by Vina Jackson
‘The violinist, you mean?’ she replied, after pausing for a moment, visibly mining her memories. Dana had ordered the spicy tuna and pistachio-crusted salmon and Noah deliberated over whether or not they were yet on good enough terms for him to ask her if he could try a mouthful.
‘Yes,’ he said, surprised she knew who he meant. ‘That’s her.’
‘I actually saw her play live once, in a bar in Camden. Years ago, before she was even famous. I was only about sixteen at the time. Sneaking into whatever club or pub I could manage, you know how it was, all fun and games, not that anyone ever asked for ID.’
Noah nodded agreeably, although it had been many years since he had last needed ID.
‘The only reason I remember,’ she continued, ‘is because she played with a band called Groucho Nights and I had a terrible crush on the lead singer at the time, Chris. He was my motivation for getting into music and ending up doing what I’m doing now. Just another groupie, I guess.’ She threw him a dry smile. ‘I know they played with the Holy Criminals for a bit, who are on your label, I think?’
‘You’ve done your homework,’ he told her.
‘All part of my job.’
‘Did you ever see Summer live again?’
‘No. I know she went on to much bigger things. I was dead jealous of her then, since I guessed she was probably sleeping with the Groucho Nights frontman who I fancied, so her show posters always jumped out at me whenever I saw them, but I haven’t seen her play since. I’ve never been much into classical music, reminds me too much about school days and homework somehow. Dance and electronica is my style these days, not just for work.’
Noah nodded.
‘Why do you ask? Planning on signing her?’
‘Hoping to,’ he said. ‘The label could do with a change, an infusion of new blood.’
He quickly changed the subject, asking her further details about the Canal tour and her leisure plans for the rest of the trip. She visibly didn’t sense anything odd about his line of questioning, and continued talking animatedly about her love of travel and South America in particular. Listening to her was a darn sight more interesting than his earlier discussion with Pete and Jerry in the hotel lobby about the ins and outs of lighting gear, which Noah had only the vaguest clue about and no interest in, but her train of conversation highlighted exactly how vast Brazil was and how slim his chances were of stumbling across Summer without any further clue to her location. That was if she was in Brazil as Viggo had guessed, and hadn’t stretched her wings to other parts of the continent. Or somewhere else in the world by now.
After the meal, they ignored the calls from the eager cab drivers lined up outside the restaurant and walked the short distance to Veneto Casino where the shimmering gold lights and potted palm trees reminded Noah of Las Vegas and encouraged him to squander a regrettable sum of US dollars at the blackjack table before returning to the hotel in the early hours of the morning.
He shared a taxi back with Stéphane and Alain, who sensibly wanted to get at least some sleep before the sun came up so that they could perform at their best the following night. The two deejays were both stone-cold sober and didn’t seem to be under the influence of drugs either, Noah noted. He hadn’t even seen either of them light a cigarette, and both had ordered the vegetarian courses at dinner. Noah was confident that neither he nor Dana would have to deal with the fall-out from any rock-star hotel room high jinks, televisions being thrown out of cabana windows into the nearby pool or other such nonsense.
Jet-lag and alcohol took over the moment that his head hit the pillow, and Noah was asleep without even resorting to a nightcap.
There was a break in the duo’s touring schedule. Following two nights of gigging in Rio, it had been planned for the band and its staff to stay on for a week before moving on, an opportunity to relax, beach surf and recharge their batteries. Noah had been quite unsuccessful through his local music contacts in finding any trace of Summer or her passage through the Brazilian city. In the wake of either Alain or Stéphane or the nightbirds in their technical support crew, he had roamed through the city’s clubs and bars, befriending barmen and other DJs and peppering them with questions, but no one knew anything about an English-speaking red-haired woman answering to Summer’s description, let alone one who played the violin. The task was thankless, and Noah was convinced the whole enterprise was turning into a total waste of time.
