Velocities

by Kathe Koja

  It will work out grand, I said to Eddie, though I was mumbling somewhat still. We’ll have our show just like we meant to. But first, we’ll have Davey here.

  A brute who would do such a thing to you, to you, Francis? By Heaven, no! We’ll not risk such a thing, we’ll have him in the dock instead, I’ll involve my solicitor— But in the end he did as I wished like I knew he would, like I knew that fucking Davey would come with bells on when he got my message. It was Paulo I sent to bring it, Paulo I spied in the streets taking trade, and You owe me, I said, and he knew what I meant; was he ashamed, Saint Paulo? Was he the one Davey took around to the Red Cock, now? You tell him to come at midnight, just himself alone.

  He’s still perishing mad, Pearlie.

  Just tell him, you sod, and he did, and he did, Davey, he came and came alone, into the shadows where he saw me sitting hoity-toity like a Queen. I kept my smile secret, I kept my hands where he could see them, empty like the seats around us, empty of what could be seen except for Eddie, waiting a row behind, all nervous-like and disbelieving. He had done what I said though he kept protesting to the last, almost till the clock struck—

  But dear Francis—! It’s not real, not magic, what we say; it’s only a show. And this man is very dangerous.

  I wriggled on his lap; I tugged his mustache. But dear Eddie, I said. The magic of the theatre, strong wine for strong hearts! Ain’t, aren’t you an impresario? Don’t you believe?

  Davey looked nothing dangerous, though he’d got a truncheon stuck sidewise in his belt and I knew where he kept his knife: he looked like a sad little man with a turnip nose, and a roll of fat at his gut, and wearing the hat that goes with the braces, he looked a proper fool. That’s your fine gentleman? he called out, marching down the aisle, one hand wary on that truncheon. Does he know, Mr. Schoolman, how many times you been dosed for the drippings? Does he know the law about sodding off youngsters, that could shut down a showplace like—well. None of that will signify, Pearlie, if you come home to where you belong.

  I belong here. I’m an actor now.

  An actor! When he laughed it was too loud, like a bad performer too hot to show how funny something is. I seen the placards outside, Mister Whatever-your-name-is, some farrago of demons and whatnot. Bogeys to scare little kids in the night—

  It’s not what you think, Davey. Once, I said, rising on my feet, I saw the Devil plain.

  Go on. Save it for your fine gentleman.

  I did. He was closer now, close enough for me to see the lager stains on his shirt, his crusty beard; and I marveled on how could I ever have done anything for him, ever been afraid. It was like if shadows were gone from my eyes. A raven landed in the chimneypots, and looked straight at me, eyes all bloody red, and big as a dog, on my honor. So close that we could have touched; I could hear Eddie breathing from behind me, quick as a cat.

  Honor’s not in you, Pearlie.

  My name’s not Pearlie. I could see his eyes, now. I loathe you, Davey, and I called the shadows in.

  • • •

  They said he jumped off the bridge into the filthy river, they said they found him floating at the docks; they said when they found him his eyes were gouged-out gone. They said a lot of things of Davey dead, but none of the things they said had me in ’em, for we was known to be fully on the outs, and me too broken-busted to do anything about it, and anyway I had a new protector, now; that’s what they said. Davey’s carcass went straight to Potter’s Field and that was that, though Blinkers came by the theatre, cap in hand, to say hello and goodbye; he ended up with a broom in his hand instead, he’s the one now sweeps the aisles and takes up your tickets when you come. Paulo I never saw again.

  And the show, La Reine, went just cracking beautiful—a line-up every night, maybe partly from the gossip! And selling out on the matinees, we even got writ up in the papers: “A shivering good show,” the dresser lady—her name is Phyllis—read it out to us, backstage with our coffee and tea and port, “wherein the good are rescued and the wicked punished, and the darkness vanquished by the light. Young Francis Chute is particularly affecting as the similarly-named Queen, as his uncle revives the great stage traditions of the Bard himself.”

