Mai at the Predators' Ball (23 page)

Venice in a Night
, this was typical of artists like himself, they didn’t notice a thing going on around them, riveted to their passions and projects, however shattering the news might be about Grandmother’s health, yet here he was still thinking about the dance, he had to phone his videographer about the two curved screens it would take to portray Venice with its houses and buildings crumbling beneath the sea, the terrified doves and white pigeons taking flight above them, both screens portraying glaciers and icebergs in one atonal conflagration, a sense of embracing chaos from the outset soon followed by sorrow, now as he closed the door on his wife and child still sleeping, he realized that anyone would prefer to feel that kind of warmth and security, huddled together instead of taking the plunge into suffering, and perhaps Samuel still felt the sadness of lost comfort, a comfort in believing his grandmother to be immortal, like Tanjou the young Pakistani student his family had befriended, immortal till Samuel saw him falling with the debris from one of the New York towers that cool autumn morning, had it even sunk in that he’d never see him again, anchored in him forever young and forever a friend to them all, and so too for his grandmother, neither of them had the right to just disappear like that, Grandmother so profoundly a part of him that no misfortune could tear that far into the tissue of his being, it just wouldn’t be, it couldn’t, and with his head leaned against the window of the plane he suddenly realized he had to warn the captain or the steward at once, for as they made their descent toward the runway he could just make out through the mist two other planes heading much too close, the way he’d seen them do in Moscow during a combat simulation, a mock battle of course but still terrifying, planes that practically grazed the rooftops of houses, the Academy of Science, universities and museums, there were regiments of tanks, cavalry with heavy machine guns, aren’t they already deployed in the streets, where were these planes going down, on the Academy, on campuses or museums or theatres where the Bolshoi once danced, where, yes got to warn the steward or the captain, those must be warplanes over the city between us and the runway, then with his head still against the window the calm voice of the captain snapped him awake to announce that they were landing in a few minutes, they had to circle a bit till the fog over the runway dissipated, Samuel couldn’t help repeating, as he took out his cellphone, I’m really not much of a grandson am I, not much of a man either, it devastated him that his grandmother was out of sorts, perhaps seriously ill, and as soon as they landed he really had to phone his videographer and dancers to make sure nothing would be overlooked in their mosaic of dance and song portraying the world’s snowiest peaks melting, nothing left to chance, and as Ari paced the deck he turned off his cell for now, perhaps until tomorrow, weary maybe of helplessly living in wait of Noémie’s voice and her often contradictory words, sometimes in virulent opposition to his daughter, which he disliked, why did he have to choose between them anyway, he loved them both of course, but was he so enthralled with this woman or had he become so incapable of thinking like a man or so negligent as a father, he picked up the damn phone again with all its temptations, but what would be the point, things would only change again tomorrow, so why not just sail off with the girls to the next island, Rosie on the other hand was really still a true child, not a hardening preteen like his daughter, and she was agog at the dolphins, whose trainer was a special contact of his since he was a constant mariner, so he could reserve them just for the kids’ enjoyment, a whole aquatic park just to cater to Lou’s morose moodiness, but what was the point if she was just going to snub him and head for her folding bunk and sulk below with Rosie in tow, oh well it was done now and the cellphone was turned off, he was all hers, perhaps it wasn’t too late to turn back, take a short break from Noémie, but he still didn’t understand why he as an adult had to bend to the whims of a little girl when he was in love with an exceptional woman, and who knows if he’d ever find anyone like her again, an art critic who could seize in a glance the essence of his sculptures in all their present-day complexity, too bad Lou was so badly brought up as Noémie put it, it irritated him, that was when he had the idea to surprise Lou, who so loved animals, he’d cover her walls with nature photos from the lithographs in Tom Mangelsen’s
Peace Dances of the Wild Geese
