Dancing with Air (Still Life with Memories Book 4)

by Uvi Poznansky

  At last, people started coming out. Like me, they were in uniform. Some of them were American soldiers, others—British. Instead of spreading out, they tarried by the doors, apparently in anticipation for someone.

  I glanced over the shoulder of the man closest to me: in his hand was a printed piece of paper, with the word Programme written in Old English letters across the top. It listed not only the performers but also the nearest air raid shelters, including the Hall’s basement corridors and the Exhibition Road tunnel.

  All of a sudden, a massive round of applause erupted as a slender figure came out, followed closely by Mrs. Babcock, who was carrying some little bundle for her. Between one shoulder and another I could see that Natasha was dressed in a shiny gown, one that had probably been sewn out of parachute silk. Unlike the drab tone of it, the bonnet hat that framed her red curls was delightfully colorful, with a ribbon band around the crown and a lovely brim, laden with flower clusters.

  Scores of men lined up. Each one in turn presented his printed Programme to her, asking for an autograph.

  One said, “Natasha Horowitz, I just love your music.”

  “I’ll never forget your name, as long as I live,” said another.

  And another one said, “You remind me of my girl, back home.”

  Joining the line I had no idea, at first, if she caught sight of me. Natasha gave a nod here, a word there to her fans, asked each one of them for his name, scribbled a short greeting, and signed it for him. Then, as I drew nearer, she took a step back and exchanged a quick look with Mrs. Babcock.

  With a flash in her eyes Natasha asked, under her breath, “Did you tell him where to find me?”

  “Who, me?” said the woman.

  Turning away from her she said, this time out loud, “I suppose the whereabouts of a performer are no secret, so what took you so long?”

  Astonished at her remark I looked at those who stood ahead of me and those who stood behind. Then I asked, “Who, me?”

  “No, not you,” said one. “Me! Me! How about me?”

  And another one asked, “Who, him?”

  And a third one chimed in, “That guy, you mean?”

  To which Natasha said, “I do.”

  And to me she said, “It’s too late for us, Lenny, don’t you agree?”

  And I asked, as if I had no idea why she would resist me, “Late for what?”

  “For love to start all over again.”

  “You’re wrong, Natashinka.”

  “Am I?”

  “I’m here just in time, to ask you one thing.”

  “Which is what?”

  I handed her the Programme, which I had just snatched from the next person in line, and said, “Will you sign your name for me?”

  She asked, “What name shall I sign?”

  “Natasha,” I said, “Kaminsky.”

  “You know that’s not my name.”

  “Not yet. But soon, it will be.”

  I knelt before her, opening my arms, my heart.

  “Please, do it, Natasha,” I said. “It’ll be a great honor for me.”

  Then I dug the gold locket out of my pocket, and offered it to her. She opened it, uttering a cry of amazement.

  “Oh! It’s you, it’s me,” she breathed. “And look, there’s no tear.”

  “Well,” said Mrs. Babcock. “D’you like him?”

  And Natasha said, in a soft tone, “I do.”

  And I said, in a tone that was even softer, “I love you, sweetheart, and I always will.”

  In a heartbeat she bent over, heat surging between us, and before I could utter another word, kissed me long and full on my lips.

  At the sight of this unlikely spectacle, the crowd went wild. A soldier kissed by a star! People threw hats up in the air as well as their Programmes, even the ones that had been autographed already, and yelled for joy. And they would have started to dance around us too, if not for us bolting, as one, out of their midst.

  By now we were already close to Kensington Gardens. Behind us I heard a patter of footsteps, as Mrs. Babcock did her best to catch up to us.

  “Wait! Wait, this belongs to Natasha,” she cried, even as she was huffing and puffing.

  I turned back, took the bundle from her hands, and to her surprise, as well as mine, gave her a quick peck on her cheek. Then I dashed forward, outpacing the approaching crowd, placed the thing in the sidecar—between my backpack and my woolen army blanket—and mounted my bike. Natasha hopped onto the seat right behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist.

