Mambo in Chinatown

by Jean Kwok

  Adrienne rubbed her forehead. “Would I do that? Well, I do go through my things regularly and maybe I got rid of a tiny bit more than usual, but I’m entering a fresh phase of my life. I need new clothing. And Dominic and I have retired from competing, so I don’t need most of the rehearsal stuff anymore. A lot of it is Lycra, which will stretch or contract as needed. You can always hem something that’s too long.”

  I walked over to Adrienne without saying a word and hugged her.

  She hugged me back. “We are going to make you unveil your beauty, Charlie, even if it kills all of us. Now I have to make sure my mother-in-law doesn’t take over the studio while I’m in here, so I’ll see you later.” Adrienne left.

  Nina was grinning at me. “Come over here. This is your locker,” she said, showing me one of the gray cabinets.

  I touched it, trailing my hand across the metal surface. I really belonged here now, in the teachers’ room.

  “You can put your things in there. Although you should take those off and burn them.” She pointed at my shoes. “You can’t dance in those. You’ll twist your ankle and get injured. You have to buy a pair of real dance shoes.”

  I worried about the extra expense. “How much will that cost?”

  “You need to get good ones because you’ll be in them the whole day long. Shoes are the only tool a ballroom dancer has, so they’re very important. There are cheaper ones on the market, but you need to get the ones the professionals wear. So you’re looking at about a hundred and seventy dollars for the shoes, with shipping probably close to two hundred.”

  I gasped. “For one pair of shoes?”

  “Yes.” Nina opened her locker and took out her Latin shoes, which I now saw were the same as the ones Katerina had. “The strap around the bottom of the foot will give you support. The heel will keep you balanced. You actually need two pairs, Latin and smooth.” She took another pair out of her locker. I had seen Katerina wearing this sort when she rehearsed. I had thought they were flesh-colored pumps but now I noticed that the top had elastic around the edges, so that the shoe crumpled up upon itself when no one was wearing it.

  “I can’t afford that,” I said.

  “Well, since you’re just beginning, you could do everything in your Latin shoes. You’ll need to decide at some point what kind of dancer you’ll be.”

  “What?”

  “If you’ll concentrate on smooth or Latin dances.”

  “I thought we had to do all of the dances.”

  Nina sighed. “Of course we do. I don’t mean with students. I mean as a pro. When you’re a part of a professional couple, you’ll specialize either in the smooth dances or in the Latin ones. Sometimes that’s determined by your body type. If you’re smaller, you have to do Latin. It’s always those tall couples with the long legs who win in smooth. They glide across the floor like they’re flying.”

  “Simone is tall and she does Latin with Pierre.”

  Nina said thoughtfully, “Simone is really talented. I hate to say it because she can be such a you-know-what, but she’s good. She trained at Juilliard, could have been a ballerina at the School of American Ballet. And she doesn’t let you forget it either. But she’s a very versatile dancer.” Nina looked me over. “You’re right in the middle. You could probably go either way.”

  “Well, since I have to get a pair of Latin shoes anyway, I’ll be a Latin dancer.”

  Nina burst out laughing. “That’s very practical of you.”

  “I’m a sensible person.”

  “Your heart’s going to pull you one way or another. Take off your stockings.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need to tape your feet.”

  I stopped asking questions. It was all too much. I just did as she said.

  She took my left foot and started sticking Band-Aids on it, around my heel, the wide part of my foot. By the time she was done, my foot was almost completely covered, and looked like it had been in a car accident.

  “Preventative taping,” she said. “You are going to get the worst blisters anyway. This will just slow down the process enough that you have time to toughen up your skin before your feet start bleeding too much. Most pros won’t tell you to do this. They’ve been dancing so long that their feet are totally deformed, like mine.” She stuck out her foot. It looked fine to me, slender and graceful, until I realized that there were thick calluses across the heel and front of the foot, in exactly the same places she had taped on mine. “But I remembered when I came back after the baby, I’d been out long enough to lose my calluses, and boy, did my feet bleed. I almost couldn’t get the blood stains out of my shoes. That was when I decided to be careful and tape my feet again. Actually, it was Simone who gave me the tip. I guess it’s a ballerina thing.”

  “Was it hard to come back?”

  Nina raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah. No studio in the city would hire me, even though I’d been really good before I left.” Her voice was bitter. “Only Adrienne took a chance on me, a single mom. You’re not supposed to have a baby before you’ve ever won a title. Come on, let me do the other foot, then we’ll go order your shoes.”

  —

  Adrienne let me borrow from my next paycheck to pay for the shoes, and she used her credit card since I didn’t have one. Katerina was nice enough to continue lending me her shoes until my own came.

  I rooted through the bags Adrienne had brought for me. There was so much beautiful and luxurious clothing. Velvet skirts, cocktail dresses, silk scarves and, most important of all, Lycra dance dresses and tailored pants that I would be able to move in. I had already felt in that last dance session how hard it was to dance at a professional level in my regular clothing. I would hide these at the back of the closet at home, where Pa wouldn’t notice them.