as they migrated across a grey and misty sky, maybe that dance could represent the reconciliation of Ari and his daughter, a bridge to better days, if not then maybe the picture of the bear and cub or the fox and its kits, mother bear and mother fox by the same photographer, serious mothers with their young ones, the she-fox with muzzle pointed, eyes alert, and ears pricked in the direction of green fields where she’d let the little ones play, for now snuggled against her comforting fur as if asking permission and she wondering if the place was safe enough, the question lingering on her wise-looking face, so Ari would tell Lou see how this artful photographer was able to capture the most beautiful scenes that nature still has left, every March the cranes and wild geese in Nebraska hold a ritual called the Peace Dance and they fly off in their thousands from the fields where they’ve fed into the grey, misty sky, off toward Alaska and Siberia, just look at the hope for a long future reflected in these birds, every animal in the world in fact, there’s such pure truth in these pictures and they’re for you, the mother fox with her young, the mother bear beside her cub, serenely sniffing the air, we live in a time of disappearance and who knows how much longer we’ll see these things, but Lou, though listening, would distance herself from her father right afterwards by lining up a video clip or DVD on her computer, already gone was the age when he could talk to her or have any influence over her, and this Peace Dance would not accomplish a thing, majestic birds or not, peace with her father wasn’t what she wanted, it was just as cut and dried as that thought Ari, but he’d cover her walls with posters anyway if only for his own peace of mind, in fact though Lou didn’t realize it, he himself was the maternal fox and bear, holding her for just a little bit longer here in this little fortress of a nest with him, nuzzling against his fur, soon enough she’d be off to some flowery field or broken-down road, the world in all the uncertainties it holds for all of us, and escape she would, though Ari tried to see far enough ahead to pick out the dangers that await all our children now, he must, surely he must write to Asoka her godfather to ask his help and spiritual guidance, but what sort of answer could he expect from the austere and saintly monk steeped in prayer and meditation in an Indian temple, the answer that Ari should renounce all pleasure, think only of his child, be a man and a father before all else, especially in such revolutionary times when temples burned and monks fought in the streets for the rights of the poor, all at once Ari was filled with fear for the life of the wandering monk in his saffron robe, he who in this very time of revolt himself fought in the streets while temples burst into flames, what shame Ari felt that his own personal battle was for his art, his art and Lou, what when she slipped away from him in the next few years and when his art no longer sufficed to ensure his future and hers, was it not a dishonour to be this way Ari thought, and on this night of fog out over the water, Chuan said to Jermaine, her son, as he appeared on the patio, let’s not speak too loudly now your father’s finally asleep, look I think he’s right this time, Caridad’s son is a killer, now how do you think a mother’s supposed to deal with her son’s crimes, Chuan stroked her son’s face and hair, I mean what would it be like if it were you, Caridad told me herself on the quiet when I was buying some craft pieces in her store, it’s as if she knew her son was in for some terrifying part of his life, there was some sort of abscessed hatred in Lazaro that had grown even as she carried him in her belly and her husband beat and abused her, she herself had borne this child, this vengeful abscess of hatred growing inside, oh yes all this before, and afterwards of course bursting into the bloodiest fury, beginning with Carlos his first sworn victim in a childhood quarrel over some shoes, Carlos discharging a stolen rifle he thought was empty when he was attacked by a Cuban cook, then ending up in jail for manslaughter, and all Lazaro could think of was wreaking vengeance on Carlos when he got out, it grew in the meantime, the abscess grew, this Caridad confided to Chuan, the arming of her son by degrees, then becoming more and more a loner, an armed bandit obsessed by killing, anyone and everyone but especially Carlos, filled to the brim with hatred and tortured in the womb by a father as brutal and bloody as he, as hateful of women, oh what can we do she said, when all of a sudden our sons turn bad and leave for Pakistan or elsewhere, who really knows what border village, for indoctrination, hate training, cultivating the poison that is already there