Chapter Forty-One The Performer
Chapter Forty-One
The Performer
I would say the feeling of belonging to nowhere was a new sentiment, but that would be a lie. Now it was more of a feeling of comfort, of being right all along. To be unattached was a gift; I just didn’t realize why until now.
After visiting my mother, I had no place to go.
I attempted to return home, only to be met with a letter addressed to me at my doorstep, reminding me that I mustn’t remain there either.
The night was lovely after the rain, so I preferred to be alone someplace new, a third place not for belonging or unbelonging.
I flipped the cream paper envelope in my hand, tracing over the jagged ripped seal.
I didn’t move from the park bench until dawn awoke the bees and the birds for their morning routines.
I felt silly. My tan walking suit was wrinkled, awkward water stains getting worse as it neared the bottom.
My hair was nearly completely undone, half of it fallen from its pinnings.
It didn’t matter. Silly things mattered naught when you would soon be on the run from either your family or your husband.
Whether this show would be a comedy or tragedy, I couldn’t tell. He’d left me a rather cryptic message.
Dearest Petronille,
Wherever you have gone, I do not care. You may run far away from me, and I will not argue with you. I will not plead with you, even if it is what I ache to do. I would like to begin with—I found Lorelei. I do not hold it against you, as I am sure you had your reasons.
I am aware your affliction was more than you were letting on, but I didn’t realize it was so dire until I saw the contents of your icebox.
I assumed it would be money you traded when escorting Vincent; I realize now that I was gravely misled to the nature of your arrangement.
I know you received the bodies from Ghent.
I suppose it was a nearly foolproof solution to hiding evidence.
As for your appetites, they will be hard to cater to, but I am a man of craft. I will find a way.
Before you disappear far from me, please entertain me one last time.
He was just as arrogant in his writing as he was in person. I could practically hear him in my mind, speaking to me with such directness.
Allow me one more chance to show you my heart. If you have seen it and still despise me, I will accept it, albeit wretchedly. You have an appointment at Blue Moon tearoom this afternoon.
Whether you come or not, there will be one last show.
With all my heart,
Arkady
The tearoom was at its busiest hour, and I looked less than presentable for the reservation. The amusing thing was that I no longer cared; perhaps the lack of vanity was personal growth.
The staff stared at me, unsure, before looking back down at the reservation note as if there would be some magical portrait appearing to confirm my identity, trading glances before asking, “Are you Mrs. Kameneva?”
“Yes,” I answered, raising a brow.
They surveyed me from head to toe.
“This way,” they finally obliged.
He’d reserved the table by the window. A fresh centerpiece of datura and fresh-bloomed orange blossoms. It was a table for two, yet on the other half, dozens of bound journals of sorts were stacked in neat piles on the table, and one on the guest chair.
Before, I would have been embarrassed by the unusual request he seemed to have included with his reservation, but the proposition interested me.
When I sat, I didn’t have to pick my beverage, since he’d ordered ahead, choosing the orange white tea.
I picked up a journal placed atop the large pile directly in front of me. Its pocket size stuck out to me.
Inside were sketches: small graphite drawings, some instructional sketches, a grocery list included occasionally, and a number of long-lost whispers of problems through the years.
The next book I picked up was clothbound, the paper thicker.
Inside were what I assumed to be studies.
Anatomy with and without skin. There were hands with poses ranging from simple to peculiar.
Every couple of pages, the body part would change, then some rough studies of bodies and poses, plans for larger sculptures and compositions.
In the corners, sometimes there was a palette smear, small details to pull the vision together.
I veered from the main pile to a lesser one, lifting a somewhat new notebook of thick bound paper. Along the edge, the paper wavered, presumably from fingers grasping the pages.
It started with full anatomy, dried rings of coffee stains here and there, the charcoal still loose enough to be wiped away by my curious finger. The forms were stiff, clinical.
As I turned the pages, they got looser in form, and something familiar grasped at the back of my mind. I started to see my face, my posture, my clothing invaded on this closed door of expression, my likeness bleeding through, possibly subconsciously.
