He proceeded to conjure up the dance.
“First you will move sensuously, encouraging, coaxing erection. Woman as seducer. Then your dance will become a ritual of growth, of procreation. The goddess dancing a fertility rite to encourage a fruitful yield. The men will partake in a ceremony of manhood, a contest of virility. The first man to achieve erection is the victor.” He wore the robes of prophet.
Leonard put a record on and lit several candles. The music glittered in its own elaborate choreography through the firelight and candlelight. Rachel peeled off her clothes, eager to partake in the ritual. She adored Leonard and loved yielding to the power of his baroque imagination. Besides, refusing him would be like the tides refusing the moon. She became a beautiful sprite, surrounded by an aura of light. I removed my blouse, my breasts powerful in my hands, but retained my skirt, swishing silk against my thighs, my purple stockings and my Chinese slippers winking sequins. Leonard graciously permitted the transgressions. Three limp penises lined up against the wall. Tom’s eyes were downcast, like a Samson, his hair newly shorn, or a cowboy, fresh from the prairies, suddenly naked in Sodom or Gemorah, not daring to behold the twin wickedness, yet fatally drawn to the decadence, an Adam doomed to partake in sin. Leonard’s white skin stretched porcelain thin over a slender frame, helpless on the cross of his body. Irving was an immovable mountain, his limbs thick tree roots, planted firmly in its base, his legs astride, a Colossus ready for battle.
Leonard raised his arm signalling Rachel and me to dance. We moved first like belly dancers in a harem, navels flashing, bodies rubbed in perfumed oils. Then we became Everywoman, the temptress, the enchantress, dancing a timeless seduction. I see Rachel become Eve, then Helen of Troy, then Lolita; I am Cleopatra, Mata Hari, Jezebel. Breasts, belly, thighs, rocking, swaying, tempting invisible maleness. Hips pulsating deep into the journey of seduction, searching for the golden stud, Adam, Caesar, Christ. Then slowly into rituals of fertility, kneeling, blessing the earth, arms lifting in spirals from earth through rain and sun. Palms reaching to the sky in an invocation of growth.
Leonard watched like a caged bird, its beak open in a silent mating song. Irving watched, steeped in poetry, and Tom like a displaced cock unable to crow. Rachel and I danced together, a ballet celebrating the female, withdrawing from the male, the mesmerised trinity deaf to our rhythms, their penises cobras who had forgotten how to be charmed.
Then slowly, very slowly, I danced to the sofa and folded into the gold, beckoning Leonard and Irving to either side of me. Tom sat facing us bathed in redemption as Rachel sensing his discomfort climbed into his lap and perched on his knee, smiling like a child in the Garden of Eden. I felt newly born, my body fresh like morning sunshine, but with an ancient miracle, the power of healer. Beside me Leonard’s penis lay like a broken bird. Carefully I took it in my hand. As it nested in my fingers, I saw its mouth open and begin to sing. I listened to the notes of a birdsong.
“The bird is singing.” I smiled up at Leonard. Then I heard another call, faint, distant. I covered Irving’s penis with my other hand. Yes. A mating call. “Two love birds, two song birds,” I crooned.
“And you are creating the music,” Leonard said. I sat between them cradling their music in my palms, feeling them fuse into a single instrument and I its maestro. I, who could hardly bang out chopsticks, began playing like a virtuoso, fingering the pipes, simultaneously, alternately, my hands embracing, strumming, stroking, plucking flecks of golden light, my fingertips seething with tattoos of sound as music shuttled through my fingers. I could sense the hushed audience enthralled as I tossed my head and played for the universe, feeling the music in my nostrils, hearing it on my tongue, tasting it through my eyes. I was an inspired musician playing a divine organ.
Irving and Leonard closed their eyes, released into perfect attunement. Rachel’s smile, Tom’s blessings, swelled the notes, as we created magical harmonies, mysterious chords, fierce rhythms.
“It’s the sacred music of the spheres,” I said with wonder. Wild sounds tamed by my hands into cradlesongs and beating wild again. And I, pulled by the pipes into pools of music flowing between us, knowing every thought they knew, feeling every thought they felt. One hand on the crucifix, one hand on the song. Touching where they could not. Feeling for them, through them, into them, composing, orchestrating, their music exploding in my hands. Union. Communion. The older poet giving to the younger his strength, his potency. And the younger poet giving to the older, his youth, his love. And I the altar, the temple, the wishing well of their love. They create through me. Madonna. Tara. Sheba. The birth of the Young King. And Leonard is born in my hand, and grows through me, through Rachel, through Irving, through Tom. Erect.
“Standing ovation!” Leonard shouted, rising. We applauded, celebrating Leonard’s erection, as candles ignited all about us in thanksgiving and commemoration.
Five
The Man Who Wouldn’t Talk
Ronit took the idea of a new life in a new country in her stride. She didn’t complain about leaving Montreal except for the separation from her father and grandmother (her grandfather was no longer alive). However, she was easily reassured when I promised both her and Shimon that if she was unhappy I would return her to Montreal and that, in any case, she would visit often. The idea of living in England appealed to her. By now horses were her passionate interest. For several summers she had gone to a horse-riding farm owned by a friend and had learned to ride and to care for the horses. She had won ribbons for showjumping and she longed to be with horses. We both had the mistaken notion that England would provide that opportunity. As it turned out we were always so short of money that she went riding only a few times in the years she was there.
We all looked forward to the trip. Brian had never crossed the Atlantic, neither had Ronit and I was happy to be travelling again even if it wasn’t the kind of travel I had in mind. Our ticket to Greece had a London stop-over. We stayed with Ruth, persuading her to join us in Athens. I had met Ruth through Rachel. They had been childhood friends. Rachel would be delighted to see her. In Athens we decided to rent a car and drive through the Peloponnese so we could see something of the mainland before going on to Lesbos. Brian was especially anxious to see Olympia and declaim in the ancient amphitheatre. None of us spoke any Greek and once leaving Athens and driving in the untouristy villages of the Peloponnese, we found few people who spoke any English. It became increasingly difficult to communicate even on the basic level of finding food and a place to sleep, until Brian conceived the brilliant idea of miming and dancing our needs.
His performances worked wonders. The Greeks adored him. They were so responsive that he went from the expression of simple needs to conducting entire conversations, able to convey complex ideas non-verbally.
Once we met Costa and Yani, two young Greeks, both deaf mutes. Brian was in his element. They invited us to an old-fashioned dance hall where people still danced only in couples. There were few females present making Ruth, Ronit and me very popular. Costa kept asking Ron it to dance and although he didn’t especially appeal to her, she complied. After one very slow, very close, dance she said, “1 don’t want to dance with him any more. He keeps touching me in a creepy way.”
But when he asked her again, I convinced her to oblige on the grounds of compassion. “He has enough problems being deaf and dumb, don’t give him any more. It’s only a dance. You’ll never see him again. Bring him a little joy.”
But I was wrong and she was right. He put his hand into her tee shirt and down her jeans, holding her so tight she was unable to free herself. She was in tears. Brian took Costa aside. He pointed to Ronit and formed his arms like a cradle, swaying them from side to side, rocking the cradle, indicating that Ronit was young, still a baby. Then, pointing to me, he rocked the cradle again miming that I was big, the mother and Ronit was small, the child. He reinforced the message improvising additional mother and child mime. Costa nodded in understanding, indicating surprise that I was Ronit’s mother and that Ronit was still a child — at thirteen