Almost everything else is gone from the apartment. I pull off the petals, scatter them on sheets of paper to dry while I carry the last fragile things to the car.
Now the apartment echoes every move I make. Every keystroke rings.
There is nothing left but a box for a computer desk, a woman cross-legged on the floor, the scent of rose, petals scattered in a corner of the room.
And in the next room: A small boom box. CDs. A pair of shoes. A Man on the Wall.
I moved into this apartment one year ago because, with its expansive wooden floor, it felt like a dance studio. I was taking get-in-shape classes at Cleo Parker Robinson as preparation for a return to ballet. It would be months before someone would coax me to try tango, weeks more before I would accept.
At the Mercury tonight, Hsueh-tze is teaching. I have been looking forward to it for weeks.
Yet here I am.
I can fly to Boston any time. The moment to say a goodbye is fleeting.
I didn’t used to think so.
Take, for example, a funeral, the ultimate good-bye. Whom are you addressing when you say good-bye? Do you think there is someone on the other end of the line? Dead is dead. Gone is gone.
Once I had a friend, Barbara. Strangers thought we were sisters, even though we looked nothing alike. She was blonde and blue-eyed, spritely. I was the big, dreamy one. Why would strangers make such a mistake? What they saw outshone our physical differences. It was our common way of perceiving and responding to the world, a shared way of being. Not sisters, not lovers. Two selves, one heart. Simpatico.
Barbara said to me: Home is where the heart is ... when the heart is at home. She meant: Our hearts took root and refuge in one another.
My father called me at work to tell me Barbara had died. I called her house. I needed someone who was on the scene to tell me the truth.
Her father-in-law answered the phone. When I spoke, he didn’t answer. I spoke again. He answered in the oddest voice I have ever heard:
“You sound … I thought you were her,” he said.
I turned my back on her funeral. If I were to say good-bye, whom would I be addressing? Dead is dead.
Barbara never visited my dreams. She does not speak to me in the whisperings of the wind. Gone is gone.
Once I saw a woman similar in appearance. I didn’t think it was Barbara come back, but I was grateful to rest my eyes on the welcome sight. Now there is a man in tango. His playfulness, his smile, remind me of Barbara. I am happy to be in his embrace, even if it is only him, only tango.
There is a song I have liked for a very long time. Though it is called “In Loving Memory,” it has nothing to do with Barbara. I fell in love with the song years before I knew its name.
The song is Celtic, but I think it would work for tango. The music has many open spaces, and there are two distinct themes that intertwine. When I am dancing, not practicing, I dance to this song. If I were ever to do a student showcase, I would do it to this melancholy waltz.
* * *
Ten years after she died, I said good-bye to Barbara.
In DC on business, I visited a restaurant where a man in old-fashioned clothes wandered about, embarrassing the diners with good-natured jokes, bawdy songs. He stopped by my table on his break, offered to sing any song quietly, just for me, because he didn’t want to embarrass a woman eating alone.
Surprised by the offer, I drew a blank. Barbara and I had discovered one another through music. If a human body is 90 percent water, the water of our joint being was song. I called her Troubi, short for Troubadour. But now, in this city where she and I used to hang, I couldn’t name a single one of the hundreds of songs that we had sung together.
“Something about water,” was the best I could do.
“I don’t know many songs about water,” he said. He strummed, asked me to help him remember the words if I could, then began:
The water is wide, I cannot get over
And neither have I wings to fly
Give me a boat that can carry two
And both will row, my love and I.
It was the last song Barbara had taught me.
We sang it together, my breath on his hands, his hands on the strings. And then he handed me his lute. It was large and heavy and fit in my lap like a child. The sound was mellow as the honeyed light that follows a storm.
I rarely think about Barbara these days. But when the thoughts rise, I don’t turn away.
***
Tonight I skip Hsueh-tze’s class. I am tired. Yesterday I moved. Today I cleaned. Tomorrow I turn over the keys to this dance space I loved but could not turn into a home.
I drop by for a final bit of practice with The Man on the Wall. A fanciful ending to a fanciful bit of handiwork.
First up, Canaro. Then Di Sarli. Then a little French jazz we like very much. I would like to do Eleven Perfect Steps tonight. What a fine ending that would be!
At 7:30 the light slants through the large windows. I walk backward, forward, facing The Man on the Wall. I am practicing, paying attention to what works, putting the pieces together. It is working!
But as Canaro gives way to Di Sarli, the light fades and The Man on the Wall fades with it.
Now, for the first time in a long time, thoughts of Barbara rise. My wings droop. After all these years, I still yearn.
For years I grieved, for years more I intellectualized. Now in the dark, the Man on the Wall only a mark on the walls of my mind, my body says, let me have this.
Eleven Perfect Steps, a rote exercise, a vessel. As much as you pour into it, it can hold.
The stronger my yearning becomes, the stronger my steps.
Gradually, it dawns on me that I am walking backward easily and without wobbling. Going forward requires more care, but it can be done.
In terms of technique, it is obvious: Yearning, seeking, keeps my axis forward.
In terms of spirit it is this: Whoo-hoo! But a sober whoo-hoo. This is not the fanciful evening I expected.
It is pitch black now, and I can’t see The Man on the Wall, even when I’m nearly on top of him. My feet hurt, and I am so tired I stumble. It is time to finish this off.
I put in the Celtic CD.
Good-bye, Barbara. Again.
