Dancing in the Dark

by Joan Barfoot

  My glossy living room. The couch on which I was sitting, the couch on which Harry and I sat together. Where I held his hands and traced his fingers and believed they could do anything. (And they could.)

  The chair from which I’d sometimes watched him, still amazed that he was in this room and that I was in this room with him.

  All the other rooms now out of sight, my perfect home; except that the vacuum cleaner was still sprawled upstairs waiting, work unfinished. That nagged a little. But not right now. To go back upstairs and flick the switch, restart the motor, look beneath the beds for dust, push carefully into corners, not right now.

  Downstairs was finished. After all the years, it was truly finished, the cleanness frozen. No more holding the toaster over the garbage, dislodging crumbs, and wiping the counter beneath it. Or drawing a cloth across the windowsills, or picking up a cushion to punch it fresh. No more dirty dishes or smudged windows or bits of dust in the corners of shelves. It had not seemed possible to ever finish; but here it was, done now.

  The new gold-flecked white wallpaper had my full attention.

  The house was airless. Once, Harry shouted at me because we were out of lemonade. He was angry because it was so hot, a heavy, stifling day, and maybe for other reasons, too. He went out and bought an air conditioner. We did not quarrel again because of heat, but the windows had to be kept shut. It disconnected the house from the world, and one might be startled, struck, by walking out the door into a different atmosphere. This was not a different atmosphere, however, but no atmosphere at all; the air sucked out leaving me holding my breath.

  Pain, yes, of course. Odd, though: I could tell the pain was there, but could not quite feel it. It left a hole instead of a presence of pain. Quite a different sort of pain from skinning a knee in a fall, or from cutting a finger on paper. A gap of pain. Shocks like lightning behind the eyes, and weightlessness, a whipping away of solidity like a tablecloth from beneath a setting of dishes, so that I might rise and float into the air, away, or crash.

  Time like a stop watch: the action halted at the finish. Forty-three years. So busy, time filled or put in, time in which to do things or time by which to have things done, time for home-comings and different little tasks and leavings, time for coffee or for waking up, time passing, time running out, time gone.

  Time suspended like the air. Only the gold-flecked white wallpaper timeless and airless to hold onto. If I fixed on it firmly, I might not vanish.

  No need to go through it year by year, moment by moment, like a photograph, it could be taken in at a glance. But cruel, a staring into the sun, a blazing on the eyeballs, after keeping the head down for so long. The eyes, unprotected and naked, were easily scorched.

  Two phone calls in a day. The second the familiar trusted voice, but tinny, like a poor recording, down the line. No need to move, the arm reaches out on its own accord, no need for the eyes to wander, the arm lifts, flexes, and the ears hear the warm voice that is no part of this. Like those queer moments of seeing from the corner the two of us in bed; or stories I have read of people dying, a watching part moving away, shifting off, looking back with distant disinterest at the heavy shell of body now unrelated. His voice wholly a mystery now, if not the words.

  “I’m sorry, Edna,” he is saying from so far away, another life, some other level altogether. “But I’ll make it home at some point.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is something wrong? You sound funny.”

  “No.”

  Did he use the pause to tell himself it was all right to be free? That there was no need to pay attention? He must have needed many times to reassure himself, or how could he have kept on with what he did?

  “Okay then, if you’re sure. I’m sorry. Tomorrow I’ll definitely make it home for dinner. Listen, you’re sure everything’s all right?”

  “Yes.”

  Even to me, my voice sounded odd; as if it were coming from outside, no internal resonances.

  “I’ll be as early as I can. It’s this damned job.”

  “Yes.”

  The remote muscles of the arm on their own again, replacing the receiver without a fumble, no need to look. So many things can be done without a glance, it seems; so what need is there for twenty-odd years of vigilance?