  I pulled on a black dance skirt with built-in panties; the skirt flared when I twirled. On top, I added a tight black camisole, and over that, a thin pink silk cardigan. I didn’t recognize myself when I looked in the mirror. The pink brought out the flush in my cheeks. I raised a hand to my face. Then I went into the ballroom for my first dance session as a professional.

  —

  That dance session, Simone was indisposed. I found out later that she was so furious about my being hired instead of Pierre that she’d walked out. After our class, one of the other dancers would train me. The first day, I had Nina as my teacher. She put a large yellow booklet in my hands. On the front, it read “The Avery Way” and it showed “Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Supreme Gold levels.” Inside was a long list of dances and the steps for each one at each level.

  My spine was rigid.

  “Relax,” Nina said, cracking her gum. She wasn’t allowed to chew it while teaching but they let her do it when she didn’t have a student. “You have time to learn all of this before your exam.”

  This was like school again. “What exam?”

  “We’re all certified. You’ll be tested to confirm that you know all of these school figures perfectly—both parts, orientation, the count, everything. But don’t worry about that yet, just try to get the steps down. Let’s start with waltz today. Stand next to me, we’re both going to do man’s part first.”

  I stood next to Nina and considered us both in the mirror. Nina was as lovely as ever, but for the first time, I didn’t look horrible either. I stood a bit straighter. Nina drew a large circle counterclockwise around the ballroom with her arm. “If you imagine that circle drawn onto the floor, then that is your line of dance, otherwise known as ‘LOD.’ The left-turning promenade step starts diagonally to the wall . . .”

  The rest of the dance session passed in a blur for me. That first lesson, we covered about three steps each in all ten dances, doing both the man’s and the lady’s parts: foxtrot, waltz, tango, eastern and western swing, rumba, cha-cha, samba, mambo and merengue. I didn’t have any energy to wonder which ones I liked
best.

  At the end, Nina said, “You did really well. Next time, you should bring your cell phone and record the steps. It’ll make it a lot easier for you to learn and remember.”

  I felt ashamed. “My phone doesn’t have any video.” My mobile only had the most basic functions.

  Nina hid her surprise. “We’ll use mine and you can watch it when you’re free in the studio. They won’t book you for private lessons for a while anyway.”

  I perked up. “Really?”

  “Of course not. You’ve got to learn the entire Bronze syllabus backward and forward, and you’ve also got to start learning some technique. Believe me, you’ll know the whole syllabus by the end of the month but the technique takes years.”

  Katerina took over for the technique lesson. She slid her foot along the floor, pushing it into the ground with her foot turned out, her leg one long sinuous line.

  “Push your foot forward, bring your weight with it, and then transfer your weight. No, too late.” She kept her hands on my hips. She was standing right behind me in the small ballroom again. “You are doing American-style Cuban motion here, so you have to transfer your weight, then move your hip, on the bent knee.”

  This was even harder than learning steps. My entire body ached.

  “You are trying too hard to use this,” she said, pointing to my head. “Turn off your brain and trust your body. You must learn with your body.”

  That I could do. When I let go of my attempt at control, I could do what she was asking much more quickly. I took a deep breath and tried to find the silence inside that Godmother always spoke about.

  Later that day, I sat in the ballroom at one of the small tables and really watched the lessons. I noticed when Nina had a couple who were beginners, because she was teaching them some of the same things I’d learned. I was surprised at how long it took them to cover one step. I took courage from this, and from the fact that I always saw the pros working by themselves in front of the mirrors. When they had a free moment, they were often walking, rolling their hips or doing turns by themselves in an empty spot.

  While everyone else was teaching, I went to an unoccupied corner and started going over material I had learned that day. For the first time, I felt as if I might have a chance to actually be good at something. Like Godmother said, nothingness was the beginning of the universe.

  Ten

  Lisa and I sat together at our rickety table as the radiator hissed. I pulled the shawl more tightly around my shoulders. It was never very warm in our apartment. She’d printed out some practice questions for the test that she’d found on the Internet. We’d just looked at the reading passage together. I couldn’t seem to stop drumming my fingers on the tabletop. Now I read the first question. “The narrator can best be described as (a) curious; (b) antagonistic; (c) ambivalent; (d) miserable.”

  Lisa said, “I think ‘(c) ambivalent.’ What do you think, Charlie?”

  I coughed. “Honestly, I don’t know.” I’d had trouble reading the passage carefully in the amount of time we had.

  “You don’t have to do this with me.”

  “I want to.” It was my duty.

  “I can tell this makes you so nervous, and I learn better on my own anyway. It sticks in my head that way.”

  “Those friends of yours, like Hannah, have parents who help them. You don’t, you only have me. What is that other boy doing to prepare?”

  “Fabrizio?” Lisa stared at her sheet of paper. I could see she’d lost weight in the past months. “He’s enrolled in a course.”

  “For what?”

  “To study for this test.”

  “They have classes for that?”

  She nodded. “He says there are loads of kids in his group and he gets hours of homework for it every week, but it’s really expensive. Hundreds of dollars.”

  “Why would people pay so much?”

