The Wild Swans

by Peg Kerr

  It took him longer to see the story in the pictures of the interstices. The first thing was the dust on the weight machine.

  He’d gone to put a book back on the shelf next to it. He placed his hand on the bench while leaning over it to replace the book, and when he stood up again, he saw the outline of his hand in the dust on the black vinyl.

  Sean had always teased him about being a neat freak. It’s not that I’m a slob, he’d say, but I’ve never been in a relationship with anybody who actually dusted before. And that was the strange thing. Elias had never needed to dust the weight-machine bench, because Sean used it every day. Didn’t he?

  Elias looked more closely. Sean always followed the same routine when lifting weights. Why was the pin holding the weights set there? It was less than half where Sean usually placed it for the last set of reps.

  Why?

  Such a small thing. Hardly worth noticing, let alone mentioning. And yet... slowly, Elias reached down and removed the pin. He hid it behind a book on the top shelf.

  He waited a week. Sean didn’t say anything about it.

  After two weeks, he decided Sean hadn’t noticed because he’d stopped lifting weights. So what?

  Why not ask him about it?

  Sean did most of the laundry since he was around the apartment for much of the day. The next detail Elias picked up on was that the sheets were being changed almost every day. The two of them didn’t particularly cuddle in bed, but sometimes in the middle of the night, the hot, oily-slick touch of Sean’s skin startled Elias into wakefulness. Sean would say nothing about it in the morning—but a new set of sheets would be on the bed when Elias got home from work that night.

  Around the solstice, Elias realized that Sean, the original night owl, didn’t want to stay out at music parties as late as he usually did. Sometimes when Elias called from the shop in the middle of the day, Sean still sounded groggy.

  “What are you still doing in bed this time of day?”

  “Who says I was in bed?”

  “You sound so tired, Sean. Are you okay?”

  “Just haven’t had my coffee yet.”

  Nothing, it’s nothing, Elias told himself. He’s been putting in a lot of hours on that latest series of articles. Just get some extra-strength coffee to keep around the apartment, and don’t worry about it.

  Although he kept taking pictures and developing them at the shop, looking for a pattern, a part of him wordlessly dreaded what he might discover.

  January segued into February, and at the shop, Rick descended into his usual midwinter grouchiness. Sean bought an Irish harp from Nick and started working on some Turlough O’Carolan tunes. The city council sent another gay rights proposal down in flames in March. Elias sent for some college catalogues and financial aid applications. “I’ll Tumble 4 Ya” was on jukeboxes everywhere. Jerry came down with Pneumocystis carinii and went on the respirator at St. Vincent’s and then, to everybody’s surprise, was taken off of it three weeks later and allowed to return home. The trees in Central Park leafed out, and the knife-edged shadow lines on the sidewalks softened to blurred curves, edged with buttery yellow light. And then, one night in June, Elias stayed at the shop after his shift to experiment with the new enlarger. He took a test roll he had just developed and set the enlarger to print some five-by-sevens and eight-by-tens. When he heard the dryer switch off inside the print processor, he went to pick up the prints from the hopper outside the darkroom.

  He rifled through the stack quickly and stopped at the second to last picture, a mirror shot of Sean’s face, taken from the bedroom. The color wasn’t quite adjusted correctly, he noted. Probably he had to remove the cyan to the filter pack in the enlarger—Sean’s face seemed slightly yellow. The tilt of his head cast angular shadows under his cheekbones and the reflection of his eyes, staring back at the camera... Elias went over to the window to examine the expression more closely in the sunlight coming into the shop. What was it about those eyes? After a moment, he went into the office to compare the picture in his hand to the one of Sean that Rick had mounted up on the wall.

  When had Sean’s eyes gotten so sunken?

  The sudden jangle of the phone startled him so badly he almost dropped the picture. He knocked over the paper-clip holder while picking the phone up, before he remembered Rick was supposed to be answering it up front. “Van Hoosen Photography.”

  “That you, Elias? It’s Sean.”