  The important thing to watch was the gold flecks on that white wallpaper, the light changing on it, afternoon moving into evening, sun from a new direction and fading. If the light went out entirely, there would be no seeing those gold flecks; and if I could not see them I would lose my balance, topple, slide, dissolve. There would be no holding me.

  In the grey dimness of late evening, my arm reached out again, thumb moving for the switch on the table lamp and finding it, the light flaring on. It was possible, if still dim, to see the golden flecks; the main outpouring of the light on me now, but enough reflecting across the room to where I needed it.

  There was a certain warmth, I could feel, from the light.

  I wanted to keep very still, apart from that necessary move. I needed to be careful, because I was precious and fragile like a piece of transparent china, and could easily be tilted out of place and broken.

  Sounds changed like the light. They, too, were far away and outside, like my voice. There were bird songs, until it got very dark, and cars on the street. Sedate here in this proper neighbourhood, no peeling rubber or screeching brakes. Lights flashing, reflected from cars or the houses near by. In those other houses people moved from room to room, came home, went to the bathroom, watched television, or trudged upstairs to bed. Even with the windows closed, I could smell steaks barbecuing in the early evening. All those people doing all those familiar things. Things I might have been doing yesterday. Everything now so changed that each move they might be making, each move I had once made, just yesterday, all of it so ordinary, normal, was now unimaginably exotic. A different world I was in now, and I could see only the reflections of their lights.

  Not lonely; remote. This was so far away that to have been lonely would not have been so distant. It would have been a connection of some sort.

  All of it gone as if I read or watched it.

  I learned to walk, standing only to my mother’s thighs, looking up, up at the lines beneath her chin, the hard setting of the jaw, a throbbing in the neck; a smell about her of clean laundry and hard work. And my father’s sad eyes, and their voices over and across me. Tiny Stella, bland baby eyes closed: my mother and father united once, staring down at her. I was beside them, looking up at them. Had they stood over me that way, together and wondering?

  Hair and make-up and menstrual blood. Dances and music and easy feet and longings. The passion of mirrors and pillows. Hearing Harry’s voice for the first time, and later lying down beside him, surveying his long and narrow body as if he were sunshine. This was no mirror and no fantasy, but completion, purpose, end.

  There were poets and dark-skinned men; but this was in my apartment and in my bed and his hands blotted longings as if they were tears, and the cloth of his body wiped mine clean, and soothed it.

  I could not have done less in return. He contained me: all the people in our life, all the magazines and quizzes and recipes, the scrubbed floors and shining dishes and matching dinners, all the wine and laundry and supermarket shelves, all the vacuumed rugs—in one slender body, all of this.

  Gone like the air, astonishing blow.

  Darkness all around, except for the brightness on me, reflecting on the wall. Lights outside flicked off, and there were few headlights to sweep the walls any more. Only the lamp and the dancing, glittering, golden specks.

  I might be motionless forever. I might never move a muscle. I might sit and breathe and die. I could be still, I had often been still, although not like this, not frozen. But this was my whole life here, breathing in and out until it stopped, watching the golden flecks.

  I might know everything now. I might see clearly. There were forty-three years here, not hard to know all about them. Except fo
r why, of course.

  I saw through myself like glass; but could no longer see Harry at all.

  There was a crackling on the gravel driveway he kept saying should be asphalted; but never did. Rare for him, procrastination, except he said he thought gravel might be less slippery in the winter. The rumbling of the garage door going up, slamming car door, garage door down. Such familiar sounds. Sounds that on other days I had leapt up for, a springing in the stomach. Tonight there was no one in the hallway taking a last glance into the mirror, checking hair. Some time earlier I must have taken my last glance and not recognized it.

  The key was quiet in the lock. Oh, I had the senses of bats to hear so sharply through doors and walls.

  The front door swung open and there were footsteps, and it clicked shut. Solid door, closing with a clunk, always safe behind such a door, no intruders, no one seeing in.