  “Where to?” she asked.

  And I said, “To a place where the tide is high, reaching up for the pale moon.”

  In reply, she hugged me tighter.

  I kickstarted the Harley, and over the rattle of the engine I said, “To the Strait of Dover!”

  Sang the Bold Fisherman

  Chapter 11

  We had been driving for hours, but time did not matter. It seemed as if just a moment went by. I knew she was happy. So was I. Sweet was the night air.

  When the medieval Dover castle came into view I turned off the engine, and in the sudden spell of silence, we coasted down the last stretch of road. Natasha was clinging to me from behind, the edge of her dress rolled up and gathered tightly around her legs so it would not flutter. I felt her bare knees pressing against my thighs, felt her breath washing across the back of my neck, arousing me to her heat.

  She hopped off the Harley and gazed at the view, utterly in awe of it. Penetrating the fog, early morning light hit the White Cliffs of Dover, upon which we stood, setting them aglow. And the teal tone of the water, far down below, reflected clouds of mist, drifting across ever so dreamily, which beguiled us into a sense of tranquility.

  Casting a look at the Strait of Dover, Natasha pointed at the opposite coast and at ours. “They seem to be drawing together,” she said, “as if for a kiss.”

  There was no need for me to ask who or what she meant. By instinct, I understood. The Weald in South East Britain seemed to be reaching out, just under the surface of the water, to lick the Boulonnais in Pas de Calais.

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s just how they seem.”

  At the gate of the castle, we were met by a couple of Royal Marines, who stopped playing cards as soon as they saw us.

  “Who’re you?” asked one.

  And the other said, “And what brings you here, to Hellfire Corner?”

  I showed them the clearance papers, signed by my officer, which made them relax into a long-winded explanation, saying that they had nothing against me personally, but one could not be too careful these days, because nowadays anyone could be a spy, and these were dangerous times, because in spite of the current interlude in shelling, German guns had been firing on slow moving convoys, which they had been doing regularly as far back as the beginning of this war, knowing that by necessity, these convoys had to pass through the bottleneck of the Dover strait to transport essential supplies, such as coal. And the papers are fine, thank you, do enjoy the beach, it’s been rather quiet in the last few days, and keep out of trouble.

  With that, they went back to playing.

  “You’re too stupid for a game of cards,” said one. “It’s no fun beating you!”

  And the other said, “Well then, how about letting me win?”

  ❋

  I left the Harley in the shadow, in the back side of the castle, taking with me a backpack, which contained a tin of biscuits, prepared for us by Mrs. Babcock. I also got the olive-green blanket out of the sidecar and fastened it with a rope to the top of the backpack. Meanwhile, Natasha untied her bundle of clothes and pulled out a swimsuit.

  “Turn around,” she said.

  “Can’t I watch?” said I, finding myself surprised at her shyness, because I had seen her in the nude before, even if it had not been in broad daylight.

  She blushed, and then blushed some more, perhaps because of blushing in the first place, which made me obey her. Even so, I did catch
sight of her—slipping quickly out of her dress—by watching her shadow. Having put her arms through the sleeves of a shirt, she was now tying it around her slender waist, over the skirt of the swimsuit.

  “Can I turn around now?” I asked.

  With a giggle in her voice, she said, “No.”

  With that, she ran off. A moment later, she found a flight of stairs, carved into the face of the cliffs, and started climbing down. I dashed after her.

  The rock was surprisingly soft to the touch. It was composed of fine-grained chalk, accentuated here and there by streaks of black flint, and formed into a gigantic, jagged wall that stretched out as far as the eye could see.

  As I climbed down, I thought I saw something odd, which made me stop. It was the muzzle of a British naval gun, which must have been used in counter-battery fire against German guns across the Channel. I hoped that Natasha had not spotted it, because it might dampen her mood.

