Dance Dance Dance (7 page)

When this classmate of mine became an actor, I went to see his first few films, partly out of curiosity. But before long I didn't bother. Every movie was straight out of the same mold, and every role he had was basically the same: tall, handsome, athletic, cleancut, often a student at first, then later teacher or doctor or young elite salaryman, adored by the girls around him. He had perfect teeth, a charming smile. Very suave. Though still not anything you'd want to pay money to see. Now I'm not a snob who only goes to see Fellini or Tarkovsky. No, not by any means. But this guy's films were the pits. Low-budget productions with cliché plots and mediocre dialogue, movies you could tell even the directors didn't care about.

Although, come to think of it, in real life the guy had been pretty much like the parts he played. He was nice enough, but who actually knew anything about him? We were in the same class during junior high school, and once we shared the same lab table on a science experiment. We were friendly. But even back then he was too nice to be real—just like in his movies. Girls were already falling all over him. If he talked to them, their eyes would go moist. If he lit a Bunsen burner with those graceful hands of his, it was like the opening ceremony of the Olympics. None of the girls ever noticed I was alive.

His grades were good too, always first or second in the class. Kind, sincere, friendly. It didn't matter what kind of clothes he wore, he always looked neat and clean. Even when he took a leak, there was something elegant about him. And there's hardly a male around who looks elegant when pissing. Of course, he was good at sports, active in school government. There was talk that he had a thing going with the most popular girl in the class, but no one knew for sure. All the teachers thought he was great, and on Parents' Day all the mothers would be enchanted with him too. He was just that type. Though, like I said, it was hard to know what the guy was thinking.

His life was practically right out of the movies.

Why the hell would I pay money to go see a movie like that?

I tossed the newspaper into the trash and walked back to the hotel in the snow. In the lobby, I glanced at the front desk, but my friend was nowhere to be seen. I went over to the video game corner and played a couple rounds of Pacman and Galaxy. Nerve-racking. Games like those bring out the aggression in people. But they do kill time.

After that I went back to my room and read.

The day was impossible to get a handle on. When I got tired of reading, I looked out the window at the snow. It snowed the entire day. I found it inspiring that a sky could actually snow this much. At twelve o'clock I went down to the cafe for lunch. Then I returned to my room and read and watched the snow.

But the day wasn't a complete loss. Around four o'clock, while I lay in bed reading, there was a knock on the door. It was my receptionist friend, standing there in glasses and light blue blazer. Without waiting for me to open the door any wider, she slipped into the room like a shadow and shut the door.

"Hotel policy. If they catch me here, I'm fired," she said quickly.

She looked around the room and sat down on the sofa, straightening the hem of her skirt at her knees. Then she breathed a sigh. "I'm on my break now," she said.

"I'm going to have a beer. Want something to drink?" I asked.

"No thanks. I don't have too much time. You've been holed up inside here all day, haven't you?"

"I didn't have anything special to do. I'm just whiling away the hours, reading and watching the snow," I said.

"What's the book?"

"It's about the Spanish Civil War. The whole history, from beginning to end. Full of innuendo." To be sure, the Spanish Civil War was rich in historical suggestion. It was a real old-fashioned war.

"Listen, don't take this wrong," she interrupted me.

"Don't take what wrong?" I asked.

Pause.

"You mean, your coming to my room?" I asked.

"Uh-huh."

I sat down on the edge of the bed, beer in hand. "Don't worry. I was surprised to see you standing at my door, but pleasantly surprised. I'm happy for some company. It's been pretty boring."

She stood up and in the middle of the room removed her blazer. She draped it over the back of a chair, carefully so it wouldn't wrinkle. Then she walked over to me at the edge of the bed and sat down, her legs neatly aligned. Without the blazer, she seemed vulnerable, defenseless. I put my arm around her and she rested her head on my shoulder. Her white blouse was pressed crisply, and she smelled nice. We stayed in this position for five minutes. Me just holding her, her just sitting there, head on my shoulder, eyes closed, breathing softly, almost as if she were asleep. Out in the street, the snow kept falling, without end, swallowing all sound.