inside them, sons cast off, cast loose somewhere in southern Asia or wherever to blow up a train and a station in the name of those wild religious principles, ready to kill hundreds, even thousands of people in the exploding fury of that bloody abscess of hatred, and what can a mother do when he is no longer her son, just another hideous barbarian in some guerilla unit even ready to kill their own mothers, what she asked, and Chuan stroked her own son’s hair sitting next to him on the patio at night, she said if it were you what would I do? Robbie told everyone in the bar to listen to Eartha Kitt singing “Santa Baby” in that languid voice of hers, the purring of a feline underlaid with rebel cries, sure it would have been nice for her just to be the little kitten she looked like so she could get her black voice listened to, the black rage of South Carolina plantations where she’d been raped by a white farmer, that’s what Robbie was going to sing tonight, “Santa Baby,” she’d actually borrow that rage and become Eartha Kitt onstage, plus of course the languid feline moves he’d practised for so long now, the segregation of the fifties produced a lot like her, riding out the bigotry of customers who came up those stairs every day Robbie said, still yanking on the reins of the white papier-mâché horse, from under Jamie’s cap came the remark that this was the coldest it had ever been in February, so a second limo had been ordered up to make it easier for the girls with those heavy coats on rolling through the chilly night, they were gorgeous, wow this was the best said Jamie, electrified as he scurried here and there to keep busy and warm, hey some cars I got for us, right I mean look at those fine leather seats, smooth streamlined bodies like birds’ wings, c’mon girls get in, you’re in for one helluva night, Geisha ya wanna get on the PA and announce tonight’s show, we gotta wake these people up Herman chimed in at the top of his voice from atop a dress with transparent fringes but apparently not feeling the cold and still holding on to the reins, everything just the way you wanted it Yinn, he asked with a touch of irony you like our parade or is it more just some sort of folksy show for you, kinda like carnival night, Yinn said yes, it was terrific, just keep the noise down so the cops don’t hassle us, but Herman could see her mind was somewhere else, almost as though surveying her queendom, what with Herman out of his wheelchair, still in the shadow of the bar and barely noticeable, then again maybe she was wondering about Fatalité’s ashes travelling down to the bottom with only My Captain to guide them, that’s what Herman thought anyway, but it was time for some fun and you could hear the peals of laughter from the girls in the limos, then one of them stopped near Yinn, who opened the door for Cobra to get in, Cobra right now seemed the antithesis of Fatalité, a wholesome girl with just her pink, healthy face in a rainbow of colours fresh from the cold like skating out onto the ice in winter, her siren hair blowing in the wind, she was so deliciously rosy as Robbie put it, juicy and fit to take a bite out of, and Cobra climbed in jostling the others as if they weren’t brittle-boned skeletons but just as healthy as her, just a touch too virile thought Yinn, and it made her shudder a bit when she suddenly pictured one of those carnival parades by the Belgian painter James Ensor, Yinn had often gone to his work for inspiration for her stage sets, a blurry nightmare whirl of faces and heads like his painting
Masks
Mocking Death
in which he mocked death, the carnival scene might have been on the beach because all the skulls had sunglasses and the people were ready to stretch out in the sun, or was it the light filtering through the cracks in the chalky masks, maybe steeped in drunkenness, dancing a jig in the fading sunlight before relaxing on the wharf, maybe they were just devils aflame that the painter had invested with a deathly chill as they waltzed in a Dantesque procession that would be their last, was this what Yinn saw as the healthy, impatient, and vigorous Cobra joined the others in the car, all of them wearing the masks Yinn had nimbly made herself but now starting to come apart, the same cadaverous blur the painter had used in
Masks Mocking Death