  By the time I caught up to her, at the very bottom of the stairs, my ear caught a faraway noise. Startled, I quickened my step and gave her my hand. Together, we headed toward the water, where a fisherman—an old, bearded fisherman, wearing a windbreaker—was pulling his boat ashore.

  “Did you just come down off those cliffs?” he asked.

  To which I said, “We did.”

  “Beware,” he said. “They can crumble anytime.”

  “Really? They can?” asked Natasha. “But look at them! So strong, so formidable!”

  And he said, “That’s a good first impression, isn’t it?”

  “Is that all it is?”

  The fisherman put a cigarette between his chapped lips, lit it up, and sucked on the flame through it, puffing a couple of times.

  “I’m told,” he said, “that the Roman Emperor, Julius Caesar, wrote this about his first impression of Britain, he wrote, ‘a wild island with giant natural fortification.’ No wonder that to you, too, the cliffs must seem to stand guard, from way back when, against military invasions from the opposite side.”

  “And to you?”

  “To me, they stand for erosion.”

  “Either way,” I said, “they must’ve witnessed countless naval battles.”

  “Oh yes, battles,” he said. “That’s how my ancestor came here, aboard one of the ships of the Spanish Armada, back in the sixteenth century. Captured by the English, he was. A prisoner of war, he was, before turning into a fisherman.”

  Natasha helped him sling the fishnet over his shoulder. “I don’t know why,” she said, “but you remind me of my Pa.”

  The old man looked at her and a smile flickered somewhere inside his gray beard, making his coffin nail dangle down.

  “You remind me of a girl I used to know,” he said. “And you, lad, you remind me of myself, long before I became a soldier, before she left me.”

  “That’s never going to happen,” she said, “with the two of us.”

  And I said, “We’re going to get married.”

  For a while, the fisherman considered this news in silence, while lifting a pail, over which fishtails were flickering to and fro. He set it down before us, right here on the gravel.

  “Going to get married, ha?” he said.

  “Yes we are,” said Natasha.

  “In that case, you may need my advice,” said he. “Of course, coming from someone who’s never been married himself, you can take it with a grain of salt.”

  “Oh please, tell us.”

  “Want to know the secret to happiness?”

  “We do.”

  “It’s this,” he said. “Low expectations.”

  Unprepared for this kind of wisdom, I laughed. So did Natasha.

  “You can’t be serious,” I said.

  And she said, “Our life together will be just perfect.”

  The old man took her hand and mine, holding them together between the rough-textured palms of his hands. And in a gruff voice that became, suddenly, quite formal, he said, “By the power vested in me as a confirmed bachelor, I hereby pronounce you—”

  “No, don’t—not yet!” I said.

  “—boy and girl in love.”

  My sweetheart and I exchanged looks. I kissed her, thinking that one day, when this war is over, or maybe sooner than that, we would have a proper wedding, with everything that would complete it and make her happy: a pair of gold rings, a bridal bouquet, and a beautiful wedding gown for her. There would be bride’s maids and a best man, to give a toast. Of course, her Ma should attend the ceremony, if only to sweeten the occasion, at least for me, with her displeasure.

  This, right here, was merely a joke, what with the only witnesses being the tail ends of fish.

  At best, this was a strange rehearsal.

  Natasha raised her eye to me. There was a lovely green glint in them. “Make me a promise, Lenny,” she said.

  “I’ll always love you, Natashinka. I’ll always take care of you.”

  “Will you be true to me?”

  “I will. Always.”

  Then, the fisherman said, “So now, let me show you a thing or two about how to celebrate! Ever eaten a Dover Sole, have you, you two?”

  With that, he started walking, carrying his pail and some cooking utensils that came out of nowhere in one hand and his fishnet, slung over his shoulder, in the other.