She was tired. She needed somewhere to roost. I was the nearest tree branch. I understood. It seemed unreasonable, unfair, that a woman so young and beautiful should be so exhausted. Of course, it was neither unreasonable nor unfair. Exhaustion pays no mind to age or beauty. Like rain and earthquakes and hail and floods.

Then she raised her head, stood up, and slipped her blazer back on. She walked over to the sofa, sat down, and fiddled with the ring on her pinkie. In her uniform, she seemed stiff and distant.

I kept sitting on the edge of the bed.

"You know that weird experience you had on the six-teenth floor?" I began, "did you do anything special or was there something out of the ordinary? Like before you got into the elevator, or while you were going up?"

She cocked her head quizzically. "Hmm ... let me think. No, I don't think so. But I can't really remember."

"There wasn't a hint of anything odd?"

"Everything was like always," she shrugged. "There was nothing unusual at all. And, really, it was a completely nor-mal elevator ride, but when the door opened everything was pitch black. That's all."

"I see," I said. "How about dinner somewhere tonight?"

She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I've made other plans for tonight."

"How about tomorrow?"

"I have swim club tomorrow."

"Swim club?" I said, smiling. "Did you know they had swim clubs in ancient Egypt?"

"No," she said, "but I find it awfully hard to believe, don't you?"

"No, it's the truth. I learned that from some research I had to do once," I explained. A token from the department of useless facts.

She looked at her watch and got up. "Well, thanks," she said. And slid out the door, as noiselessly as when she en-tered. So much for my only handle on the day. It left me wondering how the ancient Egyptians filled their days, what little pleasures they enjoyed as they whiled their weary way to death. Learning to swim, wrapping mummies. And the sum accomplishment of that you call a civilization.

9

By eleven o'clock that night I was out of things to do. I'd pretty well done everything. I'd trimmed my nails, taken a bath, cleaned my ears, even watched the news on TV. Did push-ups, sit-ups, stretched, ate dinner, finished my book. But I wasn't sleepy. I thought about checking out the staff elevator one more time, but it was too early for that. I had to wait until after midnight for the comings and goings of the employees to fall off.

In the end I decided to go up to the lounge on the twenty-sixth floor. I nursed a martini while gazing out blankly at the flecks of white swirling down through the void. I thought about the ancient Egyptians, tried to imagine what kind of lives they led. Who were the ones that joined the swim club? No doubt, it was the Pharaoh's clan, aristocrats, the upper classes. Trendy, jet-set ancient Egyptians. They probably had their own private section of the Nile or built special pools to teach their chic strokes in. Complete with handsome, likable swim instructor, like my friend the movie star, who'd say things like, "Excellent, Your Highness, only perhaps Thou might extend Thy right arm a little further for the crawl."

The sky-blue waters of the Nile, the scintillating sun (thatched cabanas and palm fronds a must), spear-bearing soldiers to beat back the crocodiles and commoners, swaying reeds, the Pharaoh's crowd. Princes, sure, but what about princesses? Did women learn to swim? Cleopatra, for instance. In her younger days looking like Jodie Foster, would she have swooned over my classmate, the swim instructor? Most likely. That's what he was there for.

Somebody ought to make a film like that. I, for one, would pay to see it.

No, the swim instructor couldn't be of poor birth. He'd be the son of the King of Israel or Assyria or somewhere like that, captured in battle and dragged back to Egypt, a slave. But he doesn't lose an iota of his good-naturedness, even if he is a slave. That's where he differs from Charlton Heston or Kirk Douglas. He flashes his brilliant white teeth in a smile and takes a leak, aristocratically. Then, stand ing on the banks of the Nile, he takes out a ukulele and bursts into a chorus of "Rock-a-Hula Baby." Obviously he's the only man for the part.

Then, one day, the Pharaoh and entourage happen by. The swim instructor's out scything reeds when he sees a barge capsize. Without the least hesitation, he dives into the river, swims a magnificent crawl out and rescues a little girl and races the crocodiles back to shore. All with powerful grace. As gracefully as he'd lit the Bunsen burner in science class. The Pharaoh is most impressed and thinks, that's it, I'll get this youth to teach my princes how to swim. The previ-ous swim instructor had proven insubordinate and was thrown into the bottomless pit just the week before. Thus my classmate becomes the Royal Swim Instructor. And he's so likable everyone adores him. At night, the ladies-in-wait-ing anoint their bodies with oils and perfumes and hasten to his bed. The princes and princesses are all devoted to him.