, death beneath the bald crowns of the girls in this last walk through the town simply became even more devastating and unabashed for all that, and now here was Herman yelling to distract Yinn, look, stars, stars like Fatalité, boy would she have been proud of us all, let’s give them a round of applause and some admiration, this is the tribute you wanted for them, right Yinn, look how the crowd’s with them all, well us, hey by the way have you fixed my lace cape yet, I can’t wait to get out there on my tricycle, but Herman’s words melted into the bar music while Yinn waved to the girls as they drove past and escaped from his thoughts, concentrating on the good vibes of the moment there on the sidewalk with Cobra as she unleashed a shower of necklaces on Yinn, good night Yinn, good night sweet Thai prince. It’s time you learned something about empathy Grandmother told Mai, by that I mean Marie-Sylvie de la Toussaint, but all this while Mai could still feel the slap and the insult laid on her, she’d stared at her aggressor long and hard thinking nope, I don’t think I will empathize, besides what would things be like in a few hours when Vincent got back, Marie-Sylvie would be oh so sweet, and all this ill-feeling would disappear once her child was on the scene along with her nastiness toward that little tramp Mai, because that is just what she said when she slapped the girl, but under the shock of the moment Mai’s thoughts had gone back to Tammy, her parents probably slapped her every single day, mortifying, that was why the pact with her brother, no it couldn’t be, it had to be stopped, Mai’d be with her in a few hours but the disaster for now was being slapped by Marie-Sylvie and no longer being able to count on her bedridden grandmother just on the other side of the door to defend her, slapped by that horrible woman, okay a woman who’d been humiliated, as her grandmother would be the first to say, but still Mai had no intention of empathizing, not now, not ever, she’d just have to tell her father, surely he’d stand up for her though he’d never come out against any member of the household before, so he’d probably say look how many years she’s been with us, when our son was sickly and she looked after him or when we spent so much time in hospitals with your brother’s asthma and so on, but no she was not going to go out of her way, oh how sweet it was to hear Schubert drifting through the open blinds in Grandmother’s room, she still felt the full humiliation of that slap and the music seemed to play for her alone, saying you see Granddaughter not everything here is so simple or homey, not even here listening to my Schubert just like yesterday and tomorrow, I live, I breathe, now do you feel a bit better, I know it hurts and I’m not able to get up and defend you from such unfairness my child, I know it’s wrong, this was all the consolation her grandmother had to offer, and Mai thought about the kid with chili sauce all over his face that night at the party and where was he now, wandering through town in the fog, shifting from side to side drunk with despair, maybe yelling out that he was from the First Battalion, maybe going back to the beach to dig what he called his grave for the night, like digging a trench in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, for somewhere to grab fitful sleep, digging his nightly sepulchre by hand and wishing his buddies were there with him, each one in his own hole, lairs with hard earth to sleep on, rocks and a bit of straw, the same spots they’d use to shoot from after a few winks, sure he had a bed waiting for him the boy said, a grave after six days’ and nights’ march with backpacks and guns in the blazing heat, so yearning for sleep with machine gun clutched tight, water bottles in a row next to his boots and cracked mud-caked socks, packed earth for a resting place, lidless coffins thrown together for an intermission in the terror, inserted head first into their helmets perhaps, barefoot and ready for sleep as though driven into the ground, fast asleep and snoring only moments from the whistling shells like the chili-face boy digging himself into the beach, a grave-maker in the drifting sea fog, still in one piece at least, as if howling and crying to Mai they were all in one piece, all of them burying themselves for the night, but they were all there, not in the clinic being fitted for new hands or knees or some other part of themselves, out in those farms that’s what we did he told Mai, and surely he was doing that now out on the beach, chili face and all, forgotten once again by the partygoers and townspeople who’d seen him wandering by, you’re nothing but a little slut Marie-Sylvie had told Mai, then the slap, both of them burnt into her, how glad she was to hear her grandmother’s music like a blessing, remembering Fatalité while Yinn bathed and washed her, still determined to show up at the cabaret for the evening show, for sure she’d be here even if it turned out to be the last time, no way she’d miss it, her apartment bathed in a glaring light day and night while Yinn soaped and rinsed her with gloved hands, she told Yinn see you go to the trouble of protecting your hands, they’re the instruments of