  “Yeah, it’s me. Sean—”

  “Hey, I got a surprise for your birthday. Kind of last-minute—I didn’t want to mention it because I wasn’t sure if Gordy would come through for us. But he managed to snag these tickets—”

  “Tickets to what?” Elias asked, still eyeing the picture in his hand.

  “Want to go to the ballet tonight?” Elias thought he detected a certain smug note in Sean’s voice. Elias felt his eyebrows go up. “The ballet? Are you serious?”

  “I’m serious. Gordy got us tickets to the Tracks—Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. They’re performing at City Center Dance Theater. Ever heard of them?”

  Elias vaguely remembered seeing an advertisement somewhere. Maybe the Village Voice! “Um... a male dance troupe or something, right?”

  “A male drag dance troupe. Gordy’s coming, too.”

  “Does he feel up to it?”

  “Guess so. And he’s got two other tickets he’s trying to find someone to take. Maybe Leo and Kiyoshi, if Minta and Ruth can’t make it. Come on, Elias. You’ll love the show. Trust me.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer’s voice began, and the rustle of people taking their seats died down. “In accordance with the greatest traditions of Russian ballet, there will be changes in tonight’s program.”

  The audience tittered.

  “In this evening’s performance of the second act of Swan Lake, the role of Odette will be danced by Mademoiselle Fifi Chang. The Marche Slav will be performed by Yurika Sakitumi, and the Dying Swan will be danced this evening by Ludmila Beaulemova. We wish to remind you that the use of flashbulbs in this theater is strictly prohibited. Sudden bursts of light tend to remind some of our more fragile ballerinas of terrible Bolshevik gunfire.”

  Elias and Sean exchanged grins as the audience cracked up. “And finally,” the announcer concluded cheerfully, “we are pleased to announce that Mademoiselle Fifi Chang is in a very, very good mood this evening.”

  To applause, the curtains went up as the familiar strains of Tchaikovsky began. Von Rothbart stormed onto the stage, waving his cape around grandly. With a smirk, he adjusted his cuffs and gesticulated broadly into the orchestra pit, presumably to show everyone who hadn’t read their program book yet that he was an evil sorcerer. He then exited stage left, dragging a rope attached to a papier-mâché swan on a wheeled trolley. The spotlight dutifully tracked it off the stage. Next, Beonno came onstage, a cheerful youth with a fetching feathered hat and a crossbow. The tights looked sensational on him. He was soon joined by Prince Siegfried—an amiable young man, apparently, who appeared to consider Beonno a good friend even if Beonno did almost put a crossbow bolt through his gut at his sudden appearance. A flurry of pantomime established that Prince Siegfried hunted a swan. Beonno exited, presumably to continue the chase elsewhere, and as the Prince turned, the object of his pursuit fluttered onto the stage.

  “Oh, my god,” Elias heard someone mutter in the row behind him. “Didja ever see a swan princess before with such hairy armpits?”

  It was incredible, Elias decided. The costume, the wig, the big arched feet, dancing en pointe, the delicately graceful arm movements—Odette really did look and move like a ballerina. And then something would puncture the illusion—a foot placed in an exaggerated position, an expressive look directed at the audience, a deliberate stumble. Once, as she spun on one toe, supported by her devoted lover, she apparently ran out of momentum and, with a comical grimace, resorted to hauling herself hand over hand on her partner’s shoulder to complete the turn.
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  The Prince and Odette quickly established, through a combination of dance and pantomime, that Odette was under an enchantment that turned her into a swan by day, but that the Prince’s devoted love could break the spell. Other enchanted swans joined them in a group dance, with much simpering and fluttering (and occasional missteps and pratfalls). The Prince informed Beonno emphatically, upon his return, that he had now entered a no-swan-hunting zone (one of the swans emphasized the point with a delicate kick that knocked Beonno right off his pins). As the time drew near for Odette to turn back into a swan, Von Rothbart, like a true spoilsport, interrupted a passionate pas de deux to tear Odette from the Prince’s embrace. The sorcerer dragged her offstage, and the agonized Prince fell to the ground, senseless, as the curtain fell.