Cut to a spectacle scene on the order of The Bathing Beauty or The King and I. My classmate and the princes and princesses in a grand synchronized swim routine in celebra-tion of the Pharaoh's birthday. The Pharaoh is overjoyed, which further boosts the youth's stock. Still, he doesn't let it go to his head. He's a paragon of humility. He smiles the same as ever, and pisses elegantly. When a ladyin-waiting slips under the covers with him, he spends a full one hour on foreplay, brings her all the way to climax, then afterward strokes her hair and says, "You're the best." He's a good guy.

For a moment, I tried to picture sleeping with an Egyptian court lady, but the image wouldn't gel. The more I forced it, the more everything turned into 20th Century Fox's Cleo-patra. Very epic. Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Har-rison. The "Hollywood Exotic" mode—olive-skinned, long-legged slave girls waving longhandled fans over Liz, who strikes various glamorous poses to seduce my class-mate. A specialty of the Egyptian femme fatale.

But the Jodie Foster Cleopatra has fallen head-over-heels for him.

Mediocre fare, admittedly, but that's the movies.

He's pretty much gone on Jodie Cleopatra, too.

But he's not the only one who's crazy about Jodie Cleopa-tra. There's a dark, dark Arabian prince who's burning with passion for her. He's so in love with her that just thinking about her is enough to make him dance. The role is tailor-made for Michael Jackson. He's crossed the Arabian sands all the way to Egypt for her love. We see him dancing around the caravan camp fire, shaking a tambourine, singing "Billie Jean." His eyes gleam in the starlight. So of course there ensues a major face-off between Michael and my class-mate, our swim instructor. A rivalry between lovers. . . .

I'd gotten this far when the bartender came over and said sorry, closing time. It was a quarter past twelve; I was the last customer in the lounge, glasses were already drying on towels, the bartender almost through cleaning up. Had I been tweaking this nonsense all this time? What an idiot! I signed the bill, downed the last of my martini, and walked out, shuffling my way to the elevators, hands useless in my pockets.

Still, wasn't Jodie Cleopatra obliged to marry her younger brother? My dream scenario had a life of its own. I couldn't get it out of my head. The scenes kept on coming. Her shiftless and crooked younger brother. Now who'd be good for the part? Woody Alien? Gimme a break. This isn't a com-edy! We don't need a court jester cracking stupid jokes and hitting himself over the head with a plastic mallet.

We'll work on the brother later. The Pharaoh's got to go to Laurence Olivier. Always got a migraine, always pressing fingers to his temples. Throws anyone who gets on his nerves into the bottomless pit or makes them swim the Nile with the crocs. Intelligent, cruel, and high-strung. Digs out people's eyes and throws the poor souls into the desert.

Oh, the casting, the casting, and then the elevator arrived. The door opened, ever so silently. I got in and pressed 15. And went back to my Egyptian movie. Not that I really wanted to, but there was no way to stop it.

The scene changes to the desert wastelands. Unbeknownst to all, in a cave in the wilderness lives a solitary prophet-recluse, cast out of society by the Pharaoh. With his eyes gouged out, he has miraculously survived his long trek across the desert. A sheepskin shields him from the merciless sun. He dwells in total darkness, eating locusts and wild grasses. He gains inner vision and sees the future. He sees the fall of the Pharaoh, Egypt's twilight, a world shifting on its foundations.

It's the Sheep Man, I think. The Sheep Man?

The elevator door opened silently, and I exited without thought. The Sheep Man? In ancient Egypt? Isn't this all meaningless pastiche anyway? I reasoned these things out, standing, hands in my pockets, in total darkness.

Total darkness?

Only then did I notice the complete absence of light. Not one speck of light. As the elevator door shut behind me, I was enveloped in lacquer black darkness. I couldn't see my own hands. The Muzak was gone too. No "Love Is Blue," no "A Summer Place." And the air was chill and moldy.