your art, that’s right my friend, I’m the kid with the nasty African disease, see these lesions under my eyes, my name’s Rosinah Motshewwa and there are thousands more like me and her, twenty-nine she was, no I’m not Rosinah and she’s not me, I just saw her in a newspaper, thousands like us, and who would have imagined seeing Fatalité sunk so low that Yinn would even have to pass the hat for her funeral, Yinn could still hear her voice when she washed her, thousands, there are thousands of us, you ever think about that Yinn, then Yinn pictured thousands of white limousines filing through the streets, men, women, and children all passing in front of her house, like Rosinhah they wouldn’t be in limos though, more like carts, Fatalité at the front of a line so long it stretched beyond the city limits, enough of them to fill the ocean, did anyone even have the strength left to dance or smile, rows on rows of them barely able to walk and some couldn’t even do that, standing upright in carts, now no longer smiling and singing, that’s when Herman said what’s the matter Yinn, got yourself all tangled up in Cobra’s necklaces, here let me help you out, so this was a good thing we did tonight wasn’t it and Yinn’s face suddenly shut down tight, though he said sure it was good, meanwhile Herman got her shoulders free and shook out the folds of her blue dress, still it saddens me to know Fatalité was so hard up that we had to pitch in for her funeral, I just can’t get over it, then she remembered dreaming about Herman too, the same Herman who right now was here in front of her holding the horse’s reins, in this dream the horse came to life, and on top, as white-fringed as the horse, was Herman riding straight across town like a conquering hero, hey what you need isn’t a tricycle, it’s a horse, suddenly more intimate and almost tender, she said that’s it a horse, right, well in the meantime until I get my legs back, I’ve got this Herman said, pointing to his wheelchair, at least it gets me home at night, ’cause these evening shows just wear me out, you’re kidding me Yinn aren’t you, he cursed the thing standing by itself in the shadows, see here’s my fiery steed champing at the bit, my stroller, that’s not what I meant said Yinn, I had a dream of you winning out over all these problems, I am already said Herman, brushing it off like Fatalité, always will be he said again, and don’t you forget it Yinn, don’t you forget it, held close to her heart, the red roses still in their ribbon and cellophane were to be Nora’s offering to Christiensen at the airport but now all of a sudden she wasn’t so sure, some insane impulse made her dash them to the floor and trample them, hard leather boots grinding the petals, when she awoke in the dark she saw the garden lights on, still foggy, still nighttime, she must have lain down on a deck chair by the pool dressed and ready to drive to the airport, straw hat and all, then fallen asleep under the gumbo tree, its blossoms sweetening the chill night air just before sunrise, just a quick nap and the nightmare of trampled roses and crushed wrapping clung to her perspiring skin like reality, Christiensen would have said maybe our dreams are cleverer than we are but she didn’t agree, one had to beware the rough edges of the subconscious, such unholy disorder, the smashed flowers would be part of it from now on, let it go and never come back, now how did her painting look in the gentler light of garden lamps, hmmm, still that lunar space surrounding Nora’s face, the bluish pallor beneath the eyes as though the model were about to take flight, that tight line of a mouth she didn’t like either, practically a hint of greed or grasping, why not just tear the whole thing up before her husband got here, get rid of everything she didn’t like about it, that reticent fold of the mouth, that face borne aloft in a lunar void, restrained eyes, quick, think about something else, phone the children in Europe and find out where they are and what they’re doing, why didn’t they tell her more about their lives, even the ones she was closest to, all she had was the camera on her laptop, faces still too blurry when they moved, she talked to them for hours every day, yes, but still they said so little about themselves, nothing to give her the reassuring sense of their being gathered around her, it had cost so much to renovate this place for them but when on earth would they show up, no not greed or grasping on that face but a lack of nuance and balance, though O’Keeffe would never have made a mistake like that would she, sitting in judgement of her model instead of simply portraying her, these forms were too well-defined, too stiff, not free, not alive and unshackled, lyric in a way Nora herself could not be, no