  “Private school kids try to get in too. Their schools already charge tens of thousands each year for tuition. This is nothing to those students, especially if you consider how much they’d save if they were accepted.”

  I hadn’t realized what we were up against. “That’s why I need to be here for you.”

  “Charlie, you are helping me. By being my sister. Just let me study for this on my own. I know how, I promise.”

  I couldn’t keep the relief from my voice. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded.

  “Maybe Uncle Henry could help you too.”

  “We’re pretty busy at the clinic, Charlie.” She looked strained.

  “I know, but he’s family. I’ll get Pa to ask him.”

  Later, when she was asleep, I worked on the knitted scarf I was making for her present, since it was all I could do for her.

  —

  Although I was a dancer now, I approached the training with the steady dedication of the laborer that I was at heart. I practiced day and night. I danced so hard that even with the tape, my feet were often bleeding by the end of the night, but I was used to physical pain from the dishwashing. Even Dominic came up to me to say, “Make sure you rest sometimes.”

  I would nod but as soon as he left, I’d start practicing again. I lived and breathed dancing. At first, I was embarrassed to watch myself in the mirror, but soon I stopped seeing myself. What I saw was the angle of my foot, the length of my arm, if my weight was pushing correctly into the floor, the rotation of my hip. I practiced my Latin walk with Cuban motion, pushing my feet through each step and rolling my hips. Once, I looked up to see all of the men in the ballroom staring at me before they turned away. But soon I stopped being conscious of other people watching. I grew aware of my entire body for the first time: my hands, my shoulders, my arms, my neck, my thighs. When I danced, I felt alive and free, like I was discovering my true self, that I was more than just a dishwasher from Chinatown.

  —

  As I passed Gossip Park, the music of a street band drifted to me. They were bundled up in the cold, yet playing with all their might. I closed my eyes for a moment and counted the music. It was a samba. I gazed up at the bare trees and it seemed to me the entire world was caught up in a dance of some kind. I stepped forward and did two quick turns, spotting the band as I did so. Then I looked around. Luckily, no one had noticed.

  Godmother had told me I didn’t need to pick her up that Saturday, so I went to the Benevolent Association to meet her there for the tai chi class. To my surprise, the room was already fairly full when I entered and several of the tables had been put together in the center of the room to form one long table, with the chairs placed around it. They must have just had a family meeting of some kind. I spotted Mr. and Mrs. Yuan, Grace’s parents, who rarely went there. Two of Grace’s aunts were there as well. In fact, most of the people there seemed to be close relatives of her family. I wondered if Grace was in trouble.

  Godmother’s face seemed tired. Grace’s parents nodded to me as they hurried out the door.

  As I was hanging up my coat, I said to Godmother, “Is something wrong?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing that need concern you. Won’t you please help clear the floor for our class?” Then she looked at me more carefully. I’d chosen to wear one of Adrienne’s T-shirts instead of my usual baggy one. It was dark green, with a low scoop neck. Godmother pursed her lips. “That doesn’t look like you, Charlie.”

  I forced myself to meet her eyes.

  “I’m sorry.” She laid her hand on my shoulder. “I’m worried about a family problem. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

  I nodded and hurried away but it still hurt that Godmother didn’t like the way I was changing.

  —

  That Sunday, I woke in the middle of the night to find Pa gone. His bedroom door was ajar and his bed was empty. He wasn’t in the bathroom or kitchen. I began to gasp for air, imagining that Pa lay unconscio
us somewhere.

  “Pa?” I called softly, so as not to wake Lisa. “Pa?”

  He wasn’t anywhere in the apartment.

  I hurtled downstairs without my shoes on, the steps stinging my feet with cold. I had vague notions of throwing open the front door and calling for help. As I got close to the ground floor, I felt a draft. I slowed down then, afraid that a burglar had broken in and was lying in wait for me. The door to the backyard of our building was open.

  I froze. Pa was on his knees in the moonlight, beating something to death against the ground, with the metal bucket we used for sacred burnings still smoldering in front of him. No, he wasn’t beating an animal to death, it was a plastic slipper he had in his hand and he was whipping it against the concrete with all his strength. Parts of the slipper had already broken off.

  “Be gone,” he wailed, his breath coming in white puffs, “evil spirits of petty people, be gone from our lives!”

  I was used to Pa’s superstitions: the grapefruit skins he used to ward off evil, making sure that we were always wearing a bit of red for good luck, but this was of another order altogether. I’d never seen him show so much passion. I felt guilty, having caught him in this moment of private emotion, and I quietly snuck back upstairs, hardly daring to inhale. This was his way of trying to help Lisa.

  I recognized what he was doing. I’d seen it performed by wailing witches and people in Gossip Park as well. It was a ritual called “Beating the Petty People”; the Vision must have told him to do it. It was supposed to repel attacks from those who would hurt you. When he finally slipped back into the apartment, I pretended I was asleep. I hoped for Lisa’s sake that it would help.

  —

  On Tuesday, I walked into the studio and saw Simone and her student Keith having an intense talk in the corner. From Simone’s exaggerated hand gestures, I could tell she was excited about something, but even with all her enthusiasm, her movements were controlled.