  A quiet padding of steps upstairs. Above me I could hear him like a thief. Water ran and toilet flushed. Doors opened and shut, feet moved more quickly. A voice, the friendly ordinary voice but at a slightly different pitch, was calling, but so far away. Feet moving faster, and without efforts to be quiet, not to disturb. Running down the stairs and the voice louder. It called my name with a question mark, but I was all silence inside.

  He was moving around and then he was in the living room and the footsteps stopped abruptly. I could feel the foreign presence. I was safe though, if I did not look and if I kept quite still.

  He would have been wise to go away, but he wouldn’t have known that, of course.

  Two long legs in front of me—could I have leaned forward and caught her scent? I could see past them to the wall and held to that.

  But the two long legs bent and lowered, a trunk appeared, chest, neck, face, hands so close, on my knees, face earnest and concerned, and altogether it blocked the view. I peered and peered, but couldn’t see through that face, so handsome and fearful. The golden flecks danced for a moment in his face, but faded. Impossible to hold them. The familiar face unfamiliar, strange and bewildered, mouth moving in a babble.

  I could hear my thoughts. I thought, “It does not all end here in this face. That is wrong, a mistake.”

  Without a place to look, the loss of balance, toppling, sliding dissolution, began.

  The muscles trembled and were tender, the legs were weak, standing after so long a time. How rigidly they must have held themselves for all those hours. But some core in there to hold them up, to move them, a foot shifting with the impulse of this leg and then the other, this is what walking comes down to, again and again. The voice was loud, shouting and why, I was not deaf? I just wasn’t listening.

  What was it he wanted so badly? Not me, and too late for that anyway. I could feel his hands and fingers, well-known admired hands and fingers, clutching at my arm, my shoulder, trying to restrain. Not to hurt, not to be unfriendly, just a force to hold me back.

  But my, I was strong. He could not begin to match me now. I could brush him off like a fly.

  Although my skin could still feel his fingers when they were gone, dents and wounds like burn marks, cigarettes stubbed out in the pores.

  My feet were moving to the kitchen, the light and yellow kitchen. The light was on—he must have looked for me here already. Here was the table where recipe books were read, cigarettes smoked, coffees drunk, meals planned, meals eaten, wine uncorked, and glasses raised. The smiles exchanged across the table hovered over it, the lying angels. All the lying moments in each kitchen tile and cupboard. Every thread of yellow curtains and each drop of yellow paint a lie. Each tap on the sink and each element on the stove, all the chairs and the two plants, each green leaf on both the plants a lie.

  Dark outside the window above the sink. So many hours spent here staring out, while hands did other things: washed dishes here in this sink, and dried them. Cleaned vegetables and pared them, peelings from potatoes, carrots, onions, dribbling in. All the mouthfuls and forkfuls of food prepared here in this room. To fuel the lies.

  False vitamins and phony colours. Beside the window, above the sink, a rack of wedding-present teak-handled sharp steel knives. Five: the smallest for paring, the largest for carving. The middle one sharp for tomatoes and other delicate things.

  I am turning, and see him again. Now he is more than frightened. Not concerned-frightened, but terrified, I see, and backing away. His hands are reaching out towards me and the sounds are much louder and higher-pitched, shouting on a different level. The hands do not reach for me, but against me. Something new here, the voice and the expression.

  I am so strong. I have never been so strong before. I wonder why I didn’t know I could be stronger than he was.

  It does not go into him so far that it is necessary actually to touch him. The softness is pleasing and surprising, and I experiment with it again; several more times. It is a little like digging a trowel into soft earth in the spring to plant a flower. Once there is some hard impediment, like a root or a rock, but it’s easy to twist around that, back into the softness.

  It is the way I once thought making love would be: a soaring loss of consciousness, transcendence, and removal. I have gotten out of myself at last—so this was the way; and I am joined and free. This instant is wholly mine, and I am so free and light, tiny and light, a helium being.