this picture deserved to be trampled, squashed underfoot, same as the red roses of her dream she thought, now then what was she going to cook for Valérie’s birthday dinner, a few days from now all her friends would be gathered round tables set in the garden, better forget about that godawful painting altogether, Bernard and Valérie were gourmets quite capable of appreciating the finer points of her cuisine, rabbit possibly, not like when her vegetarian kids showed up with all their complaints in tow, especially Marianne, who couldn’t bear to put up with dead animals, think about it Mama little lambs and rabbits, just babies, and you’re killing them, well I mean you’re getting someone else to do it for you but think about those places where they torture them and chickens too, no there would be none of this from Bernard and Valérie, they knew good food and they always said hers was perfection, still that picture was another story, that moon-framed face and the dissatisfied corners of the mouth, what would they say, would they say anything at all, astonishing, that’s what they’d say, they always did, astonishing as always Nora, unusual, bizarre even, no not that but genuinely astonishing and deeply moving, her father now he would have said unusual, no bizarre, no a failure perhaps, bitter and envious that way, he’d say it was a total failure, I honestly wonder why you even bother to paint, my girl, it’s the same as when you decided to be a surgeon, surely you can see you haven’t the talent or the ability for it, that was when Nora would weep for days on end, even when she and her brother were away at African convent schools she did, and now Marianne was the one who felt envious of her older sister, get rid of the horrible thing, poor child, still the social worker in her was extremely sensitive to others, the only one of her children who had this in her, perhaps a character flaw that made her a sponge to soak up all injustice and evil, too vulnerable to the crises of the marginalized kids in her care, that same sense of charity, even exaggeration, worried her mother, fortunately the others were more realistic and a little less empathetic, all of them married whereas Marianne never really saw it as a choice for her, of course she’d prefer the company of a man plus her work and her destitute clients Nora thought, but still she had finally convinced her daughter that marriage really would make her feel more secure and less fragile, besides was social work really what she wanted most, why not be a housewife like her mother, no Mama no way she would say, what’s so wonderful about that, a housewife like you and you learned all those languages, even read Ibsen in the original and for what, so you could raise us, I feel bad for you Mama really I do, Marianne was so easily swayed and she fell for all those fashionable feminist theories, what ingratitude, as if I haven’t given my children everything, they had all I had to give, but what encourages me is Greta the oldest, she said I was right and thought a bit the way I did though we disagreed sometimes about the importance she gave her professional life compared to her family, but I was always there for them all and their children too and I still am, every day we talk, okay so it’s on that shimmering screen but I do talk and I go on talking till they have to listen to what I have to say, then they’re gone, too much to get done they say, but why, why don’t they tell me everything, I so want to know, why do they seem to be falling away one after the other, even Stéphanie the one I painted this for, why did she say again yesterday Grandmama I have classes, got to run, I can’t talk now, I really have to go, tomorrow I’ll talk to you, tomorrow or the day after, why did a woman’s life have to be this way Nora wondered, this sudden sense of futility and uselessness in everything she did, this consuming vortex of obsessions had to be cleared away now, just the tiredness talking that’s all it was, night after night without sleep, soon she’d be off to the airport and Christiensen would sweep her up in his arms, kiss her, and say darling my dearest darling, and she’d be fulfilled, she was all set to go, oh why all these wretched, devouring thoughts anyway, except for Marianne’s deep humanity and her husband’s passed on to their youngest even more than the others, no one realized the generosity she’d shown in Africa, almost as though it didn’t fit with having children, no apart from Marianne and Christiensen none of them realized what those months of endurance and service had meant for Nora, for that brief time she was no longer just a housewife in a dollhouse, not her husband’s Nora but a full-fledged woman in her own right, taking care of the AIDS-stricken like her father