I stood there alone, abandoned in utter nothingness.

10

The darkness was deathly absolute. I could not distinguish one shape or object. I could not see my own body. I could not get any sense of any-thing out there. I was in a great black vacuum.

I was reduced to pure concept. My flesh had dissolved; my form had dissipated. I floated in space. Liberated of my corporeal being, but without dispensation to go anywhere else. I was adrift in the void. Somewhere across the fine line separating nightmare from reality.

I stood. But I could not move. My arms and legs felt para-lyzed. I was at the bottom of the sea, the pressure dense, crushing, inexorable. Dead silence strained against my eardrums. The darkness was without reprieve. No mental adjustment could make it less absolute. It was impenetra-ble—black painted over black painted over black.

Unconsciously I groped around in my pockets. On the right was my wallet and key holder, on the left my room card-key and handkerchief and small change. All useless now. Now if I hadn't quit smoking, I'd at least be carrying a lighter or some matches. As if that would make a difference. I pulled my hands out of my pockets and reached out to touch a wall. I found one all right, alarmingly slick and chill, not exactly a wall you'd expect to find in the climatecon-trolled Dolphin Hotel.

Easy now. Think it through.

Okay, this is exactly what happened to my receptionist friend. I am merely retracing her steps. There is no need for alarm. She survived; I will too. Calm down; do what she did. Now, something funny is definitely going on here. Maybe it has something to do with me? With the old Dolphin Hotel? That's why I came here, isn't it? Yes. So go through the motions and finish the job.

Scared?

Damned straight.

I was scared, scared witless. I felt naked. Cast into the midst of violent particle drifts of intense black, thrashing about me like blind eels. I was overcome with my helpless-ness. My shirt was drenched in cold sweat, my throat felt raspy, dry.

Where the hell was I? I wasn't here, at 1'Hotel Dauphin, that's for sure. I had crossed a line and I had entered this world in limbo. I shut my eyes and breathed deeply.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but I found myself longing for "Love Is Blue." The sound of Muzak—any Muzak— would give me strength. I'd have settled for Richard Clayderman. Or Los Indios Tabajaras, Jose Feliciano, Julio Iglesias, Sergio Mendes, The Partridge Family, 1910 Fruitgum Company, Mitch Miller and chorus, Andy Williams in duet with Al Martino . . . , anything.

But enough. My mind went blank. From fear? Could fear lurk in empty space?

Michael Jackson dancing around the camp fire with his tambourine singing "Billie Jean." The camels entranced by the song.

I must be getting a little confused.

I must be getting a little confused.

Seems like an echo inside my head. An echo inside my head.

I took another deep breath, and tried to drive meaningless images from my mind.

I braced myself and turned right, arms extended. But my legs would not move, as if they were not mine. The muscles and nerves would not respond. I was sending the signals, but nothing was happening. I was immersed in fluid darkness. I was trapped, I was immobilized.

The darkness was without end. I was being propelled toward the center of the earth. I would never resurface. Think of something else, kid. Think, or fear will take over your whole being. How about that Egyptian film scenario? Where were we? The Sheep Man enters. Move on from desert wilderness back to palace of the Pharaoh. Tinsel tow-ers aglitter with the treasures of Africa. Nubian slaves every-where. Dead center, the Pharaoh. Music, by Miklos Rozsa. The Pharaoh is pissed off. Something is rotten in the state of Egypt, he thinks. I smell a plot in the palace. I can feel it in my bones. I must set it right.

One foot at a time, I stepped forward, carefully. That was when it occurred to me. What my receptionist friend had been able to do. Amazing! Thrown into some crazy black hole and she's able to go check out everything for herself.

And now she's wearing her black racing swimsuit, doing her laps at the swim club. And who's there but my movie star classmate. Sure enough, she goes gaga at the sight of him. He gives her pointers on the right arm extension for the crawl. She gazes at him, her eyes aglow. And that very night, she slips into his bed. I'm crushed. I can't let this happen. She doesn't know a thing. Oh, he's nice and kind all right. He says sweet things and he gets her juices going. But that's as far as the kindness goes. That's just foreplay.

