"Kathe Koja - Pas de Deux" - читать интересную книгу автора (Koja Kathe)

dance different from the work she did at the barre: jerked and slammed past
exhaustion, hair stuck slick to her face, shirt stuck to her body, slapping water on
her neck in the lavatory through the smoke and stink and back out with her head
down, eyes closed, body fierce and martyred by the motion; incredible to watch, she
knew it, people told her; men told her, following her as she stalked off the floor,
leaning close to her stool at the bar and they said she was terrific, a terrific dancer;
and closer, closer still the question inevitable, itself a step in the dance: why was she
dancing alone? "You need a partner," but of course that was not possible, not really
because there was no one she wanted, no one who could do what she could do and
so she would shrug, smile sometimes but mostly not, shrug and shake her head and
"No," turning her face away. "No thanks."
Sometimes they bought her drinks, sometimes she drank them; sometimes, if they
were young enough, kind enough, she would take them home, up past the studio to
the flat with its half-strung blinds and rickety futon, unsquared piles of dance
magazines, old toe shoes and bloody wraps and she would fuck them, slowly or
quickly, in silence or with little panting yelps or cries like a dog's, head back in the
darkness and the blurred sound of the space heater like an engine running, running
itself breathless and empty and dry. Afterward she would lie beside them, up on one
elbow and talk, tell them about dancing, about passion, about the difference between
hunger and love and there in the dark, the rising and falling of her voice processional
as water, as music, lying there in the moist warmth created by their bodies they were
moved by her words, by her b o d y t o create it anew, make the bridge between
love and hunger: they were young, they could go all night. And then they would look
up at her and "You're beautiful," they said, they all said it. "You're so beautiful; can I
call you?"
"Sure," she would say. "Sure, you can call me," leaning over them, breathing
slowed, the sweat on her breasts drying to a thin prickle and see their faces, watch
them smile, see them dress jeans and T-shirts, ripped vests and camouflage coats,
bandannas on their heads, tiny little earrings in silver and gold and watch them go
and before they go give them the number, press it into their hands; the number of the
cleaner's where she used to take Edward's suits but how was it cruel, she asked
herself, told herself, how was it wrong not to offer what she did not have? Far worse
to pretend, string them along when she knew that she had already given all she had to
give, one night, her discourse, she never took the same one twice and there were
always so many, so many clubs, so many bars in this city of bars and clubs, lights in
the darkness, the bottle as cold as knowledge in her warm and slippery grasp.
Sometimes she walked home, from the bars and the clubs; it was nothing for her
to walk ten, thirty, fifty blocks, no one ever bothered her, she always walked alone.
Head down, hands at her sides like a felon, a movie criminal, just keep walking
through darkness, four a.m. rain or the last fine scornful drift of snow, ice like
cosmetics to powder her face, chill to gel the sweat in her hair, short hair, Edward
said she looked like a lifer: "What were you in for?" as she stood ruffling her hair in
the bathroom mirror, sifting out the loose snips, dead curls and his image sideways
in the glass as if distorted, past focus, in flux. "You don't have the facial structure
for a cut like that," one-hand reaching to turn her face, aim it toward the light like a
gun above; that smile, like an abdicated king's. "Once Alice cut her hair off, all her
hair, to spite me; she denied it, said she only wanted a different look but I knew her,
I knew that's what it was. Adele," the name as always honey in his mouth, "knew
too, and she cut off her hair to spite Alice. Of course, she looked terrific, really sexy
and butch, but she had the face for it. Bone structure," almost kindly to her, patting