  The company trooped onstage en masse to accept, with many flourishing bows and preening curtsies, the audience’s applause. Mademoiselle Fifi Chang graciously accepted a bouquet of roses, and as the company stepped back, the curtain fell again and the lights went up for the intermission.

  “You were right, Gordy,” Kiyoshi said as they all stood up. “I’m glad you had Leo nag me into coming; they’re hilarious.”

  “They’re even funnier if you know much about ballet,” Gordy replied. “I’ve never been able to look at Swan Lake quite the same way since seeing the Tracks perform it.”

  Elias eyed Sean as they made their way out to the lobby. Sean looked fine—well, maybe a bit tired, his expression drawn and preoccupied. Elias studied him surreptitiously, remembering the picture he had developed that afternoon. Well, okay, so Sean’s legs didn’t look quite as good as Kiyoshi’s, but then Kiyoshi made his living as a bicycle messenger. Still, Sean looked fit, his hands strong and capable. Were those same jagged lines and harsh shadows still there in his face? Or had it been just an effect of the weird color balance when he’d printed the photograph?

  “Enjoying the show?” Sean asked, his eyebrow raised.

  “Yeah. My parents took me to the ballet once or twice, but I’ve never seen anything quite like this.”

  He hesitated, wondering whether to say something about the picture, but just then Leo, Kiyoshi, and Gordy walked up to join them, and the moment was lost.

  Yurika Sakitumi opened the second act with “Marche Slav.” (“I doubt,” Gordy was heard to remark, sotto voce, “that the relationship between an abstract concept like freedom and the symbolic use of draperies has ever been so clear.”

  “Was that supposed to be Marxist or something?” Elias heard Kiyoshi whisper back.) Next, the central curtain came down and a spotlight illuminated stage right. Nothing happened at first, and then as the music began, the spot fled over to stage left to shine on a sylphlike figure wafting from the wings, her back to the audience. Elias felt a faint shock of recognition and checked his program book—yes, “The Dying Swan,” music by Camille Saint-Saens. He remembered a public television show he’d seen once with some old archive footage of the ballerina Anna Pavlova performing her signature piece. Ludmila Beaulemova was dancing it exactly the same way—well, except he doubted Anna Pavlova had left feathers from her costume drifting onto the stage in her wake. The cello music swelled; the swan’s life force grew fainter. More flapping, more feathers falling, and a preliminary onset of rigor mortis made the swan stagger for a moment. An expression like languid alarm crossed her features as the audience laughed. She fluttered, wobbled, and collapsed ever so gracefully, one leg tastefully extended before herself. A few exquisite, plaintive death throes and, finally, she expired, lying on the stage with one wing sticking straight up in the air.

  The lights went out and then the spotlight reappeared to show Ludmila Beaulemova on her feet again, making a deep, heartfelt obeisance to the audience, arms elegantly extended behind her back. She slipped offstage and then came mincing back for another bow. As the applause strengthened, she looked up to the balcony and broke into tears, touchingly overwhelmed by the audience’s tribute. She knelt and indicated in pantomime placing her heart at her feet.

  Elias, grinning as he clapped, glanced over at Sean.

  Sean was crying.

  The sight didn’t make sense at first. Was it just that he’d been laughing so hard? No, he wasn’t even smiling ... Sean noticed Elias looking at him and hastily wiped away the moisture on his cheeks with the edge of his hand. He began clapping, too.

  “Are you okay?” Elias asked in a low voice.

  Sean shrugged, obviously unhappy at Elias’s observation. “It’s nothing.”

  Elias forced his attention back to the stage as the applause died down and the lights went up. As the audience began to stand, Ludmila Beaulemova came out again, arms lifted, blowing kisses to the audience.

  Gordy was too tired to go out after the show, so the group broke up and Elias and Sean took the subway home. “That piece about Carrie Nation, now,” Sean said as they found their seats. “That was really something.” He grinned. “Choreography by what’s-‘er-name; axes by Ace Hardware. I tell you, I was moved. I will dedicate the next bottle of Guinness I drink to her. The amazon of the temperance movement!”