  No one made no comment on that “uncle,” and I make sure always to call him so when anyone can hear or see, on the streets or in the theatre; though not in our room, the fine room with the fine bed, where poor Eddie is still having trouble sleeping, and nightmares too; he keeps on pondering whatever was it caused Davey to do as he done, run out the aisle like the Devil was after him but Most likely his own bad deeds, I tell Eddie, especially the ones he did to me. Eddie has bought me a splendid nightshirt, with buttons of real pearl; now I ruch it off and smooth down my hair, grown longer still, it is curling even on the ends. They finally caught up to him and drove him right off his nut . . . Stop fretting. Come here.

  His conscience—true, it must have been eating at him. As we see in the Scottish play! And after that dreadful beating, he deserves no mercy at all. But oh, my conscience, Francis— To have a man perish practically in our theatre, you can’t think that it was the play that—

  Stop fretting. Let me be your conscience, though I don’t give a red fillip; why should I? The nephew, the star, the light-o’-love, fishy-dotty forever or as long as my belly stays smooth and white and my hair stays pretty; there might be ways to work that, too, for the shadows play fair, blood for blood, better than Davey ever did. Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please?—that’s from another show, that Doctor Faustus that Phyllis talked of, though Eddie says we shall not stage it, after what happened with Davey. So instead we’re to do Romeo and Juliet, he the Montague and me the, what is it, Capulet. And after that maybe something comical, like that Ape show, and I could wear my braces and that cracking hat, I might could play here for a long, long time.

  INSIDE

  PAS DE DEUX

  She liked them young, young men; princes. She liked them young when she could like them at all because by now, by this particular minute in time, she had had it with older men, clever men, men who always knew what to say, who smiled a certain kind of smile when she talked about passion, about the difference between hunger and love. The young ones didn’t smile, or if they did it was with a touching puzzlement because they didn’t quite see, weren’t sure, didn’t fully understand: knowing best what they did not know, that there was still so much to learn.

  “Learn what?” Edward’s voice from the cage of memory, deep voice, “what’s left to learn?” Reaching for the bottle and the glass, pouring for himself. “And who’ll do the teaching? You?” That smile like an insect’s, like the blank button eyes of a doll made of metal, made from a weapon, born from a knife and see him there, pale sheets crushed careless at the foot of the bed, big canopied bed like a galleon inherited from his first wife—the sheets, too, custom-made sheets—all of it given them as a wedding present by his first wife’s mother: Adele, her name was and he liked to say it, liked to pretend—was it pretense?—that he had fucked her, too, going from mother to daughter in a night, a suite of nights, spreading the seed past four spread legs, and prim Alice could never compare, said Edward, with the grand Adele, Adele the former ballet dancer, Adele who had been everywhere, lived in Paris and Hong Kong, written a biography of Balanchine, Adele who wore nothing but black from the day she turned twenty-one, and “I don’t understand,” he would say, head back, knee bent, his short fat cock like some half-eaten sausage, “what you think you can teach me, aren’t you being just a little bit absurd?”

  “We all have something to learn,” she said, and he laughed, left the room to return with a book, Balanchine & Me: Balanchine in color on the cover, a wee black-and-white of Adele on the back. “Read this,” putting the book into her hands. “Find out how much you don’t know.” Whiskey breath and settling back into bed, glass on his chest, big hairy chest like an animal’s, he liked to lie naked with the windo
ws open, lie there and look at her, and “Are you cold?” he would say, knowing she was freezing, that her muscles were cramping. “Do you feel a draft?”

  No, she could have said, or yes or fuck you or a million other responses, but in the end she had made none of them, said nothing, got out. Left him there in his canopied bed and found her own place, her own space, living above her studio: dance studio, she had been away for a long time but now she was back and soon, another month or two, she would have enough money maybe to keep the heat on all the time, keep the lights on, keep going. Keep on going: that was her word now, her world, motion at any cost. She was too old to be a dancer? had been away too long, forgotten too much, lost the fascistic grace of the body in torment, the body as a tool of motion, of the will? No. As long as she had legs, arms, a back to bend or twist, as long as she could move she could dance.

  Alone.

  In the cold.

  In the dark.