The hallway bent to the right.

Just like she said.

But she's in bed with my classmate. Gently he takes off her clothes, lavishing compliments on her about each part of her body. And he's being sincere. Great, just great. Got to hand it to the guy. But little by little the anger mounts inside me. This was wrong!

The hallway bends to the right.

I turned right, feeling my way along the wall. Far off ahead there was a faint light. As if filtered through layers and layers of veils.

Just like she said.

My classmate is kissing her all over. Slowly, with such finesse, from the nape of her neck to her shoulders to her breasts. Camera angle shows his face and her back. Then the camera dollies around to reveal her face. But it isn't my receptionist friend, no. It's Kiki! My high-class call-girl friend with the world's most beautiful ears, who was with me at the old Dolphin. Kiki, who disappeared without a word, without a trace. And here she is, sleeping with my classmate.

It's a real scene from a real movie. Every shot and cut according to plan. Maybe a little too planned—it looks so commonplace. They are making love in an apartment, the light shining in through the blinds. Kiki. What's she doing here? Time and space must be getting out of whack.

Time and space must be getting out of whack.

I kept walking toward the light. As my feet took the lead, the image in my head evaporated.

FADE OUT.

I proceeded along the wall. No more thinking. Concen-trate on moving feet forward. Carefully, surely. The dim light ahead begins to leak and spread, from a door. But I still don't know where I am. And I can barely tell that it's a door. It isn't like anything I saw when I made the rounds earlier. On the door, a metal plate, a number engraved on it. I can't read the number. It's dark, the plate's tarnished. But, at the very least, I know this isn't the Dolphin Hotel. The doors are different. The air is wrong too. That smell, what is it? Like old papers. The light sways from time to time. Candlelight.

I thought about my receptionist friend again. I should have slept with her when I could have. Who knew if I'd ever return to the real world? Would I ever get another chance to see her? I was jealous of the real world and her swim club. Or maybe I wasn't jealous. Maybe it was a matter of regret, an overblown, distorted sense of regret, although maybe what it came down to, plunged in this darkness, was I was jealous. It'd been years. I'd forgotten what it felt like to be jealous. It's such a personal emotion. Maybe I was feeling jealous now. Maybe, but toward a swim club?

This is stupid.

I swallowed. It sounded like a metal baseball bat striking a barrel drum. That was saliva?

Then a strange vibration, a half sound. I had to knock. That's right, like she said. I summoned up my courage and let go with a tiny rap. Something that didn't necessarily demand to be heard. But it was a huge, booming noise. Cold and heavy as death.

I held my breath.

Silence. Just like with her. How long it lasted, I couldn't tell. It might have been five seconds, it might have been a minute. Time wasn't fixed. It wavered, stretched, shrank. Or was it me that wavered, stretched, and shrank in the silence? I was warped in the folds of time, like a reflection in a fun house mirror.

Then that sound. A rustling, amplified, like fabric. Some-thing getting up from the floor. Then footsteps. Coming toward me. The scuffling of slippers. Something, but not human. Like she said. Something from another reality—a reality that existed here.

There was no escape. I did not move. Sweat streamed down my back. Yet, as the footsteps grew closer and closer, unaccountably my fears began to subside. It's all right, I said to myself. Whatever it is, it is not evil. I knew. I knew there was nothing to fear. I could let it happen.

I felt aswirl with warm secretions. I gripped the door-knob, I shut my eyes, I held my breath. You're all right, you're fine. I heard a tremendous heartbeat through the darkness. It was my own. I was enveloped in it, I was a part of it. There was nothing to fear. It was all connected.

The footsteps halted. They were beside me. It was beside me. My eyes were shut. It is beginning to come together. I knew. I knew I was connected to this place. The banks of the Nile and the perfumed Nubian court ladies and Kiki and the Dolphin Hotel and rock 'n' roll, everything, everything, everything! An implosion of time and physical form. Old light, old sound, old voices.

"Beenwaitingforyou. Beenwaitingforages. Comeonin." I knew who it was without opening my eyes.