  The white daisy clock on the kitchen wall, with its yellow petal hands reaching from the yellow centre, it goes so slowly, slowly, in the silence. The moment is only a moment. His face and hands have vanished, and the moment disappears as well.

  But now I know it is there; I have proved that it exists.

  The silence rings and echoes and the hands of the clock are slow.

  It is like resting my head on Harry’s shoulder afterward.

  Outside in the black, I hear voices, some shouting. The silence stops ringing. I find myself holding the tomato knife stained brighter than the fruit. Under the tap the stain washes off red and thick and glossy, catching onto fingers and fluttering away under the hard blast of water. I slide my fingers up and down the blade until the red is gone and the shining silver shows through again. The wooden handle, with the carved indentations for fingers to grip, is harder: the red does not come out of the grain so easily.

  It is dried, and replaced where it ought to be. There are small stains and smudges in the ridges of my fingertips and my palms, and I wash my hands clean and wipe them on a towel.

  I could move through this house blindfolded, or blind. I step back to the living room, the familiar room where the lamp still glows on the gold-flecked white wall. It is different now; the waiting is finished. I sit down to try to pick patterns from the swimming golden flecks.

  Much better than cooking the perfect meal, or shining the perfect crystal. I have accomplished something here, I have found the moment.

  30

  It is strange that now that he is no longer whole, I can see him, his bones and skin and hair adding up to something. A glinting Harry standing looking at me: I can see his pores as clearly as my own. He’s a good-looking man, but not so very handsome. He was never intended to be a god.

  I regret that he is dead, I’m sorry. But I can’t seem to make the connection.

  It was rage, not love, that gave the moment clarity and purity.

  Poor man, poor stranger, poor Harry, whoever he was. I expect there was a time when he loved me, whatever that meant to him and whoever he thought I was. Poor me, poor stranger.

  Some other Edna with some other life. Reincarnated here, with a magician’s poof she appears, sitting in this chair between this wide window and this narrow bed.

  Somewhere is a child Edna kissing pillow and mirror and man. But they are all gone; the mirror is shattered, the pillow shredded, the man torn.

  If I can do anything, what shall I do?

  What should I do, being free?

  Put down the pen, perhaps. Set my feet up on the windowsill and cross my ankles; slide down in the chair a little; close my eyes and fold my
hands.

  I might let dust collect, lint gather, pins pile up in the carpet.

  I would walk through the town I grew up in, peer in the windows of the house there and stare at the rooms and the lives, my silent parents watching television. I might touch my mother’s shoulder, and kiss my father’s cheek. I could look around and see if I could spot what frightened me. See if anything still frightens me.

  I would write to my sister and invite her to join me, to come and look through the windows with me. I might hold her hand, or put my arm around her.

  I might conjure up the running laughing boy behind me, and turn and look and see if the face was really the one missing from the mirror and the pillow. See if it was magic.

  If I could see that face again, I might weep for it.

  I would write a poem and see what words there might be for all this.

  I haven’t ever danced, and I would like to.

  But I can dance now if I want. So I whirl around this small room, between the beds and dresser; I hum music to myself and lift my feet. Dancing alone, I can move my body as it wants. If I close my eyes, I am a dancer.

  If I open my eyes, people are standing in the doorway watching, amazed. They think I’m crazy; and it doesn’t matter a bit what they see. I find I am dancing with my eyes open now.

  I can stretch and turn, kick myself into the air and land again, and if I step on my own toes or fall down, it doesn’t hurt, it isn’t dangerous.

  I can whirl myself out of this room and down the hall; bend and reach and twist, leap or run. Elude the reaching hands. I could dance on my hands if I wanted.

  It no longer hurts when I move.

  I can dance myself silly. I can dance every moment of forty-three years. I can toddle-dance like a baby and glide like a grown-up. I can dance my lost babies and a house and Harry coming home. I can dance fear and pain. I can dance Harry himself, turn him into motion. He and his wounds flow through my veins and out my toes and fingertips.