists discovered it was also found all throughout the upper regions of Africa. It was supposed to summon the goddess Hathor in particular. She was also called Hat-her in the Egyptian language.”
She whirled on Rebecca. “Yes, perfect. We’ll leave it in. Okay, class, from the top.” She put down the book and cued an assistant who ran the CD player. And from the top they went, with Rebecca sweating and swirling her way through her dance of capture and lament. The class acted as a chorus, moving in silent, undulating shifts, all straining to see the captured princess Aïda.
Then the solo. Sailor turned to Rebecca, whose insides became rubber. She knew she couldn’t make one muscle move to her command. She was going to fall flat on her first day of rehearsal. Fear seized her lungs.
Then she found herself running through the solo, sweeping up and down in Sailor’s signature pirouettes. At Sailor’s sudden snap of the fingers, Rebecca threw in her own hip movement and opened her hands to play the imaginary sistrums. All turned to bliss now, even in her captivity scenes, because this Aïda danced her soul’s desire straight to her goddess. Rebecca internalized the perfection –– the movement, the sensation of almost taking off into the sky, the imagined chime of the sistrums. She transformed into Aïda, and she would be free some day.
Just as Sailor had devised, Rebecca collapsed. She lay bent-kneed on the floor and rolled over in agony. The class advanced step by step to peer at the princess in pain. The final notes sang out, and Rebecca held up her fist in defiance.
“Beautiful!” Sailor shouted, clapping in staccato beats. “Much better than I ever would have dreamed for a first rehearsal.” She shot from the front of the class to Rebecca, who now sat in a pool of sweat, picking at her sodden garments that stuck to her skin like seaweed.
“And I will have a very special partnership with you. That’s for certain.”
#
A servant girl parted the sheer curtains and leaned forward, chattering the gossip. Nadeema arranged to visit when the sundial cast its shadow over the first peg on the obelisk, when the sunlight touched the top of the temple’s highest window. This marked the hour when Ra was in his glory, the fitting time for the appearance of a best friend.
Neferet stared out the window and began to hum a favorite tune, for now she would be able to amuse herself with someone other than the dull temple priests, her jealous and sullen former classmates and her icy mother. She had grown up in the children’s quarters with black-eyed Nadeema. They shared all the secrets of childhood — from how to sneak past the palace walls after midnight to the mystifying rituals of the first blood. She and Nadeema bled together the same month and thus became women together. Nadeema’s ear would be sympathetic, something Neferet missed every day in her apartments near the temple.
Neferet held much land now and owned a great many treasures, which meant she had to retain security men around her domain and farms at all times. No one understood the burden this put on a teenage girl whose only bit of former property had been a few pieces of lapis lazuli and some gold jewelry.
With a long breath, she slid into her vanity chair, carved with the scene of a hunting party on its back. It dated perhaps two centuries ago. The wood itself, a rarity in the kingdom, could command a small fortune on the black market. Just one of reasons she needed guards. All around her were masterpieces, some priceless. She beckoned for a servant to come over and braid her hair.
“Wouldn’t mistress prefer the jeweled wig?” the servant asked, averting her eyes as she spoke. She indicated a wig entwined with gold and carnelian beads.
“No, I just want my own hair braided.”
“As you wish, but your station benefits from a fashionable headdress.”
“Are you just too lazy to do th
e work?” Neferet said, turning to narrow her eyes at the impertinent girl. Such cheek. Had Maya let her servant boss around a God’s Wife? The maid trembled a little as she gathered up a comb and pins. Neferet wondered when she’d ever get this servant/ mistress relationship straight. Things had been so easy in the familiar women’s lodgings and in the temple schools. Now she had personal attendants, but no one gave her instructions on how to manage them.
“No, your loveliness, whatever the Divine Adoratrice desires is what I shall do,” the handmaiden said.
Neferet sat forward and checked the maid’s progress with her polished brass mirror. The woman worked, fingers flying, treating each plait with a fragrant wax that would keep the style fresh for days. The last braid was finished, and the servant placed a small diadem across Neferet’s brow. The mirror showed a woman of simple elegance, and her blue, porcelain, faience-beaded necklace and bracelets added grace to the clean lines.