The phone by the bed rang, strident, intrusive. He opened his eyes, feeling as if he had only drifted off an instant earlier, still hungry for the relief of sleep. He’d forgotten to pull the hotel room curtains when he returned from the bar trawl, but it was still a pale shade of dark outside. His free hand hunted for the handset.
‘Hey!’
He recognised Alain’s ever enthusiastic voice.
‘Morning . . .’ Noah mumbled.
‘Want to join us? We’re going up to Recife in an hour. We’ve a private jet. Some crazy rich guy’s offering us a private birthday gig and wants to fly us there. Just one night. Want to come?’
‘Where the fuck is Recife?’
‘Up the coast in the north-east of the country. Everyone says it’s a nice place. The Venice of Brazil, according to Google. Mucho rivers, bridges, islands.’
‘I’m not sure.’ He felt bone weary, tired of the whole affair.
‘It’ll be fun. We’re only taking a small crew. All paid for. The two of us, Pete, Jerry and Dana, to run the sound and lights. The club we’re hired to play is all kitted out, apparently. Top-of-the-range stuff. We’ve kept a seat on the plane for you. Just overnight. We should be back in Rio by noon tomorrow.’
‘Hmm . . .’
‘Come on. It’ll cheer you up, Noah. You’ve been in a shitty mood since we landed.’
Noah packed an overnight bag.
A local businessman with more money than sense had hired one of the major hotspots, a nightclub called Nox, for his much-younger trophy wife’s birthday celebrations. Getting hold of The Handsomes to deejay was the cherry on the cake, and knowing how tough a negotiator their manager was, Noah was certain they hadn’t come cheap – in addition to the private jet that had brought them all here and the size of the rooms put at their disposal in the palatial hotel they were being put up at on the river front.
The club was crowded and the light show that accompanied Alain and Stéphane’s set was designed for a larger venue. Noah had the beginnings of a headache and retreated to the open bar on the riverside beach, where he was soon joined by other refugees from the party raging within. He knew the set The Handsomes would be playing inside out by now, and no one would notice his absence.
The scent of the nearby ocean was different here from in Rio, a subtle divergence in the marine atmosphere and its attendant balance of spices and rotting floral notes. It carried with it a remote hint of intoxication, of unknown danger.
‘Enjoying the fresh air?’
Noah was nursing his beer, the cool glass of the bottle in the palm of his hand. It was Jerry, the sound guy. Once the equipment had been properly set up, he was free to roam. Dana had apparently hooked up with one of the local venue staff and probably wouldn’t be joining them.
‘Yes.’
‘One of the barmen told me where the action is in town. A bunch of us are heading out. Fancy tagging along?’
It was either that or hanging around for hours, which Noah didn’t feel like doing, so he agreed to go exploring the Recife night life more out of boredom than actual curiosity.
The evening soon became a blur of cabs, sharply lit strips bedecked by gaudy bar lights and palm trees, rooms full of shadows and repetitive background disco muzak, and the increasingly drunken behaviour of his companions, until the impromptu group Noah had joined reached the stage where it was made up of completely different folk than those he had set off with. He’d rapidly switched over to mineral water or apple juice, but even so felt as if he was already beginning to hear distinct words in Portuguese behind the shi
fting swarm of sounds following him from place to place.
The next club they hit saw them scrutinised by heavy-set doormen before they were allowed in. The long corridor was a haven of darkness, leading to a dance floor where shadows moved to the sound of music he couldn’t recognise. A glitterball hung forlornly from the low ceiling but was unlit.
The melody playing was slow, melancholy, at times dissonant, the barely there silhouettes of the dancers on the floor ahead of him a murky low-key symphony of movements.
The others in his improvised group continued past, seeking out the bar which was in an adjoining room. Noah noticed a wooden bench against the far wall and sat himself down, captivated by the slow-motion swirl of the shadow-dancers. His eyes were not yet accustomed to the low light.