Then, it was no longer a question of the representation being accidental.
An entire page dedicated to my reading positions. At the table, curled up on the chair, lying in bed. Some of them made me all too aware of my posture, even now.
Facial studies on the opposite page; my favorite was the one with some sort of angry expression, nearly a pout.
Do my eyebrows crease that much when I’m angry?
Upon flipping the page, there was a nude spread that crossed two pages.
I held it to my chest, my face becoming hot as the staff brought the food items, small and stacked delicately on a three-tiered stand.
I nodded in thanks, waiting for them to walk away before peeling the book from my chest, getting a glimpse at the sketch.
There was no uncertainty about her identity, my markings were proudly smudged across the chest. Yet, I didn’t recognize myself, not in this way.
Nothing was particularly fantastical. My proportions were accurate and favorably depicted.
Most men, when they imagine a woman, wish for changes. The length of her legs, the mass of her bosom, even the shape of her teeth or the color of her hair. When men wish for fantasy, they wish for something different.
When Arkady captured me from his imagination, there was such care in capturing all of me. The way one eye squints more when I’m angry, the vein in my temple that appears when I’m stressed, the tilt of my smile, the way my hips had small dips in them like a violin.
All these things may have made me insecure at some point. But seeing myself through his eyes, I realized he had no other idealized fantasy of me . . . he saw me for my truth.
My throat ached. I tilted my head back as if to will away any tears.
The last page had more hours poured into it than all the other sketches combined. It was a full scene; corner to corner was covered in charcoal. A dark page with a delicate scene composed in the middle.
The light from the window swept over the body, chipping away at the darkness to reveal a pale form.
Lying in bed, head sloped to the side in a peaceful sleep.
The details were so impressionistic, so delicate, I could see the blond of my lashes, the soft scratching away of pieces of hair.
My arms folded, relaxed into the sheets.
On my face and in my hair, moths stretched their wings or crawled about. There was something human about seeing a pest and thinking it beautiful within the mundane.
I picked up my tea as I touched over the lines, the scratching of the paper. There was a note stuck to the bottom of my cup.
I plucked it from the tea ware and held it close.
Join me for one more show?
A
All this time, I’d assumed that he was largely self-absorbed, materialistic. Maybe it was the way he observed quietly or didn’t feel the need to say things out loud. I didn’t consider that he was possibly trying to find a way to show me how he felt, rather than offering hollow proclamations.
He was showing me now, and I understood.
The Brass Globe—the sun to every dancer’s wax wings while the patrons bet on how high you’d make it, then how hard you’d hit the ground.
Even with its horrid past, I loved it all the same for the good memories it helped create. A sense of community I couldn’t shake, despite its problems. It was the theater. It was where fantasy ran free and leaped into our lives right before our eyes.
Tonight, it was a hollow husk. It was the crowd that made it feel so lively. Without them, the seats were just reserved for ghosts.
The theater stood proud, the night dampening the marble without the extra lighting afforded by a show. Its ambience was not an issue, not when you were used to the back entry.
It always felt special going in the back.
It was dark in the alleyway, it smelled sour from the garbage making a home, and cigarette butts were almost as plentiful as the gravel.
If I closed my eyes, I could imagine sneaking out this way to avoid the crowds.
I’d walk straight onto the street, and they would have no idea that they just saw me put my soul onto the stage, threatening to be evaporated by the spotlight in an instant.
When you entered the backstage, it is unbearably dark at first, especially at night.
Once your eyes adjusted, things in the shadows began to take form.
Everyone forgot that behind every clean production were many ropes, pulleys, and bodies that made it happen.
From where I entered, I was behind several curtains by the right wing of the stage, tables and stools huddled to the back, ready to be used for the next performance.
A strong light . . . the spotlight was on as well as the lamps at the edge of the stage.
The minor curtains allowed me to catch a peek as I approached, the flicker of the lamps at the edge of the stage catching my curiosity.
Then I stopped, just stood in one of the wings of the stage.
It felt like my last performance. A knot in my gut forming, adrenaline building, until I decided whether I wanted to run or leap.