Before she could thank her hairdresser, there was a swish of the outer, heavier curtains. A male voice called out Nadeema’s name.
“Oh, please, send her in and leave us alone,” Neferet cried.
She turned to the doorway to see Nadeema, in a linen sheath and elaborate pectoral necklace of the Wedjat — Hor-heb’s eye. She ran to hug her childhood friend, but the girl pulled back at the last moment.
“My lady …” Nadeema started to say.
“Go ahead and touch me. I’m not made of glass,” Neferet said as she wrapped her friend in an embrace. “And don’t be so formal. I’m still your friend, not ‘your lady.’ Don’t you remember the day of Maya’s day of remembrance? How we’d always be friends, no matter what happened?”
They both began to laugh, and Nadeema favored her friend with a proper hug. They glided into the living area, trading stories until the servants brought lunch. They dined on duck and figs, with dates for dessert, and chattered about the latest romances in the kingdom. Then the girls quibbled about which of the Pharaoh’s jewelers did the finest work. They rated the king’s soldiers on their good looks but ended up giggling in agreement that Kamose, the Pharaoh’s son, shone as the handsomest.
Neferet spoke little about the duties of her new office. Every time the subject came up, she’d bite on a date and stare into the middle distance. As if she could contain herself no more, Nadeema asked a single question.
“What do you do in there, in the Holy of Holies?”
Both sat open-mouthed, staring at each other. Few more sacrilegious things could be said, but Neferet was not about to punish her friend for simple curiosity. She felt blood rise to her face, and she blinked her kohl-blackened eyes several times before attempting to answer.
“Oh, Nadeema, they never prepared me for it.” She glanced away in distaste.
“What could be so vile that you won’t tell me? I’m your best friend. Your secret’s safe with me.”
Neferet dropped her head and refused to speak.
“Oh, I know it is not allowed,” Nadeema said, voice quavering. She pulled fitfully at her braids. “I am out of line and must be punished by the god Amun himself.”
Neferet smiled to herself. She knew well enough that the gods were all images and manifestation of the One. Amun himself would never act out of rage. Anyone who learned the mysteries of the temple would know that. She grabbed Nadeema’s arm and stroked the soft, tan skin.
“It’s really not forbidden — although no one ever asks. What happens is not vile. It’s simply beyond belief.”
“Well, what goes on then?”
“You know that statue, the icon of the god…”
“Well, I’ve heard of it. Skin of blue and eyes of the purest jasper. I’ve never been able to see it when they bring it out for holidays.”
“Well, when I’m left alone with it, I dance.’
“To please him, of course. You always were a fantastic dancer.”
“The priests have put me in a trance with the didi, so I don’t know if I’m imagining things or not, but after I dance my heart out, when I can draw no more breath, the statue is not a statue anymore. At least it happened once.”
Nadeem blinked.
“He became soft and similar to a human. Maybe he is a human … and I had to pleasure him. As, spare me, his lover …”
“His wife.”
“It doesn’t matter. I felt like a cheap whore when I was done.”
“Let me get this right. He can become flesh and blood? No! That’s impossible. When did he turn back to stone and gold?”
“When I was done. It’s as if he always had been stone,” Neferet said. She fingering her necklace, not meeting Nadeema’s eyes, feeling a fool.
“That’s not possible. There must have been a man in the chapel. Can anyone else get into the chamber?”
“It’s supposed to be unassailable. Fool-proof.”
“But Maya, the last wife.”
“I know. The same man who killed her could be sneaking in and ... taking advantage of me. I can hardly bear to think of it.” She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to blank out the shame. “How long before I’m next — the next one dead?” She looked up at Nadeema.
Both friends stared into each other’s eyes. Nadeem shook her head, as if to ward off thoughts of evil. Neferet found herself lost in gruesome memories. The cold hands on her skin. Her dress torn away. A man’s rough hands forcing her legs apart. The pain, the dreadful pain and blood. Shame rushed over her like sudden fever. She bowed her head to hide her emotions.