He was wondering what the hell he was doing here. He should have remained in London. He resolved to fly back and not follow the tour beyond Rio. Put this mistake behind him. A strong sense of lassitude began weighing on his shoulders, months of built-up adrenaline draining away and leaving a huge void.
The fog cloaking the activities on the dance floor began to clear, the shapes moving to the rhythm becoming sharper in the improving gloom, fuzzy silhouettes like puppets on strings more often than not out of sync with the classic seventies disco tunes being pumped from the speakers. Noah felt out of his element.
He dug a finger into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a pack of mints and dropped a couple into his mouth, awakening his dry throat.
Lithe, tanned girls twirling in one corner, their colourful floral-print dresses shimmering in place, while their burly, equally tanned male partners guided them with hands on hips, creeping as close to the girls’ respective arses as they were allowed. Nearer to the centre of the dance floor, an older couple, a mixture of spasmodic jerks and smoother patterns. Teenagers, would-be hipsters, locals and tourists. It was Recife, it was Brazil, but it could have been anywhere. Europe, the American Midwest. Just an old-fashioned club aimed at tourists, with old-fashioned music which meant nothing to him, didn’t speak to his heart by a long distance.
The metronomic beat of the ersatz Giorgio Moroder tune came to a close. There was a brief aeon of silence and the next piece of music came streaming through. Which Noah recognised. David Bowie’s Cat People song ‘Putting Out Fire’. A song that always gave him the shivers.
Unsettled by the break in the beat, half of the dancers present retreated to the shadows, heading out of the room towards the bar or lingering aimlessly until a further frenetic track might be unleashed by the unseen deejay. Those who remained stood in place, shimmying quietly, adapting to the both sensuous and ominous tone of the song.
Further back, Noah caught a glimpse of movement that seemed to move along to the music with clockwork precision, espousing its shape with uncanny exactitude and drop-dead eroticism. He squinted.
Undulating like a horizontal wave. Not just one dancer, nor a couple. All in black and initially awkward to make out as they blended into the matt darkness of the background.
Three.
Two men, both in tight black T-shirts and jeans. Tall. Solidly built. Mountains of muscles. Brown arms rippling, spider-like, around their prey. Between them, the shape of a smaller woman, dwarfed by their mass, sandwiched betwixt their bodies, pressed, squeezed. The three-headed shivering beast sliding effortlessly across the dull shine of the dance floor, oblivious to the other dancers, onlookers, the world surrounding them, lost in the deep meanders of the music, dancing themselves into a trance.
Her face mostly shielded from his gaze by the consuming embrace of the men’s powerful arms, the woman was also clad in black. It looked like a simple dress that ended high above her knees and also bared her shoulders. She wore flat ballet pumps and her tan was paler than her cohorts’, betraying a more delicate shade of original skin. She appeared unsteady on her feet, supported by the men, guided by them, abdicating all control to her partners.
Noah kept on watching them intently, drawn to the hieratic quality of their movements and the animal sensuality emanating from their grouping.
One of the men’s hands lingered on the woman’s buttocks in a sign of ownership which she did not protest.
Her face was buried into the chest of the other dancer, his bulk enveloping her, concealing her face and hair, just a sliver of the soft cushion of her cheeks peering out from the composition that Noah kept on peering at with fascination. Flushed?
She swayed to the Cat People song.
The world retreated. Noah imagined he was in a cocoon, isolated from the club and its activities, miraculously linked to the vibrant bubble in which the three dancers he was contemplating were similarly held captive.
The trio, turning slowly in place, like a figurine in an antique music box.
The man’s roving hand now alighted from her backside and stealthily slid downwards, catching hold of the edge of the dress and pulled it upwards, revealing an expanse of thigh, and then dived up towards her crotch. She didn’t appear to be wearing any underwear, or maybe just had on a wisp-thin thong, as the straight line bisecting her arse was briefly glimpsed before the dark material of her dress dropped down again, the man’s hand still busy underneath its defenceless barrier. All the while, her other partner had grabbed her hair at the back of her neck and was now pulling her face towards his lips, mashing himself against her, his tongue no doubt now breaching the hill of her lips and sweeping across her mouth.