  • • •

  Sometimes when it got too dark even for her, she would leave, head off to the clubs where for the price of a beer she could dance all night to thrash or steelcore, a dance different from the work she did at the barre: jerked and slammed past exhaustion, hair stuck slick to her face, shirt stuck to her body, slapping water on her neck in the lavatory through the smoke and stink and back out with her head down, eyes closed, body fierce and martyred by the motion; incredible to watch, she knew it, people told her; men told her, following her as she stalked off the floor, leaning close to her stool at the bar and they said she was terrific, a terrific dancer; and closer, closer still, the question inevitable, itself a step in the dance: why was she dancing alone? “You need a partner,” but of course that was not possible, not really because there was no one she wanted, no one who could do what she could do and so she would shrug, smile sometimes but mostly not, shrug and shake her head and “No,” turning her face away. “No thanks.”

  Sometimes they bought her drinks, sometimes she drank them; sometimes, if they were young enough, kind enough, she would take them home, up past the studio to the flat with its half-strung blinds and rickety futon, unsquared piles of dance magazines, old toe shoes and bloody wraps, and she would fuck them, slowly or quickly, in silence or with little panting yelps or cries like a dog’s, head back in the darkness and the blurred sound of the space heater like an engine running, running itself breathless and empty and dry. Afterwards she would lie beside them, up on one elbow and talk, tell them about dancing, about passion, about the difference between hunger and love, and there in the dark, the rising and falling of her voice processional as water, as music, lying there in the moist warmth created by their bodies they were moved—by her words, by her body—to create it anew, make the bridge between love and hunger: they were young, they could go all night. And then they would look up at her, and “You’re beautiful,” they said, they all said it. “You’re so beautiful; can I call you?”

  “Sure,” she would say. “Sure, you can call me,” leaning over them, breathing slowed, the sweat on her breasts drying to a thin prickle, and see their faces, watch them smile, see them dress—jeans and T-shirts, ripped vests and camouflage coats, bandanas on their heads, tiny little earrings in silver and gold—and watch them go and before they go give them the number, press it into their hands; the number of the cleaner’s where she used to take Edward’s suits but how was it cruel, she asked herself, told herself, how was it wrong not to offer what she did not have? Far worse to pretend, string them along when she knew that she had already given all she had to give, one night, her discourse, she never took the same one twice and there were always so many, so many clubs, so many bars in this city of bars and clubs, lights in the darkness, the bottle as cold as knowledge in her warm and slippery grasp.

  Sometimes she walked home, from the bars and the clubs; it was nothing for her to walk ten, thirty, fifty blocks, no one ever bothered her, she always walked alone. Head down, hands at her sides like a felon, a movie criminal, just keep walking through darkness, four a.m. rain or the last fine scornful drift of snow, ice like cosmetics to powder her face, chill to gel the sweat in her hair, short hair, Edward said she looked like a lifer: “What were you in for?” as she stood ruffling her hair in the bathroom mirror, sifting out the loose snips, dead curls and his image sideways in the glass as if distorted, past focus, in flux. “You don’t have the facial structure for a cut like that,” one hand reaching to turn her face, aim it towards the light like a gun above; that smile, like an abdicated king’s. “Once Alice cut her hair off, all her hair, to spite me; she denied it, said she only wanted a different look but I knew her, I knew that’s what it was. Adele,” the name as always honey in his mouth, “knew, too, and she cut off her hair to spite Alice. Of course she looked terrific, really sexy and butch, but she had the face for it. Bone structure,” almost kindly to her, patting her face with both hands, patty-cake, baby face, squeezing her cheeks in the mirror. “That’s what you don’t have.”

  And now this cold walk, each individual bone in her face aching, teeth aching, sound of the wind in her ears even when she was safe inside, door locked, space heater’s orange drone and as late as it was, as cold as it was, she stripped down to leggings, bare feet, bare breasts and danced in the dark, sweating, panting, the stitch cruel in her side, in her throat, in her heart, tripped by unseen obstacles, one hip slamming hard into the barre, metallic thud of metal to flesh, flesh to metal like mating, like fucking, and she wished she had brought someone home with her, it would have been nice to fuck a warm boy in the dark, but she was alone and so she danced instead, spun and stumbled and hit the barre, hit the barre, hit the barre until she literally could not move, stood knees locked and panting, panting from fear of stasis as outside, past the yellowed shades, the sun at last began to rise.