“Maybe the statue is the living god, just as the priests tell us,” Nadeema said, tearing Neferet from her anguished thoughts.
“I never believed that for a minute.”
“Neither did I.”
#
The phone sat like a poisonous toad on the living room table. Two weeks had gone by since Rebecca last used it to reach her family in Iowa. She lifted her shoulders in an exaggerated sigh and leaned over to touch it. It didn’t bite. She lifted the receiver and punched in the familiar numbers, digits she had memorized since her childhood in Cedar Rapids.
The voice that came on the other line was low, masculine and a touch harried.
“Ash, it’s ‘Bec.”
“Haven’t heard a word from you in a while. We’re over here having Sunday dinner with Mom and Dad,” Ash said, losing the grumpiness in his tone. “We could save a place for you.”
Rebecca laughed and did some quick thinking. Was it better to hang up and say she’d call later or press ahead and bid Mom to the phone? With Mom, you’d never know how she’d react. Instead, her brother Ashford, the older, more responsible sibling, made the decision for her.
“I’ll go get Ma. She’s always the last one to sit down anyway.”
Rebecca waited a nervous few seconds until her mother’s nasal voice sang through the wires between farmland and the big city.
“’Bec, darling, we were so worried when you didn’t call last Sunday.” The voice was smooth, but an accusatory tone still lurked beneath the words.
“It’s the only Sunday I’ve missed in a long time. Anyway, Mom, I have something wonderful to tell you.”
“You got a real job?”
“Oh, Mom, stop it. I’ve been named the lead dancer in the troupe’s production of ‘Aïda.’ And we’re taking it on tour — all over, even to Paris.”
“Paris,” Her mother let out an audible gulp. “Well, that’s a long ways away.”
“Yes, but what an opportunity. I was rehearsing last Sunday with one of the most famous choreographers from New York. I was so excited I could have popped. I was just too worn out to call after that workout.”
“Well, I suppose this is good news. I’ll have you talk to your father about it.”
“Mom, wait …” Rebecca realized it was useless to continue as the line hissed in her ear. Soon, Matt Kirk’s voice growled over the wires.
“Sounds like Miss Marvella’s Dance Academy was worth all that time and money.” Would they ever stop complaining about how muc
h the dance lessons cost them?
“Paid off beautifully, Dad. I’m going to be the star.”
“Sounds great, sweetheart. You’re always a star to me. Now when are we going to see your pretty little face around here?”
“Actually, I was going to ask if you and the family would come to see me in Chicago. The show starts in June, and the international tour is going to last a long time.”
“Chicago,” he said and made a strangled noise deep in his throat. “You know how I feel about that place.”
“I’ll put you up in a great hotel, and you won’t have to drive anywhere. I’ll make sure it’s impossible for you to get lost. Or you could see the New York show …”
“New York? Now I know you are dreaming. A guy from Cedar Rapids is never going to get the hang of New York City. “
“Well, Chicago then. Think about it. It’s not so bad here, you just need someone to smooth the way for you.”
“Missy wants to talk to you.” Non-committal as always.
Missy, the youngest, chattered with enthusiasm.
“’Bec, it’s wonderful. My sister, the celebrity of the stage.”
“Well, at least you seem to be excited.”
“Hey, we all are thrilled. I’ll come to Chicago even if the rest of them won’t. I’m an adult now. Eighteen. I’ll take the Greyhound.”
“But won’t you be in school? Are you still planning to go to Iowa City for college?”
“Yup. It’s all planned. And remember, I’m graduating high school. I’ll be free in June to see my sister in a big production … oh, ‘Bec, I’m just so excited. You always got those pirouettes that I couldn’t do at Miss Marvella’s.”
A strange buzzing started in the back of Rebecca’s ear. She felt her mind shift around, heading toward the back of her skull. Stay with the present. The buzzing became a rasping sound, like the roar of a far-away crowd.
“I’ve gotta go, Missy,” Rebecca was sweating now, desperate to get off the phone. “Give my love to everyone. Say hi to Gramma.” Get off the phone before you lose touch.
THE GOD'S WIFE Page 4