  Casting a look back, he urged us to join him a bit farther up the shore, in place where a small ring of stones had already been constructed. They were quite charred, which meant that he had used this fire-pit before, to cook his meals. There was a bunch of kindling, already heaped by the side of it.

  Both of us started gathering more dry twigs. Meanwhile, the old man piled some of the kindling in the center of the ring and set fire to them, throwing in the butt of his cigarette, just for good measure.

  Then, out of his pail, which he had placed in a cool shade, he took a thick-bodied flatfish, with eyes on one side, and placed it in a pan over the fire. All the while, he was humming something under his breath.

  “What’s that you’re humming?” asked Natasha. “Come now, teach me the words.”

  In reply he raised his voice, now singing hoarsely,

  There was an bold fisherman, sailing the sea

  Croak went his boat, with the wail of the gale

  It wobbled, it upturned... Overboard went he

  Drowning to the bottom with barely a flail

  Then he thickened his voice and right there—over the coarse sand, around the ring of stones—he danced to the odd, throbbing rhythm:

  Twinka doodle dum, twinka doddle dum

  T’was the sound of water, the sound that began

  Twinka doodle dum, twinka doddle dum

  Sang the bold fisherman

  She joined him for the Twinka doodle dum bit, after which she said, “So beautiful.”

  “So morbid, too,” I said, because such were the thoughts that went on humming in my mind, even as their singing came to an end.

  I spread the blanket over the gravel for all of us to sit down. By now, the fish was cooked. We ate it directly off the pan, breaking its flesh into bite-size pieces, which glistened oh so white. The flavor was just perfect: mild and somewhat sweet. Indulging herself with the enticing taste of it, which was elusive and so different from more mundane whitefish species, Natasha closed her eyes and sighed for pleasure.

  I drew closer and hugged her. Like me, she must have been listening to the soothing lilt of the waves.

  There was music in their ebb and flow. The breakers pulled the pebbles back, with a grating rattle, into the sea and flung them ashore, starting and ceasing and starting all over again.

  “So much motion,” said Natasha. “And yet, when you look at the sea, it’s so calm. So calming, too.”

  “That’s just the surface of things,” said the fisherman.

  As if to prove him right, there came that faraway grumble, as before. A section, as large as a football field, collapsed down one facet of the wall, there in the distance, and sank d
own into the English Channel.

  In a heartbeat I clasped her to my heart, feeling the shudder that went through her spine. But the fisherman did not flick an eyelash.

  “The surface of things, it may seem peaceful, may seem blue to you,” he muttered. “But over the years, much blood has been spilled here. And in this bloody war, who knows how much more is yet to be spilled.”

  I asked him, “You think that soon, there’s going to be another battle in this place?”

  “Oh,” he said, “that I don’t know.”

  “What’s your feel of it?”

  “You know, all kinds of people come here. In peacetime I see traffic planners. They stand right here, just where you are, considering the landscape, taking measurements, asking questions, thinking about digging tunnels, building bridges to connect us to the other side. And in wartime, I see battle planners. They too stand here, considering the landscape, taking measurements, asking questions—”

  “Oh yeah?” I said. Here was a great opportunity to capture some real details, which I could use for my own covert purposes.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “What kind of questions do they ask?”

  “About the tide: how high up this shore and up the opposite one does it reach? About the water: at every stretch of distance, how deep is it? How far down will an anchor go before hitting bottom? What’s it’s temperature like? Is it affected by the seasons? At nighttime, does the temperature plummet in a particularly severe way? And the flow: is it slow? Is it fast? About the soil at the bottom of the sea: is it sand, rock, or gravel? About weather conditions: do they change abruptly? Is it possible to swim across the channel?”

  “And what d’you say to all that?”

  “I explain that even on a balmy day such as today, the wind force can suddenly increase, and wave heights can easily exceed two meters. The water, it’s cold, I tell them, and my best advice is this: anyone attempting to swim across the Channel should first get accustomed, I mean, should get a good soak in it.”