  “I’m sure she’d be touched.”

  “So which was your favorite part?”

  Elias considered. “I guess I liked Swan Lake the best.” His foot idly toyed with a scrap of paper on the floor. “It reminds me of a book I saw when I was a kid...”

  “What book?” Sean asked after a moment’s pause.

  “Funny, I haven’t thought about it in years. It was a collection of fairy tales I kept checking out of the library. My mother tried to keep me from taking it out once, I remember. I mean, why was her son so fascinated with this fairy tale book?” He paused. “I never made that connection before. Guess she was worried about my masculinity even back then.

  “Anyway, one tale told the story of a girl whose brothers had all been enchanted by their stepmother, so they were swans by day and men by night. She had to weave shirts out of nettles to save them and break the curse over them. And she had to remain silent while she did it or the brothers would all die.”

  He felt as if he were babbling. Why couldn’t he talk about what was really on his mind? Why were you crying, Sean? Why can’t you tell me?

  Sean nodded. “I see the connection to Swan Lake. That’s a common folktale motif, the mortal turned into a bird.” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the subway’s roar. “There’s an Irish version of the tale, you know, called ‘The Children of Lir.’ I sometimes sing from parts of the longer ballad form. In that version, the sister is enchanted by the stepmother, as well as her brothers.”

  “Does she manage to save them?” Elias asked lightly.

  “She breaks the curse. But it hardly matters. Once the spell is broken, they all die at the end of the story.”

  Elias shivered. The lights flickered on and off as the subway plunged onward.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Hail, wedded love! mysterious law! true source

  Of human offspring, sole propriety

  In paradise, of all things common else.

  By thee adult’rous lust was driven from men

  Among the bestial herds to range; by thee,

  Founded in reason, loyal, just and pure,

  Relations dear, and all the charities

  Of father, son, and brother, first were known.

  Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets,

  Whose bed is undefil’d and chaste pronounc’d

  Present or past, as saints or patriarchs us’d.

  Here Love his golden shafts employs; here lights

  His constant lamp, and wares his purple wings:

  Reigns here, and revels not in the bought smile

  Of harlots, loveless, joyless, unendear’d,

  Casual fruition; nor in court amours,

  Mix’d dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball,

  Or serenade, which the starv’d lover sings

  To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain.

  —JOHN MILTON
, PARADISE LOST

  The widow Goody Patience Carter lived beside the salt marsh on the east side of town. Her plot of land was neither large nor rich, for her husband, Josiah, had chosen it, and it was widely agreed that whenever given any opportunity, Josiah Carter had always had an unerring knack for making the wrong choice.

  There were those who joked that Goody Carter should have been named Silence rather than Patience, for she was a great talker. Some even said that her husband had died as much from a wish for some peace and quiet as from the effects of too much drink. Those who smiled at her volubility, however, had to admit that she was no mere empty-headed chatterbox. She had, in fact, both a shrewdly observant eye and a boundlessly generous heart.

  Moreover, she possessed a skill essential to a superior midwife: she knew how to keep her neighbors’ secrets. After her husband’s death she pieced together a spare but respectable living for herself and her two children from her garden and animals, supplemented by trading her herbal remedies and nursing for goods with her neighbors.

  The hunting party, with Eliza, came out of the woods to the north of Goody Carter’s small property. After the men divided among themselves the wild hares and woodcocks they had shot, Goodman North transferred the rough bundle made of the nettle flax to the Reverend’s horse. Then he and Goodman Hubbard left to follow the road back to their farms.

  “Is Goody Carter in sight?” Jonathan asked.

  William shifted uneasily in his saddle. “Perhaps she has been called to Goodman Parker’s home? I spoke with their girl yesterday; she said Goody Parker was very near her time.”

  “I see Katherine,” Jonathan replied, nodding toward the door of the house where a girl of thirteen or so had just emerged to feed the chickens foraging around the doorstep. “Let us go speak to her.”