  • • •

  Adele’s book lay where she had tossed it, square and silent on the bathroom floor but one night, back from dancing and sick to her stomach—the beer, something had not agreed with her—from the toilet she picked it up, skimmed through the chapters, the inset pictures and although it was very poorly written—as a writer Adele had apparently been a fine dancer—still there was something, one phrase arresting like a blow, a slap in the face: For me, said Adele, Balanchine was a prince. You must find your own prince, you must make him your own.

  Find your prince: Prince Edward! and she laughed, pants rucked down around her ankles, thin yellow diarrhea, and she laughed and laughed but the phrase stayed with her, clung like the memory of motion to the bones, and she began to look, here and there, at the young men at the clubs, look and gauge and wonder and sometimes at night, pinned and breathing beneath them, talking of hunger and love, she would wonder what a prince was, how to see one: how one knew: was it something in the body, some burn, some vast unspeaking signal? The body does not lie: she knew this. And Adele—considering the small black-and-white picture, that arched avian nose, high bones to show like a taunt to life itself the skull inside the meat—more than likely had known it, too.

  • • •

  The body does not lie.

  Ten years old on the way to ballet class, forced by her mother’s instigation: “So you’ll learn how to move, sweetie,” her mother so small and fat and anxious, patting her daughter’s cheeks, round cheeks, small bony chin like a misplaced fist. “So you’ll be more comfortable with your body.”

  “But I am comfortable,” sullen child’s lie, head averted, temple pressed stubborn to the hot glass of the car window. “Anyway I’d rather play soccer, why can’t I sign up for soccer?”

  “Dance is better,” the old car swung inexpertly into the strip mall parking lot, DANCE ACADEMY in stylized curlicue blue, cheap rice-paper blinds between MINDY’S DOG GROOMING and a discount hand tool outlet. Smaller inside than it seemed from the street, ferocious dry air-conditioned cold and three girls listless at the barre, two older than she, one much younger, all in cotton-candy colors; fro
m past the walls the sounds of barking dogs. The woman at the desk asking, “Will this be for the full semester?” and her mother’s diffidence, well we just wanted to try the introductory sessions, just let her try and see if she—

  “I don’t want to dance,” her own voice, not loud but the girls looked up, all of them, starlings on a branch, prisoners in a cell. “I want to play soccer.”

  The woman’s gaze; she did not bother to smile. “Oh no,” she said. “No sports for you, you’ve got a dancer’s body.”

  • • •

  “Are you a dancer?” Shouted into her ear, that eager young voice. “I mean like professionally?”

  “Yes,” she said. “No.”

  “Can I buy you a drink? What’re you drinking?” and it was one beer, then two, then six and they stopped on the way to her place, stopped and bought a bottle of V.O.—a princely gesture?—and sat in the dark doing shots as he undressed her, stripped like skin the moist drape of her T-shirt, her spartan white panties, her black cotton skirt, till she sat naked and drunk and shivering, her nipples hard, all the light gone from the room, and “The way you move,” he said, kept saying, hushed voice of glimpsed marvels. “Wow. The way you move, I knew right away you were some kind of dancer, right, I mean like for a living. Are you in the ballet? Are you—”

  “Here,” she said, “here, I’ll show you,” and downstairs, hand in hand and naked in the dark, the lessening angle of his erection but he was young and it was easy, one or two or six little pulls and he was stiff as a board, as a barre, stiff and ready, and she danced for him first, danced around him, Salome without the veils: rubbing her breasts against his back, trapping his thighs with her own and since he was drunk it took longer but not so very long, not much time after all before they were lying there, warmth’s illusion and panting into one another’s mouths, and she told him the difference between love and hunger, between what is needed and what must be had, and “You’re so beautiful,” he said, slurred words and a smile of great simplicity, a deep and tender smile; it was doubtful he had heard anything she had said. His penis against her like a finger, the touch confiding: “So can I, can I call you?”