Her hair.
A blinding flash of red, as one of the dim disco lamps dotting the ceiling washed its weak light across the woman’s head.
Noah felt a knot form in his stomach.
But the clarity faded as the lamp’s thin cone of light moved to another corner of the floor, leaving a patch of darkness in its stead and the woman’s mass of hair was again obscured from his view amid a blur of slow movement.
Noah was still glued to the bench but tempted to get up and move across the floor to get a better glimpse of the dancers. The woman. But there were too few people around and he would have stood out like a sore thumb, unveiled as too much of a voyeur as the trio’s movements slowed almost to a halt, and hands and mouths continued their frenzied covert activity.
Noah held his breath for a moment, feeling quite uncertain, vulnerable even.
The whispered electronic chords of the Bowie song faded into the distance, and a Daft Punk anthem took over. As other dancers rejoined the floor, the private trio had remained immobile, too busy in embrace, like a frozen statue of flesh, of bodies so close they could not be separated from each other.
The invidious sensation of dread and exhilaration washing over Noah persisted.
He was willing the dancers to part, move sideways, cease their increasingly fevered fumblings so he could see their features better, distinguish them individually. The men rapacious and predatory, cloaking the female equation of the trio in their grasp like an unresisting prey.
Was he the only one present captivated by them? The other couples on the dance floor shook to the repetitive beat and swirled around like clockwork figures, oblivious of the simmering sexual heat emanating in their midst, partly obscuring Noah’s visibility. Some further tracks followed, an unrelenting succession of staccato beat box and electronic echoes. As the activity on the floor grew more animated, Noah’s view was restricted further. He blinked and, suddenly, the self-absorbed trio was now standing all the way by the opposite wall, the woman’s face mashed against the hard surface, the two men, towering above her, forcing themselves against her, their hands openly fingering her, her hair sweeping down to her shoulders, a mass of messy curls in flame-red shades punctured by the irregular attack of the flickering disco lights.
Noah rose.
Even if it meant embarrassing himself badly, he had to get closer, see her face.
As he did so, the burly men finally loosened their grip on the woman, stepped back and one of them, the taller, took her by the hand while his acolyte grasped her waist and they pulle
d her away in the opposite direction. She dragged her feet, as if unwilling to follow them, but they were stronger. Was she drunk? Fully conscious? Noah began to question what it was that he had witnessed, if the woman had consented to her captors’ attentions. If he should intervene.
He dodged staggering dancers as he crossed the floor towards the departing trio who were making their way in the direction of one of the exits.
The door that they had walked through almost slammed back in his face. He turned the handle.
The alley at the back of the club was a maelstrom of darkness after the planetarium of flashing lights inside. The sounds reached him before his eyes could adjust and make anything out.
‘No . . . please . . .’
Noah looked in the direction that the plaintive female voice was coming from.
The two men and the woman were standing against a pockmarked wall, towering rubbish bins and black plastic refuse bags piled up by their side. She appeared unsteady on her feet. Her short dress was pulled up to her waist, her midriff exposed. One of the men was holding her by her hair, attempting to push her down to her knees, and she was resisting. The other man was in the process of unthreading his belt.
Her knees buckled and as she resignedly lowered herself down. A flash of light from a nearby window illuminated her face before it was again drowned in the obscurity of the humid night air.
Noah’s throat froze. He felt himself unable to breathe.
It was unmistakable.
The woman’s face.
All the photos he had spent hours contemplating.
Summer Zahova.
It was her.
There was no doubt in his mind.
At the same time, he couldn’t help himself staring at her bared middle, the pale shape of her thighs and the smooth revealed landscape of her private delta, and everything fell into place in his mind: superimposing the memory of the infamous photographs from the sauna on this new reality, matching images, body, the geometry of her curves, lines, the subtle cut of her slit . . .
